‘NO MOUSE, PURE MADNESS’: GAMER ATTEMPTS TO BEAT BALDUR’S GATE 3 USING ONLY A KEYBOARD, BREAKS GAME INSTEAD
NO MOUSE. NO CLICKING. NO HOPE. ⌨️🚫
Have you ever tried to play Baldur’s Gate 3 without a mouse? A challenge runner just attempted a “Keyboard Only” run, and it completely shattered the game’s code.
From physically kidnapping NPCs because he couldn’t click on them, to spending FOUR STRAIGHT DAYS trying to clip through a single door using rats and chairs, this is the most unhinged BG3 run in history. And wait until you see the mind-blowing trick he discovered to skip mandatory dice rolls by literally killing his own character… 💀🎲
Did he survive the Netherbrain or did the keyboard finally break him? Find out the insane conclusion here: 👇🔥
In an era where gamers constantly invent new ways to torture themselves for online entertainment, one Baldur’s Gate 3 player has taken the concept of a “challenge run” to absurd new heights.
Renowned exploit-hunter Proxy Gate Tactician recently asked a seemingly innocent question: Can you beat Baldur’s Gate 3 using ONLY the keyboard? The answer, documented in a viral 27-minute YouTube spectacle, is a hilarious descent into coding loopholes, game-breaking glitches, and a four-day battle against a single door.
By completely unplugging his mouse, Proxy discovered that Larian Studios’ critically acclaimed RPG is not just uncooperative without a cursor—it actively tries to stop you at every turn. But through sheer stubbornness, the creator unearthed some of the most bizarre, undocumented mechanics ever recorded in Faerûn.
THE MOUSELESS NIGHTMARE BEGINS
Right out of the gate, playing Baldur’s Gate 3 exclusively on a keyboard proved to be a logistical nightmare.
“Short answer: no. You can’t even make a character without a mouse,” Proxy noted at the start of the challenge. “Though if you follow a speedrunner ruleset, the game actually begins after character creation.”
With his character, “Zugzog,” thrust onto the Nautiloid tutorial ship, the restrictions became immediately apparent. Without a mouse to click and drag, Proxy could not:
Open his spellbook to prepare spells.
Re-equip items or manage his inventory properly.
Pan the camera freely or zoom in.
Level up his characters.
Select targets for spells or complex actions.
Most devastatingly, he could not roll dice. The game’s iconic d20 interface relies entirely on clicking the die to roll. Because of this, characters like Gale (who requires a strength check to pull out of a portal) were permanently abandoned, and the run strictly transformed into a “No Dice” challenge.
THE CHEESE TACTICS: KIDNAPPING AND GHOST MODE
Unable to play the game normally, the creator resorted to extreme “cheese” mechanics to survive.
Because he couldn’t initiate normal combat commands, he weaponized the few hotkeys available to him: Jump, Shove, and Throw. He soon realized that the Escape key functions identically to a right-click cancel. This minor discovery unlocked one of the game’s most broken speedrunning exploits: The Kidnapping Glitch. By initiating a throw command on an enemy or NPC and cancelling it at the exact right frame, the character effectively “kidnaps” the target, dragging them helplessly across the map.
Proxy utilized this to kidnap bosses and enemies, dropping them off rooftops or into bottomless chasms for instant kills. He kidnapped the Act 3 boss, Enver Gortash, hauling him out of his own fortress and tossing him into the sea just five minutes into the act.
When the kidnapping glitch wasn’t enough, he utilized Ghost Mode. By jumping and detonating an explosive at the exact same time, the game’s animation tracking breaks. “The game does not know where you’re supposed to be, which completely breaks the NPC’s AI,” Proxy explained. “You can actually walk around and attack stuff without consequences.” Using Ghost Mode, he casually slaughtered a room full of terrifying Githyanki monks who simply stood completely still, unable to register his presence.
MAN VS. DOOR: A 4-DAY STANDOFF
Despite conquering bosses, the challenge hit an absolute brick wall in the Act 2 Gauntlet of Shar. To progress the story, players must place an Umbral Gem into an altar to open a massive stone door. Without a mouse to open the inventory screen and click-and-drag the gem into the altar slot, the run was officially soft-locked.
Refusing to accept defeat, Proxy spent four consecutive real-life days trying to clip his character physically through the solid stone door.
“I spent the next four straight days stuck attempting to clip through this door. That’s how unemployed I am,” the creator joked.
He tried jumping at the door for hours. He stacked treasure chests. He even lured aggressive rats from the surrounding dungeon, hoping their collision models would push him through the barrier. Finally, on Day 3, he utilized a glitch called “Chair Shift.” By placing a chair next to the door, blocking all valid exit points with rats and companions, and sitting on it, the game panicked when he stood up, teleporting him straight through the solid wall.
However, his victory was short-lived. A popup appeared warning him to “gather his party before venturing forth”—a popup that required a mouse click to close.
THE DEAD MAN’S DICE HACK
Having proven that a 100% mouseless run is physically impossible due to un-closable popups, Proxy allowed himself a single exception: he would click only when the UI fundamentally froze the game.
This led to the most groundbreaking discovery of the video during the Act 3 confrontation with the Elder Brain. The encounter features a mandatory, unavoidable dialogue sequence requiring multiple dice rolls to resist the brain’s control. Clicking the dice would violate the rules, but Proxy found an unbelievable coding loophole.
“When the main player avatar is killed before the confrontation begins, the devs thought it was so important to have your main character be the leader in this scene that they will gladly participate even whilst dead,” Proxy revealed. “The funny thing about dead people is oftentimes they cannot roll dice.”
By entering the cinematic as a corpse, the game’s internal logic panicked. It automatically registered all the mandatory dice rolls as “failures” in the background, bypassing the entire interface without the player ever having to click a single die.
THE FINAL VERDICT
Ultimately, the run ended at the brain stem. Without the ability to properly equip late-game gear, recruit Gale to utilize his built-in self-destruct mechanic, or cast complex high-tier spells, Proxy’s party had no mathematical way to defeat the Netherbrain on basic auto-attacks.
“For the first time ever on this channel, the brain is the winner,” he conceded. “I cannot beat Baldur’s Gate 3 using only the keyboard.”
Despite the defeat, the video has been hailed as a masterpiece of glitch-hunting. Fans flooded the YouTube comments and Reddit forums, stunned by the obscure mechanics unearthed during the struggle.
“The fact that the game lets you enter a dialogue as a corpse and auto-fails the dice rolls for you is the most tabletop D&D thing I’ve ever seen,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
While a pure keyboard run may be impossible, Proxy Gate Tactician proved once again that Baldur’s Gate 3 is less of a rigid video game and more of a chaotic sandbox—one where rats, chairs, and corpses are just as powerful as legendary swords, as long as you know how to break the rules.
