In Baldur’s Gate 3, you can benefit from some of the best buffs early on. All you have to do is sacrifice your eyes. MeinMMO reveals how to do this and what advantages it brings.

Who are the 2 NPCs? The mysterious Aunt Ethel and the talented bard Volo each present you with the opportunity to exchange your eyes in their own unique way.

For your sacrifice, you will receive some of the best buffs in the game. If something sounds too good to be true, there’s often a catch.

Please note: The guide contains story spoilers about the encounter with the respective characters.

Before diving in, here are a few tips for your run in Baldur’s Gate 3:

The Dilemma: Which Eye Will It Be?

This is what Aunt Ethel’s eye does:

• Your character will receive an impressive cloudy eye visually
• You will receive the condition “The Price Paid”: +1 to Intimidation rolls
• Disadvantage on Perception rolls
• Disadvantage when fighting witches

Basically, that’s not a bad deal if you want to intimidate a lot of people. The eye is therefore particularly suitable for an evil campaign. Your companions will be thrilled if you manage many intimidations.

Here’s how to get Ethel’s eye:

In Baldur’s Gate 3, you will encounter Aunt Ethel while she is being interrogated by two brothers at the edge of the field. Follow the quest line and find Aunt Ethel in her tea hut.

A dark offer awaits you with Aunt Ethel. The old woman seems not as sweet as she appears. She will promise to remove the mindflayer parasite from your brain. In exchange, she demands one of your eyes.

You can freely choose which of the two eyes will be sacrificed. Aunt Ethel will tear out the desired eye from your eye socket and replace it with a shiny new one.

Caution: You will only get the option if you have not yet passed through the illusion wall. Ethel must not be hostile towards you.

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This is what Volo’s replacement eye does:

The magical eye grants a party member the ability to see invisible units. With this eye, you can see invisible creatures within a radius of 9 meters. The ability provides a significant advantage in many areas of Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s best to give the eye to a melee fighter among you.

Unlike with Ethel’s eye, there is no disadvantage with Volo’s eye, other than having to face a gruesome surgical scene.

Here’s how to get Volo’s eye:

Before you receive the side quest “Replacement Eye,” you must first rescue the talented bard.

• Speak to Volo for the first time in the druid grove
• Go to the destroyed village and head west until you encounter the goblin camp
• Search the center of the camp for Volo and speak to him
• Rescue Volo from the goblin camp
• Speak to Volo again and invite him to your camp

Now tell Volo about the parasite in your brain. He will look for options to help you. Take a rest and have another conversation with Volo after a long break. Then you’ll be good to go.

One of the strangest and most agonizing scenes awaits you. As an amateur surgeon, Volo will perform an eye operation on you that nearly ends with a lobotomy. You will need to pass several checks while he continues to stab you in the eyeball.

Can I exchange both eyes? In Baldur’s Gate 3, you have the option to replace one of your two eyes. However, both eyes cannot be exchanged. The choice between Aunt Ethel’s cloudy eye and Volo’s replacement eye depends on your playstyle and your party composition.

Both options offer unique advantages. No matter which eye you choose, one thing is certain: In Baldur’s Gate 3, it often involves sacrificing to become stronger.

MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus has engaged with the deal with Aunt Ethel, thus starting his personal feud: Baldur’s Gate 3: The personal feud with a witch cost me 3 hours of life – The solution took no more than 30 seconds

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Baldur’s Gate 3 offers plenty of different playstyles. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus is currently playing a rogue build that really shouldn’t work as well as it does. The secret lies in the group composition.

This is the build: With my assassin rogue, I focus entirely on critical hits and enemy control. I use two one-handed swords, plenty of deception, and tons of poisons. And yes… I am aware of how ironic it is that I am not playing the best class in the game that I constantly rave about.

My approach is actually quite simple: kill what cannot fight back. And when a real battle is unavoidable, I let my bodyguards beat up the people who refuse to die immediately.

Essentially, my build is a mix of “stealth gameplay” and raw violence. Finesse as long as it works, and brutal slaughter as plan B.

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Why shouldn’t it work? Rogues are found in the B-tier of Baldur’s Gate 3 and assassins also belong to the weaker orientations here. The problem with assassins stems from their role in Dungeons & Dragons:

• You are incredibly strong on the first turn and can almost instantly kill any opponent.
• After that, you are more or less useless, as all advantages are applied to the first turn.
• The longer the battle lasts, the weaker assassins become compared to other classes.

Still, I managed to enhance the build in Baldur’s Gate 3 so that I can choose and win almost every fight. Only “scripted,” thus unavoidable fights give me trouble.

Here are tips for all classes straight from the developers:

Assassin Rogue: The most important attributes

The most important values are dexterity and charisma. Dexterity increases damage with finesse weapons and improves sneaking ability. Charisma helps you avoid battles when you don’t want to engage.

The +2 bonus at character creation should therefore be put into dexterity. The +1 bonus goes to charisma or constitution, depending on how confident you feel about the dice. The ideal race for the build are Drow because of their proficiency with hand crossbows and improved darkvision.

Assassin Rogue: The most important talents

• Level 4: Two-Weapon Fighter
  • The most important talent for the build and one of the best talents overall. You can wield not only light weapons but all weapons in both hands that are not two-handed. As a Drow, you are proficient with shortswords and rapiers, giving you strong weapons early in the game. But make sure they are marked with “finesse”.
• Level 8: Ability Improvement
  • At level 8, it is important to improve dexterity. The goal here is at least 18 dexterity, and another stat should be a round number. Only then will there be bonuses on rolls.
• Level 10: Master of Martial Arts or Lucky
  • Again, you want to focus entirely on critical hit potential and increased damage from them. The goal is to deal as much damage as possible in the first round.
• Level 12: Savage Attack, Ability Improvement or Weapon Master
  • Level 12 is the max level in Baldur’s Gate 3. If you already have 20 dexterity (or more) from items or other buffs, Savage Attacker is the best choice. Otherwise, continue to improve dexterity.
    Weapon Master helps if you want to use curved swords or any other weapon that your chosen race does not master.

The advantage of the assassin is that you don’t have to consider much when leveling. You gain most talents automatically and don’t have to choose them. The most important talent you get at level 3: Assassinate.

An attack against a surprised creature is an automatic critical hit. You also have the advantage against creatures that have not yet taken their turn. This is important for using sneak attacks, the special rogue ability.

As an assassin, you also regenerate your action and bonus action at the start of a battle. This means: if you stab first and thereby initiate the combat, you have 2 full attacks with both weapons free, one of which guarantees a critical hit.

Here’s how to level up correctly:

Strategy: How the build works

Use your charisma to intimidate, deceive, or persuade NPCs – depending on whether you are good or evil. This way you can better choose which battles you want to engage in and which you don’t. Tip: Your dexterity helps a lot in robbing merchants.

Once you’ve decided on a battle, separate the rogue from the group and let them sneak to take out any target right at the beginning of combat. Invisibility is extremely helpful here. Then, you pull the rest of the group into the battle – also sneaking or openly.

After the opening comes the point that actually makes the build so strong: poisons. Initially, you want to use mainly Drow poison, later Karabasan poison or any others that incapacitate enemies.

I would also recommend expanding the parasite powers. With these, you can later hit critically more often, enhance attacks, or even drain attributes.

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The best companions for the rogue

The idea is to ensure that enemies become helpless. This allows the rest of the group (or yourself) to automatically score critical hits in melee combat. Therefore, the ideal companions for the build are:

• a cleric as a tank, like Shadowheart
• a battlemaster fighter, like Lae’zel
• a vengeance paladin with a two-handed sword, like Minthara, if you have recruited her
• you can also simply respec any companion

Your group can easily butcher a helpless enemy. The high armor class of all members ensures that they can withstand a lot, and both paladins and clerics can support with healing and other spells.

Great advantage: the short rest helps you enormously with regeneration:

Additional advantages and tips

Another advantage is, that a short rest is enough to regenerate almost all of your combat power. You don’t have an annoying wizard who suddenly can do nothing. But this is also the biggest weakness: without resistances, you are at the mercy of many strong spells. Try to kill spellcasters as directly as possible in round 1.

The ideal origin for the build is, by the way, the “Dark Urge,” which is actually not very suitable for beginners. However, it unlocks some options later that make your rogue a true killing machine in battle. And for some, the “Dark Urge” is even the reason to love the game:

I started Baldur’s Gate 3 twice and was disappointed: Only when I did what many warn against did I enjoy it

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