Last updated: 26 June 2026

How to Respec in BG3: Find Withers and Rebuild Your Character

Changed your mind about your Paladin after 20 hours? No problem. Baldur's Gate 3 lets you fully respec any character — including companions — by talking to Withers at your camp. Recruiting this ancient undead figure from the Dank Crypt unlocks one of the most powerful quality-of-life features in the game: unlimited class changes for just 100 gold apiece.

01Who Is Withers and Why You Need Him

Withers is an ancient, skeletal NPC who becomes a permanent resident of your camp once recruited. Despite his ominous appearance he is friendly and provides three invaluable services: respeccing characters, reviving dead companions, and hiring mercenaries. He is arguably the most useful non-combat NPC in the game, and finding him early in Act 1 pays dividends for the rest of your run.

Once he arrives at your camp he never leaves, and his services remain available across all three acts at a flat, non-escalating price.

02Where to Find Withers: The Dank Crypt

Withers is found in the Dank Crypt, a dungeon hidden beneath the Overgrown Ruins on the beach where your nautiloid crashes at the start of Act 1. This is one of the first explorable areas, making it possible — and strongly recommended — to recruit Withers before you even reach the Druid Grove.

From the crash-site beach:

1. Head inland from the wreckage toward the Overgrown Ruins (crumbling stone walls and a large stone door).
2. Open the Ancient Door — lockpick it or pass a Perception check to find a second entrance through a gap in the ruins.
3. Inside, deal with or sneak past the bandits guarding the area — combat is optional.
4. Continue to the final burial chamber to the north, which holds a sarcophagus ringed by floor trap vents.
5. Find the button on the central pillar and press it (or shoot it from range, or use Mage Hand) to disable the traps.
6. Open the sarcophagus. Withers rises, speaks briefly, and then appears at your camp the next time you rest.

Tip: Astarion can disarm the trap vents with Sleight of Hand, Gale's Mage Hand is a hands-free option, and simply shooting the disable button from range skips the puzzle entirely.

03What Respeccing Changes — and What It Does Not

Once Withers is at camp, speak to him and choose I'd like to change my class. This costs 100 gold per respec and the price never increases. Any character can be respecced — your main character or any companion. The respec returns you to the character creation screen for that character's class choices.

What you can change:

• Class — switch to any base class, including multiclass combinations
• Subclass — change your subclass selection
• Ability scores — fully redistribute your stat points
• Skills — change which skills you are proficient in
• Spells and cantrips — pick an entirely different spell list
• Feats — choose different feats at the levels they were earned

What you cannot change:

• Race and subrace — permanent at any point
• Background — locked in at character creation
• Appearance — use a Magic Mirror for cosmetic changes, not Withers

The respec is immediate. Your character keeps all experience and current level — only the build is rebuilt from scratch, making it low-risk to experiment or course-correct.

04Step-by-Step: How to Respec at Camp

Once Withers is living at camp, the process takes under two minutes:

1. Long Rest to return to camp (or fast-travel there).
2. Walk up to Withers, usually beside a glowing brazier at the edge of camp.
3. Select I'd like to change my class.
4. Choose which character to respec — your main character or any active companion.
5. Confirm the 100 gold payment (deducted from shared party gold).
6. Rebuild the character's class, subclass, ability scores, skills, and spells from level 1 up to their current level, then confirm.

There is no cooldown — you can respec the same character back-to-back as often as your gold allows. By mid-Act 1 you will routinely have hundreds of gold, making repeated respecs trivially affordable.

05All of Withers' Other Services

Recruiting Withers also unlocks two other services worth knowing:

• Revive dead companions — for 100 gold, if you lack a Scroll of Revivify. He will not revive companions killed by friendly fire, however.
• Hire mercenaries (Hirelings) — once your party reaches level 3, recruit custom party members for 100 gold each. There are 12 Hirelings covering every class, and they can be respecced exactly like companions.
• Manage your roster — Withers acts as the go-between for sending companions to camp and recalling them.

The revive service is especially important in Honour Mode, where permanent death is the default. Even in standard difficulty, a camp-based backup revive removes pressure around stockpiling Scrolls of Revivify.

06Tips for Getting the Most From Respeccing

Knowing respeccing is cheap and easy should change how you build characters all game:

• Recruit Withers immediately — the Dank Crypt is accessible in the first 30 minutes of Act 1.
• Use companions as flex slots — respec Lae'zel into a different martial subclass, or retool a caster, while keeping all personal quests and dialogue.
• Experiment before locking in a multiclass — try a split, play a few hours, then respec to compare.
• Reassign ability scores around good gear — some late-game items reward particular stat distributions.
• Hold gold before tough fights — respec into a more optimised build just before a hard boss, then back afterward.