Baldur's Gate 3: Honour Mode - Thoughts, Tips, Party Comp & More
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- čas přidán 18. 06. 2024
- Talking about my experiences with Honour mode and giving some general tips and advice about it as well.
Astarion Build: • Baldur's Gate 3: Bard ...
Terror of Tiamat: • Baldur's Gate 3: Cleri...
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:43 My Playthrough & Thoughts
09:15 Tips & Tricks
21:37 Party Comp
29:14 More Tips
32:08 Conclusion
34:42 Wrap Up
Intro Music By Juan Andrés Matos, www.juanmatosmusic.com/
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#gaming #gamereviews #baldursgate3 - Hry
It's absolutely worth fighting Grym. Adamantine armor is better than most of the act 3 gear, particularly on honor mode, since you can completely nullify critical hits on 3 of your 4 party members. Crits which would otherwise be a major source of variance and failure.
yup, also if you're playing a tavern brawler monk, you can just beat him to death
@@venkatchait007 I died to Grym. Now, i don't even go down to the fight, I stay up on the stairs above and hurl weapons and items down at him until he dies. You can even shoot the lever and wheel to activate the fight from above. At first, i thought I'd need to throw things that do blunt damage, but I realized that throwing ANYTHING will do blunt damage because the fall damage that the game calculates base on height is always bludgeoning, which he is vulnerable to when overheated. Hell, by the end i was hucking crates and dead bodies and shit at him when I ran out of javelins and throwing axes etc lol.
so wait blud, all you need really is just to shoot the lever, then just throw whatever at him until he dies? @@theexpatriate
Not at all,the armors are pretty useless after act 2
@@larsschulze2799Crit immunity is not at all useless in Honor Mode. Especially in later acts.
I've done 200+ hours of saving scumming in other modes, but honor mode has been something else and I love it. You really understand what you've taken for granted in this mode.
Sleeping whenever I want! But also, Just the usage of everything. Like withers constantly. Using hirelings, and alchemy, and potions/scrolls that I never used. It's def fun to look at it that way. I'm doing my 1st honor mode run and I'm crushing it. But I'm so nervous so I'm trying to over prepare for everything best I can I'm very nervous for Thorm fight, as I've only gone thru the game of tactical once. And I died about 8 times that playthru hahaha
In honor mode gale died when I failed to pull him out of the portal didn't even know that was possible 😂
I'm happy to hear that it gave you the extra challenge you were looking for. In a way, the fact that the greater enjoyment came from having to live with your choices rather than the combat itself seems perfectly in line with how you compared the game against Wrath: the focus of BG3 is more on the role playing than the combat, so hearing you talk about how the role-playing was the biggest surprise felt perfect.
Living with choices, totally agree that's where the meat is. I was trying to deceive Dror Ragzlin to avoid him outing my level 3 party by raising dead (shouldn't have even gone in the room). Rolled low 3 times in a row, he wiped us.
The thing i have found to be most important in honour mode is always have a plan, and an escape ready such as invisibility potions. The times i have died have always been due to lack of a plan. A big part of the challenge is not individual fights, but avoiding making a fatal mistake over 60 - 100 hours of playtime. Stay vigilant!
I remember I accidentally triggered everyone in moonrise and I thought they would just kill me and not arrest me so while everyone was going towards my party and hitting us hard I had gale misty step and dimension door away
dying over and over sub 24 hrs has been great fun. mort here inspiring me to actually finish.
Less great can be bugs, almost died in the Astarion act3 quest line fight when Karlach accidentally jumped into a pit due to an invisible wall
@@robertturton5650 oh yeah that can be scary. It was the boss’s legendary action that made that fight hard
I lost in act 3 after doing all the optional bosses by insisting my husband gale not explode and goofing the brain fight.
For the fight against Ketheric in the Ilithid colony, upcasting Invisibility or using multiple invisibility potions lets the party take optimial positions before the fighting starts, which includes having Scratch the dog go next to Aylin since he can perform the Help action to free her.
I never thought of scratch holy moly
I haven't played honor mode yet but that myrkal fight was one of the easier boss fights I can think of. Sneak someone to help nightsong and cast cloud of daggers on the big bones that can't move while making the caster invisible/safe.
Everyone else just shoots or attacks as needed
@@Neonpiss187for real, an enemy that can't move is no threat. I used Hunger of Hadar to blind it then had my Tav paladin kill it in three hits
I had just failed a 30-hour honor mode run last night against the Gith Inquisitor in the Mountain Pass. Mind you, I'm more of an RP player rather than a min-maxxer, so my builds hadn't been very well thought-out, AND I started the fight through cooperation; I was a Gith Barbarian, focusing on Lae'Zel's storyline. Ironically, she got out with invisibility and ressurected everyone back at camp, then I ACTUALLY died to my own hubris trying to attack the Kith'Rak where she stands on the bridge after triggering the Inquisitor fight, without resting first and getting any of my things back.
An easy way to deal with Balthazar is to make him fight the spawning justiciars. Just at the very start of that fight you can run over to Balthazar’s door and use knock (or a 25 sleight of hand check I think) to open the door. This aggros him onto the justiciars, but not you. So you can open the door, hide for about ten turns as the 2 parties take each other out, then come back and clean up the fight towards the end. Usually the justiciars take out Balthazars team without any interference so you may want to hop in and pick off a justiciar or portal here and there as you need to.
I did this on my first playthrough of the fight and while Balthazar was hostile to the enemy, he also didn't register me as non-immune to cloudkill and cast it on my characters because they were close to the enemies he was targeting. It took about 2 or 3 turns of this but he eventually killed off my party as a result of these friendly fires. I don't know if its such a good idea but if you do, be careful and spread your guys out.
@@theoutlander1411 it's easily preventable if you just hide away in his room. if you wanna be extra sure just close the door and cast arcane lock on it
@@user-zx8xc8tw2j Believe it or not I was in his room when he did it.
@@theoutlander1411 maybe it's cuz I always killed the enemies by the door and he has to run out of the room to get to the ones further out so that wasn't an issue at all. so i guess a get around would be not to be close to shar's undead?
@@user-zx8xc8tw2j Just killing the Sharrans instead is what to do it seems.
Congrats 😊 I recommend everyone give it a go it's really fun
omg Mommy M.E. is here too
Gratz on finishing Honour Mode and thanks for all the helpful bg3 content ❤
Great video as usual. I just finished my first attempt at honour mode and challenged myself by not using illithid powers, multiclassing or excessive cheese. The bosses that nearly wiped me were the spider matriarch who I mobile flourished into the pit, but then she magically reappeared; Grymm who I owlbeared from the top rope but he took no damage, Ansur and Orin, who kept knocking people off the side. What finally ended my run though was Raphael who was the last boss before the elder brain. I streamed this playthrough and think that I rushed it more than I would if I was playing as normal thinking ppl would be bored, but really went into Raph unprepared with no speed potions, no res scrolls and once my deva & cleric were properly dead it was really over for me. Despite failing I really enjoyed the extra tension and stakes that came along with honour mode, terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
Thank you for this very well put together video on honour mode, I've yet to try it yet and am very interested in giving it a go
Thanks for another year of informative and entertaining content! Looking forward to your review of any BG3 DLC.
This is ridiculously helpful wow!!! I'm only now starting my first tactician run and loving the challenge. I'm thinking of doing honor mode afterward. Thank you!
Loved the video as always! Thanks 🎉
Thank you for this info, I'm sure it'll be helpful for my own Honor mode play through.
OH YEAH ANOTHA BANGA FROM MORTY G
i finally started my honor mode doing a fighter bm/zerk barb laezel, shart pure light cleric, astarion assassin gloom and action surge and my tav as a sorlock!
Honor mode was fun, I agree with the idea of single save being the main game changer of it. I managed to get it done on first try with warlock tav, double battlemaster fighter (lae'zel and karlach) and Astarian running a similar bard/rogue that you mentioned. I'd like to do another run through on custom difficulty with honor mode but no single save restriction to try out each honor mode boss with a less overpowered team comp and see how nasty some of the honor mode legendary actions are. Great video, keep it up!
A few adventures and mishaps from my run (spoilers if anyone cares):
In the beginning I was intending to keep a paladin(ancients) / cleric on the team to keep bless and bladeward up from healing, but not turning into an oathbreaker is so hard and I didn't wanna keep feeding the oathbreaker knight. I ended up swapping my paladin to fighter at level 11, and just allowing them to be an oathbreaker for most of the levels.
I got impatient after saving Florrick from the burning building. I had entered to the left and went up those stairs instead of the main entrance, where the guy is stuck under the support beam. I went and broke her door open and Florrick ran to the city center. I saw that the guards were still trying to open the main entrance so I tried to help them with eldritch blast, and they took offense to that. It ended up just one of my characters was able to get away and retreat to camp and the other 3 died, it also meant I didn't get the lightning staff from Florrick, and she didn't appear at last light's inn (she did appear in act 3 prison so that was odd).
I managed to get the silver sword in act 1 from Voss using a battlemaster ranged attack from hiding with disarming attack.
The Grym fight was very difficult! I ended up going the route of smacking him with maces a bunch and it was way too close, I kept having to throw potions to get the melee folks back up and then have astarian hit him last so he'd walk away. I should have probably used the big hammer in the middle but it's never been an issue before to just hit him with a few 2 handed maces a couple of times before.
I lost a few character permanent buffs to bad RNG (people falling off the elevator in gauntlet of shar) and my own failure to unlink people during the trial of walking over the shadow pit. This means I lost the awakened buff for bonus action illithid powers, and the loviatar's blessing.
I brought shadowheart to shadowfell so she'd stay in my party, but wasn't paying enough attention and ended up accidentally letting her kill Dame Aylin for the first time in any playthrough I've done.
I failed to get Astarian to agree to get the ascended illithid powers, so he was the only one that couldn't fly.
I did act 2 without any long rests, so I had 25 charisma and enhance ability charisma and guidance and bardic inspiration, so I just killed all of the act 2 bosses by talking. Myrkul fight as always is a 1 turn fight, convince him to jump in the pit then stab skeleton man a bunch. I think I did use invisibility to get Dame Aylin out quickly though.
I didn't go dark urge so the orin fight was TOUGH. I didn't have a ton of AOE so killing the sanctuary people to stop the unstoppable ritual took like 4 turns of trying to knock them off with roaring thunder arrows and black hole, she managed to down a few people. I wasn't pre-buffing with heroes feast or anything like that, so my warlock got frightened for 3 of those turns.
I didn't notice any legendary action on the big mech at the end of the gondian factory, can't recall if he had anything but at level 12 most fights end before the bosses get a turn since everyone runs alert in my parties.
Fighting Raphael, I had a goal to keep Korrilla alive for the first time ever but I pursuaded Yurgir to assist and he just immediately killed her. Woops.
Fighting Ansur, I put a lot of the explosives I had acquired on the ground to see if I could get a nice big first turn and it only did about a third of his hp. I still managed to chew through most of his HP on the first turn but then he exploded everyone leaving only two people up (suprisingly, neither of the fighters??)
I ended up long resting without supplies a bunch in act 3 to keep cloud giant elixirs for my two fighters.
I got lucky with the mirror of loss and got the +1 charisma and the +2 charisma on my warlock. They ended up having 24 charisma with birthright and potent robe, truly a menace with the eldritch blast. Bloodlust elixir and quickspell gloves meant 9d10 + 9*14 + lightning charges and the callous glow ring. I think warlock also got the hag hair, so maybe I could have gotten to 26? I'm not certain.
The last boss I tried to use invisibility to skip to the portal but kinda botched it by forgetting about concentration and dropping invis. Ended up killing the brain in two turns of just the two fighters and warlock. even though it has a VERY scary honor mode mechanic, it was quite close.
I noticed the dragon had legendary actions so maybe I should have tried to clear the fight before going in the portal and seen what that was about.
Excellent tips and all! Big thanks! I just finished my first playthrough in Balanced, so much to do and to learn still. I had somewhat unconventional approach that got me to deal & win with Thorm, Sarevok, Orin, Gortash and with good party ending. Will definitely try other builds, compositions and honour mode when more ”worthy”. Awesome game (as an old BG1&2 fan). ❤
It turned out the best part of honour mode is the honour of no safe-scumming as stated. The difficulty curve can be adjusted and is much easier to make yourself follow some restrictions.
It would be nice to still get a true hard mode. But for now I settled for doing a new run: honour mode, no respec, no multiclassing, no hirelings. And yes that means all the awful stat spreads on companions, it forces me to choose feats I normally woouldn't - much more fun than just increasing hp of all enemies, if/when we get true hard mode, the one shotting wiz/sorc/tempcler 400 dmg aoe will still kill them. Gale on bad stat spread might not.
Very informative, i like that you covered some the finer details of your classes and how they relate to honor mode specifically. One thing that i think would be helpful to discuss is alternative options for regular Tavs as not everyone chooses Dark Urge for this. Fights like Orin's are so drastically different depending on whether you're the Urge or not.
One other thing for when you mentioned the attacking without starting combat. I was able to do this for the Moonrise Towers fight. While it is much safer to do your method probably overall, it was also extremely easy to have my Gloomstalker Rogue sniping Zrell and all the other enemies constantly without starting combat from atop the stairwell entrance to Moonrise. Not sure why it wasn't initiating combat despite being inches from their sightlines, but i cleared out the entire main room of Moonrise without starting combat at all. Thank you for the tips.
Finished Honour mod on my second try(Grym really got me off guard) with, as i think, one of the best non cheese parties:
Sorlock to abuse haste and bloodlust elixir, as these buffs nerfed for martials on honour, but not for casters
Bard, as inspiration helps to pass important checks, and swords bard is the best candidate for arcabe acute helmet.
Cleric, for stacking radiant damage debuffs(reverberation and radiant orb) via spirit guardians and warding bond for next character.
2 tempest domain/2 white dragon/8 abjuartion wizard. The "chessest" character, which i mostly used as ultimate tank and burst damage in first 2 acts, and as invulnerability sphere guy in act 3( thus spell is busted, helped with most hard fights, making them very easy).
With this party I was able to clear all 3 acts boss fights in battle. As an afterthought, I think sorcadin or padlock may be pretty good alternatives to cleric, as saves becomes very important in some act 3 fights
For the apostle of myrkul, I have had fantastic success in disarming him with battle master fighters
Waiting for build video guides then and might want to try Honour mode once😄
Noted from my honor mode playthrough: you can relatively easily talk down ketheric with a well-built charisma character to ONLY fight apostle, since he will off himself, and in act 3 for Orin you do not need to go to the tribunal at all, just go to the temple of bhaal if you know where it is. I used invisibility to just walk all the way down to the waypoint with one character then warp in with the rest. If you’re already max level then no need to worry about the exp from fights!
I tried honour mode for the first time recently. Things went pretty well until I got to the Flind gnoll fight, where i got absolutely decimated 😂 although it didnt make it far, it was still quite fun and will definitely try it again at some point.
that was the first fight to humble me in BG3. I strolled up like "a pack of dumb animals? cakewalk." Then half the party went down before getting to act. Only by the power of F8 did the run survive
Bag bombs are great against a number of bosses. Tossing a pouch filled with explosive items like alchemist fire, explosive powders and a single fire wine barrel. I one-shot the beholder in act 1 with one bomb pouch.
Spot on...I just got to the end of Act 2 in my first Honour run (nb...already completed 6 playthroughs in other difficulties) - your comment at the end regarding what you enjoyed most about Honour mode totally resonated with me.
In my other runs - I simply couldn't vary my choices enough so all seemed pretty samey re content...save the grove, kill the goblins, makr ethe right decision end act 2 etc etc.....BUT on this Honour....my god...every major location has blown up in my face...largely because I was complacent, (@done it before, how hard can it be....@) and did something inoculous without fully thinking things through....boom!
I lost the Grove not to goblins or anything obvious....I lost it due to my totally un-necessary use of Friends in a totally unimportant dialogue and didn't get of of Dodge quickly enough.....man alive things went south super fast....I determined never to do something so stupid again....but...boom x5!
I should be devastated...but ....am loving this run better than all the others because the story is playing out, supported by great content, in ways I just couldn't have imagined - briilinat stuff! I just hope I can complete the run before I have a heart attack trying to flee combat from yet another self inflicted diaster encounter!!
Great vid!
I am doing my run as The Dark Urge with no double class or repeated class on my party, since double class makes it a bit "unfair" in my opinion and after all, this is honour mode lol.
With me luck boyz 👽
The first time I tried Grym on Honour Mode I didn't kill him but I came back with invis and was able to forge 2 items. The second time I kept my archer perched above and took out those pesky imps. You can also shoot the forge hammer release with your bow. 😎
Hearing about the grym fight makes me kinda happy me and my honor mode buddy did owlbear from the top rope shenanigans did about 1000 damage to him from crushing damage due to bludgeoning weakness!
My variant of the gloom stalker build. Use thief, 1 level monk (use dex instead of str for all weapons), dual wielder feat. Now you can dual wield ANY one-handed weapon, such as two (out of three) quarterstaves with +4 extra damage in act 1, or flail with chill + trident with water in act 3, with reverberation boots (prone triggers in one turn if not saved). Less burst damage, but much more efficient in fights that can't be setup.
My current honour mode run is a tragicomedy of errors. I keep getting my ass handed to me in big fights but manage to run at least one character away.
But the icing on the turd cake... I was messing around trying to recruit Minthara and I told her where the grove is, thinking I could just attack her after. Nope, she just leaves. (I also break my paladin oath at this point.) So, I go kill Ragzlin anyway then thoughtlessly long rest. I go back to the grove to find out everyone is already dead. Wyll and Karlach leave, of course. Oh snap. (I had to burn inspiration dice to get Gale to stay.)
Well, this sucks but I'll deal with it, I say. I have the party and do the sixty-plus-nine stuff with Minthara. I wake to her trying to kill me. I must have said something wrong because her and all the gobbos attack me! To boot, I only have three party members because I ditched Gale temporarily and was NOT expecting that. I thought I was going to wipe but somehow I managed to win.
Now I'm on an accidental evil run with all its drawbacks but I don't even have Minthara as compensation. Honour mode is a ride.
Oh yeah *AND* the game informs me some time after all this that my Halsin quest is completed, meaning he's dead. Thanks, Larian :)
For Balthazar, you can also knock the door during the dark justiciar encounter and bring him into the fight/ turn on him mid fight when he's weak
Very interesting video ! Thank you, help a lot with what to be carefull of during each acts.
2 things:
1. I am pretty sure that the legedary ability from grimforge guardian get a shield per round and the move speed is remove when the temporary hitpoint are removed.
2. Are you certain about the +2 to hit to the gloves of archery ? I don't see it anywhere, even in combat i dont see it the details window.
For the really tough Yugirh fight in Act 2, there is a way to cheese. You find a scroll of Stone Wall early in act 2, so just agro the displacer from the broken stairs, wall off the stairs and pick them out with ranged attacks.
I failed a check to the displacer beast and triggered the fight before I wanted to, Yurgir went invisible, but I just used Shadowheart to upcast Create Water, not only revealing him but making him Wet, which was nice of her to do for Gale and his Ice Storm. Double damage and knocked almost everything Prone.
Then my Paladin Tav strode in with Nere's boots on.
My Honor Mode campaign ended abruptly in act 2 when a bug made it so the battle in Moonrise never ended because enemies did not take their turns. So yea, the real final boss is still bugs.
Something I found with the Grym fight is if you break the temporary hitpoints he gets after he is hit he actually loses his movement speed buff after the shockwave goes off. So all you need to do is hit him, do 10 points of damage and then aggro him with the person you want him to walk towards!
MurderHoboing the Zentarim, Moonrise Towers, and the Githyanki creche is key to getting over the midgame level drought. And the Act2 mini bosses can be dialog killed without combat so they are basically +1 bonus level.
You can attack the displacer beast before engaging yugir. Enter turn based mode before it runs down the hall, you will agro the rest but they get stuck on the wall for a couple turns before they jump down. By that time you've already killed the beast and can setup a choke point or flee to reset the encounter without annoying cat
I just killed before the fight using stealth then fleed away
Tempest cleric 2, abjuration wizard 2, white draconic sorcerer 8 gets crazy temp hp, triple lightning bolt a round, damage reduction, high AC, massive retaliation damage and access to all wizard spells.
You're MAD.
@@robulrich6355 Nope. Only relies on charisma. You can get 22 intelligence via an in game buff and your armor doesn't need strength.
Bout to do grym so i am glad i got the headsup, also the insane lighting damage reaction frm bernard caught me off gaurd in the arcane tower. Lost 2 characters on turn 1. Had to throw him out a window to turn the fight around.
I finished my Honor Mode run last night, the biggest take away I got from it was try different builds and find what works for you. I really leaned into using Karlach as a Bear Aspect Barb and just being a constant threat on the field, and my PC was a Bard and providing constant support for Karlach just made half the fights an absolute joke
I was just thinking I wanted some more BG3 content and you delivered!
Im really enjoying myself in honor mode on my first playthrough. It is just like the dnd sessions I dm; choices can be brutal lol. I cant really plan ahead for fights because I don't know they are there. I like the fact im actually using consumables. So far my team comp Is Tav as sorc 2 cleric 1 wizard 2, going for arcane ward build. Laezel going strait fighter till 6 for polarm master and sentinel and then bard. Shadowheart as a Tempest Cleric 4 wizard 1 for a tanky caster lots of zoning with the water i found. And I wasent sure what else i wanted so I took astarion and made him a warlock to use hunger of hadar and repelling blast to throw people into my electric steam+ice ground.
I used a tavern brawler monk, dual xbow bard, fighter 11 war cleric 1, and a bezerker with reverberation gear. Karlack and my monk were the superstars.
Be careful with disarming traps. I almost wiped due to a failed roll. Also, Ansur was close one. Final boss, stealth the party and run to the portal and have the mindflayer control the crown from stealth as the first action. Call allies with one character to keep the red dragon busy. And kill the closest mindflayers without moving too far away from the portal. Then enter and finish the boss which is quite easy. The problem is getting there.
A full party of tavern brawler monks would make the entire run a breeze. If you truly want the achievement with the absolute least amount of effort then use 4 monks.
It's ridiculous how powerful open hand monk is lol made honor mode a breeze
Seems like there should be a Hobo Mode. Thanks for the video. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Glad to know i wasnt the only one who had an issue with grym. I missed the forge completely on my first 2 pla uh throughs and just rawdogged it for the 1st time in honor mode and absolutely wiped.
Having a charisma focused character is great for honour mode, i made a Storm Sorcerer with Tempest Cleric, by the time i got to level 8 my party 1/2 turned everything no matter what. +Ilithid powers helped a lot doing all side content in act 3 without any risk.
The thing i especially recommend is camp buffing. Heroes Feast + Aid + Freedom of movement + Death Ward + Longstrider, as well as making sure everyone has 1 potion buff all the time (bloodlust elixir especially). You can use a gith transmutation wizard with 2 levels in knowledge domain cleric + enhance ability casted by another cleric on it to guarantee 2 potions for every single one crafted
Orin fight is easy if you manage to 1 turn her, just use a hasted wiz/sorc with magic missile if you choose to fight her and the cultists and 1 turn her.
Alert is also the most essential feat for it, since you can end fights before enemies even attack
Have a stack of explosive on one character for when the situation calls for it
It doesnt matter how many times I do it, but telling someone I saw a fellow with bulging pockets walking by and that it wasn't you that stole 1000 gold from them, right after stealing 1000 gold off them, never gets old.
I always kill the eggs for the spider matriarch before the fight with ranged, its tricky because she can aggro, but if you are patient its not too hard. As for grim, you can shoot the lever (and the wheel), it makes the fight a lot easier but it was still harder then tactician.I lost a run though on Thorne before my current play through, didn't go invisible for positioning and lost wyll because I nuked Misora by mistake (I was tired) and couldn't get another party member because that area is a no camp zone ;). I'm act 3 with my current run though :)
If she never gets a normal turn, she won't hatch the eggs. I had Astarion surprise her, then Shadowheart broke the webbing the queen was on, and then my character and Karlach snuck around to place and then blow her up with 5 barrels.
If you stealth the Spider Matriarch you can destroy all 3 egg clusters before initiating combat. You can initiate combat and lure the 2 small spiders to the previous room where she won't follow. Once they're dead she's very simple by herself, especially if you grabbed the Vision of the Absolute spear.
One tiny note that I think is somewhat important. On PS5, you can still save scum because it doesn't autosave when you go to the PS homescreen and juat close the game.
As a matter of fact I was able to avoid the waves of enemies and went directly to the fight with Ketheric in the moonrise tower not going via the main entrance but going on the left side and used the plants to sneak in the window to the upper floor. It was a small guard only there, easy fight...
I managed to survive Gyrm, the Creche, Yurgir, and the Thorms (fight with Gerringothe, convinced Malus to end himself, and invisibility sneaking past Thisobald to retrieve quest item and raid the cellar), but the Myrkul fight last night almost ended me IRL 😅
It was insanely stressful as I didnt bring the right comp into the colony and couldnt fix that. Lots of scrolls and consumables Throwing the Cloth of the Bull on Karlach so she couldnt get yeeted away was helpful, then removing it once she was down so that Myrkul's same ability would throw her body out of the Bone Chill radius so she could be resurrected and healed. Sadly, Dame Alyin had a death wish and was down the *entire* fight after willingly and unnecessarily running herself into a wall of fire 🤦♀️
Anyhoooo. I'll be quite a bit more meticulous with encounters in Act 3. Thanks for the insights!
I just realized that the real Auntie Ethel gets greyed out on the fight, so you can always know who's the real one
Thank you
I'm just about half way into my 2nd playthrough and you make this game look easy! I got my ass kicked for most of my first playthrough as this was my first RPG like this. I was not using the characters to their full potential or the environment. While things are going way smoother on my 2nd I still would have my ass handed to me on anything above normal mode haha.
When I first got the Dark Urge Cloak I saw how dangerous it was. My other character was a Gloom Stalker/Assassin. I sent it to a friend with the caption "oh no."
As someone who lost to the kethric illithid fight 3 times, use arrow of darkness on the avatar he wont be able to attack. kill the mind flayer asap, heal up then kill ketheric, ignore the dame shes so useless, use any persistent damage such as cloud of daggers as often as you can and have 2 people kill the zombies so he doesnt heal! good luck yall
uff that grym segment
You can make grym really easy by having a druid turn into an owlbear ,enlarge it, and do crushing flight from the cliff above
OH GOD ITS AN OWL BEAR FROM THE TOP ROPE!
Having completed Honour mode a few times now, I would agree with your sentiment. Namely, the Boss fights are not insane (although there are some tough ones: Orin and Brain IMO), but the single-save mechanic makes for some tense moments. E.g. there were a few fights over my disparate runs that i had one or two characters alive and I had them pop a invisibility potion. So as been said, being prepared is a big deal. But I assume, that if you're willing to try Honour mode you already know the best practices. Overall, I welcome the addition of the mode, especially for a game that has been out as long as it has.
The cazador fight is nuts to. It was the closest to ending my run
My tavern brawler monk made quick work of him lol honestly it is insane how powerful open hand monk is @@user-mu8ok5xf8d
I havent found honor mode to be too difficult so far, just finished Act 1. That being said, I have planned out builds and have Swords Bard as my Tav so I can pass key dialogue checks (Bow of the Banshee and Slashing Flourish is so strong!) Plus I pre buff most fights and things tend to just die.
TB Throw Karlach and a fully decked out Life Cleric Shadowheart also trivialize the consistency of the run as well. Laezel as a Battlemaster with the Unseen Spear has also been a fantastic role player for more consistency- I feel as though Act 2 is going to be a cake walk.
Honestly tavern brawler monk with those strength elixirs made honor mode so easy lol it's ridiculous how powerful open hand monk is
Nice. Even though, i don't understand jacksht cuz i haven't played BG3 😅 i enjoy the commentary of a tactician and the play through. 🤠
For me in hounor mode was hard to avoid going 3 fighter 1 cleric , was only 2 fighters ... In my playthrough i`ve comleted 1 act just by using usual -5 +10 feat with lots of attack roll bonuses and going for level 4 almoust without fights
I have to admit, I ended up not doing the ancient forge fight after I realized pulling off the hammer thing was so hard (managed to hit him once with a summon and it all went downhill from there). I just picked up my armor and misty stepped away to make Withers revive everyone. I thought losing my run there wasn't worth it and just continued into Act 2. I think it was the only Act 1 and 2 boss I decided not to do. Welp, it's content for a second honour run, right? haha
I enjoy having my decisions be more important, and the new mechanics and extra difficulty, but I don't think I will enjoy feeling like I have to min max because I'm scared of losing the save, I don't know, I will give it a try, it feels like playing on any other mode isn't worth it anymore since it has new mechanics
I was planning on getting Baldur's gate 1 & 2 and play them for the first time in 2 decades... always preffered Diablo so that's the one I completed last year, but now I got BG1,2, the expansions in that neat reissue. Then got a deal on Icewindale, Neverwinter Night, and another one I think : "Black & White" ? Was it?
12:00 best tip, have a different party member be engaged in conversation and the shop kepper wont look for you till you leave
You can actually use withers to reclass people, and you can just reselect everything you've done before and you'll be fully healed and restored spell slots, You could effectively never long arrest except for mandatory ones, albiet a little tedious
Owlbear off the top rope worked on Grym for me.... Withers NPC...
Hearing you talk about potentially running into some bad bugs while in honor mode makes me wonder if Larian pushed back implementing honor mode specifically because they knew the game had a lot of bugs and wanted to minimize frustration from their playerbase
Interesting and good video. One thing though I would question is that while yes technically you can say you beat the mode by skipping most of the act 3 fights because they are not really required, do you not feel this is a bit cheesy and devalues the achievement a bit? I don't mean that as a criticism of your choice it is completely valid. However, for me I want the challenge of doing all the fights knowing each one could be game over. The only fight I skipped so far was the owl bear because on a good play through it just feels wrong to kill the owl bear mother. I'll save that for a later dark urge play through assuming my current one is successful.
I had a bug right near the end of Act 2 when I entered Last Light with Minthara and it thought I was in Moonrise Towers so ALL of LL went aggro on me and they weren't "Temporarily Hostile" lol so naturally my Durge got Slayer that night 😂
There's a mod that implements honor mode changes in the other difficulties which I highly recommend
Great video, once I get all the other achievements I’m going to try tactician and honor mode.
My last run was a durge assassin duergar. I think I will use duergar on my higher difficulty runs but follow your gloomstalker guide and dip my feet into multiclassing.
Have you tried looking at the custom option? I think it might be harder than honor mode, handicapping yourself with -1, not seeing enemies hp, not seeing the dice rolls in dialogue and all the rest is probably harder. I wanted to do it but you don’t get the achievement, and they don’t mention special abilities on bosses so I went for a no multi classing honor run instead…
Grats on the golden dice, Morty.
Always having 200 gold in pocket, and a clear path to Withers has never been more important, but I must say I'm a bit disappointed that Withers still gives you infinite revives and respecs with the risk-free refund option. On that note, my first "proof of honor" was while clearing said path, tripping the fire-trap in the ruins for absolutely no good reason 🙄
Wasnt the dual handbow meta nerfed by a patch so that youre better off using the titanstring bow?
Lol as I'm typing this you addressed it and said to take the two handed feat. Still and all, I'm wondering if titanstring is better. You can even equip the strength stool leg so you dont have to worry about being too spread in stats
In terms of pickpocketing, I learned the hard way, just don't (unless you know you can). I stole something off a table in the grove by the tieflings (almost by accident) and they noticed and every single npc turned hostile. I ended up having to use a bunch of invisibility items/spells to get out. And, the next time I saw them, they were not hostile but they were too mad to talk to me. This included Dammon, who I had to bribe a bunch just so he would talk to one of my party members. The best safe way I've been seeing to pickpocket traders, if you are not willing to start a fight with all their friends, is to focus on those who are relatively isolated, have one party member start dialogue with the NPC, then another party member casts Hold on them (which last indefinitely while the NPC is in dialogue, then my pickpocket goes to town. I know its cheesing the system. But, the Old Hold n' Gold works and easy to walk away from before the trader even makes their save. Either way, I totally stopped pickpocketing willy nilly after the grove. Made the first act a lot harder.
I played through twice on normal mode, then skipped Tactician and started an Honor game. Act one actually went really well; I saved everyone I was supposed to (even Alfira as the Durge), got the Hag hair, and got all the good gear. I did make sure to get as over-leveled as I could while skipping as much combat as I could. Drow Dark Urge helped a lot with that.
Grym damn near got me. I had one character dead, two downed, and my sorcerer at 2 hp. I got him with the hammer, but it only took him down to 1. I had dual crossbows just to have a bonus action without sorcery points, and that pulled it out.
Did well up to Moonrise, but the prison went all to hell. All the NPCs got themselves killed by running into AoEs and attacking the guards. And then I failed to keep my portal safe because I was not at all prepared for how aggressively everything goes straight after it. I would have been fine if they were trying to kill me, but keeping NPCs alive in battle is a whole different thing.
Still alive though, just heading into the Gauntlet.
I completed Act 2. Then lost my game to a cutscene when I camped because I picked the wrong dialogue.
For Balthazar, I snuck up, picked the lock on his door to then sneak away behind another nearby door and let him fight his own fight. He was overwhelmed and killed without me ever doing a single point of damage.
I finished honor mode on my first playthrough and man I cheesed a ton of stuff and I can tell you the grymforge fight is absolutely unfair on a blind playthrough.
the grymforge fight can be cheesed with an assassin on the platform before descending to the lava arena. you hit it with a bow and then escape the fight and reenter while hiding and hit it again till it eventually dies. it's a long but a simple process but it's the sure win way to win the boss fight.
I even skipped the final boss. no way im risking all that time to fail at the end lol!
How do i get to level 10 before the myrkul fight? im pretty sure i've done everything in acts 1 and 2 and im still like 10k xp from level 10
I lost my first honor mode playthrough on Grym. I thought I was losing my mind when he walked double the distance I was used to 😢
How do you get those darker more sinister portraits for your characters (ex. Gale or Lae' zel)?
Thats actually a bug I think, sometimes when you level up the portraits freak out and go either dark like that or completely black
You can spam minor illusion agains grym. It is super effective
I was told that the honor mode clear wouldn't count if you let Gale handle the final boss. Thanks for clarifying that. Makes the clear that much easier.
Won’t count if you do it in Act 2
It works in act 3, just not act 2
alternatively you meet gortash when you enter act 3 if you kill him right away you get enough xp to crush act 3 just stand on the any of the balcony and the steel watcher explosion won’t hit you and it seems like they can’t climb the ladders I had a bard and warlock for damage and an ek fighter and druid to tank
Grym is really easy if you respect someone to a Druid and do the owlbear enlarged crushing flight
You should check out Archaelund, looks like an interesting dungeon crawler.
You can pretty much shut the Apostle of Myrkul down by disarming him and dropping a Silence and/ord Darkness on him.
woah woah woah... What about a second Owlbear? This one almost got me wiped in act 1.
it wiped me :(
He did mention putting that off until level 5 to be on the safe side.
The fact you hit 10 in act 2 is wild to me, I like you rushed act 3 and was 10 during the last fight of the game. Honestly once you get to Act 2 vendor's the difficulty just goes away.
Almost wiped at Grym, and I was really trying not to cheese anything in my honor mode playthough, but I misty stepped up to the path that brings you to the arena and threw items down on him for the falling bludgeoning damage.
Same. Until I ran out, then Karlach was throwing whatever was heaviest (pretty sure what I killed him with was a dead Sheep i found at the Blighted Village Windmill lol)
Cheaters
I almost lost my first (successful)honor mode run at Orin the next one i did as a durge and I played around too much and she got a nice round of crits on our 1v1 and almost died in the duel lol.