‘Intimidating’ Baldur’s Gate 3 mechanic is actually extremely useful

Michelle Cornelia
Baldur's Gate 3 cleric

Baldur’s Gate 3 players claim you shouldn’t sleep on this particularly useful and easy-to-use in-game mechanic in your next run.

With so many places to explore and quests to complete, Baldur’s Gate 3 is known to be a massive game that can span hundreds of hours – and that’s only from one playthrough. Hence, with that in mind, it can be easy to miss out on a lot of things, including in-game mechanics.

Since the game’s launch, the community has discovered various useful mechanics that can help them out in battles. However, out of all of them, there’s one particular mechanic that you “shouldn’t sleep on,” according to players: alchemy.

In a Reddit thread discussing which mechanics players have been neglecting in their playthrough, one user admitted that they’ve never opened the alchemy tab. Seeing this, players responded that it is actually handy and requires little effort, making it worthwhile to learn.

bg3 Githyanki Creche
Baldur’s Gate 3 allows you to give various buffs to your characters with potions.

One of them wrote: “Don’t sleep on this. I was intimidated by it but there’s really no work involved. Press ‘extract all ingredients’ and then ‘filter by craftable only’ and then just make what’s on that list. It’s super easy and some of the potions you can make are extremely useful (speed, bloodlust, invis).”

Another user who claimed to hate “crafting with a passion” even mentioned that this mechanic is “very simple” in Baldur’s Gate 3 and only “necessary for at least one sub-questline.”

Meanwhile, one user commented that Hastening Grenades, Potions of Speed, Elixir of Bloodlust, Elixir of Viciousness, Battlemages Elixir (and the strength Elixirs) are “all insanely powerful” and “much more reliably available” if you get their ingredients required on merchants and get a halfling companion to brew them as a transmutation wizard.

Another user added: “All my bloodthirsty potions come from this. About halfway through the fight, Astarion and the Risky Ring just start mowing every bad guy down in one turn.”

If you’re the type of player who loves to loot everything and steal from merchants, then it’s likely you already have tons of potions in your inventory.

That said, in an Honor Mode run where there’s a lot of pressure if you get caught, knowing how to make your own potions can make things easier in the long run.