Baldur’s Gate 3 player learns you can’t be friends with everyone the hard way

  ❘   Published: 2023-12-19T19:28:24  ❘   Updated: 2023-12-19T19:28:36

A Baldur’s Gate 3 player had their Honor Mode run come to a tragic end after trying to use the cantrip Friends to make it through the Druid Grove.

Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Patch 5 introduced a new way for players to challenge themselves in Honor Mode. Here, players will face even stronger foes with only a single save file – meaning getting your party killed results in a game over.

Since Honor Mode’s release, plenty of players have shared their impressive victories and crushing defeats. Many have gone into the mode with strategies in mind, though those don’t always work as planned.

For one Baldur’s Gate 3 player, this came with a harsh lesson: You can’t be Friends with everyone.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 player’s Honor Mode run ends after casting Friends in the Druid Grove

In a post titled “I didn’t know you can’t just cast friends on everyone,” Reddit user SafeSurprise3001 shared how their Honor Mode run came to an end during Act 1.

After reaching the Druid Grove, the player attempted to save the tiefling girl Arabella by casting the cantrip Friends on Kagha. This gives the user advantage on Charisma checks for the duration of the spell.

However, after convincing her and moving on to the other Druids, Kagha and the rest of the Grove attacked. Unsurprisingly, this unexpected ambush resulted in the party being killed, bringing the Honor Mode attempt to an end.

While using Friends is a decent strategy on lower difficulty levels, it’s far more risky on higher ones. When the effect expires, many targets will become hostile upon seeing the caster. This makes it useful for getting more information from enemies you plan to fight anyway, but less so for situations where you want to be diplomatic about things.

Plus, it’s a concentration spell, so casting it again will end the previous spell, which seems to be what happened here.

As commenters have pointed out, the spell description for Friends does warn you that “In higher difficulty modes, the target might accuse you of enchanting them.”

This prompted another user – presumably a Dungeons & Dragons player – to joke “People not reading their spells, tale as old as time.”

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