Baldur’s Gate 3 players don’t understand this seemingly useless mechanic 

It's something I've never even considered.

A Dragonborn character in Baldur's Gate 3 looks toward the camera.
Screenshot by Dot Esports

Baldur’s Gate 3 players have been left confused by one mechanic in the game, which doesn’t seem to work properly.

Recommended Videos

There are several ways to play Baldur’s Gate 3, with no right or wrong approaches, allowing you to be a bloodthirsty, combat-frenzied character, or adopt a peaceful, anti-combat approach.

In order to follow the latter path, however, non-lethal actions in combat are required, although they do not seem to register properly in Baldur’s Gate 3.

A Redditor on Aug. 23 asked what the point of being able to knock someone out was, saying that on the two occasions they have done it, the NPCs knocked out still registered as dead for the quest they were related to.

They were far from alone in their thoughts, as the post received over 2,000 upvotes and attracted over 900 comments, with other players sharing their experiences of knocking people out and the issues that come with it.

Several bugs were raised in relation to particular quests in the game that register characters as dead despite them showing they had one HP remaining, while some lost their oaths as a Paladin due to similar issues.

I’ve personally not encountered any issues but only because I’ve never used the mechanic. Throughout my completed playthrough, there was never a situation where I even considered using non-lethal attacks and it wasn’t because it fitted my character lore.

There clearly needs to be some work done to the knockout mechanics in Baldur’s Gate 3, though the game is set to receive a massive patch in the near future that may resolve these issues.

Author
Image of Josh Challies
Josh Challies
Staff Writer. Professional writer since 2014. Pokemon, Marvel, Star Wars and overall geek. Previously wrote for Yahoo Sport, Stats Perform and online news publications.