Baldur’s Gate 3 Cheats and Cheat Tables, Explained

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the latest game to take the internet by storm. The title is demolishing player count and sales records in spite of its niche genre and high difficulty curve. Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t as difficult as, say, Dark Souls, but it doesn’t hold its punches either, which is why players have plenty of methods to ease up the difficulty, including cheating.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking: If you use cheats, you cheat not only the game but yourself. You don’t grow, you don’t improve, yadda yadda yadda. To be honest, cheating is a perfectly valid tactic in many games. The famous Backwards Long Jump Trick in Super Mario 64 is a form of a cheat since it takes advantage of a glitch and lets players skip large portions of the game. And quite frankly, the entire speedrunning community relies on these similar kinds of cheats.

Baldur’s Gate 3 also has plenty of cheats, although these are designed to customize your experience more than anything else. Activating these cheats isn’t an easy task, but it is possible via various means.

However, there are a few words of warning you should hear before you start downloading anything. By installing unofficial third-party programs on your computer (which is what Baldur’s Gate 3‘s cheats often rely on), you potentially open your computer up to malware and similar dangers. So make quadruple sure that the Cheat Engine file you download isn’t carrying a trojan. Better yet, thoroughly research any associated cheat program you’re tempted to download before you actually do so.

Furthermore, by running many of these programs, you increase the risk of game crashes and errors, and you probably won’t be able to fix many of those issues with the official game forum. If these risks are a dealbreaker, then you are better off playing Baldur’s Gate 3 without any cheats. Otherwise, you do have options.

While the internet is full of mods you can add to Baldur’s Gate 3, the most robust is one called Cheat Engine. This open-source, memory scanner/debugger works by altering the memory values of running games, which makes the program compatible with almost every game you can imagine.

However, this versatility is a double-edged sword since it is almost impossible to use without a guide. To get started, download and install the Cheat Engine program. Next, start up Baldur’s Gate 3, load the save file you want to alter, and open Cheat Engine. On the app, click the “Open Process” button, which should be at the top of the engine’s window. Cheat Engine will open a new tab full of running applications and processes. Find and select either “bg3.exe” or “bg3_dx11.exe,” depending on whether you are running the DX 11 or Vulkan version, and click on “Open”. Finally, click on “First Scan” so you can start the truly difficult part.

Cheat Engine will populate its list with tons of values drawn from Baldur’s Gate 3’s memory. Unless you are an expert game programmer or debugger, you won’t have a Flumph’s chance in Avernus of understanding what you’re looking at, so your best chance of cheating is to install what’s called a Cheat Table (which has premade cheats prepared by the Baldur’s Gate 3 community). Once you find the table you’re looking for on the internet, download it. While running Cheat Engine with Baldur’s Gate 3, open the cheat table. That should populate the bottom of the Cheat Engine window with prepared cheats. Just check the boxes next to each item to activate the corresponding cheat.

While Cheat Engine will provide the most cheats in one area, it isn’t your only option. A “trainer” will also work in a pinch. In fact, while trainers aren’t as robust as Cheat Engine, they are much more beginner friendly since they come with prebuilt options such as God Mode, Unlimited Exp, and Unlimited Movement/Action. To use a trainer, simply download one for your website of choice, install the program, and open it. The program will ask for administrator permissions, so if you want to use it, grant them. Next, select Baldur’s Gate 3 from the list of apps you want added to the trainer list, and then open the game. While the title is running, just toggle the options you want active, and the trainer will do the rest.

However, if you want even more turnkey cheats, or one that adds even more options to Baldur’s Gate 3, then you will want to look at mods. Sites such as Nexus Mods are full of cheats that alter character stats, add new races and spells, and everything in between. It’s probably your safest overall cheating option, but you will still want to exercise some caution and you’ll still want to be aware that altering the game in this way can cause various performance problems.