A small piece of paper can lead to instant death in Baldur’s Gate 3. Especially bitter when this happens in the game’s hardest mode.
In Baldur’s Gate 3, there are numerous ways to meet your end. Whether it’s a glorious end in fair combat, a shove into an abyss, being buried under a statue, or a spontaneous killing spell from an enraged demigod.
Usually, such little mistakes aren’t too bad. You just reload the game and correct the blunder in the next attempt. However, this is not possible in Honour Mode – the mistake is permanent.
Particularly frustrating when this death is triggered by a small piece of paper that you forgot.
What is the Honour Mode? The “Honour Mode” was added later by Larian and represents the highest difficulty. Not only are enemies particularly resilient here, but there are also a few other nasties: you cannot reload your save file a second time. If you die for any reason, the game is over, and the Honour Mode is considered failed. Although you can convert the save file into a regular save afterward, the challenge has failed.
The latest patch has made Honour Mode even harder.
What kind of death is this? In the Baldur’s Gate 3 Subreddit, Competitive-Wafer426 shares his story of how he lost his save in Honour Mode.
During my first attempt in Honour Mode, a friend and I managed to infiltrate the House of Hope. We eliminated all enemies, freed Hope, and were ready to face Raphael.
We used the well, summoned everything we could, used the highest Aid spell to have as much life as possible, placed smoke powder bombs at each pillar to destroy them in round 1 – we can say with certainty that we were completely ready to fight him.
The oh-so-secure fight ended up being much quicker than the two would have liked – as it didn’t even start.
So we go to the entrance of the House of Hope, Raphael appears, and it seems we forgot to steal our own contract – so Raphael steals our souls, triggering an instant Game Over.
What about the contract? Depending on the choices made in the game, you can make a deal with Raphael. In exchange for Orpheus’ hammer, you promise to give him a powerful magical relic later, once the final battle is fought. As is common with such contracts, there is usually somewhere in the fine print stating that you cannot turn against the contractual partner.
The only way to escape such a contract is to outsmart the devil. That’s exactly why you break into the House of Hope – Raphael’s palace. However, so many other incidents occur in the House of Hope that you can easily lose sight of the original goal.
That seems to have happened to Competitive-Wafer426 and his teammate as well, who suddenly faced an unexpected Game Over – and thus get to start their run in Honour Mode all over again.
Have you ever failed in Honour Mode? If so, what deadly mistake did you make? Even more absurd than Honour Mode is the attempt to play Baldur’s Gate 3 as a cat.
