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The Witcher 3 tips and tricks for beginners

Power and potions and peasants, oh my!

The Witcher 3 tips for beginners: A man with long silver hair, wearing plate armor, has his hand on a sword hilt. Behind him is a range of snow-covered mountains.
Josh Broadwell avatar
Guide by Josh Broadwell Contributor
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If you can’t tell your Novigrad from your Roach, then our selection of The Witcher 3 tips for beginners is here to (hopefully) help.

There’s a lot to get to grips with during Geralt’s adventure from the moment you step foot in White Orchard, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or miss out on important tools at your disposal.

Practicing some of these straightforward tips, from inventory management to navigating quest outcomes, we've got you covered. Here are some tips and tricks for beginners when it comes to playing The Witcher 3.

The Witcher 3 tips and tricks for beginners

Witcher 3 alchemy: A menu image is shown, with the cursor highlighting the Ekimmara Decoction, an item used to drain health from enemies while Geralt attacks them

Don’t neglect your alchemy kit

Vesemir teaches you the basics of alchemy and potion crafting at the start of the game, but with griffins, bandits, and so many people in need of Geralt’s help, it’s easy to forget about alchemy. That would be a mistake.

The best potions and decoctions are the most important part of Geralt’s kit, augmenting his stats, exploiting enemy weaknesses, and even helping increase the amount of weight he can carry. You can craft most of the best potions as soon as you step foot in White Orchard, though decoctions and the like require a mutagen from specific monsters.

Level up fast

Leveling up quickly may seem like standard advice for any RPG, but it’s especially important in The Witcher 3. The best way to get money is by completing quests, and most of the game’s early quests have recommended levels of 4 or higher, which means it’s easy to get stuck with no money for goods and no easy way to get more without spending hours hunting down bandit camps.

Follow the main story quests and take on a few bounties you’re confident you can handle, and then you’ll be in a good position to branch out further with some of the more interesting side quests.

Check out our quick leveling guide for some more specific methods.

Take from the rich

After completing a contract, Geralt usually has the option to accept payment or decline it. The Witcher 3 doesn’t have a morality system, but even from a pragmatic perspective, there’s not really a point to taking payment from a desperately poor person. If your clients are wealthy are fairly well off, always take their money, whatever their back story is. Coin is hard to come by, and it’s more use to you than it is to them.

Always make a detour for Places of Power

Places of Power are little stone shrines dotted around the map, and you should always interrupt whatever you're doing to find them if you spot the icon show up on your map. Not only do they temporarily power up one of your Signs. They also give Geralt a skill point to spend on enhancing his abilities.

If you don't feel like tracking them down yourself, our Places of Power locations guide already did the work for you.

Plan your skills ahead of time

There’s only one way to reset your skills in The Witcher 3, and it isn’t cheap. You need a Potion of Clearance, which costs 1,000 coins and only comes from a handful of merchants.

Don’t expect to get your hands on it until rather late in the game. The better choice is to wait before spending points and see what might benefit your playstyle more. If you don’t use signs frequently, then there’s little point leveling them up.

The exceptions are skills that have universal applications, such as raising Geralt’s vitality or increasing his weight capacity.

The Witcher 3 saddlebags: A man wearing red and white striped clothing is standing next to a horse. Both are in the middle of a swampy area surrounded by trees bathed in the red glow of sunset

Get saddlebags ASAP

Weight management is important in The Witcher, and we don’t mean keeping Geralt looking fit. Every item in your inventory weighs a certain amount, and once you reach Geralt’s max weight capacity, he starts walking slowly, can’t dodge effectively, and fights less efficiently.

It’s not a good situation to be in, and while you can store some items in boxes along the way, the better option is buying saddlebags. We outlined the best bags to bag in our saddlebags guide, but the short version is that these increase your weight capacity substantially and make adventuring much easier.

Remember your Witcher ways (if you feel like it)

Geralt’s Witcher code demands a certain type of behavior – just and fair, but detached. If you try and stick to those ideals during conversations with other people, you’ll typically end up with the best quest outcomes. That’s still true for the In the Eternal Fire’s Shadow quest, where the most satisfactory ending comes from chastising both the departed spirit and the young clergyman who enlisted your aid.

Like in that quest, though, most of your dialogue choices affect the outcome of a specific quest and don’t have a substantial effect on the broader story or getting the best ending. A few questlines are dependent on how you behaved in an earlier exchange, but for the most part, you won’t lock yourself out of rewards or major developments even if you decide to make Geralt a very bad Witcher indeed.

The Witcher 3 Albedo: A man with silver hair and a silver beard is standing in front of some fir trees. He wears plate armor and is tossing a small brown satchel into the air

Keep multiple saves

The Witcher 3 has several save slots, and if you’re concerned about the outcomes of certain quests or want to explore multiple quest and story endings, then getting in the habit of saving before important conversations is a good idea. There’s no way to stall when an important choice comes up - you can’t leave, save, and come back – so alternate save files are a handy way to avoid regrets and headaches should you not get the outcome you wanted.

Keep an eye on your stamina

Vitality (HP in Witcher speak) is important, but you need to monitor your stamina as well. Stamina is the beige bar in the top left of the screen, and it depletes when you use normal and strong attacks. Run out of stamina, and you’ll be left standing around waiting to catch your breath – not ideal in the middle of a difficult battle.

Using normal, fast attacks takes up less stamina and is a more sustainable approach to battle, but you can also craft potions that help restore stamina quickly.

Don’t wander too much

The Witcher 3’s biggest strengths are in its main story and most of the meatier side quests. The world is vast and pleasant to look at, but the secrets therein mostly consist of bandit camps and randomly generated treasure hordes. Exploration, especially in the early hours, is not the most gripping activity, so if you find yourself losing steam, stick with the main story for a while and see if that puts some pep back in your step.

Whether you're just starting The Witcher 3 for the first time or need a refresh after a long time out of the saddle, check out our Witcher 3 walkthrough for all the essential info, including how to get the best ending and which quests you should actually do in the wide, open world.

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