Losing progress is never fun so you may be like many players wondering what happens if you die in Baldur’s Gate 3. Depending on the game you’re playing, death penalties can be anything from losing experience to a complete restart if you’re playing a roguelike.
Fortunately, the developers at Larian Studios haven’t made dying in Baldur’s Gate 3 too punishing. But for those of you still worried, I’ve put together a guide on almost every possible scenario. Like what happens if you get shoved off a cliff and your body is gone?
What Happens if You Die in Baldur’s Gate 3
When Your Main Character Dies
Dying in battle or while wandering the world will rarely be the end of your run.
The most common worry I’ve seen in the community is what happens if your main character dies. In most cases, such as using a custom character, this won’t be the end of the game. This is because of how Baldur’s Gate 3 handles dying and reviving.
Typically when your character or a companion drops to zero health, they’ll first receive the Downed condition. This makes it so they can no longer use their turn during a battle. And while that can be irritating, they’re not quite out of the fight yet.
Death Saving Rolls of 11 or higher count as a success while 10 or below count as a fail.
Upon receiving the Downed condition, your character will begin rolling Death Saving Throws. As the description in-game states, upon three successes, you’ll become Stable. At which point you won’t die unless you take damage. Whereas if you fail three times before becoming Stable, you’ll die.
Also, taking damage before becoming Stable will add a failed Death Saving Throw per hit. And if you’re unlucky enough to have an enemy get a critical hit on you, this will fill all three fails. Fortunately, this still isn’t a case of your character or companion being permanently dead. But, before we dive into resurrecting, let’s quickly explain helping a Downed character.
Helping a Downed Character Before They Die
Sometimes it’s easier to use a Help action instead of spending a Spell Slot to heal.
Instead of hoping for successful Death Saving Throws, there are a few ways to help them. First, the most common method players will know is using the Help action to pick characters up. This removes the Downed condition and gives them 1 hit point. You can do this as long as the character isn’t dead yet.
Second, any source of healing will remove the Downed condition. This is my preferred strategy since you can use healing spells or throw a health potion at them. Some players may not realize that a spell that grants temporary health works too.
Using a Scroll of Revivify to resurrect a downed party member will also let you choose where they get up.
Now if you can’t help a Downed character in time, they’ll receive the Dead condition. At which point, you’ll need to revive them using one of three different methods:
- Use a Scroll of Revivify
- Cast the Revivify spell (Shadowheart can get it at level 5)
- Pay a certain NPC at camp 200 gold if you’ve found them or made enough progress in the story.
What If A Character is Knocked Off a Cliff
Shoving enemies into chasms can be fun but what about when it happens to you?
One of the scarier situations is when a character in your party gets knocked off a cliff or into a chasm where they’re unreachable. While you may think this could be game over, it’s just another situation that requires a revive. Unfortunately, you won’t get a chance to heal them from a Downed condition if they’re knocked off the map.
When this happens, a blue orb called a Soul Echo will appear near the ledge they fell off. You can then revive the character using any of the three methods I mentioned in the previous section. Therefore, this is pretty much the same as any other death aside from instantly killing you.
What Happens When Your Whole Party Dies
This is the last screen you want to see.
Now that you know how the Downed condition and reviving works, let’s discuss the worst possible scenario. If you no longer have any characters alive or that don’t have the Downed condition, you’ll receive a game over screen. This is because there isn’t anyone left to revive the others.
Upon hitting a game over screen, you’ll have the option to return to the main menu or load a different save. This is part of why we recommend saving frequently in our 10 Best Baldur’s Gate 3 Tips and Tricks guide. Especially since auto saves may not happen as often as you’d like.
Scrolls of Revivify are great when you urgently need them and are usually close to the 200 gold revive you can pay for anyway.
Otherwise, that’s pretty much all there is to know about what happens if you die in Baldur’s Gate 3. Chances are you’ll find the occasional Scroll of Revivify and if not, still have enough money for the 200 gold revive. If you don’t have the means to revive someone, you can still talk to the revive NPC and have the character wait at camp temporarily.
The nice thing about dying in Baldur’s Gate 3 is you don’t have any annoying death penalties. Like durability loss since your armor and weapons clearly don’t have durability to lose. And you won’t lose gold on death either. Especially since you can still loot downed or dead party members.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.