How to revive dead companions in Baldur's Gate 3

Reviving companions in Baldur's Gate 3 can be a bit of a pain, especially early on when you only have a limited number of Scrolls of Revivify, and you're desperately trying to keep your pals on the good side of dead. If you're new to D&D-style combat, getting your ass kicked a few times is kind of inevitable as you work to understand the plethora of abilities and mechanics.

Luckily, there are plenty of ways to get your characters back from the brink, even if you leave their cadaver to rot in a dungeon somewhere. Here, I'll explain how to help out downed party members before they expire and the three methods you can use to revive characters in Baldur's Gate 3.

How to help downed companions

When a character reaches zero HP in Baldur's Gate 3 they don't die immediately, but are instead downed. The character will be unable to act and will start automatically rolling a twenty-sided dice as a death saving throw each turn. This decides whether they are going to stabilise or flat-out die on you. 

If they roll above ten, that's a success, and below ten is a failure. If they roll three overall successes first, they'll stabilise, meaning you have as much time as you need to get to them, while three failures first will mean death. You'll still have as much time as you need to get to them, but they'll be, y'know… dead. If they take further damage while downed, each instance will count as one tick on towards them dying.

While a character is downed but not yet dead you can get them up via two separate methods. Simply heal them with a spell, or, if you don't have a spell available, you can get close to them and use the Help action by clicking on them or selecting it in the actions menu. This gets them up off the ground for free, but it's worth noting that they'll come back with only one HP, so will be in a risky position.

How to revive dead characters

If a character fails their saving throws and dies, things get a bit more serious, but there are still three ways to bring them back from death.

Scroll of Revivify

You can collect these scrolls as loot or trade for them from vendors, but they are fairly rare and quite expensive. Simply click the Scroll of Revivify in the item section on the right side of your character panel, then click on the corpse of your comrade. It's worth noting that sometimes characters can get stuck in scenery or staircases when they perish, blocking your ability to use the scroll—just use the "Shove" action to respectfully yeet their body into a safe place where you can revive them.

Withers the Necromancer

This undead Necromancer is the resident tomb lord of the Overgrown Ruins, very close to where you start the game after the Mindflayer's Ship crashes on the Ravaged Beach. The best way to find Withers is: 

• From where you meet Gale at the Roadside Cliffs waypoint, head east along the road to find the entrance to the ruins.
• If you'd prefer not to deal with the bandits inside and have Thieves' Tools, keep heading east along the path and down the knotted roots to find a locked trapdoor that leads straight into the Dank Crypt. This is a difficulty 20 check, so you might struggle without Asterion or enough buffs. If you can't open it, you'll have to progress to the Dank Crypt via the main entrance, or by shooting the hanging block in the chapel, jumping through the hole, and fighting the bandits inside. If you do the second option, look out for the explosive barrel through the door you can shoot to kill them all. After that, unlock the way to the crypt by using the switch at the back of the library.
• Once you arrive in the Dank Crypt proper, you can find Withers in a sarcophagus in the room to the north behind the big statue. 
• Be aware that opening the door to this room by pressing the button wakes some Entombed Scribes and Warriors you'll have to fight. 
• Though unrelated, make sure you loot the chest in his room to get the Amulet of Lost Voices that lets you talk to dead people.

Once you've spoken to Withers, he'll appear back at your camp whenever you take a long rest. If a character has died, you can pay him a hefty sum of gold to bring them back. The good news is that they will also appear in your camp, so you don't need to worry about traipsing all the way back to their corpse.  Withers will also show up a while later if you haven't found him, but I've yet to uncover what the trigger for this is.

Learn Revivify as a spell

Since there are a limited number of the Scroll of Revivify in the world, your best bet is to learn the spell with a character so you can use it permanently. Since it's a level three spell, this means you'll need a level five character and a level three spell slot. Lucky for you, Shadowheart, who you find on the Mindflayer ship, is a Cleric capable of learning Revivify, so be sure to keep her close. That, or you could just play a Cleric or Paladin yourself.