Baldur’s Gate 3 has fans are already dazzled by its scope and the extent to which it supports players’ creativity. You can improvise melee weapons by throwing rotten food, shoes, and even companion characters. You can also fill your pockets with just about anything you’re strong enough to carry, and get some crazy action by strategically placing those items. One of my personal favorite aspects of the game’s freeform item aesthetic is that fans of the made-up class call a “barrelmancer,” someone who collects combustible barrels and then sets them off to create a series of explosions.
The Barrelmancer strategy went viral Reddit And X (née Twitter) last week. In the clip, content creator Okoii scrolls through an inventory filled with nearly 40 incendiary barrels. Their Halfling character – who is extremely tense – then places those barrels in a domino-like configuration through the Goblin Camp in the game’s first act, clambers onto a perch and throws an Alchemist’s Fire grenade to detonate them.
Apparently even more barrels were needed than I could have ever imagined. Over email, Okoii told me exactly how many: “I used about 70 barrels, but I didn’t count the exact number, there were a limited number of explosive barrels, so I clustered them around the important targets and mostly oil for the rest. – and used wine barrels with occasional throwable items placed between spots I was running low on.
A full minute of the rest of the video’s running time is spent documenting the series of explosions that utterly destroy the Goblin camp. Of course, this also includes every enemy dying dramatically, whether they fail or reach their saving goal. In total, it took about eight hours to place the barrels and film the different camera angles. “The most satisfying thing was throwing the very first brazier that detonated the barrels outside the camp,” Okoii said.
Okoii also posted a full YouTube video edit of his squad of Halfling barbarians – a squad that reads very much like a group of buff hobits – wreaking havoc across The Sword Coast. (The footage posted to Reddit and X is just the last minute of the full YouTube video.)
“4Halfing Barbarians are no joke, barbarians are generally, especially in the early game, extremely strong, so we had absolutely no issues fighting even without tons,” said Okoii.
Divinity: original sin 2 fans also got a kick out of barrelmancyso it’s no surprise to see Baldur’s Gate 3 fans pull the same trick. But the size of this: 70 barrels and eight hours! – it still amazes me.