Baldur’s Gate 3 has seen a fair few cheeky exploits in its time, but this has to be one of the most immediately game-breaking I’ve witnessed first-hand. Allowing you to generate functionally infinite gold out of thin air in just a few minutes, this BG3 shop exploit has the potential to make both you and the merchant you’re currently trading with filthy rich in next to no time. It’s a pretty rapid way to demolish the careful balance and economy of the Dungeons and Dragons RPG from Larian Studios, however, so use it at your own risk.
This Baldur’s Gate 3 gold exploit is as simple to pull off as it is devastating to the economy. It essentially allows you to take a merchant’s entire inventory and dump it into your own pockets with no negative repercussions for the RPG game but your own conscience. You won’t need to pickpocket them or risk being accused of stealing, and the best part is that the seller even gets paid for the goods, meaning they’ll be able to afford to buy back anything you don’t actually want – thus making this glitch endlessly repeatable.
All you need to do is head to an in-game merchant – I tested this with the very first notable vendor you’ll encounter on your travels, Arron in the Druid Grove, so I can confirm you’re able to do it from almost the beginning of your adventure. Then, when you go to the trade menu, click the toggle at the top to switch into ‘barter’ mode.
From there, simply select everything you want to get your grubby little hands on in the merchant’s inventory and move it to their side of the barter menu (those central columns). The fastest way to do this is to hold the Shift key and click the first and last items from their inventory (leaving the gold behind). Then, once it’s in their barter menu, select all the items a second time and drag them directly over to your character’s main inventory.
In some cases, you may get a pop-up telling you your character doesn’t have enough gold to complete the transaction, or a very small amount of their gold may be taken. However, all the items should end up in your inventory anyway – something that would set you back many thousands of gold to buy outright. You can then simply close the trading menu with the X button in the top-right, and walk away.
As noted, however, perhaps the best part is that the merchant will still get the money they’re owed, even though you aren’t spending anything. That means you can, if you want to, just keep selling everything you’ve ‘obtained’ back to them and repeat the process all over again, generating vast amounts of wealth for both you and the vendor.
It goes without saying that doing this will likely have a notable impact on your time with Baldur’s Gate 3, so please think carefully before making use of this. But perhaps you’re wanting to mess around on a subsequent playthrough, or simply someone who doesn’t want to think about how much gold you have, in which case this is certainly a quicker solution than downloading Baldur’s Gate 3 mods to adjust your inventory.
BG3 does have one other sneaky trick up its sleeve, too – it’s such a good role-playing game that I feel somewhat compelled to play it honestly. I’ve avoided pickpocketing despite its obvious mechanical benefits not because of a risk of getting caught (after all, the F5 key is always there for us), but because my character isn’t that sort of person. For others, however, this might be a perfect play. I can already hear Astarion’s wry pleas in my head: “Why wouldn’t we, darling – is it really stealing if the gold simply appears out of nowhere?”
However you choose to play, we’ve picked out the best Baldur’s Gate 3 builds to help you along. Or, if your time with Larian’s magnum opus is over for the time being, take a look through the best games like Baldur’s Gate 3 to play in 2023.
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