Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 3 notes

Baldur's Gate 3 has gotten its latest round of patch notes.

Larian Studios
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Baldur’s Gate 3 has already received two massive patches since its August 2023 release, and developer Larian Studios has dropped a third. Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 is out now and once again fixes a slew of bugs and adds quality-of-life features.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 notes

Minthara in Baldur's Gate 3.

Source: Larian Studios

Larian Studios shared the notes for Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 on the game’s Steam page.

Mac Support

  • With Patch 3, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now fully supported on Mac!
    • As with the PC release in August, saves made in previous versions of BG3 on Mac will not be compatible with the full release. To prepare your Mac for the full version of Baldur’s Gate 3 and minimise potential compatibility issues, we recommend you fully uninstall the game and remove any mods before installing the latest version.
    • The minimum and recommended specs for Mac users have also been updated: we recommend an M1 Pro processor and FSR enabled to run the game at high or ultra settings on a Retina display. Check the Steam store page for more details.
    • Mac players, thank you for your patience – now, gather your party and venture forth.

Magic Mirror

Tucked away in your camp, exuding a certain ‘we found this at a vintage fair and it’s too fancy for our current home’ energy, is an item called the Magic Mirror. Tales have been told of its legendary ability to permanently alter the appearance of one who gazes into it.

The Magic Mirror allows you to change up your appearance whenever you’d like, however many times you’d like. There are some restrictions: your appearance, voice, pronouns and nether regions can be changed, but your race/subrace and body type cannot. Origin characters, hirelings and full illithids cannot use the Magic Mirror. Cosmetic modifications that are a consequence of your gameplay choices will persist – hag got your eye? Swallow any interesting tadpoles lately? There’s no Magic Mirroring those big life decisions away.

  • Personally, we’ll be applying incrementally heavier eyeliner whenever we have a Dark Urge moment in our playthrough to really emphasise our descent.
  • Ooh, the mysteries of the void – time to change that ill-advised hair colour.
  • Once again, our patch notes have been defeated by the Steam character limit. Read the full notes here, but beware of spoilers! Check out some of the notes for Patch 3 below. We’re still working on further updates with additional features and epilogue scenes, and your continued feedback is helping to shape and impact the future of Baldur’s Gate 3.
  • Until next time, thank you for playing!

Combat

  • Cazador now cannot turn into or remain in his Mist Form if in magical sunlight, such as that created by the Daylight spell.
  • Fixed Ansur's Stormheart Nova blasting right through the ice shields you can hide behind.
  • Grym suddenly got eerily smart and was avoiding the Crucible in the Adamantine Forge. With a nervous laugh, we dumbed him back down a little.
  • Fixed Level 4 or higher Divine Smite allowing you to add Divine Smite as a reaction, allowing for two Divine Smites in 1 attack.
  • Fixed the Divine Smite damage increasing over the cap of 5d8.
  • Made several improvements to the Poltergeist enemy: they are now revealed on being attacked or hit with Radiant Spirit Guardians; they will not turn Invisible again if they are still in a character's See Invisibility aura; in Balanced and Explorer
  • Mode, they have disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws when Invisible; the range of their attacks has been reduced; and they won't try to keep distance from the player in combat so that they are easier to find.
  • Fixed the Sneak Attack damage bonus not increasing to 6d6 at Level 11.
  • Fixed a case where multiple Smokepowder Arrows could be used for free while the Extra Attack feature was active.

PS5

  • The colours on the PS5 controller will now match elemental damage types more closely.

Performance

  • Improved performance in the Lower City. More to come!

Art

  • Made dye colours more intense and more visible on some armours. This will only affect newly dyed items.
  • Dragonborn characters can now select any of the barbarian piercings.
  • Fixed Shadowheart going blonde when equipping a hat.
  • Improved the reflection in the Spectator's eye in the Underdark.
  • Fixed face tattoos disappearing when zooming out.

Flow and Scripting

  • Fixed a bug where companions temporarily leaving the party (e.g. being sent to prison) would forget their partnership history and act unusually cold towards you.
  • Fixed a bug letting you trade with Cazador while he begs for mercy.
  • Improved the Astarion romance flow if you agreed to spend a night with him before going to camp by disabling some less important camp moments.
  • Fixed some dialogue options only showing up once when talking to Withers.
  • Fixed a blocker where if you knock Orin's Slayer form into the chasm, you can't get her Netherstone.
  • Fixed an issue causing Dammon to enter combat and die at Last Light, preventing Karlach's story from progressing.
  • Added a journal step for when the tieflings leave the Emerald Grove. The Forging of the Heart quest will also close if Dammon is no longer available in the region.
  • Fixed the game thinking you're dating Gale instead of Karlach in one of the dialogues with Karlach.
  • You now need higher approval for Shadowheart to confess her Shar worship to you.
  • Myshka the cat will now follow you around if told to, even if you don't have Speak with Animals.
  • Halsin, Jaheira, and Minthara will no longer be able to undergo Volo's icepick lobotomy. It's just not their kind of pastime.
  • Fixed not being able to cut Vanra out of the hag by interacting with her Knocked Out body if all of her mushrooms are destroyed.
  • Lae'zel will no longer tag along (whether dead or alive) after you slit her throat when she ambushes you at night.
  • Fixed a bug allowing you to yoink the Orphic Hammer right out of the so-called Impervious Sphere in the House of Hope if someone else in your party is in an interactive dialogue with the sphere.
  • Fixed a flow issue in Shadowheart's endgame romance dialogue to make sure Karlach appears alone in Avernus if Shadowheart says she'll meet her there at a later point in time.
  • Fixed Karlach's journal mistakenly saying you arrived in the Shadow-Cursed Lands when you arrive at the Rosymorn Monastery Trail.
  • Wyll should now acknowledge Karlach approaching him for the first time more consistently.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Shadowheart swimming scene to not play for some players.
  • The Narrator no longer thinks you're a mind flayer when you're not.
  • Fixed companions talking about killing Gortash after meeting Orin even if the former is already dead.
  • Fixed issues with Astarion discussing topics that are no longer relevant.
  • Reworked the interaction between Nere and Minthara:
  • The 'Travel to Moonrise Towers' quest no longer sends you to Minthara after saving Nere - he has a lyre of his own now. He gifts it to you if you saved him from the cave-in. This lyre can now be used to call for the drider through the Shadow-
  • Cursed Lands, like Minthara's lyre does. Both lyres have new descriptions.
  • Nere no longer mentions Minthara in his Speak with Dead.
  • You can ask Minthara for a safe passage to Moonrise if you'd heard about it. She will ask to raid the Emerald Grove first. If this happens, Nere can be asked about Minthara and then Minthara can be asked about Nere.
  • The journals for 'Travel to Moonrise Towers' and 'Follow the Convoy' were updated accordingly.
  • Saving Nere no longer creates a danger zone if the duergar was killed before clearing the cave-in.
  • During your date with Karlach, Tender Henk will no longer walk away to reveal another Tender Henk standing behind him. Staring.

Gameplay

  • The following spells will now correctly break the Sanctuary condition: Call Lightning, Evard's Black Tentacles, Polymorph, Hunger of Hadar, Fear, Ice Storm, Flesh to Stone, Divine Intervention, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Stinking Cloud, Banishment, Glyph of Warding.
  • Level Up will now queue all characters who can be levelled up so you don't have to click on them individually.
  • Fixed some corpses never showing the '(empty)' tag after you loot them.
  • Fixed not being able to use some reactions while in disguise.
  • Cazador's staff, Woe, now correctly unlocks the Blight spell when equipped.
  • Fixed several magic items and Volo's Ersatz Eye losing their power after you are killed and revived.
  • Fixed the Spell Sniper feat not working on attack spells.
  • The Spell Sniper feat will now correctly reduce the Critical Hit threshold by 1.
  • Fixed the Idol of Silvanus buff disappearing after Long Rest.
  • NPCs will no longer run away from anything but the Dark Urge Slayer form to improve interactivity and flow.
  • Mummies raised through Create Undead can now Jump to follow you around better.
  • The Everburn Blade now correctly sets explosive surfaces and explosive objects alight when hit.
  • The Misty Escape feat will no longer break concentration.
  • Reading shop signs will no longer be considered a crime.
  • The Cutting Words reaction is now set to Ask by default.
  • Summoned zombies and skeletons will no longer be able to pick up loot and disappear with it when dismissed.
  • The Azer summon's Overheat ability is now available on its hotbar when summoned.
  • The Nimblefinger Gloves now correctly apply their Dexterity bonus to gnomes, halflings, and dwarves.
  • Fixed an Animate Dead exploit allowing you to summon 2 skeletons from the same corpse.
  • Optimised how the game handles object selection on controller.
  • Fixed Sovereign Spaw being able to resurrect hirelings with Animating Spores. We taught him to not use this on player characters anymore.

UI

  • Your selected trade mode (trade or barter) is now saved to your player profile.
  • Added an option to the Default Online Settings to let you automatically listen in when another party member enters a dialogue in multiplayer.
  • Clarified whether something is a Resistance, a Vulnerability, or an Immunity in the Examine window.
  • Added a notification for when another player in your party is trading.
  • Fixed spells being interrupted by climbing, allowing you to attack twice after climbing down from a crate.
  • Updated the Character Sheet on controller to place active Conditions above the list of Notable Features.

Level Design

  • Fixed some small holes in Act I that weren't letting tiny characters through them.

Writing

  • Added a dialogue option to the first in-person dialogue with the Dream Visitor to avoid only having two antagonistic choices.
  • Rewrote some spell and action descriptions that were too vague.

Audio

  • Fixed Raphael's boss fight music sometimes being incomplete or missing.
  • Fixed some VO not playing in dialogues on PS5 split-screen.
  • Fixed audio cutting out with 3D Audio enabled on PS5.
  • Optimised audio in merged split-screen cinematics.

Cinematics

  • Improved contact when petting Ketheric's good girl, Squire.
  • Added some lovely blood spurts when Volo carries out his expert operation.
  • Fixed Wyll's horns clipping into Karlach's face during an Act II romance scene.
  • Fixed missing music on the Wyll path of Karlach's endgame scene in Avernus.
  • Placed a nice purple picnic blanket in a romantic scene with Gale and fixed a camera spin if you choose to prefer to spend your time with him on a bed.
  • Fixed Shadowheart looking like she's either in pain or about to sneeze in the background of a dialogue with Thulla.
  • Added some missing Boo squeaks.
  • Reworked the intro of the scene when you approach the altar at the Temple of Bhaal and fixed some bugs.
  • Updated cameras, facial expressions and head directions to better suit the tone in dialogue with Shadowheart.
  • Fixed some pops and camera issues when you start dating Lae'zel, including Lae'zel's body flying elsewhere and then back again mid-dialogue.
  • Boo will now be framed in the shot as intended when you talk to Jaheira after recruiting Minsc.
  • Fixed Scratch floating in the air while you pet him by the posthouse in Rivington.

That’s everything in the Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 notes. For all your Baldur’s Gate 3 news, Shacknews has you covered.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 22, 2023 8:47 AM

    Donovan Erskine posted a new article, Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 3 notes

    • reply
      September 22, 2023 7:40 AM

      bg3 patch 3 is out, is it safe to buy this game yet? does patch 3 fix people's act 3 complaints?

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 7:49 AM

        it was safe to buy on Oct 6, 2020.
        no patch notes yet

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 7:57 AM

          anything here people are really happy to see?

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 8:46 AM

            Lol, dude, this game is widely recognized as one of the best games ever and your threads make it sound like there's a lot of issues.

            Like, the game was incredible yesterday, and is only getting better.

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 9:38 AM

            It's all icing on the cake at this point. And oh is the cake so delicious

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 9:59 AM

            mac support actually, not sure how well it will run on my M1 Pro but gonna find out.

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 10:41 AM

            Main thing that stands out besides all of the polish is the performance updates.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 7:58 AM

          What the fuck… I was scrolling down for awhile there

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 8:24 AM

          the sheer girth of that log wow.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 8:49 AM

          Is Larian setting unreal expections for patch notes?? AAA game studios shouldn't be expected to fix bugs at this pace and magnitude.

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 9:30 AM

            Why aren’t we asking the question, why are there this many bugs in this AAA game that went through so many years of testing?

            • reply
              September 22, 2023 9:35 AM

              Because of combinatorial state explosion in a game of this type. Most AAA games are "on rails" when it comes to state complexity. Only Act 1 was in EA.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 9:13 AM

          Disappointed there’s nothing about inventory//party management, but it stayed shitty in DOS/DOS2 so it’s probably a pipe dream anyway.

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 9:40 AM

            Aside from not accessing inventory from non party members I'd say it's pretty fantastic. All of the sorting, searching, and windows style selection options are excellent and not found in many other rpgs

            • reply
              September 22, 2023 9:40 AM

              Easy workaround is just pickpocket them in camp

            • reply
              September 22, 2023 10:08 AM

              It looks like they might've actually fixed a problem I was having? Maybe it's a PS5-specific problem, but the sorting wasn't working well at all.

              If I sort by type, then close the window, then open it later, the items are not sorted by type even though the dropdown window says they are. I have to first choose to sort by latest, then back to type to have the type-sort active again.

              The sorting also doesn't stay consistent in my bags. If I open up the bag I'm using for consumables, it's always a scattered mess until I chose one of the sort options, and I had to do that every time I open that bag.

              The sorting is still inconsistent on my camp stash, which makes me think that it's got something to do with new loot being introduced into the container's inventory and messing up the selected sort option, but it's definitely working better today than it was last night.

              • reply
                September 22, 2023 10:09 AM

                But the party inventory management and the oh so cumbersome party selection mechanics are still very irritating. Just let me choose my party members when I leave camp!

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 2:09 PM

            Yeah I want an access all at camp option

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:16 AM

        Added an option to the Default Online Settings to let you automatically listen in when another party member enters a dialogue in multiplayer.

        THANK GOND.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 10:58 AM

          Yes! Started an online game with friends and it was so annoying to have to choose that every time.

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:41 AM

        "Fixed the game thinking you're dating Gale instead of Karlach in one of the dialogues with Karlach."

        I'm beginning to wonder what they did to Gale if they are still fixing his romance flags still.

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:44 AM

        It was never broken lol.

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:48 AM

        Yes, it is. Oh boy it is.

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:49 AM

        It's been GOTY since it first came out, regardless of patches.

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 8:58 AM

        Is there a spoiler free version?

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 9:37 AM

        It's been safe to buy for ages. There's nothing wrong with act 3

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 9:39 AM

        Do your party members only track approval of you, not each other? If a party member does something, is their action attributed to the main char's decision making? Like if Gale gets ice picked in the eyeball does Karlach ಠ_ಠ me instead of Gale?

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 9:42 AM

          I think the approval is done based on the actions you take, regardless of what character you're controlling at the time. I *think*

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 10:24 AM

        game runs extremely well on my 16GB M1 Pro!

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 10:30 AM

        Act I is soild with no issues here after like 50H (still in A1). Buy it and watch time dissappear.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 10:32 AM

          Hasn't crashed on me at all, 50 hours in. Playing since release. Hate to say it but some people got dog-assed PC configurations that are more prone to crashes/issues.

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 10:34 AM

          I didn't have a crash for 120 hours. I definitely ran into some bugs in Act 3 though.

          But look at the frequency and size of the patched Larian have put out compared to say Bethesda. It says a lot

        • reply
          September 22, 2023 4:44 PM

          Jeez I just hit act 3 and in like 55 hours. I probably missed a lot of shit.

          • reply
            September 22, 2023 8:26 PM

            Yep. Probably took me a good 80-90 hours to hit Act 3

      • reply
        September 22, 2023 7:11 PM

        Imagine worrying about something that would take you dozens of hours of playtime and probably weeks of real time to get to

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