Honour Mode is Baldur's Gate 3's biggest challenge. As the game's highest level of difficulty, it adds features like legendary actions that aren't available in tactician mode, as well as smarter, more powerful enemies. Upon reaching the end of an Honour Mode campaign, players will receive a virtual set of golden dice, which they can use in their future playthroughs.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.The main selling point of this game mode is that players are limited to one save file, which cannot be loaded outside the main menu. If you experience a total party wipe-out, that's the end of your adventure. This elevates the consequences of random bad luck — if you fail a roll and don't have any inspiration to use on a retry, you're going to have to stick with it like in a true D&D campaign. Despite the challenge being its most appealing aspect, one missed roll is genuinely worth restarting your save over.

Gale Is The Only Companion Who Can Permanently Die From A Failed Roll Before Recruitment

You Get Two Attempts To Free Gale From His Portal - Fail, And He's Dead

There are a lot of ways to cause companions to permanently leave your party in BG3, but it's not very often you will immediately fail to recruit someone. Usually, if somebody leaves forever, you'll at least get to spend a short amount of time traveling with them beforehand. However, failing a certain roll can cause you to never see one beloved character in your party at all.

Gale is the only character who can almost immediately die upon you failing a roll when meeting them. The first encounter with some characters, like Karlach, can escalate into combat, but you have to go out of your way to initiate it. Even when you are in combat, you still have options like fleeing or knocking your opponent out, which can actually be a popular method for BG3 players to recruit Minthara. When it comes to Gale, if you fail both rolls to get him out of his portal, he's just gone forever.

You can also kill Gale immediately during dialogue as the Dark Urge if you choose the option to fantasize about ripping off his hand. Gale will still stick around during evil playthroughs, so there isn't much reason to do this other than to spite him. He really can't catch a break.

Granted, these rolls aren't particularly hard, but in the context of not being able to reload in Honour Mode, this can get complicated. Since you can find Gale right next to the beach, the chances of you having garnered any inspiration are quite low. If you end up in the same situation as Reddit Full-Mixture6809 and get unlucky enough to fail both rolls without any way of redoing them, then you may find yourself stuck.

Using Gale to blow up the Netherbrain is a common tactic in Honour Mode runs, and seeing him die early means you would've just lost your ticket to defeating the Absolute. In these circumstances, there isn't much reason why you shouldn't reload your save, especially if you're a fan of Gale or have plans to romance him. Even if you're extremely committed to Honour Mode, you can make a beeline for him straight after the tutorial, so you only need to worry about customizing your character again.

Not Recruiting Other Companions Is Usually A Deliberate Choice

If You Don't Completely Miss A Companion, You Need To Go Out Of Your Way To Reject Them

If you get extremely unlucky when it comes to recruiting characters, Baldur's Gate 3 has a few fail-safe mechanics to allow you to pick them up later. For example, if you miss Lae'zel next to the grove, you can recruit her again in the Mountain . It's almost impossible not to recruit Shadowheart, since even if you completely ignore her or reject her attempts to the party, she still holds the Astral Prism, which makes her central to the plot, and she will continuously appear.

Astarion can be missed if you don't explore all of Act One, but he will always remain in the same area before you advance to Act Three, and you'll have to outright refuse him ing your party if you do interact with him. You're unlikely to miss Wyll since he appears during the initial Emerald Grove cutscene, and interacting with him gives players an incentive to hunt down Karlach. Similarly, you'll have to deliberately decline their offers to your party or antagonize them to fail their recruitment.

Most players who are attempting Honour Mode will have played the game before, so they'll know how to recruit the rest of the companions anyway. When it comes to characters like Halsin and Minthara, experience with the game and community tends to make it clear that they're recruitable allies, not just random NPCs. In Gale's case, even the most seasoned player actively trying to get him in their party could lose him if they just get unlucky.

Gale Is One Of The Best Companions To Keep In Your Party

His Story Is Great, But He Has Some Unique Features Which Can Make Honour Mode Easier

You may not plan on blowing Gale up, but there are still plenty of reasons why you shouldn't leave him to die in his portal. He has several unique features that you'll completely miss out on if you never travel with him. He can receive various blessings from Mystra, which are great from a gameplay perspective, though encouraging him to reconcile with her will lead to an outcome that's not the healthiest ending for Gale. He also has the ability to consume the Shadow Weave in Act two, which grants him an extra permanent level three spell slot.

A wizard is always useful to have in your party, but Gale is a slightly better choice than a custom character or reclassed companion for these reasons. Even if he dies after being recruited, you might still be able to get some use out of him, as his body will release a necrotic aura that can be used as a ive way to deal damage. You'll probably get the most enjoyment out of Baldur's Gate 3 with Gale alive, but you're missing out on plenty of story and combat possibilities if you're unlucky enough to lose him in his portal.

Source: Full-Mixture6809/Reddit