Baldur's Gate 3: Is Death Permanent?

Permadeath is a staple of TTRPGs and one that people come to fear when they're playing D&D. But will that fear carry over into Baldur's Gate 3? We take a look and find out.

Is it all over if you die in Baldur's Gate 3?

There's no permadeath in Baldur's Gate 3. With any character that loses all of their health points, they're knocked down and have to do three death-saving throws. Anything under a ten is a death counter, with anything above a ten being classed as a success. You need three death counters to die and three successes to live. 

If you can get one of your party members over to the downed player before they hit three failed death saving throws, then you can use your action to stabilize them, though it will come in the place of your turn. If you can stabilize them, then they'll rise with 1 hit point and you'll need to move them in order to heal them.

Even if you completely fail at your death-saving throws, then that's not the entire game over for you. You can use a Scroll of Revivify to instantly bring a character back, or if you've already unlocked The Talkative Skeleton, you can pay him 200 gold to revive an ally. The difference between the two is that you need to go back to wherever the character died to use a Scroll of Revivify, but with The Talkative Skeleton, you can just revive your ally right back at the camp. What this boils down to is that there's no permadeath in Baldur's Gate 3, and you don't have to worry about losing all of your progress.