BG3 first time on Honor Mode - what do I need to know

[Che]

I’m thinking of starting BG3 on Honor Mode. To raise the stakes, make the game more interesting, and avoid save scumming. But it’s a bit daunting for the first playthrough since I’ve specifically avoided tutorials and spoilers.

I’ve only played DND once, but I did complete Divinity Original Sin 3 on the highest difficulty (though it was quite challenging). Also, my experience on Iron Man in Battle Brothers changed game dramatically

What important things should I know and consider? Have enough bugs been fixed to not worry about save file integrity?

Thanks for the answers without spoilers!

[willablargens]

I wouldn't recommend starting BG3 in honour mode. No disrespect. You say you've beaten DOS 2 on honour mode so you're no slouch. However, honour mode is intended to tip the scales even further against your party and pretty much assumes you're familiar with the game's major concepts and encounters. There's also a lot of metaknowledge that is incredibly useful when it comes to strategizing your party and how you'll deal with saving throws and dice rolls. As far as I know, save integrity isn't something you'll actively need to worry about, but it's probably a risk. BG3 is a huge game with an incredible amount of freedom and you can easily screw yourself if you're careless. That said, if you really want to continue then here are some tips:

1. Leave no stone unturned. You'll want to get as much XP as possible to stack the deck back in your favor.

2. Examine before you fight. Examine an unfamiliar enemy before the combat turn begins in earnest and familiarize yourself with their strengths, weaknesses, abilities, etc.

3. Initiative is key. Initiative is rolled for everyone at the beginning of combat and determines the order in which turns are taken. The initiative roll is 1d4 plus that character's dexterity modifier. I wouldn't worry about this too much when deciding on character stats though. It's not too bad to respec if you want to change something. I recommend the alert feat that any character can unlock at level 4 because it provides +5 to initiative and makes it so you can't be surprised. This brings me to another point; sneak into a fight if possible. This is one facet where previous experience is very useful, but you won't be able to take advantage of this quite as much if you go in blind. Sneaking before starting a fight surprises the enemy which gives your party a whole extra turn before the enemy is allowed to act. This is also why alert is so useful. You never want to be surprised if you can avoid it.

4. Hoard everything. Use what you need of course but always be hoarding more. Food requirements for sleeping are doubled in honour mode so it's a good idea to stockpile food whenever you see it from the jump. Same thing for healing supplies.

5. Run away! If it starts to look bad, then start running early. A character has to be a certain distance from combat to run back to camp and you may be surprised how long it takes to get far enough away. It's better to be alive licking your wounds at camp than dead with 50 hours sunk into honour mode and no gold dice to show for it.

6. Crowd control is super effective. Many abilities apply a status to the target such as sleep, paralysis, prone, etc. These will tie up an enemy or more for at least one turn, and they usually increase your % chance to hit too which is huge.

That's all the spoiler free stuff I can think of right now, but there's definitely much more that's escaping me. Take your time and pay attention. Prepare to die. Good luck!

[jonnin]

I recommend you play at least all of act 1 once on a lower difficulty for practice so you have a rough understanding of it. D&D is quite different rules from DOS, with lots of oddities like darkness affecting chance to hit enemy unless you have a light or dark vision (racial ability) within range (dark vision has a range on how far you see), as well as elevation. It borrows DOS barrelmancy and to a far lesser degree, surfaces, but much of the rest is different.

You need to understand how you get advantage, disadvantage, and +- to hit so you can add up positives on your chance to hit and add up negatives on the enemy chance to hit you.

action economy is similar but you get far fewer per turn in BG3 esp if you did lone wolf. There is no lone wolf concept in BG3.