Baldur’s Gate 3 has many quests and decisions that can both influence how you play the game, and how you interact with the general world. While some of these choices are more impactful than others (some even potentially turn you or your companions evil), they tend to be quite beneficial.

Some choices in Baldur’s Gate 3 sound clearly bad, but this isn’t necessarily true, so you should keep your wits about you. Many of the choices focus on role-playing aspects, but some can directly provide buffs or benefits which make the game exceptionally easier. It can be challenging making smart decisions from a role-playing perspective, but that’s what we’re here for.

Letting Volo Remove Your Tadpole Helps Long-Term

The Procurer Of Associates, Stories, And Curios Is Here To Help

Volo is a fairly interesting and mysterious character in the world of Baldur’s Gate 3 who can make a fairly good ally. While he’s a good ally, one of the first few choices he gives you is… him helping to try to remove the tadpole within your head. For obvious reasons, many would find this action quite absurd, but it’s surprisingly beneficial… apart from losing an eye.

Letting Volo remove your eye is a visually painful process, so use personal discretion. That being said, after he fails, he’ll replace the eye with an item known as Volo’s Ersatz Eye. This is an incredible boost to the rest of the game as it provides permanent See Invisibility, which saves a ton of hassle in the long run.

Sparing Auntie Ethel Gives A Permanent Benefit

Sister of the Seeing Pearl (Another Permanent Bonus)

Auntie Ethel is a person you meet very early on within the druid grove, and she’ll typically be found later inside the Riverside Teahouse, which is where you will start to see the cracks in her personality. As it turns out, she’s a Hag, and you will most likely have to end up fighting her, but that doesn’t mean you have to kill her, as there is an option to spare her.

Similar to Volo, Auntie Ethel offers the option to replace your eye. Doing so provides +1 to Intimidation, but comes with the downside of -1 to Perception and disadvantage when attacking Ethel, so be careful with this choice.

When Auntie Ethel gets low on health, you’ll activate a cutscene where she begs for mercy and offers one of her hair strands. While this may seem odd, it’s actually very helpful, as these hairs give a permanent stat boost of +1 of any stat. This is incredibly helpful, especially for certain builds that don’t focus on stat gear, so if you don’t mind throwing Mayrina under the bus, it’s helpful.

Letting Gut Brand You Provides Unique Opportunities

High Priestess Of The Absolute Marking You Can Get You Exclusive Gear

High Priestess Guts is located within Act 1’s Goblin Camp and is one of the first major bosses you will come across in Baldur’s Gate 3. When you infiltrate the goblin camp, it will typically be under the guise of being part of the Cult of the Absolute, so Guts will want to brand you as most cultists receive one. While your first thought might be to immediately say no, there are actually quite a few benefits to getting branded, with almost zero drawbacks.

Letting Gale use the orb completely trivializes the final fight entirely, though this can prevent certain endings. If you are looking for a good ending, this is the quickest way to do it.

When Priestess Guts bestows you the Mark of the Absolute, it will net you gear with exclusive bonuses. It also adds a few dialogue checks in Act 2 that get you out of a few key situations.

Letting Astarion Bite You Helps Build Trust

The Pale Elf Himself Really Wants To Bite You

Astarion is a classically hard character to build a connection to, especially early on, so when he reveals that he’s a vampire (well, more like he’s trying to take a bite out of you), it can be quite polarizing. That being said, as one of the first and main companions, it’s essential to get his trust pretty early, and this is one of the few ways to truly do it early on.

Letting him bite you is one of the key factors to potentially unlocking his romance, but it also heavily builds approval for him. This is important, as Astarion tends to disagree with a lot of good decisions, so it’s quite possible for him to leave the party if you refuse his bite and make purely morally good decisions. In addition, while letting him bite you causes you to receive a debuff, Astarion, in return, receives a buff, which is great if he is one of the main damage dealers in the party.

Letting Shadowheart Kill The Nightsong Makes Her A More Powerful Ally

The Chosen Of Shar Has To Make a Hard Decision With Nightsong

Shadowheart’s personal quest is something that develops heavily in Act 2 and comes to a breaking point near the end where she must choose whether to kill the Nightsong or not. While this choice could be obvious to those on a purely good route, those morally neutral, evil, or simply going for an Honor Mode clear in BG3 might find this beneficial.

Letting Shadowheart kill the Nightsong provides her with some fairly powerful armor that’s incredibly useful, especially for players running darkness-based compositions. This also trivializes a fight in Act 3 versus Viconia, as you can recruit most of the Shar followers to your side, even calling upon them in the final battle, making the fight significantly eaiser.

Stealing Philomeen’s Explosives Provides A Powerful Weapon

There’s A Trick To Avoid Being Exploded

When you first meet Philomeen, she’s scared and rather sporadic, so your first thought is probably not to steal the giant barrel of explosives beside her, but it is possible. If you have prior knowledge, you can sneak in and steal the rune powder barrel before even speaking with her, which allows you to talk to her without the threat of being blown up.

However, if you are new to this encounter, they can actually double up on explosives by doing things correctly. By talking Philomeen down and convincing her to give your party some rune powder, she’ll give you a small vial. However, after her dialogue ends, you can quickly enter turn-based mode and walk up and steal the giant rune powder barrel before she takes it. This not only essentially doubles the amount of explosions gained, but gives you an explosion to free True Soul Nere.

Siding With Gortash Makes His Quest Easy

The Chosen of Bane Is Well Worth The Trouble

Gortash as one of the major antagonists of Baldur’s Gate 3 can seem like an odd choice for a team-up, but it’s quite beneficial both to the state of the world and your time. Gortash’s questline has one of the longest complete times, which makes it rather boring, especially on repeat runs. By siding with him, not only will the Steel Watch be on your side in Act 3, but they’ll be able to skip a lot of long and time-consuming fights.

While this may interfere with Wyll’s personal quest, you can simply make Wyll abandon his father. While this may seem like a horrible choice, it does make Wyll more independent and a better leader in general, so it’s a decent choice for his personal quest. Also, when you play as the Dark Urge, you’ll gain tons of unique dialogue with Gortash, making keeping him alive worth it.

Siding With The Emperor Stops You From Making Tough Choices

The City’s Founder Isn’t Trustworthy, But Helpful Nonetheless

The Emperor is a character that spends a lot of time trying to gain your trust. This isn’t helped by him clearly doing important things without telling you. That being said, siding with him trivializes a lot within Baldur’s Gate 3, and in general makes your experience much smoother.

Siding with The Emperor allows you to remain as your current race rather than sacrificing yourself or Karlach by becoming a mindflayer. The Emperor will side against you if you betray him in the final fight, and he’s quite a harsh boss, so it’s generally recommended. Lastly, siding with him is the only way to romance him, so if that’s your perogative, the choice is obvious.

Killing Karlach Early On Gives A Surprising Benefit

Wyll Versus Karlach Is No Easy Choice

Karlach is one a favorite of Baldur’s Gate 3 players, and so rarely gets killed early on. However, this causes you to miss out on key aspects of Wyll’s story and a great reward. While this can seem excessive, if you don’t plan to use Karlach in your party at all and do plan to use Wyll, it can be very much worthwhile.

You cannot save Karlach and receive rewards from Wyll’s quest to kill her. The developers have taken great strides to make sure receiving the rewards is not possible in any way.

This decision really boils down to individual players, as the reward for killing Karlach is essentially keeping Wyll looking human (which is great for him), and gaining a really strong robe for the early game. This robe provides fire resistance and the Flame Ward ability, making it incredible in certain areas early on, or if someone on your team uses a fire-based build.

Letting Gale Sacrifice Himself Trivializes The Final Battle

The Wizard of Waterdeep Needs To Go

People tend to either love or hate Gale, but regardless, he’s a very interesting and typically self-sacrificial character. As you progress Gale’s personal story, you’ll be able to lead him to the decision to sacrifice himself near the end of the run, which can seem harsh, but in an Honor Mode run, it’s always one of the best decisions you can make.

Letting Gale use the orb completely trivializes the final fight entirely, though this can prevent certain endings. If you are looking for a good ending, this is the quickest way to do it. Despite Gale sacrificing himself, you also get unique dialogue and an ending conversation that can be quite heartwrenching, but worth the new experience if you’ve never done it before in Baldur’s Gate 3.