Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 has thankfully introduced an even more generous way to RPG your way into Dungeons and Dragons’ most famous city. That would be none other than Baldur’s Gate 3 Custom Mode courtesy of Larian Studios. It’s a new game difficulty that lets you select which aspects of the four other difficulties to activate in your playthrough.
Do be warned that Baldur’s Gate 3 Custom Mode is only available on a New Game and you can’t change to it in the middle of an existing save unlike with other difficulties. With that in mind, we want to give you some recommendations to make your playthrough more accommodating.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Custom Mode Settings Recommendation
While the developers designed Custom Mode to make the game easier, some settings in it are also going to make the game much harder or downright frustrating.
If you want a more informed decision, here’s an explanation for each setting in Custom Mode. We also included our recommendations for each one.
- Single Save (Off) – Single save slot means save scumming is limited. It’s the act of going back on the most recent Quick Save or Autosave if a dice roll fails miserably or if you suffer defeat. Normally, we’d say this one is up to you, but just turn it off and if you don’t want to save scum, just resist the urge.
- Enemy Aggression (Balanced) – Dungeons and Dragons and CRPGs, in general, are fun when everyone is making mistakes. If you want the enemy to make roughly the same tactical mistakes as you do, Balanced might be the better deal.
- Character Power (Balanced) – Balanced will keep your party’s level the same as the enemies. It might get too boring if your party members are too powerful unless that’s what you want.
- Enemy Loadouts (Tactician) – If you want to see some rather resourceful uses of spells from enemies, Tactician might be worth a try. You might also learn a thing or two from them.
- Additional Combat Mechanics (Balanced/Tactician) – Pick Balanced if you’re relatively new to the game or if you’ve only finished it once. Pick Tactician if you’ve had numerous playthroughs and are looking for surprises.
- Proficiency Bonus (0) – Too messy to toy around with this, you might accidentally nerf some multiclass builds.
- Enemy Critical Hits (On) – What goes around comes around.
- No Death Saving Throws (Off) – Off for a faithful Dungeons and Dragons experience. Otherwise, it’s up to you.
- Disable Free First Strikes (On) – Ambushes make the game way too powerful and too easy to cheese for players. You might want to enable this one.
- Camp Cost Multiplier (1) – You don’t want to grind for food, do you?
- Short Rest Full Heal (Off) – Practically nullifies the importance of Long Rests and planning, so disable it.
- Trader Price Modifier (1) – Fairer prices for you.
- Multiclassing (On) – It’s for the best variety.
- Always Prompt Reactions (Off) – You can customize this later on if you want to micromanage your reactions.
- Hide NPC Health (On) – Surprising, we recommend this to On for more immersion and to reduce your murder-hobo tendencies.
- Hide Failed Perception Rolls (On) – What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Besides, a Failed Perception Check might ruin immersion.
- Hide Passive Rolls in Dialogue (On) – Similar to the setting above, it adds more immersion and replayability.
- Preview Dialogue Check Difficulty Before Rolling (On) – More informed choices for you.
- Hide Difficulty Class During Rolls (Off) – Knowing helps you build your character better.
You can change some of these settings mid-game, by the way, so you don’t have to limit yourself too much. Still, choose wisely since Single Save and Multiclassing are locked for the whole playthrough.
