Baldur’s Gate 3 is here and I am hooked. I haven’t been this hooked on a game in a long time, and this is quickly becoming my favorite release of 2023. The last time I was this into an RPG it was a dragon of a totally different color—Elden Ring—and the last time I was this into a single-player game in 2023 was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. (I am also playing Final Fantasy XVI, Zelda: TOTK and others, but this has captured my imagination more—and basically ensured that I’m not playing Diablo IV basically at all).

In any case, I think I’ve played enough of the game now to offer up some tips to help you on your nascent adventure. Here are 12 (or so) tips, tricks and philosophical guidelines to help you on your path across the Sword Coast, through bogs and dungeons, and all the rest. We’ll start with character creation—a very good place to start.

Don’t Worry About Your Starting Class (But ...)

One of the great things about Baldur’s Gate 3 is the fact that any class is perfectly viable for your main character. This is largely because you’ll have a bunch of different Companions to choose from who work together to create a powerful adventuring party.

You can also multi-class as you level up, opening skills and spells and whatnot from other classes. If you really decide you don’t like your starting class, you’ll find Withers a little ways into the game when you make camp and pay him 100 gold to change to a totally different class (your stats will also be changed accordingly).

Something to consider, however, is the classes of the available Companions. These include Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Druid, Warlock, Cleric and others. Some of the classes you won’t find as Companions are Bard and Monk, and if you choose to team up with the Paladin companion, you’ll no longer have access to the Druid (and vice versa). A Bard is a very strong choice given their high Charisma score and “jack-of-all-trades” skill set, which includes healing spells, buffs and a variety of combat options.

When it comes to choosing spells, skills, feats and everything else—don’t sweat it! Just have fun and try stuff that sounds cool. (It never hurts to be able to talk to animals, though).

Consider These Races For Your Character

Race does have an impact on your available choices throughout the game. I am playing a Tiefling Bard and in the opening area you encounter a ton of Tieflings, and you sharing that heritage allows you all sorts of special dialogue options. Of course, in other areas being some other race will be more helpful (or more of a hindrance).

Choosing a race also nets you various benefits, resistances, and so forth, and you’ll spend a lot of time looking at your character so you should probably pick someone you enjoy looking at.

Something to consider: None of your Companions are small. They’re all basically human-sized. I think it would be fun to play a Dwarf or a Gnome or a Halfling just to change things up. There are also no Orcs or Dragonborn. If you’re going for Variety, this could be important.

Quick-Save All The Damn Time (F5)

If you don’t save often you’ll live to regret it, either because you fail a super important dice roll and can’t live with the results, or because you lose a massive fight and realize you have to trek a really long ways because of it. Save with F5 (or go into the menus if you want to do it the slow way) frequently, especially after fights, before dialogues etc. Even if you’re playing with a rule that you won’t replay failed dice rolls, you should still save often just to be safe. Game crashes do happen. Things can go wrong and you don’t wan to have to replay large swaths of tedious content just because you forgot to save.

Group And Ungroup Your Characters

Sometimes you might want to sneak, or you need to cast the Enlarge / Reduce spell to make a character tiny so they can enter a whole or crevasse. Or maybe you need to send your rogue ahead to look for traps. You can right-click on characters to Group or Ungroup them, which can be very handy. I’ve also noticed this happen without me telling the game to (possibly instigated by an event or cut-scene) and I’ve accidentally wandered straight into a major fight with three of my party members lollygagging hundreds of meters away. If that happens, you can just Group your party to bring them back to you.

Explore The Starting Area Before You Move On

The first time I played, I didn’t realize how big the Nautiloid crash site area was and made my way to the Emerald Grove much too quickly. I think there were still three Companions (possibly more) left behind there that I had to go back for later when I realized my mistake. Just be sure to explore every corner of this area early on so you can find Companions like the Wizard Gale to aid you on your journey.

Mix Up Your Party

I have my main party but I think it’s important to mix in characters you play with less from time to time, just so you can make sure you’re leveling them up, equipping them with good enough gear and because each has something to offer. Sometimes you need the battle wizard; other times you need someone who can detect traps and pick locks. Sometimes it’s just fun to have different characters to talk with (and romance back at camp). Mix it up, keep things fresh, don’t worry too much about finding the perfect meta party.

Talk To Everyone, Search Everything

Talk to everyone and search all the bodies. It’s tedious at times, but often worth it. I got in a huge fight with goblins and I went and searched one that looked like a nobody and he had the most gold of any of them. Meanwhile, Larian doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to quests. If you don’t talk to everyone, you run the risk of missing out on quests, treasure and more. You’ll probably still miss stuff, but that’s what a second playthrough is for!

Make Camp Often (And Long Rest Often)

There are both Short Rests and Long Rests in Baldur’s Gate 3. You can only regain Spell Slots and full hit-points if you take a Long Rest. This is also when you’ll do more of your camp activities, like wooing Shadowheart.

Making camp is both essential for taking Long Rests, which are crucial before big fights, and to explore all the dialogue options with your full roster of Companions and other tag-a-longs and strays you collect along the way. Just make sure you have enough camp supplies!

Take Risks And Learn To Enjoy The Wacky Results

There are some tough choices and dilemmas presented in Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s one of my favorite things about the game. I hate RPGs where the choice is always obvious. I play a very moral, good protagonist and sometimes the choices presented really make me question myself. Sometimes, though, you have to go with the crazy risks that you know are a bad idea just to see what happens. Often, even a bad outcome has some kind of special surprise benefit (thanks, Volo).

There’s A Sneaky ‘Karmic Dice’ Option

If you want truly random roles, go into the settings and turn off Karmic Dice. This setting effectively rigs dice rolls to give off the illusion of randomness by breaking up any streak (good or bad) with a forced (good or bad) role. Honestly, it doesn’t matter much either way but it’s something to consider.

Tips, Tricks And Shortcuts

Disable the Larian launcher

Finally, here’s a simple fix to the Larian launcher popping up every time you open the game. This is an unnecessary road-bump between you playing the game and clicking Play on Steam. Here’s how to disable it:

And that’s all folks! Any other tips and tricks you’d like to share? Anything I forgot? I’ll definitely keep my eyes out so if you think of anything let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

I’m currently deep into the game and will have some impressions up soon. It’s easily one of the best RPGs I’ve played in years, and a refreshing reminder of video games done with players in mind rather than just money (though it seems it’s making plenty of that as well).

All told, a pretty damn good year for D&D content between this and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! (The same cannot be said for the actual tabletop game, which ran into an abundance of controversy earlier this year).

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Honor Among Thieves actually take place in the same region and within just a few years of one another in the fiction, which is pretty interesting also! You can read my review of the movie right here.