Look, the BG3 Gauntlet of Shar Faith Leap trial is basically the "invisible bridge" scene from Indiana Jones, but with way more potential for your character to plummet into a bottomless purple abyss. It’s frustrating. One minute you’re confidently strolling across thin air, and the next, your party portrait turns grey and you’re back at the start wondering what went wrong.
Honestly, the biggest mistake most players make is overthinking the "faith" part. You don't need faith. You need a camera angle that doesn't suck and maybe a few scrolls of Misty Step.
The Secret Map Most Players Walk Right Over
Before you even touch that blood bowl to start the trial, look down. Seriously.
Right on the floor in front of the altar, there’s a mosaic. That isn't just Sharran décor; it is a literal top-down map of the safe path through the room. If you’re playing on a high-resolution screen, you can see exactly where the invisible floor tiles are. I usually take a quick screenshot of it on my phone so I can reference it while I'm actually out in the darkness.
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If you don’t want to keep checking your phone, here is the basic gist:
The path doesn't go straight. It’s a jagged, zig-zagging mess.
- It starts on the right-hand side.
- It cuts across the middle toward the left-hand platform.
- Then it snakes back toward the final platform where the Umbral Gem is sitting.
The "Bright" Way to See Everything
If your gamma settings are low, you're playing on hard mode for no reason.
One of the easiest ways to reveal the path is to use a light source. Casting Light or Daylight on your weapon can sometimes reveal the faint outlines of the tiles. Some players even report that the Moonlantern from Act 2 makes the path visible enough to follow without any guesswork. If you have a character with Devil's Sight (looking at you, Wyll), they can often see through the magical darkness that obscures the floor, making the "invisible" platforms perfectly clear.
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How to Cheese the Faith Leap Trial
Let’s be real: sometimes you just want the gem so you can get to the Shadowfell and deal with Balthazar. If you don't feel like playing "Follow the Invisible Yellow Brick Road," you have options.
1. The "Fly" Strategy
This used to be the ultimate cheese. You'd just cast Fly or use a Potion of Flying and zoom straight to the end. Larian has tried to patch this a few times—if you land in the "wrong" spot, the game might still teleport you back or kill you instantly. To make this work now, you usually need to enter Turn-Based Mode. Fly to the intermediate platforms (the ones you can actually see), land there to "save" your progress, and then fly to the final altar.
2. Misty Step and Dimension Door
If you have a Wizard or Sorcerer, this is the way to go. You can't just teleport to the very end from the start, but you can jump-frog. Move a little bit onto the invisible path (just enough so the game registers you've started), then Misty Step to the first solid platform. From there, another Misty Step or a Dimension Door to the final platform usually does the trick.
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3. The "Object Toss" Method
This is tedious but foolproof. Grab a stack of useless items—rotten food, cups, or even gold coins. Throw them on the ground in front of you. If the item floats, there’s a floor. If the item disappears into the void, don't walk there. It’s basically the "breadcrumbs" method for people who don't trust the map on the floor.
Avoid the "Auto-Pathing" Trap
In earlier versions of Baldur's Gate 3, you could just click the final platform and your character would magically path-find across the invisible tiles. Do not do this anymore. Patch 7 and subsequent hotfixes have largely broken this. If you try to auto-path now, your character will likely take a "shortcut" through a hole in the floor and die. Manually click every few feet. It's annoying, but it saves you a Revivify scroll.
Practical Steps to Finish the Trial Right Now
If you are standing at the altar right now and feeling stuck, follow these steps to get out of there in five minutes:
- Ungroup your party. Only send one person across. If the whole group follows, someone will fall off and pull the "return to start" trigger for everyone.
- Enter Turn-Based Mode. This prevents the "sliding" glitch where your character takes an extra step after you stop clicking.
- Use Tactical View. Press 'O' on your keyboard to get a top-down look. This makes it much easier to line up your movements with the map on the floor.
- Check for the "dip". If you hover your cursor over the darkness, the movement line will usually stay flat if there is a floor. If the line "dips" down into the pit, that’s a gap.
- The Final Leap. Once you get close to the final platform, don't try to walk the last few feet of the invisible path. Just Jump. A standard jump can clear the last gap easily and land you right next to the Umbral Gem.
Once you grab the gem, interact with the Umbral Transporter (the statue) to teleport safely back to the start. No need to walk back through the nightmare you just survived.
From here, you’ve likely got the other trials to finish. If you haven't done the Soft-Step Trial yet, remember that a Potion of Invisibility makes it a joke. If you're heading to the Self-Same Trial, strip your characters naked before offering blood to the altar—the clones will spawn without armor, and you can just re-equip your gear to stomp them.