How To Make Honour Mode Harder In Baldur's Gate 3

Highlights

Honour Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 adds tougher challenges and permadeath, making the game more challenging and intense.
Players can increase the difficulty of Honour Mode by playing as a lone wolf, limiting rests, banning health potions, capping character levels, or playing without armor or spells.
Investing points in dump stats instead of recommended stats for their class can make the game even harder for players seeking a greater challenge.

Larian isn't quite done with adding new content to Baldur's Gate 3, with one of the more recent patches adding Honour Mode. For the uninitiated, Honour Mode is the most challenging way to experience the game, scaling up the bosses and making permadeath a possibility.

Open-World Games With Permadeath

Modern games use permadeath far less often as a feature, but there are a few open-world games that have used the concept in different ways.

With tougher challenges and only one save file to work around save scumming, players can fail a run and have to start again from the beginning. For veteran players still not phased, here are a few ways that can make Honour Mode even more punishing.

7 Lone Wolf

Leave Companions At The Camp For Tougher Fights

RPGs are games known for their ensemble cast, including a host of unique characters players can recruit to aid them in their endeavors. Players can build friendships, romances, or even rivalries with them, and they can aid during combat by dealing damage to foes or healing and buffing allies.

A lone wolf run would certainly tip the scales in the enemies' favor, as then there is only one target for them to attack, and only one source dealing out damage. Every move would have to be considered carefully and perfected, and players would even need to carefully pick their class at character creation to better their chances of survival. Lone wolf would be difficult enough on normal difficulty, but on Honour Mode, it could spell certain death.

6 Limit Short And Long Rests

Less Time At Camp Means Less Healing And Resource Replenishment

Taking a short rest is a great way to heal up the entire party without burning through precious spell slots, and eventually, players will need to return to camp to replenish their class resources and enjoy a full heal.

Baldur's Gate 3: Guide to Resting

Even the strongest Baldur's Gate 3 adventurers get tired eventually, and need to rest to recover their hit points, abilities, and spells.

But, for players who are finding Honour Mode too much of a breeze, they could make it a whole lot harder by denying themselves these vital respites or placing a limit on how many rests they will take on their run. This way, they spend more time in the campaign wounded and devoid of spell slots or limited class features, which can turn the tide of combat very easily. Only players confident in their survival skills with the most basic equipment should brave this challenge.

5 Ban Health Potions

Removing Another Source Of Healing Can Put Players In Jeopardy

Aside from taking short or long rests, health potions are the most major way to replenish precious health points which can sometimes mean being able to tank another hit and stave off death one more round. None can deny their usefulness, making them an integral part of survival.

As such, players denying themselves healing potions by refusing to loot them or selling any they take to a merchant would make this already challenging game mode all the harder, as they are removing one easy way to replenish their hit points. This means players will need to burn a spell slot to stay alive or endure further battles with reduced hit points.

4 Cap the Characters Level

Remain At A Certain Level For A Harder Run

Karlach origin in the Baldur's Gate 3 character creator

Leveling up grants players a bigger pool of hit dice, class features, more spells, and other such class-specific bonuses that make the player a more formidable foe in combat. It's a staple not only for Dungeons and Dragons, but the RPG genre as a whole, as bosses and combat are likely to scale in difficulty, so the player also needs some buffing to stand a chance.

Taking away precious level-ups will ensure players find Honour Mode that more challenging, as they will miss out on more hit points and damage bonuses, yet the encounters will continue to increase in difficulty. Players can either put a cap on how many level-ups they will take, or remain at level 1 for the entire run, if nothing else but to see how long they could survive.

3 Armorless Run

Wearing Clothes With No AC Bonus Could Make Survival Difficult

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Other than Barbarians who benefit from Unarmored Defense, every class character would equip themselves with armor to raise their AC (Armor Class) in order to make themselves harder to hit during combat and ensure their characters' longevity.

As such, if players choose to forego wearing any sort of armor, they will be adding another layer of difficulty for themselves, as they will have little defense against the inevitable attacks that combat will bring. Players will have to think more strategically during encounters if they hope to escape them with their lives.

2 No Spells

By Limiting Themselves To Cantrips Or No Spells At All, Players Might Struggle During Some Encounters

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Spells are just one of the many ways players can output damage or heal their allies, with many classes having access to spells. With them being so readily available and so useful in and outside of combat, players could make their Honour Mode all the more challenging by disallowing themselves to use the spells they have at their disposal.

A grid showing a Warlock and two cantrips in Baldur's Gate 3

Best Cantrips In Baldur's Gate 3

The best cantrips in Baldur's Gate 3 can be a powerful asset to those who seek magical abilities and extended power.

Instead, players could limit themselves to the use of cantrips only, or even go for a full no-magic run. This takes away a great deal of the player's ability to heal, deal damage, and buff allies to aid their rolls inside and out of combat.

1 Place Points Into Dump Stat

A Character Build Can Become Less Efficient By Investing In Their Dump Stat

Every class has at least one 'dump stat', which is a character stat that will not benefit their chosen class. For example, a Wizard has little need for strength, and a Barbarian won't benefit from high intelligence. Instead, players will focus on stats that make sense for their character in order to make them as efficient as possible.

But efficiency isn't a concern of those seeking an even bigger challenge than Honour Mode, and this can be achieved by investing points in the dump stat rather than the recommended ones for their class. Players should feel free to make those muscle Wizards and intelligent Barbarians, and in doing so they will find the campaign a much harder trial to endure.