Almost straight after finishing my Tactician Run in the early hours of January 9th 2026 I was back at it again that evening playing Honour Mode. I wanted those Golden Dice. No what I really wanted was the Foehammer achievement. Gold Dice were just a nice plus.
Run #1
I made a Sword Bard Tav called 'Honour' for Honour Mode fittingly enough. Everyone online seem to love the Sword Bard so I had to give it a go. Almost died at various points. I had no set idea of a party but the 'all-girl party' emerged with Honour, Karlach, Lae'zel and Shadowheart. Perfect. Nice to have a theme. Fighter Lae'zel, Barbarian Karlach, Full-Life Shadowheart for safety. What could go wrong.
I had a flight early on 12th January (my birthday) so stayed up all night naturally enough and cleared as far as Nere and was just before Grym I believe. King Glut and his spore Bulette made things a lot easier in the Underdark! Level 5 was such a game changer, the sheer amount of power from that alone. Throwzerker Karlach in particular was monstrous with the Returning Pike. I systematicaly cleared out the Forge of Duergar.
Lae'zel stayed BattleMaster and was a reliable hitter. Karlach was MVP with the insane Throwing, it's just so good. Shadowheart was OK as a Life Cleric but that was a bit much; this game rewards good offence and just killing stuff quickly so re-speccing her to Light Domain (once again) eventually paid dividends. One of the last things I did before taking a week break was the Grove fight: absolutely clowned the besiegers, we only lost one defender to a spider. Insane.
I went away to the States but came back on the 20th only to lose my Honour! I had killed Grym somewhat cheesily and had exhausted most of the Wilderness area so made my way to the Monastery. I cleared most of that so well, wiping every encounter there handily and then into the Creche. I acquired the Blood then initiated the fight with the boss there after going into the Astral Prism as usual.
Karlach and Lae'zel somewhat dispersed their efforts, with the latter failing to disarm the boss. I failed to blind him too and had few options to do so, so he spawned like 12 spiritual weapon/mind swords. Everything just gradually fell apart, Tav went down. Shadowheart had not been rested so had no spell slots, one of the bigger mistakes. I was also just shy of level 7, so was not as strong (no level 4 spells).
I blamed tiredness out of game and not resting ingame for my mistakes. Oh well. 27 hours gone. I was not super enthused by being a Bard in combat BUT the dialogue choices/options were unmatched. In these games it really pays to have your main character as a Charisma build and the Bard dialogue choices were amazing. It feels right. I usually went Paladin first (in Kingmaker and this!). I also really liked using Dual Hand Crossbows. Otherwise my party was fine, but maybe not 100% right.
Naturally I started a new save file immediately then went to bed not too disappointed.
Run #2
I made my original smug looking high elf Guardian from my first ever Balanced run as my main character named Tav for once Paladin (Paladin Vengeance 11/Warlock Hexblade 1), of course. I knew I'd have a Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric line-up. 3 frontline tanks and a Cleric to back that up.
Wasn't sure who I'd go with but Lae'zel (Fighter BM 12) is just great; Karlach (Berserker 8 Thief 4) too - I was trying to romance her for the achievement but she kept calling me soldier so it ain't happening. Gale was essential. I figured if all else failed, I could also detonate my own personal nuclear football at the end and win the run. Once again I made him the Cleric (Light 12).
Act 1
I had been following a guide someone posted indicating a 'safe route' for Honour mode, essentially almost all of the encounters in Act 1 in a nice order for levelling. I blitzed that in the space of about 15 hours to get back to Grym. I lost King Glut to the Bulette fight but cleared the Forge of Duergar to get to level 6.
I aggro'd the entire Duergar clan by accident despite trying to side with Brovithar again. I had blown up the rockfall and there was some residual fire I think which the NPCs ran into causing the aggro? Not sure. Had to flee with invisibility potions but survived, rested and sought revenge. Grove defence was even better than last time if possible. 2 fireballs and perfection, only 1 person lost to a spider again. Managed to knock out Minthara too.
I cleared the Monastery easily. Blinding the boss in creche was one thing but systematically wiping out the creche prior to going to him but after getting the ‘illithid bonus action’ thing was huge. I was Level 7 and had tons of money/loot. Literally no trouble anywhere. Prior to all this the Gith patrol attacked me because Lae was too far away from me; still killed them and got a neat sword for her! Then another one later in creche! Insane.
Act 2
Entered Shadowlands and re-specced as Paladin 5 and Warlock 2. Not too exciting. Nerfing strength is annoying for jumping, carrying etc. Talked two of the Thorns into killing themselves, gold and drink. The Doktor awaited. I had given my Tav the Actor feat I think to get bonus in conversation (to the tune of +10) and be 18 Charisma so just about worked with Inspiration; 'gold' was easy but 'drink' boss actually managed to get my guy drunk but not killed or anything. I was just short of level 8 after all that.
I dialogue killed the surgeon; cleared the Moonrise Tower systematically (was super easy actually, got lucky they didn't catch me) and reached level 9. I then cleared the major Shadow Blight encounter, Isobel battle, Shadowfell finale, gith ambush. Ketheric Thorm (first time) and then into the endgame of Act 2. Balthazar was super easy because he came out to me. Yurgir I killed by talking to him (tried last time on Tactician but this time the rats were actually dead).
ALMOST LOST THE RUN thanks to the stupid fucking Faith Leap Trial. I had Karlach in there by herself for some reason, made a small mistake (was doing so well with Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind and teleports) and then ALL THE PARTY was sucked in? They were outside the door. Terrifying. Then tried to fix and not panic and all 3 party members walked to their deaths? My hands were shaking so bad. Had to walk away for a bit. Had I died there I would have gone for a 2 hour walk in the rain at night. Karlach managed to get back to the door and lockpicked it and resurrected everyone courtesy of Withers. I just cheesed it with Knock on the main door to the Shadowfell courtesy of a Shadowheart re-specced as a Wizard. She elected to spare the Nightsong so all was well. Then she went back to camp.
I had spent way too much time thinking about the final battle of Act 2 bottleneck, so just decided to get it over with. I descended into the abbatoir and killed Chop and the Intellect Devourers. Then started the lab fight (my fave) and crashed the game for the first time this run by throwing too many Void Bulbs into my Wall of Fire. Oops! Simply reloaded and was before the Chop fight. Did that again and carefully did the lab fight, no crashes. I did everything but was maybe 1000-2000 exp short of level 10.
I descended to Myrkul to fight with 1 Earth elemental, Scratch, 6 Mud Mephits, a Winged Demon, a Zombie and a Skeleton Archer. Ended up not really needing any of these. Karlach started the fight by throwing at Mindflayer and wiped almost half his health and was he prone, dead shortly after. Scratch rescued Dame. Lae double scroll fireballed the 4 Mites. Gale double fireballed the brains I think. Lae disarmed Ketheric then Dame and Tav whaled him down. Second stage began and was he dead in two rounds, mostly from Karlach’s two rounds of throwing for maybe 10-15 a pop but was a team effort. Few smites by Tav etc. Was super easy honestly! Only the Earth Elemental sustained damage from the scythe. Posed for a picture again and back to the throne room.
Act 3
Act 3 is nice because you can get so much experience points from just wandering around. I was Level 10 fairly quickly after Myrkul and soon enough 11 and then 12. I didn't even consider Cazador or Raphael/House of Hope - too risky, plus am saving for my future "100% Custom" run. Anyway, Act 3:
Completely dominated everything, even Orin who I was afraid of and cast multiple elementals beforehand: Lae used Booming Arrows to knock all the cultists off the ledge and then we all ganked Orin in a round or two. Nothing fancy! Then onto Nether Brain and made Karlach the Flayer, which was cool, resolved her issues. I murdered Voss in the sewers earlier so Lae became the rebel leader eventually, also preventing her getting pissy/leaving before the finale. I was thinking I’d use Gale but ended up keeping it as an open option: he said he’d do it and I convinced him to hold off in case we fucked up. He made peace with Mystra after our quick raid of the book vault/killing Loroakan.
I went up the brainstem and… won! Handy enough! Ran around the sides and killed the flayers before they did much at all. Killed all the Flayers and the Shadow Team (Emperor's Telekinesis) easily, ignored the poor dominated Red Dragon. Everyone hid in the Globe of Invulnerability as Karlach did the spell. My brave summons kept the dragon busy.
Into the inner brain and Karlach threw the Runepowder Bomb at it and a bunch of Force Grenades and Arrows from her and Lae. It became immune to Force and Fire thusly so the next round was a weak Piercing/Radiant effort. Then the third and final round, more Force bombs and arrows and it died. Victory! Saw the after party for the first time, it was nice. And I never broke my Oath of Vengeance!
I had beaten Honour Mode without much cheese at all, and no need to blow up Gale (though he was fully willing to do it). I also got to see the ending party for the first time, seeing as before I had either blown up Gale, killed myself, dominated the brain/the world or killed everyone in the name of Bhaal.
I briefly started another Custom run to see if I had Golden Dice - no! But just turns out you need to select them from bottom left corner. Yes! So that's that. I have 2 achievements left, Hot Date with Karlach and earn gold via Bard but they can wait for my 100% Custom run in a few months. Need a break from Bg3 it's been a wild month or so of it. Hoping to set all sliders to extremely hard, traders want 4 times the gold etc, all the worst options except single save and -1 to proficiency rolls. Then clear it 100% like beating Cazador and Raphael etc.
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So yeah, that's it for BG3 for a while; best game I've played in a few years. Great characters and writing ofc. The music is really pleasant, the graphics are amazing and don't make me feel sick or anything. I was a bit bleh after binging it so much over Christmas but the break in the new year helped. There's still quite a bit of content I haven't seen so am looking forward to that. I think it's a shame they didn't want to do DLC, even some level 12-20 content for us munchkins would have been cool even if it was just dungeons and fights. Seems like a missed opportunity but sure!
Not sure what to do now but have college work to catch up on and must return to other stuff like Civ 4, I want to play that again.
