Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode Can Be Easy, You Just Have To Summon An Army

Summary Honour Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 introduces harsh rules with a single save that ends the campaign if the party is wiped out.

Summoning allies is a beneficial tactic in Baldur's Gate 3, swinging the action economy in the party's favor.

Players can create an army in Baldur's Gate 3 by summoning various allies, but should be wary of AoE spells and crashes.

In a post-release patch, Larian Studios added Honour Mode to Baldur's Gate 3. Honour Mode makes enemies and bosses harder, while introducing harsher rules that work against the player, similar to Tactician Mode. The big difference in what makes Honour Mode such a difficult endeavor is that it only gives players a single save. If a party is wiped out, that's it, the campaign is officially over and a player will have to start again from the Nautiloid Ship in a new save.

This is a carry over from Larian's last title, Divinity: Original Sin 2, which had a similar Honour Mode that removed quick saves and auto saves, preventing save scumming, which is a common strategy in BG3, especially because of the RNG elements with the d20 dice. Many players enjoyed Divinity's Honour Mode enough for Larian to add it to Baldur's Gate. Strangely enough, summoning allies to help in a fight against deadly Honour Mode-enhanced enemies is an effective tactic for both titles, since both are turn-based and players will benefit from creating a larger friendly presence in the action economy.

Related Screen Rant's 2023 Game Of The Year Screen Rant's Game of the Year 2023 is Baldur's Gate 3, a testament to how much space remains for grand storytelling and characters.

Summoning Creatures & Allies Can Create An Army For A BG3 Party

Close

By virtue of being a turn-based game, Baldur's Gate 3 rewards players who have more turns in a round than their enemies. Since each character only has one turn a round, the easiest way to swing the action economy in a player's favor is to add more characters. Summoning a helper here and there is quite simple, but Reddit user Real-Business6593 (via PC Gamer) shows that with the right combination of spells and items, Baldur's Gate 3 players can summon a practical army.

Higher-level spellcaster have access to a myriad of spells to summon allies, such as conjure planar ally or conjure elemental. These are useful alone, but can also be paired with the Infernal Rapier given by Mizora to summon a Cambion. Between three characters, that's three summons, and weaker pets, like familiars, Scratch the dog, Us the intellect devourer, and Boo the minature giant space hamster, can be used to pad out the line-up.

To really swing the action economy in the party's favor, though, much of a summonable army will come from undead allies. A druid that has the Circle of Spores subclass can summon up to four fungal zombies per long rest. This can be paired with the Necromancy of Thay to summon even more undead. Another useful item to summon more allies is the Shadow Lantern, which will summon shadows. The Spider Egg Sac can also be used to summon five spider allies, but this can only be used once.

Related Baldur’s Gate 4 Doesn’t Need Larian Studios, There’s A Better Choice Some fans are disappointed that Larian will not work on any future Baldur’s Gate projects, but there is a better option for the series’ future.

If a party of four Circle of Spores druids multiclass into clerics, then more undead can be summoned with the create undead spell. They can also use spiritual weapon and flaming sphere (Light Domain clerics only), meaning that a party of four can quickly become a party of well over 20. It should be noted that the more allies that are summoned, the greater the strain it will put on a player's PC or console, risking a crash.

More than four Fungal Zombies can be summoned if a character can reset as if they had a long rest. A Potion of Angelic Slumber or the bath in Raphael's House of Hope are always good options, and players can continue to summon these zombies to their hearts' content.

Even A Party Turned Into An Army Has Weaknesses In Baldur's Gate 3

A Tav with an army at their disposal makes them a threat to any enemy they come across, even in Honour Mode. The action economy is entirely on the player's side, but that does not mean everything will go their way. Because a build will have to focus around summoning, the actual player characters aren't as powerful as they otherwise could be, and the party is susceptible to high level AoE spells, since many of the summons aren't that strong.

Since the meat and bones of the army is made up of undead, a powerful enemy cleric is a terrifying threat with the turn undead Channel Divinity, which all cleric subclasses share. Players will need to be wary of their own AoE spells too, in case they end up decimating their own allies with a fireball. Of course, the additional allies may cause Baldur's Gate 3 to crash more frequently, and with the singular save in Honour Mode, there is always a chance that it gets corrupted during a crash, ending a run without actually dying.

Sources: Real-Business6593/Reddit (via PC Gamer​​​​​​)