How Surprise Rounds Work In Baldur’s Gate 3

Want to surprise you r enemies and steal their turn by shocking them? There is how you can do it by triggering a surprise round.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has a few amazing features that will allow you to easily win a fight against formidable opponents or a group of enemies. Surprise rounds are one such example, which is a status effect. This means you have the first turn to yourself and can do as much damage as possible while the enemies can’t move or react.

These rounds can work both ways; in some cases, your party will be surprised. The surprised condition makes the affected character skip their turn. This can let the opponent attack first and get a lot of damage early on.

Triggering a surprise round can be hard if you do not know how. But there are ways you can satisfy certain conditions and surprise your enemies in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Understanding Surprise Rounds in Baldur’s Gate 3

Surprise rounds are a huge advantage to one side because they give you the first turn, and you can do as much damage in this round. Whenever you trigger surprise rounds, your opponent cannot move or act until the first turn is over in Baldur’s Gate 3. In short, you get a bonus round.

Surprise rounds are the perfect opportunity to finish off low-level enemies or to deal deadly blows to more formidable opponents. However, this opportunity lasts until the first round. As the first turn is over, the enemy will start attacking you.

These rounds work both ways, meaning your enemies can also trigger a surprise round on you. You will stand there helplessly as your characters take punishment from the enemies. These are the pros and cons.

How to trigger a Surprise Round in Baldur’s Gate 3

There are multiple ways in which you can trigger a surprise round. The best approach you need is to sneak up on your enemies and then attack them. The idea is to take them by surprise, and this ensures that you do. You can also initiate a surprise round when you stealthily attack an enemy while he is in combat with your companion.

FYI

You can’t surprise any yellow NPC. For a surprise round to initiate, the character you are targeting must be red, or it won’t start at all.

As your enemies can also initiate surprise rounds, you should be careful of any ambush. It is safe to send one of your companions ahead, so even if it is an ambush, only one character gets caught. The rest of the party can then approach safely and attack the enemy regularly.

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Usman is an Associate Editor at Segmentnext who is obsessed with retro gaming. His love for video games begins all the way back in 91 with Final Fight on arcades and is still going strong ...