Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 17 Makes Gale Chill Out About Magic Items

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has released yet another hotfix for its phenomenally successful Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, this time taking on everyone’s favourite magic item-gobbling wizard, Gale.

Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 follow.

Baldur’s Gate 3 players will know that in the early game, Gale is in desperate need of magic items in order to prevent him from suffering a grizzly fate. He’s so desperate, in fact, that if you don’t give him a magic item to consume pretty much every time he asks for one, he’ll get so fed up he’ll leave your party. What a grump!

Hotfix 17, out now, makes Gale chill out a bit when it comes to his magic item addiction. Here’s Larian describing the change in a post on Steam:

“Poor Gale – we know your pain, sometimes it’s easy to read something into a situation that wasn’t there. We’ve sat him down and explained that if someone doesn’t offer him a shoe to eat every time, that doesn’t mean they never will. You’ll find him more likely to stick around now.”

And here’s the relevant line from the patch notes:

• Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don't offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you're abundantly clear that you don't plan on ever doing so.

Elsewhere, Hotfix 17 makes some promising-sounding improvements to how Baldur’s Gate 3 handles savegames.

• Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files (such as Error 544)
• Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don't exist in the game anymore.

Larian issued a warning about Baldur’s Gate 3 mods, which may stop working when new patches and hotfixes are released. “If you experience any issues after installing the latest update, please check if the issue persists with all mods uninstalled,” Larian suggested. “If it persists, please reach out to our support team with your report.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 17 Patch Notes

PERFORMANCE AND CODE

• Fixed black and colourful visual artefacts sometimes appearing for 1 frame on PS5 when switching scenes or opening and closing UI windows.
• Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files (such as Error 544)
• Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don't exist in the game anymore.
• Guarded against crashes caused when certain character resources (Actions, Bonus Actions, Superiority Dice, etc.) were added and later removed by a mod or cheat engine.

GAMEPLAY AND COMBAT

• In Honour Mode, the aura of Cazador's Potent Mist Form now properly dissipates after he's no longer in Mist Form. Sorry!
• Fixed the camera sometimes zooming in while jumping or casting projectile spells.
• Fixed the ability to walk through open doors when you click beyond them from far away.
• Fixed Thieves' Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.

UI

• Safeguard Shield's Saving Throw modifier is now correctly reflected on the Character Sheet.

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

• Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don't offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you're abundantly clear that you don't plan on ever doing so.
• Fixed characters getting stuck 'in a story event', preventing you from controlling them, after getting killed in the fight with Grym.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].