Baldur’s Gate 3 Difficulty Guide: Explorer, Balanced, Tactician, Honour and Custom

That means the useful question is not simply ‘how hard is this mode?’ It is ‘which kinds of friction do I want — tougher enemies, stricter saves, higher camp cost, hidden information, Honour boss mechanics, single-save pressure, or some combination?’

Explorer, Balanced and Tactician are the standard preset difficulty ladder.

Explorer reduces enemy maximum HP by 30% relative to Balanced, doubles party-member HP, gives a merchant purchase discount and adds +2 to proficiency bonuses for characters. Multiclassing is disabled while the campaign is on Explorer. The Iron Throne timer is also more generous than higher presets.

Explorer is ideal when you want story and exploration with forgiving combat. It is not a shame mode; it changes enough mathematics that a build guide written for Tactician may feel very different there.

Balanced is the reference point the other modes are compared against. It keeps standard camp cost, standard enemy loadouts/aggression and normal multiclass access. For a first playthrough where you want combat to matter without requiring encounter research, it remains the safest default recommendation.

Tactician is not just ‘more HP.’ Most enemies receive roughly 20–30% more maximum HP, many bosses gain larger boosts, enemy AI is more aggressive, enemy loadouts and encounter mechanics can become more dangerous, and enemies receive a +2 Tactician bonus to attack rolls and save DC in relevant calculations.

Camp Supplies cost 80 per Full Rest instead of 40, trader pricing is harsher, and the Iron Throne timer is tighter. A build with weak initiative, poor concentration protection or no recovery plan gets punished much more clearly.

Balanced and Tactician use the standard ruleset but differ substantially in combat tuning.

Honour is the mode for runs where consequences and encounter knowledge are part of the challenge. It uses a single-save structure and adds Legendary Actions or other boss-specific changes to many fights. It also tightens action-economy and damage interactions: for example, Pact of the Blade's extra attack does not stack with normal Extra Attack in Honour, and Haste-style extra actions do not reproduce all non-Honour attack chains.

If the party wipes, the run can continue in Custom Mode, but that campaign no longer counts as a completed Honour run for the reward.

Honour Mode is a distinct ruleset plus single-save pressure, not merely “Tactician+”.

The most important Honour habit is Examine. Legendary Actions often punish exactly the routine that worked in Balanced/Tactician: repeated spell casts, multi-hit sequences, hitting a marked target or ignoring a spawned mechanic. Read the boss before the first committed action.

Initiative, escape routes, control reliability and consumables become more valuable because you cannot simply reload every bad experiment.

Honour encounters reward scouting, initiative and reading boss-specific mechanics.

Custom can separately tune enemy aggression, character power, enemy loadouts, additional combat mechanics, proficiency bonus, enemy critical hits, death saving throws, free first strikes, camp cost, short-rest healing, trader prices, multiclassing, reaction prompts and how much information the UI reveals.

Most importantly, current Custom Mode can use the Honour Ruleset without forcing the full Honour reward structure. Ruleset and Single Save are among the settings that cannot be freely changed after the campaign starts, while many other Custom options remain adjustable.

Custom Mode exposes many of the systems hidden behind the preset difficulties.

Selecting Honour Ruleset in Custom is excellent for learning Legendary Actions and the stricter mechanical rules while keeping other Custom freedoms. It does not turn the run into an official Honour campaign for the Foehammer/Golden D20 completion reward.

This is the best training environment for a player who understands Tactician but does not want a 40-hour practice run destroyed by a single experiment.

Explorer, Balanced and Tactician can generally be changed during a campaign. Honour cannot be toggled on after the campaign starts. Entering Custom is effectively a move into Custom rather than a temporary slider; some Custom settings, especially the underlying Ruleset and Single Save choice, are locked once the run begins.

If an achievement or Honour reward is the goal, do not casually change settings mid-campaign. Plan the run around the requirement.

• Choose Explorer if combat friction is actively getting in the way of the story you want to see.

• Choose Balanced for the cleanest first-run recommendation.

• Choose Tactician if you already understand actions, concentration, builds and consumables and want fights to demand them.

• Choose Honour only when living with mistakes is part of the appeal, not because a tier list says “real players” do it.

• Choose Custom when one specific system bothers you — trader prices, camp supplies, hidden rolls, single save — but you like the rest of a harder ruleset.

Completing the game in Honour Mode awards the Foehammer achievement and the Shining Honour golden D20 skin. The reward is tied to a real Honour completion; continuing a wiped run in Custom lets you finish the story but forfeits that Honour-completion status.

The Shining Honour golden d20 is the signature in-game reward for an Honour completion.

• What difficulty is best for a first run? Balanced for most players; Explorer if combat is blocking enjoyment.

• Does Explorer allow multiclassing? No, Multiclassing is disabled on Explorer; Custom can enable it.

• Does Tactician only add HP? No. It also changes AI/aggression, enemy loadouts/mechanics, economy and other bonuses.

• Can Custom use Honour boss mechanics? Yes, current Custom Mode can select the Honour Ruleset.

• Can I earn the golden dice in Custom Honour Ruleset? No. The reward requires an actual Honour Mode completion.