I'm wondering how divine smite can be implemented in to Baldur's Gate 3, since paladin is my favorite class and I'm definitely gonna play one when games is released.

Divine Smite
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon's damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend, to a maximum of 6d8.

What makes divine smite so good is that you can choose to use it after you're attack roll, preventing wasting spell slot or even saving it for crit's. But I'm not sure how could this be implemented in a video game. Any ideas?

For example:
1. The spell "Divine smite" is grayed out and cannot be used.
2. You hit. The game registers successful hit and the target.
2. The game highlights for you the spell "Divine smite" and allows to use it against that registered target at expense of 1 spell slot.

Solasta went for the literal implementation - after you land a hit you get a menu popup, where you can add smite to the attack and choose which level you want to expend

BG3 is unlikely to go for such interruption - The most sense, I think, considering what we already have would be something like “sneak attack” - an ability, with smite already assigned to it, that we decide to use instead of vanilla attack.. It should also act as spell and have expandable up scaled versions. The spell slot should be consumed, however, only when hit registers.

That would simulate entirety of PnP choice, however.

I actualy kinda like this option. O_o
Its just the same as reworked reactions would provide ... it just dont demand rework of reactions.

yeah, I think that's precisely what they'll go for, similar to the battlemaster abilities.
You choose in advance if you use it or not, but as you said the resource/spell slot is consumed only if the hit registers.
Of course, this won't allow the granularity of "deciding to use it only if it's a crit", but honestly it would be a reasonable compromise and not something I'd twist my pants about.

I'd be perfectly fine with losing the "smite only if crit" ability. Tbh this ability always felt too gamey to me.

However, theoretical smite hotbar icon will prevent using other abilities at the same time. If Larian really doesn't want to make it a pop-up, then smite (& other similar abilities like sneak attack) should be a toggle instead of an icon. This would also allow smiting on opportunity attacks.

I thought about it, but tying a resource consuming decision to toggle feels wrong to me. I think, that if you are drawing players valuable resource you would want to let them do it themselves. It would theoretically be slightly more flexible way of doing it, then my prediction.

Oh this is good! +1 to this.

Indeed ... it would be perfectly acceptable ...
But Zellin's idea sounds better. :P

No, it's not. I'm sorry, and I don't mean to discourage or be aggressive, but this suggestion is the exact same terrible UI design that has plagued this EA; it has little to no foresight and compounds existing issues and makes them worse.

It's not the only such case, but it seems that often many of the 'suggestions' for how to fix or implement something 'better' are things that would ultimately require *More Time*, *More Clicks*, *More Attention*, and be generally *More Work* for the player to fumble with the UI, than a properly implemented player decision-point system. It puzzles me, to be honest. Again, no attack intended.


If you have a proper reaction system which optional class abilities can use the core of, your situation is:
- You have an ability, and when its requirements are met, you are asked, briefly, if you'd like to use it and how strong.
- You do this with *One* click, in an operation that takes *Less Than A Second*.
- You decide in the moment, taking whatever 'decision time' is needed then.

If you do it in the quoted way, your situation is:
- You have an ADDITIONAL spell (or rather, you have an additional *Five* spells by late game) taking up either your screen space and/or your bars.
- They spend MOST of their time grey out an unable to be used, and are just wasting space.
- When you hit something, the button(s) all light up; the player must both notice this and remember to do it.
- The action from their hit has already ended: it's still their turn, but there's every likelihood that the player's focus was on what they were doing with their turn, so after hitting, they may already be thinking along the lines of their movement or their bonus action, so it's much easier to miss or forget this.
- Provided that doesn't become an issue (and I will assume it doesn't), the player must then select a DIFFERENT skill, after the hit effect from their attack has already long since passed, and either
a) click, and then wait a second for the game to register it, and then click again to confirm (because that's how larian's engine works - it NEEDS two clicks, even for Dash, right now), OR
b) click once, and THEN target the creature you hit before with this separate ability... and you do THAT bit manually, and have to fiddle with selecting the target again (while all other targets can be highlighted but are inappropriate targets, because, again, that's how the current engine would need to rectify it if done this way).
- Because the player has to do this manually, they have the freedom to move or take other actions in between instead, but IF they do so, by accident or distraction, but opportunity is forfeit, potentially against the player's intended desire.
- The player decides well after their attack has resolved and the animation has ended and their character has recovered from their animation, rendering the smite a completely separate thing to the attack, in an immersive sense.
- They take their 'decision' time at this point, after the hit - the SAME decision time that needs to be taken in the comparison case; it gains nothing and loses much - including the ability to smite on opportunity attacks.

No, in short, it's not a good suggestion. It's a solution to a problem that shouldn't be a problem, but it's one that is exactly the sort of thing the current design method and UI might be inclined to do... the same thing that has caused no end of complaints and problems throughout this EA for its cluttering of the UI space, its pointless excessive buttons and its general clunkiness. It's more of the same, creating more of the same problems.

Once more, this isn't intended as an attack; it's just pointing out that if this were implemented in this way, and had been presented with the rest of the EA in an earlier patch, it would fit right in with many of the other UI design failures, and would have received the same level of criticism, dissatisfaction and unhappiness that those other elements have all attracted and which most posters (those who comment at all) seem to be unhappy with and want changed.

How should divine Smite work? With a proper implementation of your ability to make meaningful decisions and reactions during the flow of combat, that's how. Nothing short of that is really going to feel acceptable.

Nah. It doesn’t.
I mean, it’s more or less a mechanical equivalent (assuming he meant for the ability to become a free action in the subsequent turn or something?) but it creates this weird disconnect where the smite is not part of your attack/reaction anymore, but becomes basically a separate cast.
It also doesn’t account for a scenario where in the following turn your paladin wouldn’t be able to act anymore for whatever reason (I.e. dead or incapacitated after someone else targeted him).

P.S. On a personal note I still think that the best solution would be in fact to implement a reaction system and present in in "smooth" way that Larian would find palatable with its "triple A production value", rather than imagining several ways to sidestep the issue entirely.
I know people that on the Larian discord bitched to no end that "Solasta reaction system is a chore" because "it pauses the combat", for instance, and while personally I find it an incredibly stupid argument (I'm still not sure how having more things to do and chances to intervene during a tactical combat would be in any way a change for the worse) that's probably the audience reaction Larian is worrying about.

My suggestion in another thread was just to find a more appealing way to present the reaction rather than a crude pop-up on screen, and among the different suggestions someone pointed at Chimera Squad and its breach mechanic as an example.
You could get a quick zoom in, a dramatic slow down of the opponent doing its thing and then you could just quickly click left mouse button to confirm the reaction or the right one for a "Pass").

How about like the toggled triggers, but with more toggles, so 'no smite', 'auto smite', smite if chance to kill, or smite on crit etc.

Actually a nested toggle tree sounds less annoying, click on the smite toggle, choose which flavor of smite trigger you want.

This is also something I'd like the reusable spells to be more like

This actually reminds me of the AI behavior triggers you could define in some games, I guess if BG:3 is going to be turned based, there's really no reason to complain about a pop-up, especially for the rare spells that let you choose after you've made your action.

I am against any type of forced zoom. Was nauseating enough in Skyrim but could at least be modded out. Not sure that would be possible here if it is part of an actual mechanic. I can imagine it would get annoying for most people anyway since it would happen on every turn for every enemy until you run out of spell slots.

Niara has a good point, but I think with the clunky interface we have Zellin's idea is pretty good. Something similar could be just a Reaction button, maybe it lights up or something, but when we click on it it acts like the current spell buttons where we then have to click again on what level spell, only we would be clicking on what type of reaction instead. All reactions of all types would go here rather than on the spell bar. Personally I would prefer a popup menu, but if this was added it should be able to be toggled off for people who don't want to deal with it.

I have no idea how Skyrim is even a pertinent comparison.
XCOM 2 would be a far better one, given that they AT LEAST share a similar perspective. And like in XCOM it could be made an option in the game settings.

Also, no matter what, someone will always be against something. If you asked in certain circles, the game should have no animations, replace 3D models with 2D portraits and have the combat speed increased to 10X.
A lot of people also hate voice acting and will fight to the end to stress that "It's a waste of money and it would be faster to read" (which is a poor argument in itself, since I don't think most people play to speedrun but to enjoy the moment-to-moment).

The point is: you are never going to satisfy EVERYONE, the attempt here is to find a compromise to get a feature some of us would want to see in the game without giving to Larian a convenient excuse to skip it, Like "It looks cheap", "it breaks the flow of the combat" etc.

I have never played XCOM. I only know how nauseous I get with anything with a forced zoom or perspective change. That was the only reason I mentioned Skyrim with the stupid kill moves which were especially bad with bows. How would you suggest having the reaction happen if the zoom was turned off in menu settings? All I want really is a proper reaction system so I can choose when to use them.

In the same exact way, except the camera wouldn't do a close-up on the target of your reaction for "dramatic effect".
And as many would hate the zoom-in, plenty of others I'm sure would hate the slow down. Or both.

The point isn't really if every individual user would like the zoom-in or not (and you will never have agreement on this sort of stuff, anyway) as much as to offer the devs an option that says "See? You can make this be mechanically engaging and 'look shiny' as well. You don't have to remove reactions to maintain a certain standard of presentation".

P.S. Here you can check how XCOM handles a zoom-in/slow down on a reaction shot (timestamp included, but if it shouldn't work for some reason jump at 13:58):



Except in this case is an automated circumstance and you don't get to give any additional input.

I dunno ... if i should sort suggestions ...

I would say that propher reaction system would be certainly the best.
(Especialy since all classes would benefit from that)

Separate spell, that would be only useable after meele attack would be second ...
But to be honest, separate spell that will only consume spell slot for hits ... will also take second place.

Both options have their pros, and cons ... i just cant decide wich seems better.

Agreed ...
I would even like to have option to turn off that action camera when you hit critical.
(if that is there, please tell me )

Yeah, that would cause me issues but at least it was an option. If you had that turned off, were there other ways to tell when you could do something?

This would be nice

In XCOM all those zoomins can be turned off. Especially when playing on higher difficulties (aka. Long War mods) I prefered it that way, as zoomins obuscate important information - like where the enemy is going etc.

The difference between XCOMs overwatch, and reactions, is that player doesn't get to make a choice - it's just making overwatch look cool and cinematic. The closes comparison, which I made before, was Chimera's Squad breach which makes for a cool, viceral action setpiece, while at the same time givine players infinite amount of time, to decide what their units will do during the breach.

I don't think there is an exact design that Larian could steal from those games, but the point is: reaction could be implimented in a faithful way, and still be "immersive" and satisfying to use. Faithful reactions, doesn't mean Solasta's lack of flow or visual flare.

Personally, I won't mind any implimentation as long as it's functional. Larian, however, will most likely be wary of implementing low-key reactions, that need to be activated by player.

I think Zellin's idea sounds somewhat alright, though presentation wise it would be clunky - which I don't think Larian would favour. So you hit an enemy, and you get a chance to "cast" smite? That kinda goes against the idea of enhancing your attack. Use wise, treating smite like Witch Bolt might make the most sense, so we don't have to target the enemy again but it might be worse once we get to hit more then one enemy in one turn. You do make it targatable, and we have skill, which we can't really use - it's just counter intuitive to how all the other skills are used - it's on your hotbar, you can use it. It would make the hotbar even more of a mess then it is now.

You guys are making fuss over nothing when both praising and criticising my idea. I started my post with "For example" for a reason. I just gave the very first possible example that came to my mind of how the mechanics of the spell could be translated into a video-game, because OP worded his question as if he thinks it's not possible at all.
I think we should wait what Larian will introduce for reactions before talking about any possible improvements in controls in that area.

At least we have something to talk about meanwhile. :P
And who knows? Maybe someone in Larian will find inspiration here.

Haha. Sorry about that. I like being fussy .

Making it an active ability like battlemaster abilities is the correct way.

I want to select it and feel the impact when it connects. Hitting someone and then using Smite afterwards to do damage again sounds lame, sorry. Almost as lame as Solasta freezing the action mid-animation. You just don't do that.

Combat needs to feel satisfying with impact instead of feeling like a spreadsheet where everything is calculated so correctly by the rules.

I honestly feel like the only problem with the way Solasta did reaction (if you would even consider it a problem at all, and I'm sure a lot of people won't) is in its presentation. I don't know if it's a good example, but I think the reason why a game like persona 5 can still have turn based combat while still being super popular for a jrpg is because of its style.

Yeah. That's what I've been saying for weeks and I repeated in this same thread.

The interruption/request for confirmation in itself is not a big deal, but it needs to be presented in a "sleek" manner to be palatable to a certain audience.
A rectangular pop-in with "USE REACTION Y/N?" in the middle of the screen is not a good fit, and to keep asking Larian to do that would just be counter-productive.

On a side note, Persona 5 (and Persona as a franchise in general) is popular relatively to its genre, it's not that much of a heavy hitter in a more general sense.

Morning Niara, ill give you a +1, looks like you tried to be less aggressive this time.

The reason I like it Niara, is because, in a scenario where you are playing with your buddy. It makes it a optional ability on a players turn, not automatically using up spell slots like how AO is like (toggle). Also during battle in a multiplayer game, if a player is absent for whatever reason, combat will keep flowing with zero interruptions. No, its not perfect, there is plenty of wiggle room along with the ui for adjustment, but if used with this feature in mind, I could for sure see it working well (at least a better way than a toggle that would use spellslots).

I am pretty familiar with this type of ui, it gives customizable options for where you want to place buttons and such. Bag works well also, inserting whatever into the bag and when attached to the action bar and clicked brings up a custom assortment of items.

22:00 he uses mage armor, pop up expands and picks spell level, so the button that would be used as a popup could be highlighted, click and pick spell level done.

I read quite a few concerns on how "proper" reaction would slow down multiplayer sessions, but frankly I don't buy it. If a player is absent to confirm/deny reaction you will get stuck seconds later on his turn. I don't see what's the difference if it get stuck on reaction or turn proper.

Proper reaction system from a single player game from a different studio. This is not Solasta, they do not have to rip off a indie dev team feature, there are multiple ways to do reactions. Just because its not this specific way does not make it wrong.

An ya, you will be waiting on his/her turn, keyword his/her. It was a small example in a endless scenario of possibilities. An seconds, maybe 20-30 seconds? maybe, it could happen on first enemy, maybe last enemies turn. Who follows up next? Can the other players take there turn before that said player?

Maybe they should put a timer on player turns so if someone is missing they lose there turn for not being their also.

Talking about absent players: I have a bad habit of going AFK to grab some tea when it's not my turn in coop. Ofc I'm usually doing it when I know that my turn will be like 5 minutes later, plus i have bluetooth headphones so I still hear what's going on, but yeah if the game would require regular input from me in coop, that would be... not very comfortable.

Agreed ...
I would be against any timer ... this whole game is in my eyes set around the idea that "world will wait for you, hero" ... that is something that should certainly be consistent. :-/

How often do you get tea?? 3-4 times during a few-hour coop gaming session, max? Worse case scenario, this adds up to ~5-10 minutes max spread out over a few hours which is really not that bad.

This estimate assumes that
-every single time you get tea it's during combat (entirely up to you)
-each of those times your character gets a reaction prompt while you're gone (pretty unlikely unless the AI is bad and constantly provokes AoOs)
-these prompts aren't timed, so they don't automatically resolve after X seconds (why wouldn't the game allow this option?)
-your friends take their turns quickly (pretty unlikely in my experience)

More realistically, during a few hour game session there'd be one time where your friends had to wait <3 minutes for you to get back. Personally, I think that's well worth it for the increase in control and ability for player action/decisions during enemy turns. And this ~isn't a problem for single-player, so at least should be an option.

Oh! You're underestimating my crave for tea!
But on the serious note I still hope for some solution from Larian that will reconcile both worlds for the best of the game and their reputation.

Ya, I do the same, during cut scenes, dialog (since its only one player) and other player turns ill be doing stuff around the house. Laundry, dishes, and/or cooking. One of my buddies was incredibly slow at taking his turns, as in taking minutes for a single turn in a long battle every time.

There is a weapon that grants divine smite in BG3. I just got it so I haven’t used it yet.

That said for the Paladin ability I think they’re going to follow the same methodology as battle maneuvers. You click smite, attack the enemy, and if it hits you trigger smite.

I hope this isn’t the case as you should be able to save them for crits, and choose the level you are going to burn.

I would much rather have pop-ups or icon centered reactions and smites as you suggested.

*Edit* I used the weapon. It takes an action, uses up the “once per long rest” ability, and if you miss it is still gone (unless mine just glitched). This would be far less than ideal if Paladins work this way. Burning a spell slot before you even swing is not cool.

Wait why would you be able to save them for crits, isn't that meta gaming?

No that's just how it works: The paladin holds back their limited reserve of direct holy power to channel it when they score a strong, particularly telling strike, and they have the best opportunity to make proper impact. The skill is literally designed as written specifically in a way that allows you to do this, if you choose to.

I feel like smiting only on crits is emergent optimal gameplay: not metagaming, but definitely powergaming. I imagine the 5e creators wanted people to be able to choose when to smite so that players didn't, for example, waste a smite on a low-hp enemy that the normal attack would already kill. It just so happens that the wording + limited spell slots + crit mechanics encourages smiting only on crits.

Or more realistically, at least in the games I've played, paladins still do smite on some normal attacks. It's just that they ALWAYS smite on crits, and those events are so much more memorable because of the high damage that it gives the impression of smiting only on crits.

And as always, -1 for a hotbar "smite" icon, unless it's a toggle that allows other abilities to be used simultaneously and/or can be left on for use with opportunity attacks. Or +1 to pop-ups, but again there should be a toggle "don't ask me about smiting when toggled off" to prevent continuous pop-ups.

Intesting, thanks for the heads up.

@mrfugi3

Ya I gotcha, interesting though that you would know if the enemy is low on hp.

In point of fact: Larian is *not* getting around to some kind of pop-ups or really be creative to create an unobstrusive system, if they want to implement reactions and other abilities like sneak attack somewhat faithfully.

And in my opinon they really need to to that. Paladins and Rogues would really get the short end of the stick if they just stick with the systems in a similar way as they are now. Sneak attack is a mess atm.

Not to beat a dead horse too much, but: Look. At. Solasta.

Its a flawed game in many ways. But by avernus, they have the 5e system down. If they want they can have a simplyfy option with toggles, I dont care. But if there is no faithful implementation of reactions there is a full and very important part of the action economy that is missing. And it would impact the quality immensely.

You talking about the sneak attack, where you roll one die then times it divide it and so on lol.

Personally, I use smites to weaken enemies. That said, when I’m attacking with advantage (and plan to smite anyway) I will wait for the results of the second roll just in case that one is a crit.

I can see the argument for power gaming, but the ability is written to allow it. I do agree that not using any smites until you crit is kinda silly (unless you are really lucky with your crit chances). When I play a Paladin I do tend to hold onto at least 1 higher slot for an ace card or big crit smite.

That's just common sense.
Right, which is why I don't classify it as an exploit or even metagaming. You're not using your out-of-game knowledge to affect your in-game actions; as Niara said the smite ability can be understood in-game as your Paladin knowing the most opportune times to call down a smite. Of course they'd want to save a higher slot as an ace.
If you've faced an enemy before then you should roughly know its health total. Also, if you're attacking a goblin then you know it always has low hp :P
Additionally, I usually play in games where you can make perception checks to tell roughly how wounded an enemy is, or the DM just flat out tells you when it reaches <half hp.

To be fair, Mrfuji3's description is a lot more relfective of the actual reality, generally speaking, than the idea of a paldin who only smites on crits.

I wanna see how Larian handles smites, since if I remember correctly you choose whether to smite or not once you know the attack is actually going to hit, correct? Which means that unless they do some kind of toggle thing where it always applies smites on hit or doesn't apply them at all, or go the Solasta route and ask whether you want to smite or not during the attack, we're going to have a smite icon on the already too crowded hot bar that we have to select which then gets wasted if we miss which is going to be incredibly stupid.

it was just a small jab, ive done it both ways for PnP d&d, doesn't really matter.

edit* semi-related, in older editions we could roll skill checks for info on creatures, don't really know if that's still a thing or not.

Pardon a little offtopic ...
But isnt every/any aspect of "power gaming" written to allow it?

Technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

I found a light hammer with smite. For this item it is an icon on the hot bar, it is used whether it hits or not, and uses your entire action.

I think they are going to do it like they did battle maneuvers. Click the icon and attack. The smite won’t burn the slot unless the attack hits.

Where did you find it please? I even checked wiki and didnt find anything.

https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Weapons