How to activate cheat codes in Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition on Steam

Voivod the Fighter and Imoen the Thief standing in the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Candlekeep
Voivod the Fighter and Imoen the Thief standing in the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Candlekeep

I’m not a big gamer by any standard. I have quite a few computers games but they mostly fall into five categories:

  1. LEGO games—I love these, as do my three boys.
  2. Call of Duty/Battlefield first person shooters—I only play the story-mode versions on easy level for the cinematic experience.
  3. Story/walking simulator style games (Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, Firewatch).
  4. Multiplayer, party-style games for my children (Screencheat, Sonic All-Stars Racing, Mini Motor Racing Evo).
  5. Baldur’s Gate family Dungeons & Dragons’ role playing games.

Apart from the LEGO games—which are part adventure, part puzzle games—for the most part, I enjoy games for their cinematic and story-telling properties. I want escape and entertainment rather than spending hours building an empire or working out some kind of complex strategy.

Cheat / debug mode

So, for the last few years in Baldur’s Gate (in the few moments that I’ve had a chance to play it) I have activated the cheats (or debug mode). This gives me access to the entire game inventory to equip my character accordingly and a better chance to survive the adventure.

Clue: I have never yet completed Baldur’s Gate, despite owning it since about 1999 (I still own my original copy on five CD-ROMs).

Having just reinstalled my PC, I was disappointed to discover that the old way of activating cheat mode (by editing baldur.ini) had changed. This is how I managed it today (on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, with OneDrive installed).

  1. Locate the folder at Documents > Baldur’s Gate – Enhanced Edition. On my desktop PC this was in the default Windows 10 Documents folder within OneDrive; on my laptop it is in C:\users\<username>\Documents. It will depend on how your computer was set up.
  2. In a proper text editor (e.g. Sublime Text or Notepad++ or TED Notepad) open the file Baldur.lua.
  3. Add the line SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1').
  4. Save and close the file.

Now when you run the game, you can enter the game console by pressing Ctrl + Spacebar. It looks like this, at the bottom of the screen:

Enter your code then press Enter
Enter your code then press Enter

This allows you to enter codes that generate items, amongst other things. For instance this code allows generates a set of Ankheg Plate Mail armour for your current character:

C:CreateItem("PLAT06")

The older versions of Baldur’s Gate used the code CLUAConsole: but this has now been shortened to a single, uppercase C: followed by a colon.

Here’s how my intrepid fighter character started his adventure in Candlekeep:

Armed to the hilt, this fighter can even take on the Ogre Mage on the way to the Friendly Arm Inn,
Armed to the hilt, this fighter can even take on the Ogre Mage on the way to the Friendly Arm Inn,

Download the cheat codes

Feel free to download my full list of cheat codes, arranged by type (clothing, jewellery, weapons, magic, and miscellaneous).

You can look up what each item is on the Baldur’s Gate Wiki.

Baldur’s Gate cheat codes v1.2.0Download

Updated

2020-03-17 Updated cheat codes document to include instructions on how to activate cheats.

2017-04-17 Updated the location of Baldur.lua as it was in two different locations on two PCs running Windows 10. It depends, I guess, on whether Windows 10 is told to use OneDrive as the default save location.

Published by

Gareth Saunders

I’m Gareth J M Saunders, 48 years old, 6′ 4″, father of 3 boys (including twins). Enneagram type FOUR and introvert, I am a non-stipendiary priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, I sing with the NYCGB alumni choir, play guitar, write, draw and laugh… a lot. Scrum master at Vision Ltd, Dundee. Latterly, web architect and agile project manager at the University of St Andrews and former warden at Agnes Blackadder Hall.

18 thoughts on “How to activate cheat codes in Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition on Steam”

    2. If you’re using a text editor that doesn’t recognize programming languages, it will try to save it as a “normal” text file instead of a .lua file. If you use a program like Notepad++ (which is free), it will properly format the file as a .lua file and save it as .lua

      Reply

      1. I should also mention that there is a difference between a “text editor” and a “source code editor” (as I like to call them). Most text editors will not format a .lua file correctly as it doesn’t always have the capability of recognizing a programming language. This can also cause issues when saving your changes.

        Reply

  3. The link to the list of items for the cheat codes isn’t quite complete. For example, it doesn’t have all the pantaloons as there are 2 more you can get. If you collect all 3 and then go to the right armor forger they can make into an suit of armor that essentially turns you into the D&D version of iron man. 🙂

    Reply

  5. Thanks for this, I also just like to play and it gets really boring when you get stuck on one baddie. (I try not to use the cheats but sometimes you just need a little help).
    I also still have my original disks from a long time ago and I love being able to play again as I don’t have a machine to run them on anymore.
    I hear rumors of a BG 3 so really looking forward to that.

    Thanks again and happy gaming!

    Reply

  6. Ok so I downloaded BGEE from GOG.com…
    I found the Lua file added the cheat debug code and…… nada. Won’t bring up the bar at the bottom to type in cheat items code. Aaargh. What am I doing wrong??? Help!

    Reply

    1. Hi Brad, I wonder if the gog.com version is the same as the original CD version which has a different hack to initiate cheat codes. Try this:

      1. Make sure the game is not running. Using a text editor like Notepad, open the Baldur.ini file in your Baldur’s Gate directory.
      2. Add the line Cheats=1 under the [Game Options] entry.
      3. Save the file and run the game.
      4. Once in the game, press Ctrl+Tab to toggle the console.
      5. Test it using the code Cheats:Midas() which gives you 500 gold.

      I hope that works for you. Please let me know.

      Reply

    1. I haven’t tested these but I found the following on the Beamdog forums (for the Enhanced Edition, replace CLUAConsole: with a simple C:).

      • CLUAConsole:CreateItem(“bag02”) | Gem Bag – Neera has it. She is in Beregost.

      • CLUAConsole:CreateItem(“bag03”) | Scroll Case – Quest reward from Firebead Elvenhair in Beregost (added in patch 1.0.2011 )

      • CLUAConsole:CreateItem(“bag05”) | Ammo Belt – NOT IN THE GAME

      • CLUAConsole:CreateItem(“bag06”) | Potion Case – Thalantyr in High Hedge sells it for circa 200 gold

      • CLUAConsole:CreateItem(“bag31”) | Bag of Holding – NOT IN THE GAME

      Reply

  8. Thanks for writing this all up! One thing I noticed just now, if you fire up the console after launching from GOG, there is a “GODBOW” button when you press it you get a shortbow giving you -20 AC and a bow that does 99 damage per hit. Can’t wait to use this on Sarevok who I could not defeat even on easy mode.

    Reply

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