Baldur’s Gate 3 Update 3 Patch Notes, Explained

The changes we’ve seen from Baldur’s Gate 3’s updates have been a phenomenal addition to the game, bringing in new storylines for characters and unique mechanics for overall gameplay. The same can be said for BG3’s Patch 3, as it rolls out yet another batch of hotfixes and item upgrades. We’re here to help you understand these changes by giving you an idea of what to expect in your next playthrough.

BG3 Patch 3 Changes

One of the most significant changes that Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 has introduced is an option to change your character’s appearance. It’s a long overdue mechanic that fans have been waiting for, and now it can be quickly done by interacting with the Magic Mirror at your camp. Although you won’t be able to adjust your race, subrace, and body type, you can customize your Tav’s voice, pronouns, nether regions, and, of course, appearance.

The next biggest update is the game’s full support for Mac users, but there are a few recommendations that Larian Studios has suggested for this particular device. First and foremost, any saves you’ve made in a previous file will, unfortunately, not cross over to this version, so you’ll need to start off brand new with the next session. Even more so, the team has instructed us to uninstall the game and mods altogether, similar to what happened during its initial launch.

You can expect other general fixes for the latest version of Baldur’s Gate 3, including a more accurate color change for PS5 users and a requirement for a higher approval level for Shadowheart. If you want to see the highlighted changes from Larian Studios, you can look forward to these improvements:

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 Patch Notes

Highlights

• Baldur’s Gate 3 is now fully supported on Mac!
• A Magic Mirror that lets you change your appearance is now available at camp!

Combat

• Cazador now cannot turn into or remain in his Mist Form if in magical sunlight, such as that created by the Daylight spell.
• Fixed Ansur’s Stormheart Nova blasting right through the ice shields you can hide behind.
• Grym suddenly got eerily smart and was avoiding the Crucible in the Adamantine Forge. With a nervous laugh, we dumbed him back down a little.
• Fixed Level 4 or higher Divine Smite allowing you to add Divine Smite as a reaction, allowing for two Divine Smites in 1 attack.
• Fixed the Divine Smite damage increasing over the cap of 5d8.
• Made several improvements to the Poltergeist enemy: they are now revealed on being attacked or hit with Radiant Spirit Guardians; they will not turn Invisible again if they are still in a character’s See Invisibility aura; in Balanced and Explorer Mode, they have disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws when Invisible; the range of their attacks has been reduced; and they won’t try to keep distance from the player in combat so that they are easier to find.
• Fixed the Sneak Attack damage bonus not increasing to 6d6 at Level 11.
• Fixed a case where multiple Smokepowder Arrows could be used for free while the Extra Attack feature was active. 

PS5

• The colours on the PS5 controller will now match elemental damage types more closely.

Performance

• Improved performance in the Lower City. More to come!

Art

• Made dye colours more intense and more visible on some armours. This will only affect newly dyed items.
• Dragonborn characters can now select any of the barbarian piercings.
• Fixed Shadowheart going blonde when equipping a hat.
• Improved the reflection in the Spectator’s eye in the Underdark.
• Fixed face tattoos disappearing when zooming out.

Flow and Scripting

• Fixed a bug where companions temporarily leaving the party (e.g. being sent to prison) would forget their partnership history and act unusually cold towards you.
• Fixed a bug letting you trade with Cazador while he begs for mercy.
• Improved the Astarion romance flow if you agreed to spend a night with him before going to camp by disabling some less important camp moments.
• Fixed some dialogue options only showing up once when talking to Withers.
• Fixed a blocker where if you knock Orin’s Slayer form into the chasm, you can’t get her Netherstone.
• Fixed an issue causing Dammon to enter combat and die at Last Light, preventing Karlach’s story from progressing.
• Added a journal step for when the tieflings leave the Emerald Grove. The Forging of the Heart quest will also close if Dammon is no longer available in the region.
• Fixed the game thinking you’re dating Gale instead of Karlach in one of the dialogues with Karlach.
• You now need higher approval for Shadowheart to confess her Shar worship to you.
• Myshka the cat will now follow you around if told to, even if you don’t have Speak with Animals.
• Halsin, Jaheira, and Minthara will no longer be able to undergo Volo’s icepick lobotomy. It’s just not their kind of pastime.
• Fixed not being able to cut Vanra out of the hag by interacting with her Knocked Out body if all of her mushrooms are destroyed.
• Lae’zel will no longer tag along (whether dead or alive) after you slit her throat when she ambushes you at night.
• Fixed a bug allowing you to yoink the Orphic Hammer right out of the so-called Impervious Sphere in the House of Hope if someone else in your party is in an interactive dialogue with the sphere.
• Fixed a flow issue in Shadowheart’s endgame romance dialogue to make sure Karlach appears alone in Avernus if Shadowheart says she’ll meet her there at a later point in time.
• Fixed Karlach’s journal mistakenly saying you arrived in the Shadow-Cursed Lands when you arrive at the Rosymorn Monastery Trail.
• Wyll should now acknowledge Karlach approaching him for the first time more consistently.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Shadowheart swimming scene to not play for some players.
• The Narrator no longer thinks you’re a mind flayer when you’re not.
• Fixed companions talking about killing Gortash after meeting Orin even if the former is already dead.
• Fixed issues with Astarion discussing topics that are no longer relevant.
• Reworked the interaction between Nere and Minthara:
  • The ‘Travel to Moonrise Towers’ quest no longer sends you to Minthara after saving Nere – he has a lyre of his own now. He gifts it to you if you saved him from the cave-in. This lyre can now be used to call for the drider through the Shadow-Cursed Lands, like Minthara’s lyre does. Both lyres have new descriptions.
  • Nere no longer mentions Minthara in his Speak with Dead.
  • You can ask Minthara for a safe passage to Moonrise if you’d heard about it. She will ask to raid the Emerald Grove first. If this happens, Nere can be asked about Minthara and then Minthara can be asked about Nere.
  • The journals for ‘Travel to Moonrise Towers’ and ‘Follow the Convoy’ were updated accordingly.
  • Saving Nere no longer creates a danger zone if the duergar was killed before clearing the cave-in.
• During your date with Karlach, Tender Henk will no longer walk away to reveal another Tender Henk standing behind him. Staring.

Gameplay

• The following spells will now correctly break the Sanctuary condition: Call Lightning, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Polymorph, Hunger of Hadar, Fear, Ice Storm, Flesh to Stone, Divine Intervention, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Stinking Cloud, Banishment, Glyph of Warding.
• Level Up will now queue all characters who can be levelled up so you don’t have to click on them individually.
• Fixed some corpses never showing the ‘(empty)’ tag after you loot them.
• Fixed not being able to use some reactions while in disguise.
• Cazador’s staff, Woe, now correctly unlocks the Blight spell when equipped.
• Fixed several magic items and Volo’s Ersatz Eye losing their power after you are killed and revived.
• Fixed the Spell Sniper feat not working on attack spells.
• The Spell Sniper feat will now correctly reduce the Critical Hit threshold by 1.
• Fixed the Idol of Silvanus buff disappearing after Long Rest.
• NPCs will no longer run away from anything but the Dark Urge Slayer form to improve interactivity and flow.
• Mummies raised through Create Undead can now Jump to follow you around better.
• The Everburn Blade now correctly sets explosive surfaces and explosive objects alight when hit.
• The Misty Escape feat will no longer break concentration.
• Reading shop signs will no longer be considered a crime.
• The Cutting Words reaction is now set to Ask by default.
• Summoned zombies and skeletons will no longer be able to pick up loot and disappear with it when dismissed.
• The Azer summon’s Overheat ability is now available on its hotbar when summoned.
• The Nimblefinger Gloves now correctly apply their Dexterity bonus to gnomes, halflings, and dwarves.
• Fixed an Animate Dead exploit allowing you to summon 2 skeletons from the same corpse.
• Optimised how the game handles object selection on controller.
• Fixed Sovereign Spaw being able to resurrect hirelings with Animating Spores. We
• taught him to not use this on player characters anymore.

UI

• Your selected trade mode (trade or barter) is now saved to your player profile.
• Added an option to the Default Online Settings to let you automatically listen in when another party member enters a dialogue in multiplayer.
• Clarified whether something is a Resistance, a Vulnerability, or an Immunity in the Examine window.
• Added a notification for when another player in your party is trading.
• Fixed spells being interrupted by climbing, allowing you to attack twice after climbing down from a crate.
• Updated the Character Sheet on controller to place active Conditions above the list of Notable Features.

Level Design

• Fixed some small holes in Act I that weren’t letting tiny characters through them.

Writing

• Added a dialogue option to the first in-person dialogue with the Dream Visitor to avoid only having two antagonistic choices.
• Rewrote some spell and action descriptions that were too vague.

Audio

• Fixed Raphael’s boss fight music sometimes being incomplete or missing.
• Fixed some VO not playing in dialogues on PS5 split-screen.
• Fixed audio cutting out with 3D Audio enabled on PS5. 
• Optimised audio in merged split-screen cinematics.

Cinematics

• Improved contact when petting Ketheric’s good girl, Squire.
• Added some lovely blood spurts when Volo carries out his expert operation.
• Fixed Wyll’s horns clipping into Karlach’s face during an Act II romance scene.
• Fixed missing music on the Wyll path of Karlach’s endgame scene in Avernus.
• Placed a nice purple picnic blanket in a romantic scene with Gale and fixed a camera spin if you choose to prefer to spend your time with him on a bed.
• Fixed Shadowheart looking like she’s either in pain or about to sneeze in the background of a dialogue with Thulla.
• Added some missing Boo squeaks.
• Reworked the intro of the scene when you approach the altar at the Temple of Bhaal and fixed some bugs.
• Updated cameras, facial expressions and head directions to better suit the tone in dialogue with Shadowheart.
• Fixed some pops and camera issues when you start dating Lae’zel, including Lae’zel’s body flying elsewhere and then back again mid-dialogue.
• Boo will now be framed in the shot as intended when you talk to Jaheira after recruiting Minsc.
• Fixed Scratch floating in the air while you pet him by the posthouse in Rivington.

For a complete breakdown of the patch notes, you can check out the official Baldur’s Gate 3 website to see the full list, and it’s lengthier one compared to others we’ve seen.

Hopefully, this guide has helped you understand Baldur’s Gate 3 Update 3’s patch notes, and you can look at the past Hotfix 2 to compare the recent changes. Be sure to also explore the relevant links below to view more content about the game.