Baldur’s Gate 3 player beats the game at level 1

A YouTuber managed to beat Baldur’s Gate 3 on one of its highest difficulty levels without ever leveling up their character or party.

Baldur’s Gate 3 can be a pretty challenging game, even excluding its ultra-punishing Honor Mode. However, that hasn’t stopped some players from devising ways to make the game even harder.

From speedruns that aim to complete the game or reach specific scenes as quickly as possible to self-imposed challenges, the Baldur’s Gate 3 community has been finding creative ways to keep the gameplay interesting while pushing Larian Studios’ work to its limits.

Now, one player has presented a new way for Baldur’s Gate 3 players to challenge themselves after proving that, yes, you can beat the game at level 1.

Baldur’s Gate 3 player uses Charisma, barrels & lots of stealth to beat game at level 1

YouTuber Fracture shared their accomplishment in a two-hour-long video breaking down how they beat the game without ever leveling up any party members.

As Fracture explains early on, “I’m not planning on trying to just skip past all the content to technically beat the game. I want to actually play and beat the game.”

To take on this challenge, Fracture chose to play as a Githyanki Wizard with high Charisma to help talk their way out of situations. While that does help throughout the run, it does mean pretty low HP, with Fracture noting “I barely have enough health to survive a slip and fall in grease.”

Much of the run relies on using Charisma or Stealth to avoid combat and using Minor Illusion, explosives, and high ground to defeat unavoidable foes. Fracture also makes sure to pick up helpful equipment, such as the Warped Headband of Intellect to boost their Wizard’s Intelligence from 8 to 17.

While certainly more difficult than the average level 1-12 playthrough, Fracture did say the challenge was somewhat liberating. As they say, “This challenge gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted,” such as relying on stealth without worrying about missing out on experience points.

Ultimately, Fracture is able to make it through the game and defeat the final boss – with a method that needs to be seen to be believed – proving that, yes, it is possible to beat Baldur’s Gate 3 without ever leveling up.

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