#sorry Gale :(

[lilystrations]

Brought to you by the smoothest rogue you ever did see.

[juusbox]

first impressions

[wirywyrm]

[avernusfuries]

Clambers onto my soap box. Clears throat.

Karlach can't cook. She could burn water. Has burnt water. There is no time to be firing up a BBQ in the hells.

[stealthnoodle]

How to Scrape Your Way Through Honour Mode and Look Reasonably Good Doing It

I won't say I beat Honour Mode on my first try, because my Dishonour Mode playthrough served as a critically useful dry run, but I will say that the first character I made with the intention of completing Honour Mode properly did in fact complete Honour Mode.

Below are the 13 most important lessons I learned along the way that made this possible.

1) Do not be Mothman.

You really want to minimize fights and maximize available vendors. Ask yourself "What would Mothman do?" and then do not do that thing.

2) Do be a half-orc.

Fights can go real wrong real fast, and in the early game, you are perpetually one bad round of combat away from oblivion. In my case, the harpies critted Shadowheart to death, and then every chucklefuck in my party failed their wisdom save at the same time. The other two members ate more multiattacks than they could handle, and then so did Pizzazz, but she held on with one single precious hit point after the last blow. She dug herself out of the hole with heal potions and her fists of righteous anger.

Pizzazz being a half-orc saved the entire run here. Having Death Ward once a day comes in fucking clutch when you're below level 5, and tbh the hardest part of Honour Mode is getting to level 5.

The harpy fight was also when I realized the need for a critical strategy:

3) Make one party member your panic button.

I only really needed this trick in the early game (I cannot emphasize enough how most of my close calls were before level 5), but it saved my ass several times. Panic early, panic often.

Pick the party member who has the least to contribute to a fight and park them where they can't get drawn into initiative. You can leave them all the way back at camp, or if you're me, just put them far back in hiding so it's easy to pull them in to help with late-fight cleanup if things are going well (or to finish a fight in the goofiest way possible, see above). Either way, their job is to run crying to Withers if everyone else dies.

Speaking of which…

4) Exploit Bone Daddy's indifference to being pickpocketed.

You can get back whatever "the price of balance" is by yoinking it right out of Withers's pockets. If you fail the sleight of hand check, no worries; you get pulled out of hiding, but he doesn't react at all, and you can just squat back down and get right back in there.

5) Tell Jesse you need to cook.

Potions of Speed are the goddamn Philosopher's Stones of this game. So I made Gale a Transmutation Wizard, made him proficient in Medicine, and put him in charge of alchemy. Just clearing the gnoll zone got me pretty well set for the first two acts.

Getting double heal pots sure doesn't hurt, either.

6) Start a local chapter of the Warding Bond Cleric Club.

This is something I discovered was possible while I was fretting over prepping for the end of Act 2, because last time was such a clusterfuck. You can hire three hirelings, give them fun names like Ouchie Magnet, Sexy Pincushion, and Yoohoo Loviatar, get them to cast Warding Bond on the party members you actually intend to use, and enjoy the full benefits of it out in the world while your hirelings stand around bleeding at camp.

Any buff that lasts until the next long rest and doesn't require concentration works like this, fyi. Death Ward and Longstrider are also especially handy (and once you get to level 11, Heroes' Feast). Setting this up is tedious enough that I only did it a few times during the game, when I was going into situations I couldn't easily extricate myself from in case of emergency. (So the Mindflayer Colony, the Iron Throne, the Steel Watch Foundry, and one last time for the Temple of Baal.)

7) Break big battles up into bite-sized skirmishes.

Why would I fight all the cultists at Moonrise Tower in a grand climactic battle when I could sneak around before finishing the Gauntlet of Shar and pick off my future foes in packs? Since they're not hostile yet, it's pretty simple to wipe them out one room at a time, using Minor Illusion to lure guards away from their posts. Then I got the joy of showing up with Jaheira and all her Harpers to curbstomp the two (2) guys I missed.

Also good for removing all the intellect devourers before you pick a fight with Mindflayers in the Mindflayer Colony and for surviving gnoll swarms. Sometimes you even get lucky and a hyena falls into a hole, somehow.

8) Fill your camp with literal tons of explosives.

See a smokepowder barrel? Pick it up and send it to camp. Do this consistently and you will have deeply nervous party members every time you light a campfire, probably, but you'll also have a way to cheese boss fights that you're worried about. I chugged elixirs that raised strength before the end of Act 2 so that I could bring a dozen smokepowder barrels with me to the Myrkul fight and absolutely trivialized it.

9) Become a partial illithid.

Mourn your aesthetic and commune with that frosty little worm. (Take Volo's amateur eye surgery, too, btw. Just fuck yourself up.) The powers are worth it. A truly hardcore player would also get their companions to dip a toe into ceremorphosis, but I started by asking Astarion, who fucking loves regular tadpoles, to try it, and his response made me feel so bad that I abandoned the cause entirely.

10) Start your day with a delicious and nutritious Heroes' Feast.

So I never really read the description closely because sometimes I'm just like that, but thanks to the Warding Bond Cleric Club, I started paying closer attention to buffs and holy shit??? Thoroughly Stuffed is a baller condition, and it also makes food. I didn't have to go grocery shopping even once! Having three bonus clerics with spell slots to burn also meant the 6th-level cost wasn't coming out of Shadowheart.

11) Accept that late-game enemy saving throws will mercilessly fuck you.

It feels real bad when you cast a 6th-level spell that operates on saving throws and your target shrugs it off with 0 damage. Spells with attack rolls are usually better bets, and Artistry of War is a wizard's once-per-short-rest MVP. Open Hand Monk Pizzazz was consistently my best damage dealer, especially once I looted the Bonespike Gloves from Strangler Luke.

12) Skip the high-risk low-reward quests in Act 3.

Consider your party composition and tactics and whether any optional quest line is worth completing for its rewards. Cazador, the Sharrans, and Ansur are non-trivially difficult fights that I didn't need to subject myself to, so I didn't. But there's real good shit under Sorcerous Sundries, so of course I cleared out that vault.

Hell isn't actually that bad on Honour Mode (no, really! The restoration faucets have unlimited uses!), but it's not a sure thing and I could live without the rewards. Had a tense moment passing the DC 30 Persuasion check with Kith'rak Voss later, but he chilled out and even let me borrow his dragon's breath.

The only unnecessary hard fight I did was the Steel Watcher Titan, which was a bad call on my part; I kinda wanted the crossbow and I really wanted to keep the runepowder bomb in case I needed it, but Mothman didn't do this fight, so I was not prepared for the Hellfire Steel Watcher Titan's bullshit. I won, but it was a closer shave than it should have been.

Then I ended up not using the crossbow at all.

13) Thank Gale for his sacrifice.

The Netherbrain is fucking nasty on Honour Mode. Fuck Karsite Grip. Fuck Aegis of the Absolute. Does it feel bad to make Gale sacrifice himself? Yes. Would it feel worse to lose the run right before the finish line? Also yes.

I brought every explosive I had with me (which required two rounds of strength-boosting elixirs, because the game hits you with a long rest before the Astral Plane) just in case Gale got cold feet and I burned all my inspiration fucking up the persuasion roll, then went through the sewers to avoid the larger fight. Someone (Gale, so I couldn't be too mad) failed a stealth check and aggroed them all anyway, but Pizzazz covered the ground to the brainstem in like three rounds and everyone warped up after her for the cutscene, so no harm no foul.

Then Gale volunteered—nay, insisted on blowing himself up and I felt bad! Real bad! Not bad enough to change course, but Pizzazz's face was also my face during epilogue:

P.S. At least for me, the achievement procced after the epilogue, credits, and post-credits scene, and I was tense af the entire time. But not so tense I couldn't be sad about Gale (oh no he wrote me a letter) and Astarion (oh no he's still in hiding because of Cazador). Luckily my big hot wife was there to support me.

Anyway, let's load an old autosave on another campaign and check out those golden dice, shall we?

Ahhh, my horrible son

[st-enbious]

It's sad wizard time!

I really love Gale. All the dorks in BG3 but especially Gale. Has "prodigy child told to he'd do great things" vibes only to grow up with anxiety.

He deserves hugs 🫂

Anyway! This is day 3 of 31 for my convention countdown! Follow me for more fanart!

Timelapse :3c

[sentientsky]

horror movie concept: you’re one of my bg3 companions and you’re trapped in a nightmare time loop in which i have to keep reloading previous saves after repeatedly killing gale because goddammit why the fuck does the suspicious poison bottle look so similar to the healing potion bottle

[ask-the-pale-elf]

So... You learn how to like, actually talk about your feelings yet?

"Darling, I express my feelings all the time! I frankly have no idea what you're talking about. I talk about how happy I am when I feed off such delectable treat like you. I express my frustrations with you when you do such... heroic deeds, ugh."

He pretends to gag himself.

"How revolting, but I express my feelings regarding our companions all the time! Especially regarding Gale, bleh. So if you're wondering if I'm "talking about feelings", I'm doing just that!"

Insight Check: Successful!

You see an uneasy twitch of his finger as he holds up his hand dramatically, his scarlet eyes watching every move on your face.

“... Why do you ask?”

An uneasy smile crawls onto his pale face.

[blueberryspyder]

Literally not even a month ago, if you had asked me what the first thing I’d draw once I got my art tablet back was gonna be, I’d say Gale Dekarios and my Tav Hylas, but after binging The Magnus Archives and starting The Magnus Protocol, I think I’m legally obligated to say Gerry Keay has made it to slot numero uno

[midnigtartist]

I WENT THOUGH THE SAME THING. Halsin and the Emperor in the same night. Halsin is like "but you're so nice to me?" PEOPLE SHOULD TREAT YOU NICELY WITHOUT WANTING TO JUMP YOUR BONES.

I DUCKED A WEAVED EVERY ROMANTIC OPTION W HALSIN SO HARD AND HE STILL CAME AT ME WITH THAT ENERGY

Like Halsin I like you so much but you are a *dad* a father, a cool uncle too Sid and also def to the next character I play sjenndjdn

Mizora and the Emperor are just Horny which I think is funny to rp around ajenndjjdnf

[lepusrufus]

In my heart, I like to believe Isobel and Ailyn are Yenna's new moms and they just have weird domestic shenanigans at camp while me and the squad are off killing gods

[mischiefwife]

I rewrote my Karlach/Jaheira fluffiest smutfic! Includes: improper use of entangle, a little sensory deprivation, and lesbians. Lesbians most of all. Everyone's Gay for Karlach.

[carterssant]

Wyll Ravengard you will always be the bladest of frontiers

[lucidicer]

OHMY GODHFGJDFGJDGFJD

[killergamer97]

Did some magic with Gale once and the man gives me an ultimatum to choose him or Astarion. Gale, honey, not this playthrough. I never gave him any other indication something was going to happen. Actually feel bad for my poor wizard

[diredeliverance]

I'm not capable of bearing any ill will towards BG3's Mystra because "I have sent my greatest Chosen, the mightiest mage of all, to you post breakup to tell you to kys" is such a wildly funny moment