An underestimated talent in Baldur’s Gate 3 saves lives – and for hardcore runs, it’s a must if you don’t want to go down mercilessly.
In Baldur’s Gate 3, players are constantly faced with important decisions. Especially every 4 level-ups, a talent must be chosen, which then significantly determines how your heroes will play in the future. Often, talents are chosen to directly increase damage or improve armor. But there is one talent that flies a bit “under the radar” for many, although it offers extreme benefits, especially at higher difficulties.
What kind of talent is this? The talent “Alert” gives you two powerful bonuses:
- You gain a +5 bonus on all initiative rolls with the character.
- You cannot be “Surprised” anymore.
The immunity to the “Surprised” condition is extremely powerful. Because if you are surprised, all enemies can take a complete turn without your heroes being able to act. Not even reactions are possible during this turn.
If the enemies have a high initiative, it can even happen that all enemies get to act twice before it’s your turn – and then characters are often already dead.
So immunity to this effect is extremely valuable, especially at higher difficulty levels.
Talent also makes mathematical sense: In the Baldur’s Gate 3 Subreddit, BouldersRoll notes that “Alert” provides even more advantages. Because by typically being able to attack first, you also eliminate many turns that enemies could have taken. Clearly: When enemies die in the first or second turn because you take them out early with high initiative:
If your whole group acts first in every round and the battle lasts for 3 rounds, then you eliminate 33% of the opponent’s actions. If the battle lasts 2 rounds, you eliminate 50% of the actions. And this does not account for enemies that you already kill in the first round.
There is truly nothing more powerful than a surprise attack in turn-based tactical games.
But beyond that, attacking early – especially for the whole group – makes sense. Because only then can strong combos be executed effectively. For example, one character can soak enemies with water before a wizard hurls a chain lightning to deal double damage. If the enemies have too much time between these two actions and can move away, such combos fail.
What else does the talent bring? Aside from the direct advantage of being able to attack first in most cases, “Alert” is also a sensible addition for coop rounds. Because of the high bonus to initiative, it usually ensures that all player characters can act more or less at the same time. This allows all participants in the coop round to control their heroes simultaneously. It saves time waiting for your fellow players to finally make their moves.
Do you use “Alert” in your rounds and have had good experiences with it so far? Or have you always overlooked and ignored this talent? Or do you simply rely on the skills of the Monk – a class so strong that all others look weak.
