Welcome to our guide about hidden mechanics in Baldur’s Gate 3.
BG3 is often a tricky game for new players to learn, especially players who aren’t familiar with tabletop-style RPG games. Many players find that BG3’s game and combat mechanics aren’t explained very well, and as a result, waste a lot of their turns on missed attacks and failed spells.
In this guide, we will explain all of these mechanics. By the end, you should have lots of new ideas about how to get better at the game.
Table of Contents
- How Turns Work in BG3
- How Dice Rolls Work in BG3
- How Spellcasting Works in BG3
- How Throwing and Shoving Works in BG3
- How Stealth Works in BG3
- High and Low Ground Modifiers
- How Conditions Work in BG3
How Turns Work in BG3
We’ll start with the basics of combat, giving a brief introduction to what happens turn by turn.
As you have probably figured out, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a turn-based RPG. Everything that happens in the game outside of dialogue is divided into turns, even when you are exploring outside of combat.
You can hit the Turn-Based Mode button at any time to play through the game turn by turn. This is useful when you are trying to avoid traps or need to give very precise instructions to your party members in a short window.
Action Economy
Action – Most attacks, spells and other actions in BG3 cost an Action. Some classes will unlock the 
Hastened buff, the 
Bonus Action – These are usually less impactful than Actions, but are still very important. An action’s tooltip will tell you whether it costs a full Action or a Bonus Action.
Reaction – Usually spent when it’s not your turn, and a certain passive feature you have is triggered by an enemy’s actions. This often involves attacking an enemy when they move past you, or a variety of special reactions available to some classes.
Movement – Each character has a certain amount of Movement per turn. This will be their base Movement Speed (usually 9 metres, but modified by your race) plus any modifiers that you have from spells or equipment.
You don’t have to use up all of your resources every turn, but figuring out good ways to make use of all of them regularly is a good way to maximise the efficiency of all of your party members.
There are special actions in BG3 that don’t require any of the above resources to use, such as the Swarmkeeper’s special swarm attacks. These are typically regulated by a separate cooldown instead.
How Turn Order is Calculated
Have you found that one of your characters always moves last in the turn order and gets pummelled as a result? It’s not totally down to random chance or favouritism; there’s a hidden mechanic at play here that you can use to your advantage!
At the beginning of a combat encounter, every creature involved will roll a D4 for Initiative (D4 means the dice can land between 1 and 4). The highest rolling creature moves first, followed by the second-highest, etc.
While there is an RNG element at play here, you can increase your character’s Initiative to greatly increase their chance of moving first:
This is not an exhaustive list of ways to improve Initiative in BG3, but these are the most common and easiest to access.
Since we’ve started talking about Dice Rolls, it’s high time to explain those properly, so the next section of the guide will explain this vital mechanic in detail.
How Dice Rolls Work in BG3
Dice rolls are intrinsic to BG3’s gameplay, both in and out of combat. Almost all situations involving chance will use a dice roll to determine the outcome.
Most dice rolls are influenced by one of your six ability scores. For example, when you swing a Martial Weapon, your Strength Modifier will be added to the result of both the Attack Roll and the Damage Roll.
Types of Dice Roll
Here are the most important types of dice rolls in Baldur’s Gate 3:
Attack Roll
Weapon and unarmed attacks, and some spells and cantrips, use Attack Rolls to determine whether or not they will hit their target.
The result of the Attack Roll, after modifiers, must be equal to or greater than the target’s Armour Class; otherwise, the attack will miss.
As mentioned above, the most common way to improve your odds with these Attack Rolls is to increase your Ability Score.
Saving Throws
A wide variety of detrimental effects can be reduced or nullified by rolling a successful Saving Throw.
Important: If you are a spellcaster, you can make your spells more likely to succeed by increasing your Spell Save Difficulty Class. This is done by increasing your primary spellcasting ability, or finding equipment like the Cloak of the Weave.
Ability Checks
These work in a very similar way to Saving Throws, but instead occur when you are trying to perform a difficult action, rather than when trying to resist a hostile effect.
One of the most common types is the Skill Check. Every Skill in BG3 is associated with one of the six ability scores.
For example, having high Dexterity boosts your 
Sleight of Hand score. When picking a lock, you roll with the Sleight of Hand Skill, and if you roll higher than the lock’s Difficulty Class (DC), you will open it.
Persuasion, 
Intimidation or 
Deception Skills)
Stealth Skill)
Survival Skill)Damage Rolls
When your Attack Roll has been successful, or an enemy has failed a Saving Throw against your spell, the game rolls damage dice to determine how much damage is done.
Each damaging action in the game has a set amount of damage dice associated with it, which are displayed on the tooltip. The colour of the dice determines the damage type, such as 
Piercing, 
Radiant, or 
Force.
Damage rolls usually involve one or several D4, D6, D8, D10 or D12 dice. After all dice have been rolled, any relevant modifiers are added or subtracted to determine the damage amount. This may be doubled, halved or nullified, depending on whether the target is vulnerable, resistant or immune to the damage type being applied.
Advantage and Disadvantage
You will often encounter these terms when reading tooltips in BG3. Here’s what they mean:
These effects significantly increase or reduce the chance of a successful roll. There are so many ways these can happen that I won’t list them here. Pay attention to the UI, always read tooltips, and look out for the 
Advantage and 
Disadvantage icons.
Critical Rolls
There are two types of Critical Rolls in BG3 – Critical Success and Critical Failure. For Attack Rolls, these are renamed to Critical Hit and Critical Miss.
They only apply on D20 rolls and some Saving Throws are exempt from this mechanic. Here’s what they mean:
Critical Success/Hit
The D20 landed on a 20 (before any modifiers were applied). The action will succeed automatically, regardless of Difficulty/Armour Class. If it’s an Attack Roll, an additional damage dice will be rolled.
Later in the game, you may encounter some ways to reduce the number rolled for a Critical Hit, but this only applies to Attack Rolls.
Critical Failure/Miss
The D20 landed on a 1 (before any modifiers were applied). The action will fail automatically, regardless of Difficulty/Armour Class.
How Spellcasting Works in BG3
We touched on spellcasting earlier in the guide, but in this section, we’ll go into more detail about what exactly is happening when you cast a Cantrip or Spell, what Concentration means and how you can manipulate all of these rules to make your spellcasters stronger.
Saving Throw Spells
Most hostile spells in BG3 impose a Saving Throw on the target. They must roll a d20 against your spellcaster’s Spell Save Difficulty Class. If successful, they will not take the full effects of the spell.
Therefore, to make these spells more potent, you must boost your Spell Save Difficulty Class. This is accomplished by boosting your Spellcasting Ability Score (INT, WIS or CHA, depending on class) or finding equipment that gives you additional boosts to Spell Save DC, like the 
Cloak of the Weave.
A star is shown on the character creation or levelling up screen next to your class’ spellcasting ability, which is the easiest way to tell which one you should prioritise.
Attack Roll Spells
These work in almost the same way as attacking with a ranged weapon. You roll a D20 Attack Roll. If you roll above the target’s Armour Class, you hit. If you roll below, you miss. If you roll a 20, you get a Critical Hit and will apply a bonus Damage Die.
Friendly/Neutral Spells
Spells that impose a beneficial effect or affect the surrounding environment in some way (like 
Grease) typically do not involve dice rolls, but simply apply their effects immediately. However, environmental hazards created by these spells may impose Saving Throws when an enemy walks on them.
There are also some spells that do impose negative conditions on enemies but don’t involve any dice rolls. For example, the 
Sleep spell is guaranteed to work against any enemy that isn’t too strong for the spell (unless they are immune to magical sleep).
What is Concentration in BG3
One of the most important mechanics for spellcasters in Baldur’s Gate 3 is Concentration. Always check the tooltip before casting a spell, and see if it requires Concentration.
Concentration spells usually involve an ongoing effect that can be sustained for a specified duration. But maintaining these effects requires the spellcaster to keep Concentrating on the spell.
How Do Concentration Saving Throws Work in BG3?
If your character takes damage while Concentrating on a spell, they must roll a Constitution Save. The Difficulty Class of the save will be either 10, or half of the damage taken (whichever is higher).
If you meet the DC, you keep concentrating on the spell. If you roll below, the spell will be broken.
This is why you will frequently lose concentration by stumbling onto an environmental hazard that only deals a few points of damage – the DC of the Concentration Save will still be 10, even if you only take 1 damage.
How Throwing and Shoving Works in BG3
When you throw or shove an enemy in Baldur’s Gate 3, a special type of Ability Check happens. This is called a Contest.
You will make a Strength roll using the 
Athletics Skill. The target either makes a Strength ( Athletics) roll or a Dexterity (
Acrobatics) roll, depending on which is highest.
If you roll higher than the enemy (after modifiers), you will successfully throw/shove them.
How Stealth Works in BG3
When you are hiding, you can see red areas on the ground. These mark the lines of sight of enemy or neutral creatures. If you cross into the area, one of three things will happen:
Clear Area or within melee range, any creature that looks at you will spot you immediately.
Lightly Obscured, you undergo a 
Heavily Obscured, you remain hidden as long as you stay out of melee range and don’t draw attention to yourself.High and Low Ground Modifiers
Making a Ranged Attack Roll will become more or less accurate depending on your elevation compared to the target:
Being on high ground also extends the maximum range of your ranged attacks.
How Conditions Work in BG3
Conditions are effects (usually temporary but sometimes permanent) that are applied to characters in a wide variety of situations. These will appear next to your character’s portrait on the left of your screen.
Beneficial conditions are often referred to as buffs, while negative conditions are often called debuffs.
Here are some examples of Conditions and where they come from:
Burning from walking on Fire
Prone from slipping on Ice
Poisoned from 
Ensnared from 
Radiating Orb
Encrusted with FrostCharacters can have many conditions active at the same time. Almost any combination is possible – the main exceptions are:
Lightning Charges and 
Frozen.You should always mouse over new conditions when you encounter them, and look out for ways to incorporate them into your character builds.
