Glossary and Terminologies

Having a glossary and learning the necessary terms from DND 5e is essential to make the most out of your Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3) playthrough! Learn every DND terms that may confuse players new players and players that are new to the DND scene.

Beginner's Glossary to Baldur's Gate 3

Glossary of Terms
Ability Scores HP and Hit Dice Dice Rolls and Proficiency Bonuses Armor Class Resistances, Immunity, and Vulnerability Reactions

Understanding Ability Scores

Ability	Description
Strength (STR)	Affects Athletics skills and effectiveness with melee weapons. This also affects how far you can jump and throw as well as how much you can carry in your inventory.
Dexterity (DEX)	Affects Dexterity skills, effectiveness with ranged and some melee weapons, as well as your Initiative and Armour Class.
Constitution (CON)	Affects your overall HP, Stamina, and physical endurance.
Intelligence (INT)	Affects Intelligence skills, memory and your mental power. This also improves spellcasting for wizards.
Wisdom (WIS)	Affects Wisdom skills and your intuition. This also improves spellcasting for clerics, druids, and rangers.
Charisma (CHA)	Affects Charisma skills and your personality. This influences how you interact with other characters and improves spellcasting for bards, sorcerers, and warlocks.

Ability Scores represent your characters stats. The higher their ability score is for a given ability (STR, DEX, etc.), the better they are at succeeding when using an action tied to that particular ability.

For example, a high ability score in Strength means your character can throw objects farther, carry more items than anyone else in your party, and is more likely to hit their melee attacks in combat.
Ability Scores Guide

Understanding HP and Hit Dice

Your character's HP in Baldur's Gate 3 is determined by the Hit Die of their chosen class. Some classes are naturally tanky like Barbarians and Fighters (d12 and d10), while some have an HP puddle like Sorcerers and Wizards (d6).

Simply put, the Hit Die of your class will determine your Base HP as well as how much HP you get per level up. When choosing a class, remember that classes with low Hit Die values will only start feeling tanky at higher levels.

Hit Die Determined by Class

A character's hit die is set depending on their starting class choice.

You can view a character's Hit Die by opening your Character Sheet, then hover over to the Hit Points tab (heart icon) on the left. The base value indicated here is your class's Hit Die.

HP and Hit Dice Guide

Understanding Dice Rolls and Proficiencies

Dungeons and Dragons and Baldur's Gate 3 (which is based on DND 5e) heavily relies on dice rolls to decide the outcome of your actions. These actions involve outcomes of certain dialogue options, interacting with the world, and even the outcomes of your attacks and spells during battle.

In this case, if you're casting a spell or using a skill that uses 3d12, the amount of damage you can deal will range between 3 to 36!

Proficiency Bonuses on Top of Dice Rolls

Proficiency may also come into play when rolling a dice for attacks and you may encounter a dice roll with plus signs. These proficiency bonuses are added on top of your dice roll probability.

So taking the same value of 3d12 and you have a proficiency bonus of +3, that means you are now rolling a value of 3d12 + 3 and you damage output can come out between 6 to 39!

What is Proficiency Bonus?

Learning About Armor Class

Armor Class (AC) in Baldur's Gate 3 determines whether an enemy's attack will hit your character or not. The higher your Armor Class (AC), the harder it will be for enemies to hit you.

You can increase your AC by wearing better armor (with Heavy Armor granting some of the highest values) or by equipping shields.

Note that Armor Class will not help you against spells. You can have the highest AC values in the game, but if your spell save is low, you will still get hit by magic thrown your way.

What is Armor Class?

Resistances, Immunity, and Vulnerability

Resistance, immunity, and vulnerability are determinants of damage taken in combat based on damage types. These can be viewed through a character's overview menu, under the Resistances section.

In combat, players can also examine the resistances of enemies by overing over them, right clicking, and selecting Examine.

Reactions Explained

Reactions are togglable attacks and abilities that are automatically executed upon meeting certain conditions in combat. Some reactions are done by all characters and enemies in combat like Opportunity Attack, while there are some reactions that are class-specific, like a Paladin's Divine Smite.

A character's list of active reactions can be viewed by pressing the I key to open the inventory, then proceeding to the reactions tab of the Spellbook menu. From there, you can toggle reactions you don't wish to execute them in combat.

All Glossary Guides

Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3) Related Guides

Baldur's Gate 3 Beginner's Guide