Baldur's Gate 3 Owlbear Trick Does a Ridiculous Amount of…

Summary

Players of Baldur's Gate 3 can use an elaborate trick with Owlbears to deal a ridiculous amount of damage, showcasing the game's creative combat system.
By stacking boxes, transforming into an Owlbear, and using the Elixir of the Colossus, players can perform a Crushing Flight leap that deals 821 Bludgeoning damage.
This trick highlights the importance of height advantage in combat and the potential for devastating attacks, while also revealing the non-combat applications of fall damage in the game.

One Baldur's Gate 3 player recently took to social media to share an elaborate Owlbear trick that deals a ridiculous amount of damage. This achievement is yet another example of the immense creativity that the Baldur's Gate 3 combat system allows to the players.

Warning! Minor gameplay spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3 ahead. While Baldur's Gate 3 players can save an Owlbear cub early on in their playthroughs, the Owlbears that they can use in combat are actually Druids, who can transform into these and many other types of menacing creatures by casting Wild Shape on themselves. This ability is hence reserved for custom player characters and several companions belonging to the Druid class, as well as generic Druids that can be recruited by talking to Withers in the camp.

Following some experimentation with a Druid protagonist, variety Twitch streamer Ellohime found a way to make his character deal a ridiculous amount of damage in her Owlbear form. His elaborate method requires climbing on a stack of boxes from a high vantage point, turning into an Owlbear with Wild Shape, then using the Elixir of the Colossus in order to grow even larger. From there, the streamer used the Crushing Flight class action to leap onto a nearby acolyte, flattening him as a result. The combo ended up dealing a whopping 821 Bludgeoning damage, thus overkilling the unlucky Baldur's Gate 3 NPC by a factor of 30.

A subsequent inspection of the game's combat log revealed that the fatal leap was performed from a height of 31.6 meters (103 feet), producing an impact of over five metric tons, or more than 11,000 lbs. While jumping from this sort of height in Baldur's Gate 3 would normally be a fatal experience, one of the side benefits of Crushing Leap is that it negates fall damage, which makes it a crucial component of this destructive combo.

Since the ability itself deals Bludgeoning damage, this newly surfaced trick should be reserved for Baldur's Gate 3 enemies who aren't resistant to blunt weapon attacks. Nevertheless, the sheer amount of damage that Ellohime managed to deal suggests that combining the Elixir of the Colossus with Crushing Leap could also allow one-shotting enemies from much lower heights in the Owlbear form. Stacking crates in order to climb them is also beneficial for many non-Druid classes, as any height advantage over the enemy boosts a given character's ranged combat rolls while making them harder to hit.

While this newly emerged trick underlines how useful gravity can be during fights, fall damage also has non-combat applications in the game. This was recently illustrated with the discovery of a Baldur's Gate 3 trick for opening locked chests without lockpicking.