Baldur’s Gate 3 players are using classic tricks to one-shot difficult bosses

Baldur’s Gate 3 players are using a trick from Divinity: Original Sin 2 to quickly dispatch bosses.

Baldur’s Gate 3, much like D&D itself, is a game that encourages you to think outside the box. The game’s systems are very open, with not a lot of restrictions placed on how you tackle situations in the world. If you can think of something to do, you can probably find a way to do it. 

Understandably, this openness is laying the way to some ingenious and inventive thinking when it comes to tackling bosses. Especially early on when players are limited on spells and effects, avoiding combat and finding out-of-the-box solutions is far more reliable than taking on a horde of enemies. 

That inspiration can come from anywhere. Be it a mix of the environment, things you can interact with, and your spells and equipment. It can also be from older games where tried and true strategies are being reborn. 

It seems some players are taking a page out of Larian’s own Divinity: Original Sin 2’s to tackle bosses. The tactic lovingly known by the community as “Barralmancy” has you taking big flammable barrels and positioning them around an enemy. Then it just takes one fire arrow and boom – a one-hit kill. 

Barrelmancy is back in Baldur’s Gate 3

Luality, known for beating Dark Souls on a dance mat, showed off how a carefully laid plan can come to fruition through cleverly placed barrels on the battlefield in one explosive clip.

Elsewhere, as shown by Twitter user Liz_Caingcoy, it can take out powerful enemies too. In the video, it shows three ingenious ways to tackle three difficult early bosses in the Goblin camp. The first is a textbook case of Barrelmancy. Just a whole bunch of explosive barrels around a boss, and then one arrow for an easy win. 

The other two examples show the other bosses meeting their ends in big holes. Minthara, who can become a companion, falls to their death after a bridge support is hit as she’s walking across it. The hobgoblin boss is far more simple. A big shove sees him meet his end down a bottomless pit. 

These kinds of moments of player ingenuity show how far you can bend the systems of Baldur’s Gate 3. It seems likely we will be seeing a lot more creativity in the ways of destruction in the future.