Reaching Level 8 in Act 1: A Guide. No Raphael, No Exploits!

remember, if you need a reason to justify it irp 1. My hand slipped 2. I'm literally the dark urge

Because of your tips. I have drastically reduced the amount of long rests i take. I only play on taction for now. But still feels great to long rest less.

Undeads in coffins before "Necromancy of Thay" are easily missable, you usually only get 1-2 unless you break every coffin on purpose. That's only 20 xp per kill, but that's free extra XP with no RP consequences.

An excellent video, thank you Melth! FYI, I've done this twice now, you can kill all the goblins, save the Teiflings and then still steal the idol for the ring. The cutoff is not speaking to Mol up the left hand road when you return to the Grove. Go straight ahead, do the deed and return to Mol near the entrance, and all is good.

It has been a while since I have visited. I have something to add. Make sure you collect all the clues then solve the puzzle. In example, There is a dark journal and a magical mirror under the alchemist shop in the blighted village. If you read the journal before bypassing the mirror you get 15 additional xp. There a loads of instances like this in the game. Many of them are in dialog options and books or even environmental. Stick to the order of operations to milk the most xp out of each area. Also worth mentioning. You can knock out most NPCs for full XP, then bribe them if you want to enter dialog with them later. Zevlore was not cooperating with me pick pocketing him near the grove entrance so I knocked him out for 75xp. Thank you for the guides. I look forward to more.

A very thorough and comprehensive guide much like all of your content.

Great video! This channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite BG3 channels. I actually hit lv8 on my Dark Urge playthrough in Act 1 and didn't know the Giant Eagle summoned additional enemies! I had already done most things on the list except for things that locked me out of later content (Voss, Elminster, Oathbreaker, etc) and killing the first two Cambions that join Zhalk. I was able to make up the difference to lv8 in a couple of different ways: -Did a lot of experimenting on this, but I dragged away and knocked out friendly or non-hostile NPCs whenever I could. You get the same XP for knocking them out as you do for killing them and they get back up after a long rest as if nothing happened, so long as you were able to knock them out in a single attack (upcasted Smites are generally preferred) or if you Hold Person them and wail on them that way. Even dragged away Flaming Fist and knocked them out, apart from Councillor Florrick. Myconids don't restore their HP after a Long Rest and will continue walking around with 1 HP. A few NPCs you can't do this on for one reason or another if you care about preserving them: -Zevlor -Rolan (Cal and Lia too?) -Skickpit -Sovereign Spaw Skickpit runs away permanently after being knocked out, Sovereign Spaw is counted as dead even after knocked out and Zevlor, Rolan, Cal and Lia disappear. I didn't risk knocking out Dammon, because I wasn't sure if it would break the Strange Ox since they have a weird bug to the best of my recollection. I didn't try Baelen and Derryth either but did knock out their rothe. -In the Underdark during the Spectator encounter, I allowed the Spectator to take each turn freeing charmed Drow from petrification to join the battle. I would use a low damage ability like Vicious Mockery or Pommel Strike to break their charmed status, until all of them were free. (Let Dhourn die though to the Spectator so I wouldn't aggro the Drow afterwards). Then knocked them all out after saving them anyway for additional XP. -Knocked out Nymessa and Damays during Free Lae'zel. -Knocked out the Tiefling that is overlooking the Githyanki Patrol encounter, though this removes her corpse for Speak with Dead at the Creche. -Knocked out the warthog that spawns during Astarion's encounter, but only after I had recruited Wyll and Karlach in order to farm Approval in the conversation with it. -In the Githyanki Creche, instead of attacking during the cutscene, I let the cutscene play out and as the patrol squad runs out, entered Turn Based Mode, cast Create Water as they are all bunched up and zapped them all with Lightning Bolt in one go. I did this in multiplayer as well and it was more consistent. -In the Grymforge, Elder Brithvar, the duergar that is with him when you first meet him and Thudd do not provide any XP if knocked out or killed after defeating Nere, but can provide it before Nere is freed from trial and error. I knocked out the latter two, and only knocked out Brithvar after defeating Nere in order to get his unique Deep Delver; this was a tradeoff. Knocked out all the Rothe as well. -Switched party members in and out of my party constantly before appropriate interactions and events in order to farm Inspiration XP; this one made up a big difference in so far as I could see. The Haunted One background provides a lot of this especially. This one is probably going to be tedious for some people, but this also has heavy overlap with farming companion approval. I was able to leave Act 1 with all companions at 100 Approval with the exception of Astarion in this way, and he was at around 80 Approval in this way. -I did the Raphael exploit of course as well, which needs no introduction. -I did not do this, and if someone else can verify that would be great. But the Duergar at the lake before you depart to the Grymforge can apparently raise the corpses as dead minions? I've typically Counterspelled them, but if the raised dead provide XP, it might be more optimal to let it happen. It's not particularly RP friendly (unless you're a Dark Urge knocking people out as a way to resist killing urges) and does not mesh with a limited rest playstyle, but wanted to share these things. Hope this helps somebody.

This is sick! My friend and I always took exp as much as we could. But here now we got little more exp. Thanks again fella.

Can’t wait for our next play through video…just got to act 3 in my own

super valuable reference video. Hope we see one for act 2 eventually

WOW I’ve been waiting for a video like this!

My brain watching your content for the first time: "Ah yes, Melth's Acid Arrow"

You had my curiosity... Now you have my attention 😁😄

I'm making a zone lock challenge run in HM to see how much you can do in each zone before moving to the next and which also got me interested in how much exp and levels I could get. This Is helpful and kind of wish I knew some of this stuff earlier.

Hello, Melth! Great video! Thanks for sharing these tips! As for my contributions, I don't know if this is already part of your regular M.O., but there are several encounters throughout the game where you can get double XP by resolving them peacefully, then quickly entering turn-based mode and force-attacking the same enemies. As a couple of examples that come to mind, there's the goblins guarding the Goblin Camp, the Githyanki in the Mountain Pass, and IIRC you can also do it with the brigands outside of the Temple Ruins, where you get Withers. Mind you, I haven't played since Patch 5, so this might no longer work. Cheers!

Also, I had a question: do you plan on being this thorough with fights in act 3? I would love to see how you wipe out ever combat encounter purely because that would mean more of this awesome series! (Even if xp doesn’t matter)

Happy 5k subscribers Melth! Very well deserved.

Can you share the title of your video where you talk about fighting Elminster? You mentioned you made a video about it but I can't seem to find it in your channel.

Melth! I was waiting until I got more finished with the game before watching your Nine Hells run, and I’m waist deep in the meat and potatoes of Act 3 (just rescued Minsc) and just one day I load up the game and it’s stuttering almost as bad as yours was! Like every 4-5 seconds there is a consistent three-quarter second freeze! Was truly the only way to fix yours to get upgrades to your PC? I find it hard to believe this is just a graphics/performance issue because even at camp (where I’ve been able to play the game smoothly, at the same camp, days before) it stutters too. Trying to fix this problem myself has made me realize how difficult it is to solve and how glad I am for the sake of your enjoyment of the game and my enjoyment of your YouTube series that you were able to get it fixed

great video!