Baldur's Gate 3 Best Weapons and Where to Find Them

Baldur's Gate 3 hands you a pile of rusty starting gear and then throws goblins, cultists, and worse at you within the first hour. The power jump happens fast once you start grabbing the right blades and bows. Below are the standout weapons in each act, the boots that keep you mobile, and the one forge in the Underdark where you cook up your own gear. Numbers here come straight from the community wiki, so the dice and prices are the real ones, give or take a patch.

Act 1 Weapon Upgrades

Act 1 is where a lot of fights feel rough, and a big reason is damage resistance. Plenty of early enemies shrug off non-magical weapons, so your plain starter sword barely scratches them. The fix is simple: get hold of something that counts as magical, and pick up a couple of named blades along the way.

The Everburn Blade

You can grab this one before you even leave the tutorial. The Everburn Blade sits with Commander Zhalk at the helm of the Nautiloid, the mind flayer ship you start on. It's an uncommon greatsword that swings for 2d6 slashing plus 1d4 fire, and here's the kicker: even though it has no enchantment bonus, it counts as a magical weapon. That means it cuts right through the non-magical slashing resistance that the cambions have in the prologue. For a level-1 character that's a huge deal.

Zhalk is level 12, so trading blows with him head-on is rough. Two easier routes exist. Free Shadowheart and Us (the brain friend) first for more bodies, then swarm him. Or, cleaner, cast Command: Drop on him and he just hands you the sword. His save is high, so it might take a try or two, but it skips the fight entirely. The blade sells for 130 gp if you'd rather have the gold.

Phalar Aluve

Phalar Aluve is the sword in the stone you'll find in the Underdark, near the Selûnite Outpost. It's a rare +1 longsword (1d8+1 one-handed, 1d10+1 two-handed, slashing) with a Finesse tag, so dexterity characters can swing it as well as strength ones. The reason people love it is the Melody action. Once per short rest you set it to either Sing or Shriek.

Sing gives nearby allies a bump to their attack rolls. Shriek deals a burst of extra damage to enemies caught in its radius. Either way it's a free, party-wide boost you can fire every fight. The catch is that swapping modes costs an action, so set it before combat starts when you can. Worth 250 gp, and it stays useful well into Act 2.

Knife of the Undermountain King

This is the early-game prize for finesse builds. It's a very rare +2 shortsword (1d6+2 piercing, finesse, light) sold by A'jak'nir Jeera, the githyanki merchant at Crèche Y'llek up in the Mountain Pass. The price is 480 gp, or 1,200 on Honour mode, so save up.

What makes it special is the Organ Rearranger passive. It lowers your critical hit threshold by 1, so you crit on a 19 instead of a 20. Stack that with other crit gear and you're fishing for big hits constantly. It also rerolls low damage rolls and grants advantage against obscured targets. Pairs nicely with anything that creates darkness or blinds.

Here's a quick Act 1 cheat sheet.

| Weapon | Type | Damage | Where to grab it | |---|---|---|---| | Everburn Blade | Greatsword (2H) | 2d6 slashing + 1d4 fire | Commander Zhalk, Nautiloid | | Phalar Aluve | Longsword (versatile, finesse) | 1d8+1 / 1d10+1 slashing | Underdark, sword in the stone | | Knife of the Undermountain King | Shortsword (finesse, light) | 1d6+2 piercing | A'jak'nir Jeera, Crèche Y'llek |

Speedy Lightfeet Boots and Mobility Gear

Movement wins fights in this game more than people expect. If you can dash across the map and hit first, you control the whole round. The boots in this section are all about getting your character into position fast, and the headliner is the Speedy Lightfeet.

The Speedy Lightfeet

These are rare boots you can pick up almost for free in the Blighted Village. Go to the windmill, find the wooden hatch on the ground near it, drop into the cellar, and open the heavy chest. That's it. No boss, no fight. The chest sits at roughly X: -711, Y: -412.

The effect is Speedy Sparks. Every time the wearer Dashes (or takes a similar action) in combat, they gain 3 Lightning Charges, once per turn. They also add +1 Athletics. Build up to 5 charges and the Lightning Charges condition fires, handing you a short-lived bonus to attack rolls and armour class plus a little lightning damage on your hits before the charges reset. It's the same charge mechanic you'll see on the rest of the "Sparkstruck" gear made by the wizard Yrre, so the pieces stack nicely.

One thing to know: the boots need Medium Armour proficiency. That covers fighters, paladins, rangers, clerics, and the like. Rogues and monks don't get that for free, and barbarians and monks lose their Unarmoured Defense bonus if they wear them. So hand these to someone in medium armour rather than your sneaky dex character.

Springstep Boots

If you'd rather have straight movement speed, the Springstep Boots are the other big Act 1 pickup. These give the Swift Strides passive: when the wearer Dashes in combat, they gain Momentum for 3 turns, which adds 1.5m of movement for each remaining turn. Dash early and you've got a running start for the whole fight.

You'll find them in the Shattered Sanctum at the Goblin Camp, in the treasure room behind Dror Ragzlin's throne (around X: 296, Y: 71). You have to go through Ragzlin to reach it, so it's a bit more work than the windmill chest, but the whole camp is something you'll clear anyway.

A nice bonus: Cunning Action: Dash and Step of the Wind: Dash both trigger Swift Strides. So rogues and monks can actually use these ones, with no proficiency wall in the way.

Other mobility gear worth grabbing

A few more movement pieces round out the early and mid game. The Linebreaker Boots fill a similar Dash-triggered role and skip the medium-armour requirement, so they're a fine fallback for squishy casters. Down the line you'll run into boots that ignore difficult terrain entirely, which is gold in the Act 2 shadow-cursed areas where the ground itself slows you down. Featherfall and Misty Step gear also open up rooftop and shortcut routes that save real time.

The short version: put the Speedy Lightfeet on a medium-armour frontliner who Dashes a lot, and give the Springstep Boots to a rogue or monk who bonus-action dashes. That covers most parties.

Act 2 Legendary Weapon Locations

Act 2 is lighter on weapon legendaries than the acts on either side of it, but the ones you can get are strong, and a couple of them shape whole builds. Most of the action happens around the Gauntlet of Shar and the Rosymorn Monastery area you pass on the way.

The Blood of Lathander

This is a legendary +3 mace (1d6+3 bludgeoning) and it's one of the best weapons a cleric or paladin can hold for the entire game. It comes with three tricks. It lets you cast Sunbeam once per long rest. It has Lathander's Blessing, which means once per long rest, if your hit points hit 0, you bounce back with 2d6 HP and nearby allies heal 1d6. And it shines holy light in a 6m radius that blinds fiends and undead on a failed DC 14 Constitution save.

You find it through the "Find the Blood of Lathander" quest at Rosymorn Monastery in the Mountain Pass. Technically that's Act 1 turf, but most people grab it right around the Act 1-to-2 transition, so it slots in here. The clean way to get it is the Dawnmaster's Crest. You solve a small puzzle by placing a ceremonial mace, warhammer, and battleaxe on the right stone tables (rusty versions work fine), which hands you the crest. Pop the crest in the altar's slot and you can take the mace safely.

Skip the crest and grab it by force and you trigger a trap that blows up the monastery in four turns. You can still escape, but it makes the githyanki crèche hostile and can wipe out Crèche Y'llek underneath. Use the crest.

Selûne's Spear of Night

This legendary +3 spear is the payoff for the Gauntlet of Shar. It lets you cast Moonbeam, grants Darkvision, and gives advantage on Wisdom saving throws. That last part is huge for any caster who keeps getting hit by fear and charm effects.

The spear starts as a plain Spear of Night sitting on an altar in the Silent Library, deep in the Gauntlet. To turn it into the legendary Selûne version you have to save the Nightsong and defeat Balthazar. Take the dark path and kill the Nightsong instead, and you get Shar's Spear of Evening, which is the evil-mirror version of the same weapon. Either way it's a top spear for the rest of the game.

Justiciar's Scimitar

For a finesse build that wants something with a little control, the Justiciar's Scimitar is a +2 scimitar looted from a hidden mini-boss named Lythindor in the Gauntlet of Shar. The trick to spawning him: attack the rats in the first room of his area. When you fight with advantage, the scimitar has a chance to blind the target, which sets up a nice loop with anything that grants advantage against blinded or obscured foes.

It's not a legendary, so don't expect it to carry the whole run, but in Act 2 it's a solid finesse pick while you wait for the real Act 3 blades.

A quick note on Act 2 overall: a lot of the power here comes from armour, not weapons. The Luminous Armour, found in the Waning Moon in Reithwin, is the backbone of the popular radiant-orb build, and there's good supporting gear around Moonrise Towers. So if your weapon feels thin in Act 2, your defences are probably doing the heavy lifting, and that's fine.

Act 3 Best-in-Slot Weapons

Act 3 is where the toolkit opens all the way up. There's a best-in-slot pick for basically every weapon slot and every build, and most of them are legendaries tucked behind a quest or a boss. Here's the rundown by what you're looking for.

Nyrulna, the throwing trident

Nyrulna is a legendary +3 trident (1d6+3 piercing one-handed, 1d8+3 two-handed) with a bonus 1d6 thunder on every hit. The headline is Zephyr Connection: it returns to your hand when thrown, you can't be forced to drop it, and every throw explodes for 3d4 thunder in a 6m blast. It also grants +3m of movement and jump distance plus full immunity to fall damage. For a thrown-weapon barbarian or a dex thrower, this is the weapon.

You get it from the circus. At the Circus of the Last Days in Rivington there's a cheating djinni named Akabi running a rigged wheel. Pickpocket his Djinni Ring, then spin the wheel and hit the jackpot. He gets mad and teleports you to a jungle full of dinosaurs. Survive that, and Nyrulna is in a chest waiting for you. It sells for 840 gp if you'd rather cash out, but keep it.

Balduran's Giantslayer

If you're playing a strength melee character, this legendary +3 greatsword is the prize. The Giantslayer passive doubles your Strength modifier's damage on every hit. On a high-strength fighter or paladin, that turns each swing into a truck. It also hands you the Giant Form action, which grows you to Large size and grants advantage on attacks against smaller creatures.

It's looted from Ansur, the dragon you fight in the Dragon's Sanctum. To reach the sanctum, get into the Wyrmway beneath Wyrm's Rock, with the entrance tucked near the prison area. The Ansur fight is a real one, so bring your best and a healthy stack of healing.

Crimson Mischief and Bloodthirst

These two are the dual-wield dream, and you get them both from the same boss. Crimson Mischief is a legendary +2 shortsword, and Bloodthirst is a legendary +2 dagger. Both drop from Orin the Red when you beat her in the Temple of Bhaal, deep under the Lower City.

Crimson Mischief shifts its effect based on which hand holds it. In the main hand, Prey Upon the Weak adds 1d4 piercing against targets at half health or less. In the off hand, Crimson Weapon lets you add your ability modifier to off-hand damage, which off-hand attacks normally can't do. Bloodthirst, meanwhile, makes critical hits more likely and inflicts piercing vulnerability in the main hand. Put them together and a dual-wielder is stacking crit, vulnerability, and bonus piercing every single round.

Gontr Mael

For ranged characters, Gontr Mael is a legendary +3 longbow (1d8+3 piercing, 18m range) and one of the strongest bows you can equip. It drops from the Steel Watcher Titan when you destroy the Steel Watch Foundry as part of the questline against Gortash. The +3 enchantment is a big jump on its own, and the bow comes with a mark-style passive that lets you tag enemies so your party hits them harder.

Heads up: you only get this if you actually blow up the foundry. Make peace with Gortash and skip that questline, and the Titan never spawns, so the bow stays locked.

Markoheshkir

Casters get their own best-in-slot with Markoheshkir, a legendary quarterstaff found in Ramazith's Tower, which you reach through Sorcerous Sundries in the Lower City. The big draw is Arcane Battery: once per long rest, the next spell you cast costs no spell slot. On top of that it carries an elemental affinity you can tune to your main damage type. If a wizard is in the party, this staff is basically the only choice.

Here's a quick Act 3 table to keep the picks straight.

| Build / slot | Best-in-slot | Source | |---|---|---| | Strength melee (2H) | Balduran's Giantslayer | Ansur, Dragon's Sanctum | | Dual-wield finesse | Crimson Mischief + Bloodthirst | Orin, Temple of Bhaal | | Ranged | Gontr Mael | Steel Watcher Titan, Foundry | | Caster | Markoheshkir | Ramazith's Tower | | Thrown / mobility | Nyrulna | Akabi, Circus of the Last Days |

Weapon Enchanting at Grym's Forge

There's exactly one place in the game where you make your own gear, and that's the Adamantine Forge in Grymforge, down in the Underdark. It's an Act 1 activity most people tackle around level 4 or 5, and it lets you craft a small set of powerful items that ignore damage resistance and stop enemies from landing critical hits on you.

What you can craft

The forge makes six things total, but you only get to pick two. That's the hard limit, because there are only two pieces of Mithral Ore in the whole game. The three weapons are the Adamantine Longsword, the Adamantine Mace, and the Adamantine Scimitar. The other three are the Adamantine Shield, Scale Mail, and Splint Armour.

Every adamantine weapon shares two passives. Diamondsbane means any hit against an object is an automatic critical hit, which is great for smashing doors, chests, and webbed surfaces. Lethal Weapon is the big one for combat: the weapon ignores resistance to its damage type. The longsword and scimitar ignore slashing resistance, and the mace ignores bludgeoning resistance. Against enemies that halve your melee damage, that's a straight doubling of your output.

The crafting process

The forge has three controls, and there's a book called "The Great Furnace of Grymforge" (found on Xargrim's corpse in the Ebonlake Grotto) that spells out the steps. In order: place the Mithral Ore and your chosen mould into their chambers, pull the lever to lower the hammer and prep the ore, then open the lava valve to fill the crucible and drop the hammer again to forge the item. Repeat with the second ore for your second piece. You can even reuse the same mould twice if you want two of the same thing, you just eject and reload it.

One Mithral Ore sits southwest of the Ancient Forge waypoint along a path down to the lava, with the glowing vein across the flow at about X: -645, Y: 255. The second is in a library-looking area east of the path down to the platform, bulging from an archway near X: -558, Y: 278. Grab both before you start forging, because once you're down on the platform it's a pain to backtrack.

The first time you open the lava valve, a construct boss named Grym shows up to defend the forge. Grym takes almost no damage from normal attacks, but when it goes Superheated it turns vulnerable. The trick is to lure it onto the forge platform while it's superheated and drop the hammer on it, which is where the real damage comes from. A few Magma Mephits also crawl out of the lava as added annoyance. A useful caution: the button behind the hammer lever raises the platform, and a raised platform makes the forge stop working. So don't raise it before you finish your second item.

What to actually make

Since you only get two items, the usual picks lean defensive. The Splint Armour is wildly popular because attackers can't land critical hits on the wearer, all incoming damage drops by 2, and any melee hit sends the attacker Reeling for 3 turns. That alone can carry a tank through most of the game. The Shield is the other common pick for the same crit-immunity reason. The Scale Mail is the medium-armour flavour of the same idea, just with a smaller damage reduction.

If your frontline is solid and you'd rather punch through resistance, the Mace is a fine weapon choice, especially for a cleric who already wants a mace. The longsword and scimitar are good too, but you'll often outgrow them by mid Act 2. So unless you have a specific build in mind, the safe play is one piece of crit-immune armour and either the shield or a weapon for whoever's struggling with resistant enemies.

Two pieces of Mithral Ore, two items, and the Splint Armour alone is the real reason most people make the trip down here. Oh, and beating Grym also drops the Grymskull Helm, a solid free helmet on top of whatever you craft.