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A Demon-like woman wearing Bard clothing raises her hand to the sky as musical magic surrounds her in BG3.
Screenshot by Dot Esports

Be warned: One brutal healing change is ruining Baldur’s Gate 3 Honor mode runs

Larian's genius design strikes again.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is going strong eight months after release, with players still learning things the hard way as if it came out yesterday. One such player was met with an unfortunate circumstance in the game’s Honor mode due to taking the leisure of Balanced difficulty for granted.

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On April 7, one Baldur’s Gate 3 player shared their experience with the game’s Honor mode, a difficulty level recently added in Patch 5, in a massive Reddit thread. As the hardest difficulty to play BG3 on, Honor naturally has its strange caveats—ones the player likely didn’t even dream of after beating the game on the recommended Balanced mode. Since Balanced offers players plenty of opportunities to heal and rest up at the so-called restoration pods, Reddit user ecchi_yajur’s Honor mode run was absolutely ruined when they found out that Larian removed those restoration pods from certain locations to spice up the Honor mode gameplay.

The character Ketheric Thorm talks to the player character with a skull arch in the background in Baldur's Gate 3.
The player fumbled hard when they met with the Ketheric boss fight with few high-level spells. Image via Larian Studios

“On Balanced difficulty, you can use these restoration pods as many times as you want, now this piece of information was my downfall,” the Reddit user wrote. “I assumed this would be the case for Honor mode as well, how wrong I was. This lead to me going into the final fight with Ketheric with Gale only having level one and two spell slots after using Angelic Reprieve and my Paladin only having one level three spell slot remaining.”

Other players in the replies advised the player to be aware of the lack of restoration pods in Honor mode. On Balanced, as the user explains, restoration pods can be spammed and are a perfect tool for cheesing challenging encounters. Larian seems to be aware of this and has thus removed them from Honor mode, making those fights that much more interesting and demanding.

If you’re a player who plans to give BG3‘s hardest difficulty a try, pay attention to your spell slots and how well-equipped your party is. It will make all the difference.

Others Asked

What aspect of Baldur's Gate 3 do players find particularly challenging?

Avoiding romance with companions is particularly challenging for players in Baldur's Gate 3.

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What makes Honor mode in Baldur's Gate 3 particularly challenging?

Honor mode makes enemies stronger, gives them more health, introduces new Legendary Actions for boss fights, limits players to a single save file, and forces players to start over if the entire party is wiped out.

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What makes Honor Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 more challenging than Tactician Mode?

Honor Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 is more challenging than Tactician Mode due to stronger enemies, bosses with more health and powerful gear, stricter action and damage bonus rules, and the limitation of having only a single save file.

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Author
Image of Andrej Barovic
Andrej Barovic
Strategic Content Writer, English Major. Been in writing for 3 years. Focused mostly on the world of gaming as a whole, with particular interest in RPGs, MOBAs, FPS, and Grand Strategies. Favorite titles include Counter-Strike, The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Sekrio, and Kenshi. Cormac McCarthy apologetic.