Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Battle Master manoeuvres - too many skill icons, maybe?

As of now (Patch 7) we still have 2 icons for each of Battle Master's manoeuvres that involve weapons' usage: one for Melee, and another one for Ranged.

By itself, it adds an extra layer of complexity to find the right one: because the pictures are not easy to read and are too messy / similar to each other, I for example have to rely on tooltips, while means that the current design of the pictograms is a failure. If that wasn't enough, even if I arrange them on the hotbar in an order that makes sense to me, every time I load from save they are reshuffled again in a seemingly random order.

Now, Larian, I'm not going to ask for impossible things, such as to redesign the icons so they would make some kind of sense, or to persist customised hotbars in save files and respect that data on load. However, how about we would have just a single button for each manoeuvre, and when selected, that said manoeuvre would be executed with the currently equipped weapon? That should simplify things, if anything.

P.S. By the way, the same approach would be valid for Rogue's Sneak Attack, as well.

+1

I think at first they wanted it to look like fighters have lots of options, but it’s not really necessary anymore

Agree. Unecessary icons create an unecessary mess.

Yeah, why not i gues ...
If it will be done simmilar to Metamagic was on patch 6 (didnt try it yet on 7) it would be quite fine.

+1

Just like with upcast spells becoming their own icon / spell, their logic is flawed.

It should go like this:

1. Equip a weapon
2. Activate Battle Master manoeuvre
3. Manoeuvre executes on equipped weapon

They are putting way too much focus on simply splitting all attacks and abilities into melee / ranged in a game where also damage type matters.

The melee / ranged split is flawed also in the sense that some characters would rather equip two melee weapons for quick access. E.g. an 8 Dex Heavy Armor melee tank with a Greatsword would rather equip a Maul for blunt damage or Longsword+Shield for a more defensive option instead of a bow they suck with.

Then again the combat design is so obsessed with wide open vertical maps with ultra mobility jumping / teleporting being the king, they probably can't even imagine a scenario where a character wouldn't have a ranged weapon.

I don't think Metamagic's approach is suitable here. The point of Metamagic is that you can apply multiple effects to a single spell. I don't think you can perform multiple different manoeuvres within the scope of a single attack.

My point is about usability and QoL, really. These pictures on icons, they could have used Mandarin or Kanji, I wouldn't notice the difference.

I didn't play fighter yet (Laez got axed so I won't be trying it out anytime soon) but can't you do just that right now? When you click on the weapon all "weapon" skills should display. My issue right now is, that I can't remove those from hotbar, and still have them appear that way.

Depends on what you take from it.

Basicaly Metamagic are just toggle buttons that alterns your outcome calculations ...
Basicaly Battlemaster Manouvers are just toggle buttons that alterns your outcome calculations.
And same goes for Sneak Attack.

As far as i know, there is only some exceptions that can be used while you are allready using different metamagic ... otherwise rules say that you can only use one.
And toggle one, while using another ... would not be so different from combining Sneak Attack (ranged), or Battlemaster Manouver (ranged) with Elemental Arrow.

+1 Anything to declutter the hotbar.

And Battlemaster Maneuvers should be usable with other abilities, so they should really be a toggle-icon.

That would result in an additional icon click - the attack itself - after selecting a manoeuvre. And, don't forget, you'll have to search for that icon, as well.

Will be useful for multiclassing, but I don't know if we will ever get it.

Well ... if you ask me, one additional click is nothing.
Especialy if that additional click gives you whole new level of functionality.

And there allways is option to hold Ctrl. :P

That is part of why i said i would like to see them working "simmilar to Metamagic".
We can call them "toggle buttons" if that sounds you better.

If you played Sorcerer, surely you noticed that Metamagic buttons are on fix position and cannot be removed, nor moved, or hide ... therefore there is no searching.

I admit i would personaly preffer them to be on some special row "abowe" the hotbar ... but Larian seems to want them on right side.

It has ben confrimmed by Swen himself ... even tho it has ben some time ago. :-/

Toggle maneuvers are not an additional click though. It's still one click on the maneuver icon, then another click on the enemy to attack them. The difference is that with a toggle icon, you can click other toggleable attack abilities between those 2 clicks. (In my suggestion, it automatically toggles off after a successful hit.)
Edit - Oh, you may have been responding to Rag.

"Toggle" buttons is what we have now. Lae'zel has a melee weapon equipped, I click "Menacing Attack (Ranged)" and she "toggles" to her ranged weapon.

However, I agree with you and @mrfuji3 that there should be a way to combine manoeuvres with other skills or items, such as special arrows. However, it wasn't the original scope of the thread, and looks like a pretty big expansion of it.

I would also like a fixed UI element which is always visible. It should be possible to put all this stuff onto the action bar, along with rage and spell slot selectors. After all, Gale has his Arcane Recovery there (which opens a big beautiful panel with a single button on it), and Shadowheart has a Channel Divinity button there.

Yes, I was. Doesn't matter, you two have convinced me. Now the simple part, make the Larian to become convinced.