Baldur’s Gate 3 is not an easy game by most measures, and you will, most likely, die multiple times during the course of the game. This has caused many people to wonder what happens when if you die in Baldur’s Gate 3.
So, let’s go over the different situations that can arise when death is looming in Baldur’s Gate 3. What happens when you die in Baldur’s Gate 3?
When a playable character dies in Baldur’s Gate 3, you can use a Scroll of Revivify to resurrect them. However, they’re somewhat expensive to buy and you only have one for each character when you first start the game. If you have completed the Dank Crypt at the beginning of the game, you can recruit Withers who can help you resurrect fallen party members for 200 gold.
Let’s go over this in detail. There are circumstances regarding character deaths that can confuse players, so let’s be thorough. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about player death in Baldur’s Gate 3.
What Happens If You Die in Baldur’s Gate 3?
There are multiple ways to resurrect characters in Baldur’s Gate 3, but Scroll of Revivify and Withers services are the 2 most common ways of doing this. You can also use spells to do it, such as using the spell Revivify (Cleric or Paladin) or Resurrection (Bard or Cleric).
For the majority of cases, playable character death isn’t permanent. Now, resurrection works the same way in both multiplayer and single-player. The only criteria you need for resurrection are the required resources and a willing party member.
Most players find Withers themselves when exploring the wilderness at the beginning of the game. He can be found at the end of the Dank Crypt which can be found shortly after the Nautiloid crash.
You will need to complete the dungeon before being able to free Withers. After doing this, don’t attack him. Leave the crypt. After you’ve done this, he will make a new home in your camp, which can be accessed by long resting or simply clicking Go to Camp at the bottom-right side of your screen.
Sometimes when characters die, their bodies can’t be reached, for example, if they’ve been pushed off a cliff or something similar. This can cause some confusion since you can’t target their body with a Scroll of Revivify.
Instead of going to Withers and wasting 200 gold, you can solve this by using the Scroll of Revivify on the blue orb that spawns near where the character died.
The blue orb spawns there to prevent players from getting completely wrecked if the body of a character disappears from the map, but you don’t get a tooltip or something like that to explain that they left the orb behind.
Withers Isn’t Showing Up in the Dank Crypt
Some players have reported a bug where Withers does not show up at the end of the Dank Crypt. If this happens to you, try reloading from the last save.
You can also just continue playing since Withers will eventually show up at your camp anyway, but this can take some time and since you’ve most likely just begun your journey, your best bet is starting over completely.
What Happens If Your Party Dies in Baldur’s Gate 3?
If your entire party gets killed in Baldur’s Gate 3 (not an entirely unlikely outcome, depending on the set game difficulty), you need to reload the game from your latest save. This is called a TPK (“total party kill”).
That’s why you should make sure to save your games often. Baldur’s Gate uses an autosave feature, but personally, I like to save the game manually now and again, especially if I have my suspicions about an upcoming area.
Saving in Baldur’s Gate is quite flexible, and can be used at almost any time. For example, you can save the game during dialogue or combat.
If only one party member is alive in a fight, however, and you don’t want to reload the game, you can try fleeing the battle. You will need to retreat 27 meters from the enemy first, however, for this to work.
After fleeing, you will spawn in your camp. Talk to Withers and resurrect your companions. This can be useful if your last save is from some time ago and you don’t want to waste time.
Cases Where You Can’t Bring Back Characters in BG3
I mentioned earlier that playable characters’ deaths aren’t permanent, in most cases. In some cases, however, they are.
Depending on your choices, playable characters can die permanently. I won’t go into detail here since I don’t want to spoil the game for you, but depending on who you side with in certain situations and the attitude you hold towards characters, they can permanently be gone from the game. Scroll of Revivify won’t work on them.
So, what are these cases? Well, generally, you can tell quite easily. Deaths like these play out during cutscenes. Again, to avoid spoiling the game, I won’t list the specific moments where this can happen.
When this happens, you lose potential storylines and dialogue options in the future. In my opinion, this is a good thing. It gives Baldur’s Gate 3 an insane amount of replayability factor since you can effectively change the story of the game for every new run.
How Does Death Work in Baldur’s Gate 3?
Let’s go over the mechanics that are involved in playable characters’ deaths. When a character first gets “downed” in combat, a somewhat confusing symbol will appear over their head, signaling their condition. The game doesn’t do a very good job explaining what this is, in my opinion.
Characters with this condition make a death-saving throw at the start of every round (this happens automatically in Baldur’s Gate). Death-saving throws are done by rolling a d20 (a 20-sided die).
If you get a number over 10 on your death-saving roll, the roll is a success. If you get a number under 10 on the roll, you fail the roll. Fail three rolls, and you’re a goner. Succeed three rolls, and you’re “stabilized”, meaning you won’t die unless damaged, and your character doesn’t have to perform the death-saving throws.
Downed characters don’t have to succeed/fail three times in a row for a final result. The game counts overall roll count.