A recurring question I’ve seen around the Baldur’s Gate 3 community is what is the workbench or where can you find it? This leads to more questions about what are ingots for and if you need them for crafting. Meanwhile, if you try searching for information about a workbench in Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll find a lot of misinformation.
After beating the game and never coming across a workbench for crafting I wanted to clear the situation up. For whatever reason, I frequently find guides that say you’ll get a workbench in Act 3. Supposedly it’ll appear in the camp where you can do long rests and speak with your companions.
Avoiding spoilers I’m not posting an Act 3 camp here, but here’s one from Act 1.
As far as I can tell, this seems to be something someone made up and it just spread like wildfire. You’ll even see guides that say you can use silver ingots at the workbench for crafting. But, if it doesn’t even exist, how can that be true either?
At best, I realized there used to be a workbench during Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access period prior to launch. However, I can’t say when it was removed, but it certainly wasn’t part of Act 3 either. Instead, it was a table you could interact with in Act 1. This table would let you craft items the same way you can now combine certain ones in your inventory.
Where Is the Workbench in Baldur’s Gate 3
This map is zoomed in to avoid showing too much to people who may not have gotten to the Blighted Village yet.
For those of you who are curious about where the workbench originally was, you can still find it, but it’s no longer interactable. You’ll need to reach the Blighted Village in Act 1, southwest of the Emerald Grove. This area is filled with goblins so you’ll need to deal with them first.
Afterward, there are several ways to find the workbench, but here are the two quick paths. The northeast/top-right building in the Blighted Village has two ways into the basement. First, you can head inside and destroy some spider webs blocking a large hole. Then, you can jump down it and this will reveal a new area.
Otherwise, you can make your way through the Shabby Wooden Doors outside the same building. You’ll need to pick the lock to get inside. So if you don’t have Astarion, you may want to use the first method. Aside from these two ways, there are a couple of other paths, but that’s not the main focus of this guide.
Once you’re inside, look for the Melting Furnace with the large Blacksmith’s Bellows next to it. This same room has a table in the corner with a candle on it and a bottle rack above it. Originally, this was at least one workbench you could interact with in Baldur’s Gate 3. I can’t say if there were more or not during early access.
You can turn the furnace on if you’d like to try combining an item at it as well. This is part of a certain quest.
Since the table no longer has any use, you can just right-click an item in your inventory and click combine. This seems to provide the same function as the workbench previously did. Even though you can only do it for a limited amount of items in Baldur’s Gate 3. Without saying too much, one example of two items you can combine has to do with the Owlbear Cave.
Aside from that, there are a couple of quests where you can interact with a furnace or forge to craft a new item. But, these are extremely limited so don’t expect it to be a common occurrence. Especially if you’re holding onto ingots with the hope of crafting new gear. However, if you get Infernal Iron, make sure to not sell that. It’s part of a companion quest and can be used to craft armor.
This is the window that appears when you try to combine an item from your inventory with another.
That’s all there is to this Baldur’s Gate 3 guide on the workbench. While this is a large game where it can be easy to miss content, this seems to be an odd case of misinformation and rumors. So don’t be surprised if you come across a guide or Reddit post talking about it without saying much. Therefore, you’re better off selling your ingots for money.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.