Baldur’s Gate 3 player finds cheeky way to get full free level in Act One

Leveling up early in Baldur’s Gate 3 can make a huge difference as you fight some of the game’s Act One and early Act Two bosses. And now, one player has found an unintuitive yet simple way to give yourself that edge you might need.

In what appears to be an exploit, players can knock out Raphael in Act One to get 1,400 experience, which is more than twice the required experience to get from level two to three and nearly everything a player needs to get from level three to four.

The massive experience boost can be achieved during your first encounter with Raphael if you play your cards right, and it can be a boon for your team before encounters like the ones with the goblin camp leaders or Ethel the hag.

A YouTube video detailing the exploit shares a lot of information, but the nuts and bolts of the feat are relatively straightforward. You need to make sure your group is separated whenever you encounter Raphael for the first time. This particular creator, blankNYM, does so on the road just north of the Blighted Village, where many players encounter Raphael for the first time.

By making sure that just one person gets roped into dialogue with Raphael, you can have other characters in your party begin to attack the cambion, and it somehow doesn’t trigger combat because of the dialogue that Raphael is already engaged in.

While he doesn’t fight back, it will take a while to get him down because Raphael’s health is a flavorfully high 666 hit points. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure your final blows are set to only knock Raphael out. If you were to accidentally kill him, there are a lot of pieces to the game’s story that you might miss out on in the game’s later acts.