An anxious player’s guide to time-limited quests in Baldur’s Gate 3

Unless you approach Baldur’s Gate 3 with an all-inclusive guide, there’s bound to be a moment when you encounter one of this game’s unique features: time-limited quests.

Time-limited quests will automatically complete (or fail) if you Long Rest too many times or if you complete a certain other quest beforehand. It’s an interesting system that I haven’t seen too many times in other games, so I was taken aback when I encountered my first time-limited quest. 

In cases like these, it helps to have a helping hand. So, with the help of the community over at r/BaldursGate3 on Reddit, we’ve compiled a couple of examples of time-limited quests to watch out for in all three acts. It should be mentioned that this is not a comprehensive list of time-limited quests, but rather, the biggest examples that you should most certainly be aware of.

Time-limited quests to watch for in Baldur’s Gate 3

Time-limited quests in Act 1

In Grymforge, you will lose access to the Free True Soul Nere quest if you Long Rest twice (or enter/exit your camp twice) because Nere will meet his underwhelming end.

Elsewhere, one quest permanently altered my campaign with its failure, and that was saving Lae’zel. In the game’s beginning, I completely overlooked where Tieflings had kidnapped her, and by the time I noticed, she’d already been killed at the Mountain Pass.

Also, in the Myconid Village, the Gnome Thulla — who’d been poisoned by Duergars — will perish after a few Long Rests if you don’t provide the antidote or if you complete the Free True Soul Nere quest first.

Time-limited quests in Act 2

I feel like I am beating a dead horse every time I say it, but if you don’t free the prisoners from Moonrise Towers before completing Shadowfell (the Nightsong), they’ll all be killed, and if you go to the Moonrise Towers Prison, the place has been cleared of any and all prisoners.

Also, it seems you may be able to lose the quest Lift the Shadow Curse entirely by accident. At the point in the quest where Halsin tries to save Thaniel, if you go to the beach where the portal defense mission takes place and then take a Long Rest, the quest will be lost to you. I personally may have experienced this, though it wasn’t as if Halsin died or anything; he would pretend like Art Cullagh hadn’t woken up yet.

Time-limited quests in Act 3

I think one of the biggest examples in Act 3 is that whoever it was that Orin kidnaps from your camp will be killed permanently if you Long Rest too many times before defeating her and rescuing them. I imagine the same can be said for Yenna, though her whole deal seems to be confounding to the community.

Also, when it comes to the Investigate the Murders quest, several targets will already be dead by the time you make it to warn them about — well, being murdered. What’s also odd is that, at least for me, the quest markers for these deceased citizens didn’t go away until I completed the quest.

In any case, the moral here is to do quests as soon as you possibly can because, at any point, the game could say “no,” and you’ll be permanently locked out unless you reload a previous save or start a new campaign. I swear, Baldur’s Gate 3 can be bananas sometimes, but that’s exactly why I love it.