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In Baldur’s Gate 3, Illithid powers give you and your companions access to psychic abilities like telepathy and telekinesis. These are quite versatile powersets, capable of making your progression and encounters significantly easier. While Illithid powers will help you turn the tide of the battle, the community is quite confused about the method of accessing the higher-tier psychic abilities and how they will play out in the game.
BG3 does not hold the player’s hand all that much, and with the RPG being an incredibly fleshed-out DnD experience, it can get confusing for newer players to obtain certain things in the game.
This Baldur’s Gate 3 guide will go over ways to obtain more Illithid abilities, along with a few higher-tier powers.
How to get more high-tier Illithid powers in Baldur’s Gate 3
Here are some things that you will be required to do to unlock more Illithid powers in Baldur’s Gate 3:
1) Acquire Mind Flayer Parasite Specimens
When the narrative begins, you can automatically unlock basic Illithid powers, mainly psychic tricks to manipulate conversations and NPC responses. You can put more Illithid points in newer skills and abilities by acquiring Mind Flayer Parasite Specimens.
You can obtain these specimens from specific NPCs in the Forgotten Realm.
2) Help the Emperor and become a Half-Illithid
After you have been steadily putting more points in the Illithid abilities in Baldur’s Gate 3, you will eventually reach Act 3, and a situation will arise where you must help the Emperor in the Astral Plane.
Ensure you aid him instead of attacking him, as it will give you the choice to become a Half-Illithid in the game. This will open up tier 3 powers, the Higher-tier Illithid skills.
How to become a Half-Illithid in Baldur’s Gate 3
After saving the Emperor, he will give you the option to "evolve", which will significantly improve your Illithid powers. However, this choice is completely voluntary, and if you do agree, an Astral-Touched Tadpole will given to you by the Emperor, which will automatically turn you into a Half-Illithid.
Once your character's appearance changes (grows jagged veins after accepting the tadpole), you can open the Illithid Power tab, and Tier 3 abilities will be available to you.
Your character will not be the only one who can access these powers, as your companions who have the parasite in their brains will also be able to access them. However, you must make them agree to use these abilities and transfer Astral-Touched Tadpoles to their inventories.
All high-tier Illithid Powers in Baldur’s Gate 3
Here are all the tier 3 Illithid Powers that you can look forward to in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough:
Fracture Psyche (support action)
- This will lower the target enemy’s armor class by 1 point. If the affected enemy dies, you can cast this ability immediately, making it one of the best support skills in the late game.
Illithid Expertise (passive)
- Illithid Expertise is a passive skill that will allow you to gain expertise in Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation checks. This will make Ability Check rolls significantly easier to complete.
Psionic Dominance (passive)
- This ability will allow you to nullify a spell completely. However, the spell range needs to be within 18 meters of you and the caster and should have a level equal to or lower than your proficiency.
Black Hole (offensive action)
- Allows you to cast a spell in the target location, which will create a black hole type of gravitational effect pulling nearby enemies in. Additionally, you can cast this Baldur’s Gate 3 Illithid power five more times before you need to rest and recharge it.
Fly (support action)
- This spell automatically unlocks when you become a Half-Illithid. This will allow you to fly around and will not require an additional spell slot to activate.
Mind Blast (offensive action)
- Mind Blast will let you fire an energy beam in a cone, deal 6-34 psychic damage, and even stun the targets, making it an extremely potent CC skill.
Mind Sanctuary (support action)
- With this Illithid power, you can make a field where all characters inside it will invest in bonus actions interchangeably.
Freecast (passive/toggled)
- Freecast is an amazing skill, especially if you are going for a caster build. It will let you remove all resource costs for spell slots and charges. However, to refresh it, you will need to rest.
Absorb Intellect (support action)
- You can lower the target’s (enemy or ally) intelligence by 1 point, which will then heal you for 1-8 HP for five turns. It’s another incredibly potent support skill in Baldur’s Gate 3’ Illithid skill tree.
Displacer Beast Shape (shapeshift action)
- Transforms you into an astral cat upon use, allowing you to deal an insane amount of damage to enemies with every attack.
Illithid powers in Baldur’s Gate 3 are a game-changer and can easily turn the tides on the hardest enemies when used correctly.
