Summary
- Patch 5 for Baldur’s Gate 3 introduces Honour Mode and Custom Mode, two new difficulty settings.
- In part, Honour Mode changes boss behavior, adding the Legendary Action system from tabletop Dungeons & Dragons.
- Patch 5 also includes a new epilogue, improved inventory management, performance improvements, and various tweaks to enhance gameplay and address issues in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 delivers another batch of changes to the hit RPG, further expanding and improving an experience that has only continued to grow since its official release in August. As with the other major patches for the game, Patch 5 is a mix of everything from minor bug fixes to major additions, with the latter category receiving an arguably bigger boost now than ever before. It also takes up a whopping 30 GB of space, so it might be necessary to clear out some files before taking advantage of everything new.
Patch 5 follows less than a month after Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 4, which made key quality of life improvements, like the addition of color-blind settings, along with quashing plenty of random issues, especially in the game’s troublesome Act Three. For anyone underwhelmed by the lack of major overhauls in Patch 4, the newest additions are likely to please. As usual, it’s always possible that some urgent issues have slipped through the cracks or will only arise after the new patch has gone live. Any such problems should be addressed through hotfixes, which take care of problems too pressing to wait for implementation in a full patch.
New Modes In Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5
Honour Mode & Custom Mode Difficulties
Developer Larian Studios is adding not one, but two new game modes in Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5, with details now available in the full patch notes available on the Baldur’s Gate 3 website. The addition of Honour Mode and Custom Mode expands the options for how the game is played in fundamental ways. Honour Mode is a feature that might be familiar to fans of Larian’s Divinity: Original Sin games, which first instated this especially difficult setting. Honour Mode ups the general difficulty, makes it impossible to save scum, and adds a proper total party kill, ending the run upon the death of everyone in the party.
Baldur’s Gate 3‘s implementation of Honour Mode features a little added grace in the option to continue off a TPK by switching to the standard game mode. The unique death screen provides gameplay statistics, logging how much progress was made before things fell apart. Honour Mode also disables some exploits that remain available in other modes, eliminating the possibility of relying on certain cheese strategies. For anyone who does manage to actually complete the Honour Mode ironman run, a golden D20 makes for an appealing in-game reward.
For anyone who wants a unique experience focused less on punishment, Custom Mode makes it possible to tweak settings to play Baldur’s Gate 3 according to personal preferences. Some of these bring the game closer to the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons experience, like hiding the threshold to succeed on a dice check and removing the HP of foes in combat. Hiding failed perception checks sticks closer to the letter of the law in DnD, although it does stray from the experience of hearing a dungeon master make an ominous roll. Other changes depart further from the source material, including disabling death-saving throws and fully healing the party with short rests.
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Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 Boss Changes
Honour Mode Changes BG3 Bosses
Honour Mode comes with one more big bonus in the form of adjustments to bosses throughout the game, opening up the possibility of rewarding new fight experiences even for players who have already cleared a campaign. The Legendary Action system is imported from tabletop DnD, giving bosses new out-of-turn actions and possibilities to keep a party on their toes. This change makes it easier for a challenging boss to hold their own in a turn order that punishes singular combatants, necessitating the use of especially strategic gameplay and incentivizing shutdown spells and abilities to mitigate the damage that a boss can do.
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In total, Honour Mode introduces over 30 tweaks to boss encounters throughout the game. Although Baldur’s Gate 3 already had its share of challenging and interesting bosses, some fights could feel underwhelming compared to others. Auntie Ethel and Raphael hardly need much of a boost at this point, but Honour Mode could help address disappointments regarding other challengers who feel slightly beyond the curve of a party that’s well-optimized for success. Upping the difficulty through new actions and more is a significantly more interesting approach than just boosting HP or damage output, focusing on legitimate difficulty rather than bullet sponging.
Epilogue & Differences In Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5
New Epilogue, Improved Performance, & More
The other huge addition in Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 is the inclusion of a new epilogue that takes place six months after the events of the game but before the credits roll. The epilogue returns the party to camp and allows for the final goodbyes that can really drive the emotion of a campaign home, introducing a level of closure that could feel a bit lacking in the original release of the game. This scene is built on decisions made throughout the entire adventure, so an impressive 3,589 lines have been added to properly handle all the major possibilities.
Among the miscellaneous changes in Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5, one major standout is an inventory overhaul that makes it possible to manage the inventory of characters who aren’t currently in the party from the same UI. Larian Studios originally attempted to address this issue by automatically moving key items to the protagonist’s inventory in Patch 3, but rolled back the change due to its frustrating tendency to overburden the target. Patch 5 also promises various performance improvements, both through addressing a recent issue with the game’s tracking of crimes affecting performance and through breakthroughs made while working on the Xbox version of the game.
Beyond these core changes, the new update for Baldur’s Gate 3 features the typical long list of tweaks that characterizes all the major patches from the game, addressing concerns from game balance to story flow and far beyond. Although many fixes are too specific to appear in every playthrough, it’s generally easy to count on any campaign running into at least some improvements. Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten even better once more with Patch 5, entering the holiday season in its most impressive form yet.
Source: Baldur’s Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3
- Franchise:
- Baldur’s Gate
- Platform(s):
- macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5
- Released:
- 2023-08-31
- Developer(s):
- Larian Studios
- Publisher(s):
- Larian Studios
- Genre(s):
- RPG
- Multiplayer:
- Larian Studios
- ESRB:
- M
- Summary:
- Baldur’s Gate 3 is a long-anticipated sequel to Baldur’s Gate 2, released in 2000 from BioWare and now being handled by Larian Studios. Set 120 years after the events of Shadows of Amn, Baldur’s Gate 3 puts players in the role of a customizable protagonist who has been captured and infected with a parasite that will turn them into a mind flayer. Before the process is complete, the ship they are on crashes, leaving them on a quest to cure themselves as they meet up with other survivors. Gameplay is turn-based and can be played co-operatively online or tackled alone in a single-player campaign with NPC allies.
- How Long To Beat:
- 50 – 100 hours
- Prequel:
- Baldur’s Gate 2
