YouTuber Bouch is no stranger to Baldur’s Gate 3 challenge runs. He’s beaten the game by finishing every fight in a single hit; he’s beaten it by throwing underwear; he’s beaten it without using any movement speed. What else is there left to achieve? Well, where Alexander might’ve wept for want of worlds to conquer, Bouch turned into himself cheese. And yes. He beat it.
As reported by GamesRadar, to even begin his cheese quest, Bouch had to take a crack at mod creation. By rewriting a line in the already-existing Select Your Statuses mod, Bouch gave himself the ability to turn into a cheese wheel by toggling on the Polymorph: Cheese spell—a spell that in a just world would be the highlight of every wizard’s repertoire, but in Baldur’s Gate 3 is only used by a single djinni in Act 3. Having successfully authored one of the world’s most specific game mods, Bouch rolled off in cheese-shape towards adventure.
(Image credit: Larian, modded by Bouch)
You’ll be shocked to learn that the combat capabilities of cheese wheels aren’t particularly heroic. When polymorphed into cheese in BG3, you can’t use equipment. You can’t use items. You have only 1 hp, and just 10 AC to safeguard it. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores all get dropped to 10. You’ve just got three possible actions to work with: jumping, smacking enemies with your cheese wheel body for 1 damage, and emitting a pungent gas cloud that prevents enemies from taking actions. Cheese in Faerún runs pretty ripe, I guess.
Looking at all that, it almost feels like Larian didn’t intend for you to play the game as a pélardon paladin, or even a briebarian. And you’d be right. But don’t lose hope: the cheese% playthrough is possible. Your munster just needs to be a monk.
While Polymorph: Cheese sets most of your capabilities to “no,” it crucially leaves passive features unaffected—like, for example, all the wild shit that Monks get off the bat. Monks get an AC bonus from their Wisdom modifier, which Polymorph: Cheese conveniently leaves unaffected. And in addition to getting an extra unarmed attack as a bonus action, Monks get a flat damage bonus to “attacks with Monk Weapons and unarmed attacks,” including your otherwise-feeble cheese smack. Cheese is a monk weapon now.
With proper mastery of the self, a mountain of tactically-employed explosives and spell scrolls (cheese can read), and the ability to fart out a cloud that leaves nearby enemies unable to act while he bludgeoned them to death, Bouch successfully proved the combat viability of cheese across all three BG3 acts. Cheese can’t, however, talk to most NPCs. It’s a lonely road that cheese wheels roll along.
There were, tragically, a couple moments where Bouch had to briefly swap out of cheese-shape to progress, but I’m willing to overlook the asterisk. And I think if you watch the run yourself, you will, too.
