Baldur’s Gate 3 Lets You Get Balduran’s Sword Without Killing Ansur

Summary

You can avoid fighting Ansur while still getting his loot with a clever trick.
The set-up requires a portable enemy, such as a kobold in a barrel.
Enjoy Balduran’s Giantslayer and his helmet without the hassle of slaying an ancient undead dragon.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an incredibly complex game. It’s the kind of experience where interesting bugs are adopted by the community as features, as we’ve seen with the infamous Minthara recruitment exploit. Safe to say, you can do a lot with Baldur’s Gate 3’s engine – like transporting explosive barrels a large distance to dramatically explode the Netherbrain, for one.

Well, there may be no way around killing the bulbous final boss of Baldur’s Gate 3, but you can skip another difficult late-game fight using an ingenious trick. Anyone who has thoroughly explored the third act of Baldur’s Gate 3 will be aware of the dragon Ansur and his connection to the Emperor. Once you start down this plot thread, you’ll eventually encounter the gargantuan rotting corpse of the dragon beneath the city.

Kobold in a Box

As discovered by Wolfaxth on Reddit, you can actually avoid the fight with Ansur through a clever manipulation of the game’s engine. Normally, approaching the corpse will cause dialogue to trigger and make a fight with the resurrected dragon unavoidable. However, if one were to initiate combat before approaching the skeletal remains of Ansur, the fight can be circumvented while still granting the party the loot.

There are no enemies in the area to fight, but this problem can be solved by transporting a portable enemy. There are several candidates available throughout the game. In the video, Wolfaxth tosses a firewine barrel and out pops… a kobold! These kobold-laden barrels can be found in Rosymorn Monastery and, thankfully, the starving kobolds are content to wait inside the player’s inventory until needed.

The Emperor, a big purple tentacle monster called a Mind Flayer, in Baldur's Gate 3.

While in combat, dialogue with Ansur won’t trigger, and you can freely loot the dragon’s corpse – acquiring the powerful Balduran’s Giantslayer and Helm of Balduran.

As highlighted by slusho_ in the thread’s comments – there are a couple of ways of initiating combat at will. There’s a chest in the crèche with a grimashka inside, you can find gloves in the Zhentarim Hideout that turn your own summons hostile, you can throw the iron flask to summon a spectator and so on.

The dialogue with Ansur is definitely worth listening to if you haven’t already, but if you’re on an honour mode run and just want to get Balduran’s Giantslayer in a cheesy way, then this trick could prove very useful.