The Owlbear Cub in Baldur’s Gate 3 can become your cute pet potentially, depending on what happens with you, the mother, and the goblins at various stages of Act 1. If you fancy grabbing a friend for your party, then you may rescue the Owlbear Cub in Baldur’s Gate 3. Here’s how, using various methods.

Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Get The Owlbear Cub¶

The Owlbear Cub in Baldur’s Gate 3 has a variety of ways you can recruit it. The first one, is one that rewards violence. You can enter its lair at the Owlbear Nest, which is west of the Druid Grove near the river under the stone bridge. If you go deep into the cave, and fight the mother, you can defeat her, and then leave the child all alone. When you leave it, the Owlbear Cub can come to visit your long rest camp after several days, offering you a chance to feed it. This will make it a resident of your camp as you play through the rest of the game.

However, if you chose to keep the Owlbear Mother alive, then the Goblins will eventually kill it after your next long rest. The result is the Cub goes missing, which you can next find at the Goblin Camp, which is further down the hill in the old chapel from the Blighted Village, located west of the Owlbear Nest. This leads us onto the other method of recruiting the Owlbear Cub.

Rescuing the Owlbear Cub Via The Goblin Camp in BG3¶

When you get to the Goblin Camp, you can see some guards blocking the path to it. These guards will need one of two things to let you pass. One is to wipe Goblin / Worg poo all over your face. They get kicks out of it and let you pass. Alternatively, you can throw the poo at them, get in a fight and enter that way. Or, you can have someone in your party mind control them using the Illithid option. Either way, get through and enter the Goblin Camp.

As you enter the Goblin Camp, you want to look left, and find a slightly drunk Goblin called Kezza. She will tell you about Chicken Chase, a game Goblins play to win some coins. However, the Owlbear Cub is slightly rattled, you need to speak to the Bard. No matter what option you choose for the Bard, one of the Goblins will throw him into a cage. Now that’s done, speak to Kezza again, and start the Chicken Chase game.

There’s a few ways to win the Chicken Chase game.

1. The first is to play it normally, where you try to walk at the Owlbear Cub in such a way you get it to the posts at the end of the course.
2. The other option is to have a character with Speak To Animal role as a persuasion check to get it to run towards the post automatically for a free win.
3. The final option is to lose the race by having the Owlbear Cub run back to Kezza.
4. The unrealistic final option is to kill all Goblins in the Camp

Depending on which one you opt for, it will change the roles needed to rescue the Owlbear Cub.

If you fail or win the race, you can ask for the Owlbear Cub. You can either roll Persuasion, or use the Illithid powers to guarantee success and grab the bear with no returning conflict. If you choose intimidation, you need to roll a 10, so have a party member with high Charisma do the race if you want. Alternatively, you can buy the Owlbear for 500 gold.

If you win the race, you will also need to interact with the Owlbear, and make an Animal Handling Check. Succeeding convinces the animal you mean no harm. This allows you to reach you hand out, for the animal to get your scent. This will enable the animal to track our camp down sometime in the future. It also grants approval from Shadowheart if you’re interested in buffing that.

The final, yet unrealistic option is to choose violence. If you manage to fight off the entire camp, and the Owlbear Cub survives, you can find it at your camp. But, we don’t recommend trying that option.

Speak To Animal Method¶

Alternatively, you can use Speak to Animals, and persuade the bear to win the race by running to the posts for you with a 15 Persuasion Check role. You need to get it to begin the Chicken Chase by getting up against the Owlbear Cub, then speaking to the creature. When you persuade it to go to the posts, you then tell it you have a camp, and for it to go there. Once that’s done, you now have to go and win the Owblear Cub’s freedom by speaking to Kezza. This also increases Shadowheart’s approval of you.

However, doing it this way does cause the persuasion and intimidation roles to be slightly harder. The Persuasion checks are 18, and the Intimidation rolls go to 15. If you persuade Kezza, she hands over the money to you that you get for winning the race normally. If you fail, Kezza walks off, and you must run the course again. If you intimidate her, you manage to get your money and her money too. No matter if you chose either the persuasion or intimidation option and succeeded, you need to speak to her after the race ends and say you’ll be taking the cub too, and you should get it. The same goes for if you use the Illithid option. Illithid gets you out of the winnings situation and then convinces her as a True Born that you are right in taking the Owlbear Cub from here.

Doing it this way also guarantees that the Owlbear Cub will arrive at your camp on your next, and any future long rests you make.