One Official D&D Rule Would Solve All Of Astarion’s Problems In BG3 (& Break The Whole Game) (2024)

Baldur's Gate 3 is firmly rooted in the rules of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, but it also diverges from its source material in a lot of key regards. Not every concept that works for tabletop would be as effective in video game form, so choosing what's essential and what would just generate its own problems is an essential part of translation. Some cut rules and concepts just wouldn't have had much place in the game, but there's a select variety that would have the potential to completely break Baldur's Gate 3.

One area where Baldur's Gate 3 is generally loyal to DnD rules lies in how the game treats death, which isn't as permanent as it is in reality. A party wipe forces a reload, but when characters go down individually, they can be brought back through revivify. Resurrection is a key part of tabletop play, since losing a character that a player has invested a lot of time and thought into can be frustrating when it's nothing more than bad luck. When it comes to the details, however, resurrection in Baldur's Gate 3 has some crucial differences from DnD.

D&D's Resurrection Would Cure Astarion's Vampirism

Baldur's Gate 3 Is Seriously Nerfing What Resurrection Can Do

One major part of the companion stories in Baldur's Gate 3 lies in Astarion's struggle with vampirism, and it's a conflict that doesn't have any perfect resolution. As pointed out by Reddit user Vio_Van_Helsing, however, official DnD 5e rules would make this problem incredibly easy to fix. Vampire spawns and vampires can be brought back to their normal human state by being killed and resurrected, a process that's simple and relatively cheap in Baldur's Gate 3.

According to the most balanced interpretation of the rules, revivify wouldn't actually do the trick for this, and it's hard to imagine that most dungeon masters would allow that particular spell to cure vampirism in tabletop play. A number of other resurrection spells specify whether they can bring back undead and whether they restore them from being undead, a note that's lacking on revivify. The implication is that it can revive undead from true death but leaves them as undead, which wouldn't cure Astarion's problem.

What would, however, is true resurrection, which happens to be unusually easy to access in Baldur's Gate 3. This is what Withers uses to bring characters back, as there aren't any time restrictions on when he can return someone to the land of the living. True resurrection can basically do it all, even providing a body to creatures who have lost one, so DnD's provision for restoring vampires to their original form through resurrection should be more than covered.

True Resurrection Has Other Baldur's Gate 3 Implications

Mind Flayer Tadpoles And Karlach's Infernal Engine Could Be Fixed

The ramifications of true resurrection in Baldur's Gate 3 go a lot further than just Astarion, with the most obvious second example lying in the mindflayer tadpoles infecting the party. Although any methods of safely removing the tadpoles keep running into dead ends, true resurrection seems like the perfect solution. Willingly dying and entrusting companions with resurrection is certainly a bold move, but there's no apparent reason why the party couldn't do this, remove the tadpoles, and take advantage of true resurrection's cure-all powers to return to life in fresh form.

There's also the fact that true resurrection could allow Karlach to get a proper heart again and get rid of her infernal engine since it's capable of regenerating organs wholesale. Any such application is dependent on Withers, of course, and there's no guarantee that he would be willing to support the party's meddling in these particular ways. Still, it seems like something they would raise with him and potentially even something that would happen upon resurrection by default.

Why True Resurrection Is Different In Baldur's Gate 3

Sticking To D&D Rules Would Make The Game Worse

The easiest narrative explanation for the situation is that Withers may not actually be using true resurrection in Baldur's Gate 3, even though the game states that he does in the combat log. Taking all the facts into account, this seems like more of a mechanical convenience than a literal representation of what he's doing. Although it might be best to leave the true identity of Withers unspoiled for those who haven't yet uncovered it, there are particular reasons that he's able to meddle with death, and they're not the same as the standard high-level spellcaster throwing true resurrection around.

Beyond that, it's also just necessary to accept narrative contrivances and intentional breaks from tabletop DnD rules when it serves the story. Astarion's vampirism, the mind flayer tadpoles, and Karlach's infernal engine are all major motivators for the plot, and providing cheap methods of solving them would only make the game a worse experience. Buying into Baldur's Gate 3's concept and setting aside the impulse to be a rules lawyer opens up a much grander experience than would otherwise be possible, and it's a great example of why plot holes really don't matter that much when they're done right.

All the same, it's fun to take a look at the areas where Baldur's Gate 3 differs from DnD, especially considering how many tabletop groups have probably incorporated elements and inspiration from the game into their campaigns. Like the rise of live play or the DnD references in Stranger Things, anything that opens up DnD to more people tends to be a good thing, and being flexible with the source material makes a lot of that possible. Baldur's Gate 3 might not have the same true resurrection as Dungeons & Dragons, but it's ultimately for the best that it doesn't.

Source: Vio_Van_Helsing/Reddit

Baldur's Gate 3

Franchise

Baldur's Gate

Platform(s)

macOS , Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 5

Released

August 31, 2023

Developer(s)

Larian Studios

Genre(s)

RPG