Baldur’s Gate 3 player shares just how poorly a playthrough can go with no save scums

Nearly every player in Baldur’s Gate 3 has dealt with the internal struggle of deciding whether or not to reload a previous save game as a way to get a do-over when something catastrophic happens during a playthrough.

Living and dying by the roll of the dice can be a tumultuous experience, and one player on social media today shared just how terribly wrong things can go if you take the moral stance to not partake in what’s called a “save scum” during your BG3 playthrough.

For those unaware, a save scum is the act of reloading your game to recent previous save games as a way to get a different outcome than one you’ve already gotten. This tactic can be especially useful when you need to hit a roll that might have a high difficulty class during a dialogue sequence. Many players, however, perceive this act to be dishonorable and against the spirit of the game.

But as one player learned recently, doing a pure run with no save scumming can result in some fairly horrible experiences, despite some of the fail-safes that Larian Studios put in place.

As one player noted on Reddit today, it is indeed possible to just completely miss out on the opportunity to add certain companions to your team. And in this person’s case, that companion was one of the game’s strongest—Gale.

Despite being a fighter with high strength, this person failed to save Gale from his portal at the beginning of the game on two separate rolls, resulting in the player ultimately never getting the powerful wizard to join their team. The failed attempts at saving Gale result in the player missing out on the chance to run through Gale’s sizable story arc as well.

In their post, this person pointed out that this failure to save Gale was felt almost immediately. Having played a campaign prior to this one, they simply assumed that Gale would be a part of their camp, and getting used to his absence has been quite the adjustment period.