Baldur's Gate 3 boasts a wonderful cast of characters, from the player's potential companions to the wide variety of NPCs. However, some of them can be an absolute pain to keep alive. For the majority of fights in Baldur's Gate 3, players have one main concern: to keep the party in the fight. Fortunately, any party members who do happen to fall in the action can be revived through various means.

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Such luxuries don't exist for anyone outside the party, however, no matter how much a player adores them. And in some fights, the whole goal is to keep a specific character alive. Of course, in these moments, players can be sure the game will try its hardest to get those characters killed.

Updated January 22, 2024 by Nyah Payne: Baldur's Gate 3 took the gaming world by storm in 2023, quickly becoming a beloved game. It proved its status at The Game Awards, where it snagged several accolades, including the prestigious Game of the Year award.

But Larian hasn't stopped there, showing their commitment to its continued development. They brought the game to the Xbox Series X/S audience and introduced many new features. Players new and old are still drawn to the game's varied characters, some of whom continue to keep putting themselves in jeopardy.

11 Minthara

Players May Be Unaware She Can Live

• Act: 1
• Location: Shattered Sanctum
• Questlines: Save The Refugees, Decide Minthara's Fate

Minthara, everyone's favorite drow paladin, is one of the select companion characters to make the list of individuals who are hard to keep alive. While it's not hard to get her to the companion stage while keeping her alive, if players know what they're doing, it's a different matter altogether if players go in blind.

New players are pointed towards Minthara as a boss enemy and, as one of the more evil companions, may not even be aware that she can live, let alone join players on their quests. Once players know what they're doing, however, the only hard part is getting the stomach to kill the Druid Grove tieflings and the patience to wait until Act 2 for companion Minthara.

10 Young Varrl

His Life Must Be Saved In A Difficult Conversation

• Act: 2
• Location: Creche Y'llek
• Questlines: The Githyanki Warrior

Young Varrl is the only character on the list whose life must be saved in conversation as opposed to combat. In the Githyanki Creche, players can encounter a teacher and pupil engaged in combat training. The teacher is furious that Varrl has spared the life of his opponent and demands that the boy fights again, this time to the death.

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Players who want to intervene and save the boy need to succeed in a challenging Persuasion roll, so they'd best hope they have some Inspiration or plenty of Luck. It is worth saving Young Varrl as he can give players a lot more context on the mythical githyanki, Orpheus, although they can admittedly get the same results from talking to Varrl's body with "Speak With Dead."

9 Mayrina

Ethel's Antics Can Catch New Players Off Guard

• Act: 1
• Location: Riverside Teahouse
• Questlines: Save Mayrina

Mayrina is jeopardized by Auntie Ethel the hag on multiple occasions. The main struggle comes in the first act if players confront Ethel in her lair. Mayrina is held hostage in a cage suspended above an abyss. During combat, Ethel sets the cage ablaze.

Players have moments to save Mayrina before both cage and girl plunge into the darkness. The easiest way to save Mayrina here is to approach the encounter stealthily and lower her cage before initiating the fight.

8 Volo

Short Time Limit To Save Volo From Death In Act Three

• Act: 3
• Location: Grey Harbour Docks
• Questlines: N/A

Volo is no stranger to getting into trouble. Players must save him from a camp of goblins to gain his company. This proves as easy as getting him out of a cage, and he scarpers using an invisibility potion.

He must have run out of potions by Act 3. Players can find him surrounded by a mob, who have tied him to a cart full of explosives and light a trail headed towards him. Players initiate combat and have a small window of time to untie Volo and save him from the explosion. This can prove challenging, and it's quite easy for Volo to die here.

7 Jaheira

Likely To Die In Moonrise If Not Under Player Control

• Act: 2
• Location: The Last Light Inn
• Questlines: The High Harper, Defeat Ketheric Thorm

Before recruiting Jaheira as a companion character, it can be all too easy to lose her forever, and at multiple points. In a certain Last Light Inn incident that is mentioned later in this article, Jaheira fights alongside the party and can be killed quite easily. Later, during the assault on Moonrise Towers, players can get Jaheira to temporarily join their party and gain control of her.

Players wanting to keep her alive should definitely take this approach. If players go it alone and let Jaheira handle the assault with her Harpers, she is almost certain to die in the battle. Since she isn't an official party member at this point, players will be unable to revive her should she fall.

6 Valeria

Squishy NPC Caught In A Brutal Fight

• Act: 3
• Location: The Open Hand Temple
• Questlines: Solve The Open Hand Temple Murders

Valeria is the (slightly incompetent) hollyphant detective in Act 3, and she can be kidnapped by the followers of Bhaal for ritual purposes. To become an assassin to Bhaal, a player's final initiation would be to kill a celestial creature. Unfortunately for her, Valeria fits the criteria.

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Players who have taken a shine to her can attack the cultists instead and fight to save her, but players need to draw the fire as much as possible. Valeria won't be able to take too many hits, and the detective can meet her curtain call at the hands of the cultists even with the player's help.

5 Smythin (& Halsin)

Challenging Early Encounter Can Have Multiple Collateral Deaths

• Act: 1
• Location: Shattered Sanctum
• Questlines: Save The Refugees

Smythin is a poor unfortunate soul held in the goblin camp. Players will need to be quick to save Smythin, as he is almost immediately thrown into a spider pit by a pair of goblins. Characters with the Folk Hero background will gain inspiration for saving him, but that is about it, and it can take an awful amount of effort to succeed as fighting the goblins is likely to initiate a very large and challenging fight.

To make it even better, players might have temporarily recruited Halsin for this fight. While he is very helpful, it is all too easy for him to die (particularly to Dror Ragzlin) and he can't be revived as he isn't a companion character at this point. It is a tough situation with the potential for a lot of death.

4 Iron Throne Prisoners

Very Few Turns To Save Lots Of Hostages

• Act: 3
• Location: The Iron Throne
• Questlines: Retrieve Omeluum, The Grand Duke

Saving all of Gortash's prisoners from the underwater prison, The Iron Throne, can feel like an impossible task. Gortash warns players before they land at the Iron Throne that he will destroy the prison should they interfere.

Players who call his bluff are likely to become overwhelmed by the harsh time limit in which to rescue such a large amount of prisoners, potentially including characters known to players, such as Omeluum and Duke Ravenguard. It is doable, however, especially when making use of teleportation spells.

3 The Gondians

NPC Group Comically Hard To Keep Alive

• Act: 3
• Location: Steel Watch Foundry
• Questlines: Save The Gondians

Once the hostages in The Iron Throne have been saved, players may want to share the good news with their families in the Steel Watch Foundry. Unfortunately, keeping these Gondians alive is just as hard, if not harder, than saving the prisoners. Motivated by the rescue of their family, they will revolt immediately. Here, they are liable to get obliterated by the machines that they worked tirelessly on.

Even if they survive the actual combat, the opponents also can initiate an instant detonation on every factory worker's collar. Players must draw all the enemy fire while also succeeding on skill checks to prevent these detonations. It may be one of the most stress-inducing fights in the game, with characters even commenting on this. Saving some of the Gondians, let alone all of them, is an impressive feat.

2 Hope

Game's Hardest Boss Takes Pleasure In Killing Hope

• Act: 3
• Location: The House Of Hope
• Questlines: Save Hope

Hope is one of the few pleasant, if a little crazy, characters to be found in Raphael's House Of Hope. Rescuing her from the devil's lair is its own quest. Players need the Orphic Hammer to break her bonds, but that's not the end of the world. Anyone in the House Of Hope in the first place is likely to be there for the Hammer.

What can prove challenging is keeping Hope alive during the confrontation with Raphael at the end of the House Of Hope. To make things worse, Raphael will even gloat to the player when killing Hope that they are truly without hope now. It is best to draw fire away from Hope to keep her alive. Players should also focus the four pillars during the battle to deprive Raphael of his strongest moves.

1 Isobel

Vital NPC, Infamously Challenging To Save

• Act: 2
• Location: The Last Light Inn
• Questlines: Resolve The Abduction

While some characters may be harder to save than Isobel, she deserves the number one spot. It is infamously challenging to keep her standing in a pivotal conflict, there are drastic consequences if players lose her.

Isobel is a cleric at The Last Light Inn in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and keeps it protected from the curse. When Marcus reveals himself to be a turncoat intent on delivering Isobel to Ketheric Thorm, players must fight to keep her safe. Losing Isobel causes everyone in the inn, except for Jaheira and the party, to be consumed by the curse. It was initially so hard to stop Isobel from being kidnapped that an early patch for the game increased her health, but it remains a challenge.

Baldur's Gate 3

Released

August 3, 2023

Developer(s)

Larian Studios

Genre(s)

RPG

Platform(s)

PC , macOS , PS5 , Xbox Series X