How to change difficulty in Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a turn-based RPG in the very traditional sense. Players who relish difficult campaigns full of complicated decisions will be right at home. The game can be surprisingly demanding at odd moments, however, and this can lead to frustrating moments if you settled on the wrong difficulty level at the onset of your campaign. Here is our guide explaining how to change difficulty in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Related: All Points of No Return in Baldur’s Gate 3 by AOTF 

Baldur’s Gate 3 – how to change difficulty

Familiarity with the RPG genre in general can breed misplaced confidence when it comes to Baldur’s Gate 3. I learned that lesson the hard way. Shortly into the campaign, I realized that dice rolls were almost never going my way, and that enemies had a much better grasp of the systems at play than I did. Fortunately, rectifying my early overconfidence proved quite simple. To change the difficulty level, simply pause the game, choose the ‘Difficulty’ setting, and choose from one of the available options.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

When you pause the game, ‘Difficulty’ is the next option after ‘Load Game.’ When you select it, you can then choose from three available settings: Explorer, Balanced, and Tactician.

For a detailed explanation of the differences between the available three settings, see our guide outlining Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulty settings. The short version is that Explorer offers easier combat and better trader prices, as well as a higher proficiency bonus. In my experience, dice rolls also tend to go much better. I rolled significantly fewer twos and threes, even before factoring in bonuses.

On the Balanced setting, which some games might call ‘Normal,’ combat becomes highly tactical. Expect to have to think about every move. Mistakes are punished aggressively, but you can still recover. Then there is the Tactician setting, which leaves little room for error and requires you to make better decisions about the skills your characters learn and the equipment they wear, just to survive.

You can change difficulty nearly whenever you like, to immediate effect. Some of the most fun you can have in Baldur’s Gate 3 is from the decisions you make outside battle. I recommend playing around with the setting until you find the one that feels like a match for your preferences.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on Steam.