Baldur’s Gate 3’s original hard mode can still be cheesed with ease thanks to a handy bit of math. One player proved it with an admittedly less magical take on a classic strat.
Sure, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers a fantastic branching narrative with an insane level of player choice, but the real fun is in finding new and ingenious ways to mess with it. Otherwise, challenging bosses can be entirely avoided with some quick thinking.
Perhaps more enjoyable than that is finding busted ways of utterly destroying them in combat. Whether it’s painstakingly shifting combustible barrels to ignite a devastating firestorm or weaponizing economics for an easy kill, there are a lot of options.
Of course, the perennial favorite of these sneaky strategies is the dreaded Owlbear nuke or Owlbear from the top rope. One player was a little late to the party but still managed to use a similar technique to annihilate one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s tankier bosses, albeit with a little less owl.
For the uninitiated, the Owlbear nuke involves using a Druid to shapeshift into an Owlbear, stacking them with a bunch of buffs that alter their size and weight, and yeeting them from a great height with the Crushing Flight skill.
The larger your form and the further you fall, the more bludgeoning damage you’ll deal. This works particularly well against Grym, the boss in the video who is incredibly weak to bludgeoning damage.
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Of course in this instance, rather than using an Owlbear and Crushing Flight, the player opted for a regular bear and Jump. It was still enough to one-shot a Tactician mode buffed Grym who has a whopping 450 HP.
What is interesting about this particular method is that it can be accessed much earlier than the original Owlbear technique. Wild Shape: Bear is available at Level 2 whereas the Owlbear transformation isn’t an option for Druids until Level 6.
We’ll let you do with that information what you wish but we expect to see a number of weaponized bears flying around Baldur’s Gate 3’s early game. We’re rushing off to start a Druid playthrough right now.
If you aren’t playing a Druid but you still want some handy tips to maximize your Baldur’s Gate 3 efficiency, we’ve got a bunch of guides to help you out.
Best Sorcerer build | Best Bard build | Best Rogue build | Best Fighter build | Best Ranger build | Best Barbarian build | Best Druid build | Best Warlock build | Best Wizard build | Baldur’s Gate 3: What’s the max level cap? | Best Baldur’s Gate 3 classes tier list | How to revive characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 | Can you multiclass in Baldur’s Gate 3 | Baldur’s Gate 3 Soul Coins: How to get them & what they are | Baldur’s Gate 3: Fastest ways to get XP & level up | Baldur’s Gate 3: How to respec your character | Baldur’s Gate 3 Karmic Dice: What are they?