Baldur's Gate 3 List of All Side Quests

Quick Answer: Baldur's Gate 3 List of All Side Quests is best handled as a progression map, not a checklist: prioritize high-value quest hubs, recruit early, resolve zone locks before advancing acts, and use side content to stay leveled and geared.

What Side Quests Actually Do

Side quests in Baldur's Gate 3 are your main source of power smoothing, story branching, and level security, and they matter far more than they do in many RPGs. The game is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, and its narrative centers on curing the Illithid parasites infecting your party’s brains, which means a lot of optional content is functionally tied to survival and build progression rather than being pure filler Source Source.

A beginner should think of side quests in three buckets. First are companion and camp-adjacent quests, such as recruiting Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, Lae'zel, Karlach, and Halsin-adjacent story beats; these are high priority because they unlock party options, approval changes, and class tools. Second are regional quest chains, like helping the Emerald Grove refugees, dealing with the Goblin Camp, or resolving the Mountain Pass and Underdark routes. Third are local errands and branching conversations, such as helping NPCs in the Blighted Village, Risen Road, or Last Light Inn. All three feed experience, items, and momentum.

The practical beginner lesson is this: do not treat the quest log as a shopping list you must clear in strict order. Baldur’s Gate 3 rewards area awareness. If you walk into a new region and then push the main quest too far, the game can harden certain outcomes, close off NPC states, or move encounters before you are ready. In the current meta, that means side quests are best approached as “complete the current map slice before crossing a major story threshold.”

For players searching the Baldur's Gate 3 List of All Side Quests, the important point is that the list is only useful if you know what to do with it. The winning habit is to clear the content that improves your party composition, your spell access, and your item economy first, then backfill optional objectives once you are stable. That is especially true in a first run, where unfamiliar mechanics can make a small quest detour pay off with a major survivability upgrade.

First-Hour Checklist

Your first hour should be spent building a safe baseline: recruit, loot, rest, and unlock options before you try to optimize. The opening stretch in Baldur’s Gate 3 is where many beginners accidentally make the game harder by rushing past useful interactions, especially because early combat is forgiving only if your party is complete and your resource management is disciplined.

1. Recruit your core party immediately

Your first priority is to add Shadowheart, Astarion, Lae'zel, and Gale as soon as the routes open, then keep Wyll and Karlach on your radar when the map allows. The game is built around party composition, and a four-person team with mixed damage, control, and utility is much stronger than a solo character trying to brute-force encounters. For example, Shadowheart gives healing, Bless, and utility; Astarion brings lockpicking and ranged burst; Gale handles ranged AoE and spell versatility; Lae'zel covers front-line pressure and shove-based positioning.

Practical actions:

• Talk to every recruitable companion before leaving the starting area.
• Add at least one dedicated magic user and one thief-like utility character to the active party.
• Rotate companions into camp instead of leaving them unspoken to.

2. Loot everything that is not nailed down

In the first hour, gold-star loot discipline matters more than perfect build choices. You want camp supplies, scrolls, alchemy ingredients, potions, armor upgrades, and throwable items. Early fights can be swung by a single scroll of Magic Missile, a potion of healing, or a grenade-style item thrown from high ground.

Look for:

• Camp supplies for long rests.
• Scrolls that fill gaps in your spell list.
• Weapons or armor with even small AC or damage improvements.
• Keys, notes, and books that open quest branches.

3. Unlock the waypoint network and useful fast-travel nodes

You should activate every waypoint you pass, even if you do not plan to return immediately. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a large, multi-route RPG, and waypoint access saves time when you need to backtrack for vendors, companions, or unfinished quests. A beginner often burns time and resources walking across the same map repeatedly because they ignored a waypoint near a key objective.

4. Use camp early and often

The first long rest is not a sign of weakness; it is part of the intended cadence. Your class resources, spell slots, class features, and some companion events advance through resting. If you hoard all rests, you can miss camp scenes, dialogue triggers, and some quest progression. For example, a wizard who refuses to rest loses access to their full spell economy, and a cleric or paladin who sits on slots too long becomes less efficient than a simple weapon user.

5. Complete the opening side content before pushing the main road

Clear the immediate neighborhood around your landing zone, including any obvious rescue, pickup, or confrontation quests. That usually means the easiest early side content around the crash site, nearby ruins, and first settlements before you force the game into deeper territory. This is where the game teaches you how reactive it is: quest states, dialogue choices, and combat approach all matter, and you want those systems exposed while the stakes are still manageable.

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Resource Priority Order

You should spend resources in this order: survival tools first, party flexibility second, permanent power third, and convenience last. Beginners frequently hoard everything because they fear wasting consumables, but Baldur’s Gate 3 is balanced around using items and resting intelligently rather than stockpiling them for a perfect future that never comes.

Priority table

Priority	Spend on	Why it matters	Early examples
1	Healing, revives, and emergency consumables	Prevents wipe chains and lost tempo	Healing potions, Scroll of Revivify, camp supplies
2	Party utility and quest access	Solves locks, traps, and dialogue branches	Thieves' tools, spell scrolls, lockpicking support
3	Core gear upgrades	Raises damage, AC, and spell reliability	Better armor, upgraded weapons, spellcasting foci
4	Respec and build correction	Fixes early mistakes once you understand your class	Withers respec, feat adjustment, spell swap decisions
5	Flavor purchases and niche items	Useful, but not urgent in the opening acts	Specialty vendor goods, situational arrows, cosmetics

Spend gold on flexibility, not clutter

Gold should go toward items that increase options across multiple encounters. A beginner often buys a weapon for one party member when the real bottleneck is actually armor, ammunition, or utility. A +1 weapon is useful, but in many early situations a stack of healing potions, a better shield, or a few key scrolls changes more fights. The same logic applies to consumables like Potion of Speed, Scroll of Misty Step, and Scroll of Feather Fall when they appear.

Hoard the right things, not everything

Some things should be preserved for a while because they have high tactical value. Keep:

• High-impact scrolls for emergencies or boss fights.
• Elixirs and rare potions until a hard encounter needs them.
• Keys and quest items until you confirm they are safe to sell.
• Good alchemy ingredients if you are exploring potion crafting.

Do not hoard:

• Common healing potions to the point of never drinking them.
• Camp supplies if resting would clearly recover a stronger spell economy.
• Scrolls that match a gap in your current party setup.

Crafting and alchemy priorities

Crafting is best used to support your current plan, not to become an entire side economy. In practice, that means you should prioritize:

• Healing and cleansing potions.
• Mobility tools.
• Anti-status or anti-element support.
• Ammunition and throwables if your party leans martial.

For example, if your party lacks a jump or reposition tool, a Potion of Speed or a movement scroll can solve a problem that raw damage cannot. If your group keeps failing because someone is trapped or silenced, that is a utility issue, not a DPS issue. Spend accordingly.

Keep your respec valve open

Withers gives you a safety net for bad early choices. That means you should not freeze your entire economy around a flawed first draft of a build. If your ranger, cleric, or sorcerer feels underpowered because you misread a stat interaction, fix it after a few levels rather than continuing to sink gold into the wrong answer. This is one of the biggest beginner traps in the current meta: people overvalue “saving” gold and undervalue correcting direction.

Common Mistakes

Common beginner mistakes in Baldur’s Gate 3 usually come from treating it like a linear action RPG instead of a systems-heavy tactical RPG, and the fixes are straightforward once you know what to watch for.

1. Advancing the main story too fast

Players do this because the opening directive is urgent and the parasite premise feels time-sensitive. The result is that side quest states can shift before you have cleared the relevant map slice.

Fix:

• Finish the surrounding zone’s obvious quests before pushing major crossings.
• Clear companion recruitment and local rescue content before committing to a new region.
• Treat new route markers as a warning to check unfinished business first.

2. Entering combat with an incomplete party

New players often wander with fewer than four active members because they have not fully recruited companions or forgot to swap from camp.

Fix:

• Recruit the core companions as soon as they are available.
• Make sure your active group has melee, ranged, and utility coverage.
• Swap companions at camp before difficult quest chains.

3. Hoarding all consumables until they become useless

This happens because many RPG players fear “wasting” potions and scrolls. In Baldur’s Gate 3, that habit often causes more failed fights than it prevents.

Fix:

• Use healing potions when they prevent a knockdown chain.
• Spend strong scrolls on encounters that would cost a full rest.
• Treat consumables as part of your loadout, not museum pieces.

4. Ignoring height, surfaces, and positioning

Beginners often stand in neutral spots and trade hits face-to-face. That leaves damage on the table and makes control effects weaker than they should be.

Fix:

• Start fights from high ground when possible.
• Push enemies off ledges if the terrain supports it.
• Use grease, fire, water, and other surfaces to create favorable fights.

5. Overvaluing raw damage and undervaluing utility

Players frequently build around the biggest number they can see and then wonder why they still fail quests, locks, or boss control checks.

Fix:

• Keep at least one character focused on utility.
• Carry lockpicking tools or equivalents.
• Bring movement, healing, and control options into your daily setup.

6. Selling quest-relevant items too early

Beginners sometimes clear inventory aggressively and lose notes, keys, or odd-looking objects that matter later.

Fix:

• Read item descriptions before selling.
• Keep named or clearly unusual items until you know their purpose.
• Use camp storage for uncertain quest materials.

Pro Tips

Advanced play in Baldur’s Gate 3 is mostly about sequencing, information, and economy, not just bigger hits.

Tip 1. Trigger camp scenes on purpose

Rest after major recruitment beats, new location discoveries, or difficult fights so companion content can advance. A lot of beginner players miss approval and dialogue because they rest too little.

Tip 2. Use dialogue to start fights on your terms

If a fight can be initiated through conversation, enter it with buffs active, positions set, and the right character leading the conversation. That often matters more than the battle itself.

Tip 3. Split utility from combat roles

Keep one character available for opening chests, disarming traps, and passing checks, and do not force every companion to be combat-optimized. A clean utility split makes side quests far smoother.

Tip 4. Scan quest hubs for hidden vertical routes

Places like the Emerald Grove, Goblin Camp, and Moonrise Towers-style hubs reward climbing, jumping, and alternate access paths. The intended route is not always the strongest route.

Tip 5. Use short rests as a tactical rhythm check

Short rest before you spend a long rest if your party is only lightly taxed. That preserves resources and still keeps the group effective for back-to-back side quest fights.

Tip 6. Respec after you understand the party, not before

A build that looks weak at level 2 may feel fine once you know your item access, spell cadence, and companion overlap. Hold respecs for actual structural problems, like stat mismatches or redundant roles.

Graduation Threshold

You are out of the beginner phase when you can plan side quests around zone state, not just around visible markers. At that point, you understand when to rest, when to save consumables, when to respec, and when a quest line is about to become unavailable or change shape.

A practical threshold looks like this:

• You have a stable four-person party with defined roles.
• You know which companion conversations advance at camp.
• You can enter a new area and immediately identify whether it is a loot run, a quest hub, or a story lock.
• You are using scrolls, potions, and position-based tactics instead of saving them “for later.”
• You understand that the Baldur's Gate 3 List of All Side Quests is really a map of power spikes, not just a completion target.

Examples of the transition out of beginner play:

• You move through the Emerald Grove and Goblin Camp with a plan, not randomly.
• You respec a companion because the role is wrong, not because you saw a build online and panicked.
• You recognize that a fight near a cliff is stronger with shove, fall damage, and control than with simple trading.

Once you reach that point, your limiting factor is usually not system knowledge anymore. It is route planning and execution discipline. That is the real breakpoint between a beginner and an intermediate Baldur’s Gate 3 player.

Related Guides

These are the next pieces you should read after this beginner overview, especially if you want to turn the Baldur's Gate 3 List of All Side Quests into a cleaner progression route.

• Baldur’s Gate 3 Tier List
• Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Starter Builds
• Baldur’s Gate 3 Beginner Walkthrough
• Baldur’s Gate 3 Companion Guide
• Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Early Game Items

Sources

• https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_3
• https://howlongtobeat.com/?q=bg3
• https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/
• https://api.steambase.io/games/1086940
• https://www.protondb.com/app/1086940
• https://steamhunters.com/apps/1086940
• https://steamspy.com/app/1086940
• https://www.cheapshark.com/redirect?dealID=KR6JzYIE5jQz4X%2FqfqZL7uqeWAALnY%2Beipr2lwHIFGI%3D
• https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1086940/achievements

See also

• Baldur's Gate 3 Silver Sword of the Astral Plane Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Get Gortash's Netherstone Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Get Orin's Netherstone: Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Deliver Nere's Head Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Solve the Open Hand Temple Murders: Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Helm of Balduran Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 Save the Refugees Beginner Guide
• Baldur's Gate 3 baldurs gate 3 build dark urge Guide
• baldurs gate 3 lae'zel build: Best Fighter Setup for Lae’zel
• Baldur's Gate 3 baldurs gate 3 best honour mode builds