How death saves and reviving party members works in Baldur’s Gate 3

Not every combat encounter will be in favor of you in Baldur’s Gate 3. You may find yourself in the middle of a goblin ambush, or a few rapid wolves have decided to make you an easy meal. Whatever the case may be, a party member or two may find themselves fighting death’s doors in the middle of combat. They have three attempts to success their death saving throws and potentially hold on to remain amongst the living. However, those three attempts are precious, and even if they succeed, they still need help.

When a party member’s health points reach zero, they fall to the ground an indicator with a skull icon appears. Each turn, they make a death save. If they roll above a 10, they succeed, and it counts as a success. If they go below 10, it’s a failure, and it counts against them. When a character reaches three successfully death save rolls, they live. Should they roll three failures, though, a character dies, and you have to bring them back to life.

After, or before, a character succeeds all of their death saving throws, they need a party member to pick themselves up. You can do this using the “help” action, which you can find on the bonus actions tab. It should be the icon of two hands clasping each other. Have any of your characters use this action on one surviving death, and they will rise with a single health point. However, before a character completes all of their death saving throws, another character can use the help action to bring them up immediately, rather than leaving it up to fate.

Alternatively, if a character does ultimately die, you need to use a scroll of revivify to bring them back. It’s a powerful piece of magic, and there are not many of them in the world. Although, you can waste one of these so that a wizard can use it to learn the spell. So long as that wizard character remains alive, and in your party, you can freely revive characters, and other individuals you encounter, back from the dead.