Baldur's Gate 3 players ditch sex% speedruns to find out how many NPCs you can sleep with a single playthrough of the RPG instead
Step aside, sex% speedruns
The latest Baldur's Gate 3 challenge is of the horniest variety, prompting the RPG's players to test how many companions and devils they can romance in just one run.
This article contains story spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3's second and third acts.
I'm a simple Baldur's Gate stan myself. In all of my many playthroughs, I always romance my beloved Astarion. Other fans are far more open to the game's many sex-related possibilities, opting to sleep with all flavours of NPC. A new challenge in which players strive to have sex with as many characters as possible in a playthrough proves just that. Following a post on Reddit in which someone asks about "the maximum amount of times you can get laid," people have started doing the math to figure it out themselves.
Other plays have gone even further in the past, with one YouTuber chronicling her journey to "the highest body count achievable in Baldur's Gate 3" - and yes, she means that kind of body count. As per her deductions (and a sprinkle of my own math, too), it looks like the maximum number of sex scenes that you can encounter in one run is between 11 to 12, including a few that are locked behind proper romancing. In the first act, you can rack up four such scenes between Astarion, Lae'zel, and Minthara (if you choose to destroy the Emerald Grove). It won't take you all that long to do so either in case you're like me - reluctant to experience just one evil run.
The second act gets a bit spicier as you can have sex up to a total of five times depending on your choices in the previous act. If you've already slept with Astarion and Lae'zel in Act 1, that number falls to just two. Whatever you do, though, don't make Astarion drink Araj Oblodra's putrid blood in Moonrise Towers unless you want to ruin your chances with him in both Acts 2 and 3. Remember to react positively to Gale's illusion, too. You can further liven your challenge run up by snagging a couple of extra kisses on the side - one from Shadowheart and another from Wyll.
While sleeping your way through the second act, don't forget to pay close attention to dialogue as your decisions can lock you into relationships with companions. Act 3 has a possible total of 12 sex scenes to witness, all depending on such choices. Three of those only apply if you agree to a relationship with either Astarion, Karlach, or Shadowheart. In the third act, you also get the chance to sleep with a couple of non-companion characters like Mizora and Harleep. The rest are different combinations of scenarios with the drow twins - for instance, the two siblings together or one sibling and one companion.
Playthroughs are, of course, personal (wink), so these numbers are likely to change depending on your own experience, and mechanics may always be up in the air depending on patch changes, but they offer a pretty good estimate of the max scenes for each act. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see about putting these calculations to the test. Who knows, if more players do, maybe we'll even see this challenge overtake sex% - Baldur's Gate 3's horniest speedrunning category in popularity.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Love is in the air. Check our guide on Baldur's Gate 3 romances and relationships for more.
After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.
Baldur's Gate 3 is doing even better in 2024 than it did in 2023, with daily users up 20%, and Larian thinks it knows why: "Mods are very good"
Baldur's Gate 3 dev begs console players to exercise modding restraint, because a new hotfix is about to make your saves temporarily unplayable if you have 100+ installed