How to Disable the Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3)

Knowing how to disable the Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3 is going to save you a lot of hassle in the early hours of the campaign. Due to the sheer size of the game, it could well be that you don’t even come across these at all, or certainly not ones that are trying to kill you. If, however, you do a lot of exploring in the Emerald Grove, or end up annoying the Druids there, you’ll need to figure them out quickly. The Guardian Statues can technically be killed, but to do so, you’d need to be capable of a huge amount of damage in a single attack, and because that’s likely outside of your abilities at this early stage in the game, learning how to disable the Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t just the smarter way to go about things, it’s really the only way to do so.

How to Disable the Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3

While you’ll spot a few of these dotted around the Emerald Grove, you won’t have a problem with any of them until you either break into the druids’ home specifically, which we really recommend against, or you stumble across a passage just past where the Goblin prisoner is being kept. You’ll find this path by jumping down to a ledge behind her cage, and then successfully rolling on a perception check there.

Related: The Curious Case of the Baldur’s Gate 3 Serial Killer – The Stuff of Legends

Inside, you’ll see a druid lying down on the floor with a few goblins around them. You’ll probably not notice the Guardian Statue of a bear to the right of you as you enter though, and that’s going to be a fatal mistake, because the thing shoots fireballs out at an alarming rate, and does a lot of damage as it does so too. It can easily wipe out an early-game party, so you’re going to want to turn it off or destroy it.

Destroying it is near-impossible, but the way to disable the Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3 is actually pretty simple. All you need to do is enter turn-based mode, and then get one of your characters over to the “Rune of a Bear” interactable up ahead on your left. Simply interact with this to turn the statue off or on as you want. When the statue and rune are glowing it’s on, when they’re not it’s off. Now that you know that, you just need to wipe out the goblin party. Keep an eye out for other such runes dotted around the grove too if you get attacked by any other Guardian Statues in Baldur’s Gate 3.

If you’re looking for more on the game, check out our article on why an early game quest at Auntie Ethel’s teahouse is one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s best.