Baldur’s Gate 3 player discovers real reason for Honour Mode runs

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Honour Mode is incredibly challenging, providing a reason to play that some fans have been looking for since launch.

A person who boots up Baldur’s Gate 3 is quickly faced with the most difficult challenge in the game. It’s not facing dragons, mind flayers, or beholders; it’s getting through the character creator with a concept you like without starting over from scratch.

Baldur’s Gate 3 features all of the character classes, playable races from the D&D 5E Player’s Handbook, and some new additions to the roster. This means players have a ridiculous amount of choice upfront before even considering the Origin characters.

Once you have gathered your party and ventured forth, it’s hard to resist the urge to start over with a new character just to see how things are different. This isn’t helped by Baldur’s Gate 3’s long runtime, which can make it hard for the player to maintain their interest over such a lengthy story.

Larian Studios

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Honour Mode gives players an excuse to try out lots of builds

A user on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Reddit has created a thread pointing out why they love Honour Mode, which is the new Ironman-style difficulty option where your save is wiped when you die.

This is because it gives you a perfect excuse to try new builds when you die. “We all know it’s just an excuse to keep making new characters. I’ve genuinely made ten amazing new characters since I have started trying honor mode. I have died in so many amazing ways, and some not so amazing.”

“I agree, I’ve been using the origin appearance edit mod too so I can run 4 new looking characters, I’m doing all one class runs and I’m down to druid now,” one user wrote, while another said, “I think its more about giving players as close to a real D&D campaign experience as possible.”

As Honour Mode wipes your save file when your team perishes in combat, you must start over from scratch (or give up the run and continue as a regular game.) Once your party has died, you can jump back in with a whole new character and try out a new build.

As pointed out by users in the thread, Honour Mode has elements of a roguelike gameplay loop, where players are forced to consider each action. Maybe a true roguelike mode is what Baldur’s Gate 3 needs, as it provides the ideal excuse to try out builds before putting them in the main game.

Honour Mode is not for the faint of heart, as the enemies are punishingly difficult and the player is a slave to the results of their dice. The biggest positive to being OHKO’d in Honour Mode is that you can return to the loving embrace of the character creator and plan out another hero who won’t live to see the end credits.