Baldur's Gate 3 New Campaign: How to Start a Fresh Run

Starting a new campaign in Baldur's Gate 3 is as simple as hitting New Game from the main menu — but picking the right mode, origin and difficulty for a second (or fifth) run takes a little planning. The game has no New Game Plus, so every fresh campaign is a full restart where your choices, not your loot, carry over. This guide covers every game mode, what Honour and Custom rules actually change, the best ways to replay the game, modded campaigns, and the Act 3 secrets that make a second run genuinely new.

If you're brand new and just want to get into the game at all, read the complete Baldur's Gate 3 guide first — this page assumes you know what a long rest is.

How to Start a New Campaign

The game is available on Steam, GOG, PlayStation 5 and Xbox — a fresh campaign works the same on every platform. From the main menu, select New Game and work through the setup screens in this order:

1. Game mode — Explorer, Balanced, Tactician, Honour or Custom (details below).
2. Origin — create a custom character ("Tav"), pick one of six preset companions, or choose the Dark Urge. About 93% of players make a custom character on their first run; repeat players usually try an Origin or Durge for the extra story.
3. Race, class, background and appearance — your race and background are the only things you can never change later (Withers respecs everything else for 100 gold).
4. Difficulty confirm — Explorer, Balanced and Tactician can be switched mid-campaign from the pause menu; Honour and Custom are locked at creation.

Your old save files stay intact, and each campaign has its own separate save list — nothing carries over between runs except your achievements and your knowledge of what's coming.

Choosing a Game Mode: Explorer, Balanced, Tactician, Honour, Custom

The five modes differ far more than a difficulty slider:

For a second campaign, the standard recommendation is Tactician with a strong build, or Custom with honour-style enemies but normal saves if you want the challenge without the permadeath.

Per the official bg3.wiki Honour Mode page, Honour Mode "locks the player to a single save file," and if the entire party dies, "the run is over — the player has lost the campaign." A failed Honour run can be continued as a Custom campaign so your hours aren't wasted.

Honour Mode Rules You Need to Know

Honour Mode (added in Patch 5, November 2023) is BG3's roguelike mode — IGN's Honour Mode wiki is a solid deep-dive if you want the full boss-by-boss breakdown. The essentials:, and it's the most popular way to start a "new campaign" once you've beaten the game once:

• One save file. You cannot save-scum. Quitting and reloading mid-battle is allowed in the sense that the save continues, but every choice, failed roll and dead companion sticks.
• Permadeath on wipe. A total party wipe ends the run. The game offers to continue as a Custom campaign, but the Honour run itself is done.
• Legendary Actions. Every boss gets a new powerful reaction — Raphael, Orin, the Netherbrain and even mid-tier bosses pull moves that don't exist in Tactician.
• Golden dice. Finish the run and you unlock the gold d20 cosmetic skin for all future campaigns. Around 141,660 players had completed Honour Mode out of roughly 1.2 million attempts in the first year — under 12%, so it's a genuine trophy.
• No locking difficulty. Honour is selected at campaign creation and can't be changed mid-run.

What's New for Repeat Players: Dark Urge, Origins, and Evil Runs

A new campaign is where most of BG3's replay value lives, because the game is built around mutually exclusive content:

• The Dark Urge is a fully customisable origin with a pre-written dark backstory — you'll have unique dialogue, unique romance beats, and the game's most famous optional scene (the bard, if you know). It's the community's pick for run number two.
• Playing an Origin character (Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, Lae'zel, Wyll, Karlach) puts you in their head instead of watching them from outside, with extra scenes and different endings.
• Evil runs get dramatically better after Patch 7, which added new cinematics for evil endings — siding with the Absolute or killing your way through the Grove is now a movie instead of a text screen.
• Different Act 1 choices lock out entire questlines: raid the Emerald Grove and you lose Halsin but gain Minthara; free the Grove and Minthara is gone until a specific Act 2 loophole.

Modded Campaigns: The Chocolate Edition and Beyond

Since Patch 7 added an official in-game mod manager (with console support), starting a new campaign with mods is a one-click process. The biggest community "campaign" is BG3 Chocolate Edition, a massive homebrew rebalance mod that overhauls almost every class, adds 16 new feats, 40+ item buffs and 20 new weapons — it effectively plays like a different game and is a favorite for veterans on their third or fourth run. Dozens of smaller content mods add new races, subclasses, quests and even whole areas.

Act 3 Secrets Worth a Second Run

If you rushed the first playthrough, these three Act 3 pieces of content are what a "new campaign" is secretly about — they're easy to miss and show how deep the city goes:

Thirsty Ward. In the Devil's Fee (Helsik's shop, Lower City), the stairs landing to the second floor is trapped by an explosive glyph (DC 10 Perception to spot) that fires a Fireball if triggered. A gargoyle head labeled Thirsty Ward is mounted on the wall — interact with it and combine any liquid (wine or water both work) to disarm the trap and safely reach the ritual room for the House of Hope questline.

Terazul. A consumable drug found in Act 3 that grants a Haste-equivalent effect for 2 turns — +2 AC, advantage on Dexterity saves, +9 m movement and an extra Action — but leaves you Lethargic when it ends. Crucially, it doesn't count as the Haste condition, so it stacks with a Potion of Speed, and re-dosing before it expires resets the timer and dodges the Lethargic stun. Grab it from the Guildhall vendor, a chest at Nortale's Hostel, Vin Dorgo at the Blushing Mermaid, Philgrave's Mansion, or a crate next to Huido at the Grey Harbour Docks.

Big Huido. A halfling smuggler waiting for a Guild pickup at the Grey Harbour Docks. He's hostile-friendly to chat with, but the wooden chest beside him holds 3 crossbows, 200+ gold, magic arrows and a piece of infernal iron (useful for Karlach's quest), plus a Terazul crate nearby — and killing him is one of the easiest notable-NPC fights in the city. For the full cast rundown, see our main characters guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best difficulty for a new BG3 campaign?

If it's your first run, Balanced. If it's a second run with a planned build, Tactician — it forces you to use everything the combat system offers without the permadeath stress. Honour is for when you've beaten Tactician and want the golden dice.

Does Baldur's Gate 3 have New Game Plus?

No. Larian never added one — there's no carry-over of levels, items or companions between campaigns. The replay value comes from mutually exclusive story paths, Origin runs, difficulty modes and mods instead.

How do I start a new campaign after finishing the game?

From the main menu choose New Game, select your mode and origin, and start. Old saves remain accessible from the Load screen, and your completed campaign stays in the save list for the post-game epilogue (added in Patch 5).

Is Honour Mode worth trying on a second run?

Yes, if you enjoy planning around known encounters — but treat it as its own challenge, not a difficulty tweak. The single save, permadeath and Legendary Actions change how you approach every fight, and the golden dice are a real flex.

Can I play community-made campaigns in Baldur's Gate 3?

The official mod manager (Patch 7, 2024) makes it easy: browse, install and enable mods in-game on PC and consoles. Rebalance overhauls like Chocolate Edition and dozens of content mods effectively create new campaigns, though true full-campaign mods are still rare — Larian's modding toolkit supports partial level editing, which is slowly changing that.

Related Guides

• Baldur's Gate 3 Guide — how to play, build a party, and survive Act 1
• BG 3 Builder Guide — plan a build before you start your run
• Is Baldur's Gate 3 Worth It — should you start at all?
• Baldur's Gate 3 DLC — what content actually exists
• Baldur's Gate Trilogy Guide — the saga before BG3

Last updated: August 13, 2026.