The Black Pits (Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition) [Review]

The Black Pits is Beamdog’s arena expansion that came with Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition when it was released years ago in 2012. And here I thought it was high time to finally try it out. Now, this little side-adventure isn’t much more than a string of fights put together, but it does have a story, and a prominent antagonist (Baeloth the Entertainer) that will make an appearance again in the future Beamdog releases (The Black Pits II: Gladiators of Thay and Siege of Dragonspear) and Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition itself. Effort was made to at least have the main bad guy in a continuation of sorts, which is nice, as Baeloth is one of the best parts of this expansion besides the battles.

Trapped
The tale of The Black Pits is pretty simple, but it works well enough for deadly and muddy arena combat. Baeloth, the evil drow, in a typical cackling way of a crazed magician, one day decided to start kidnapping both men and creatures alike—collecting from all over the Sword Coast for his own entertainment in gladiator fights to the death. Pretty standard going by drow, all things considered.

The Black Pits is not part of the main campaign, which means you have to create your own party, or use the default heroes presented for slaughter. I, of course, went with my own group, so here is my party of six. They managed to reach level nine of ten before barely escaping the pit, covered in gore and monster mucus.

Click here to view the party!

Name: Luthian
Class: Paladin
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Good
Role: Main Protector & Keeper of Morals
Weapons: Long Sword & Medium Shield

Strength: 16
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 8 (not the smartest Paladin of Helm)
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 17 (dumb but very charming)

Name: Bogdar
Class: Fighter
Race: Dwarf
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Role: Frontline Protector
Weapons: Battle Axe & Medium Shield

Strength: 18/32 (strongest dwarf in all of Faerûn)
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 10 (smarter than the Paladin, at least)
Wisdom: 7 (take his advice with a spade of salt)
Charisma: 8

Name: Gurk
Class: Barbarian
Race: Half-Orc
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Role: Flanker & Butcherer
Weapons: Dual Short Swords

Strength: 19 (don’t make this orc angry, for any reason)
Dexterity: 15
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 8 (his face says it all, really)

Name: Sindra
Class: Cleric
Race: Human
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Role: Battle Healer & Buffer
Weapons: Mace & Small Shield

Strength: 14
Dexterity: 10 (somewhat clumsy, so watch those swings if close)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 16 (if you ever need advice, take it from her)
Charisma: 11

Name: Vido
Class: Ranger
Race: Half-Elf
Alignment: Neutral Good
Role: Backline Sniper & Bane of Mages
Weapons: Longbow & Long Sword

Strength: 13
Dexterity: 17 (can shoot a fly’s eye at ten yards)
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 17 (who needs a personality when you are good‑looking)

Name: Eonadra
Class: Mage
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Good
Role: Controller of Crowds & Mage Nullifier
Weapons: Sling & Quarterstaff

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16 (throwing spells requires amazing finger dexterity)
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 18 (it’s lonely at the top, or just among idiots)
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 10

There are others trapped with you in the pit, who act as sellers of equipment for the damned to use in the fighting. However, if you decide to talk to them, you slowly come to know that these poor souls have also been kidnapped to serve Baeloth’s needs. I can’t say this story aspect goes very far, but it is incorporated in the arena campaign, which has an effect on the ending. Beyond that, it gives the brutal fighting a needed reason for being, instead of you just going from cleaving one creature to the next. The star of the show is Baeloth himself. He will mock, scold, and praise you (in his own way) after each fight, but the closer you get to defeating his stable of monsters and mercenaries, the crankier he becomes. It is conveyed through the voice acting excellently, which adds flair to the experience. 

The battles
The main pull, regardless of the nice story fluff, is the Infinity Engine battles—classic massive brawls of your chosen six against the hordes of monsters thrown your way. It starts rather easy against low-tier monsters, but it quickly ramps up. Luckily, your crew levels up quickly, and Baeloth is surprisingly generous with his gold rewards. In the beginning it isn’t too hard to keep up, if you got a well-balanced party (I played on core rules), but things will change for the more difficult soon enough.

You will hit a roadblock eventually, unless you are some kind of DnD god from another dimension. My first total stop was mission ten that has two magicians with tons of protection spells and a bunch of random melee units to protect them. Here I had to give up for a good while and grind easier fights to level up my mage—so she could finally memorize Secret Word (level 4), Spell Thrust (level 3) and Breach (level 5) to take down the asshole duo of the Red Wizards through breaking their magical defense.

Grinding will give gold and XP at a slower rate, but when you have mastered a fight, going through the motions is quick and painless, albeit boring, perhaps. I don’t mind the grind too much, as I wouldn’t have to be able to continue the campaign without doing so, but it breaks the narration in a big way. It’s implied that the monsters and humans you destroy are real, which makes killing ten of them in a row for a few gold pieces somewhat odd. It is what it is I guess, but more encounters would have been cooler than having to resort to grind. 

The encounters felt fair overall and didn’t come off as overtuned, especially when you consider the theme of the expansion: arena combat. It’s pretty clear that certain fights will test both your knowledge and mettle, but going by Baeloth’s generosity there is always a potion or spell to buy to turn things around if things go badly. Just make sure to spam the Q key for quicksaves, unless you want to redo fights. Automatic saves seem to be rare!

Conclusion
I had a superb time fighting in the arena, as I have always loved the Infinity Engine battles even if they are messy real-time fights, instead of something more clean and tactical like turn-based brawls. It was also fun to experience something new in a game series I have played countless times. Now, despite this, I can’t say that The Black Pits was extraordinary in any way, but I highly recommend it still—if you want a few hours of challenging battles in Baldur’s Gate. Especially so if you have chosen to ignore it before. It’s worth a go, I promise. There is a sequel, as mentioned, which I will try when I get to that. And it’s possible to get more of Baeloth in Siege of Dragonspear, Beamdog’s own massive expansion to bridge Baldur’s Gate one and two.

I just have to add that the final fight against Baeloth was hilarious in how fast it was over. I had so much gold over at that point, so I essentially had my gang buy and drink every single potion available, making us incredibly overpowered. It was over seconds, and I can only imagine Baeloth’s shock at what he was witnessing—a blurry mess of his men getting brutally slaughtered, then finally eating a sword himself in the gut! 

Thanks for reading.

– Thomas