Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why I would make separate combat and movement phases

Intended outcome:

Hopefully the effect of separating combat from movement would be to make battles fell more dynamic. Allow for more strategy. Reduce a character who is using hiding ability to attack with impunity. Stop creatures from running directly through your group and escaping without any chance of stopping them.


At present a their or wizards could hide/cast invisibility at the end of their turn, thus hiding before anyone has a chance to respond. With this change movement and bonus actions happen after a response chance allowing for reaction to an attack , levwling the playing field.


Overview:

Movement would be broken down into segments with a total movement being equally divided into each segment. The creation of a movement action would be created. New Movement actions could include chase, evade, hinder and stand fast. At the beginning of each movement segment all movement action would be set and then at the end of segment all movement happens simultaneously. Some actions and bonus actions could take place during movement phase but would use up the action on your combat phase. Action and Bonus action replenish at the end of combat phase while movement actions replenish at the end of each movement phase.





Details:


A: Initiative is rolled and bonuses applied. Combat order is determiner.

B: Players and opponents are grouped into movement phases based on initiative roll( up to 10 phases total). A movement bracket is shown above pictures in upper left. Movement Phase may be empty allowing for everyone to move without any combat occurring before the next movement phase.

C: Movement phase takes place. Movement action points are restored. Everyone may do one of the following:
1 Move to your maximum for this phase.
2 Move up to 1/3 of your movement and use a movement action, movement/bonus action or a movement/action.

D: After player makes all movement decisions choose end movement turn and all movement starts.

E: Combat phase takes place for those whose initiative falls on this phase. Action points and bonus action points are restored. During this phase they may do one of the following:
1 Choose a non movement action and a bonus action.
2 Defer combat to a later movement phase.

F: After player makes all combat decisions choose end combat turn and all combat starts (players and opponent may share simultaneous attacks).


G: repeat until end of battle.


H: New movement actions:
1 Chase. Choose an opponent and choose the chase action and your character will chase after them. The computer will decide best route to intercept.
2 Evade. Will keep 1 opponent outside of hand held weapon range countering chase (dc Check)
3 Hinder. sets a path to block movement of 1 opponent.(dc check)
4 Stand fast. gives bonus to hit after 3 consecutive uses and to hit after 6.

I: Movement actions would be represented with a blue square(white if no remaining movement actions). Movement/bonus actions would have both a blue square and orange circle(the bonus action will be used up and not restored until the end of your combat phase). Movement/actions would have both a blue square and Green triangle(the action will be used up and not restored until the end of your combat phase).

J:Additional movement actions:
1 Jump
2 Crouch/Hide
3 Climb
4 Dip
5 loot
6 equip
7 etc...

K: movement bonus actions
1 misty step
2 Potions
3 some healing (those that that can be used as a bonus action)
4 Cunning dash
5 etc...

L: Movement Actions/Actions
1 Dash
2 etc...


Please let me know if this sounds like this would be an improvement or just slow the game down?

It could be just a movement turn and a combat turn

So, if I'm an 11th level Fighter, and I want to hit the goblin in front of me, move ten feet, hit the goblin over there, then move my last twenty feet and hit the goblin caster in the back, it seems that by your suggestion I cannot do this.

It's an interesting idea, but I feel it makes things more complicated, slower, less intuitive and actually less tactical and flexible overall than normal 5e rules.

I see your point. I've tried to account for your situation by allowing you to defer action points. You could attack the first goblin then defer remaining action points until after you next movement or as many movements as it takes to get next to the goblin. The added Chase button would be there to allow you to choose a new target and automatically choose the shortest path each round until you are within striking distance. You may Repeat this until you are out of action points to defer. You will get all action points back at the beginning of your next original initiative turn weather you have spent all of your action points or not. Flexibility comes in in situations where timing comes in to play. Currently if there isn't someone standing under a bolder that can be dropped by shooting a rope on your combat turn you can't wait for them to walk under it and then fire. During their movement turn they may pass freely under the bolder as long as they don't stop under it at the end of their turn. By segmenting the movement phase and deferring action you could wait for them to pass under and time your shot. I do agree that it could slow things down. That was why I was adding the Evade, which would allow you to pick a place on the map and your character would do its best to avoid being within range of opponents while automatically choosing the shortest path to its goal. Hinder and chase allow you to choose a target and close in on it getting you within striking distance as fast as possible. After choosing one of these simply choosing end turn will cause them to execute these movements until there objective is reached, Of course you may change you movement actions during any movement segment. But I fear it may still slow the game down.


Thanks for your feedback.

Well, as continued feedback - I had trouble actually parsing or understanding what you were suggesting in your explanation, and that's not a good sign. It still sounds as though, whether I'm deferring things or not... I cannot do as I should be able to in a single combat round, which means that while I'm still trying to take my three attacks on three distinct enemies in different locations all within my single normal movement speed, a second turn will begin and ensure, and everything else will just get to do more, while I'm still trying to do what I should have been able to do in one go... or am I not understanding correctly?


5e has the 'Ready' action for this exact type of flexibility - you can ready a specific course of action, an attack, a spell, using an item or interacting with someone or something in a specific way, and then nominate a trigger: so in this case "I want to shoot the rope when the biggest hobgoblin runs under the boulder". Then, when the biggest hobgoblin does, you can shoot and release your readied action, or, if it's no longer appropriate (Say, the biggest hobgoblin has actually raised a truce flag and is now walking forward to parley), you can choose not to.

BG3 has not implemented the ready action into their game, but many people are saying that they need to, along with a functioning reaction system.

Maybe I've described this incorrectly. Basically I've taken a melee round, which I believe is about 6 seconds, and extracted the movement and broke it into equal segments. You would receive the same amount of movement in each melee round. The major difference would be everything moves at the same time in smaller segments. Allowing more choices during the movement phase to avoid combat or create combat or do many other movement oriented actions.

The added movement actions were only put there to keep the game moving.

Okay I'm still not quite understanding then...

I'm standing at point X, with a goblin beside me. Ten feet away, at point Y, there is another goblin. Twenty feet past that, at point Z, there is a third goblin.

I am a fighter, and I have 3 attacks because I'm 11th level - I want to hit each of these goblins once, in *one* turn. Let's imagine I rolled good initiative and am on top of the order.


Okay, with you so far. I'm first in the order here, so, it's my turn... right?


Er... maybe not then. We're breaking the first turn into a handful of 'phases', where everyone does things each phase, more like a card game? Only, maybe not that either, since it seems like maybe different people are in different movement phases based on their initiative... so, maybe me and one goblin are in the '1st' movement phase, and the second goblin is in the 4th movement phase, and the third goblin in in the 9th movement phase? Like that? This feels overly complicated already... but continuing...


Okay, so, I'm up... I can choose to move my full 30 feet (don't want to do that), I can choose to move no more than 10 feet and take a "movement action" (which is not movement, and also not a standard action, but rather something new being the specific actions that are allowed to occur in movement phase?); I don't think I want to do that - I want to hit the goblin that's right in front of me.... but I don't think I can in this 'phase'. I know I've got a 'combat phase' coming up, so for now I guess I stand firm? Or maybe chase on this goblin in front of me in case it moves? Feels counter-intuitive that it is probably going to move away before I can try to attack it at all, even though I rolled higher initiative than it... that feels pretty, well, I'm sorry, but that feels pretty silly, at this point... no offence intended, it's just strange.


So, I input chase, in case the goblin moves. The goblin decides to run its full 30 feet away... and my character, I guess, uses all 30 feet of her movement to chase after it... that isn't what I wanted her to do at all.
Scratch that, then... I input stand firm. The goblin runs away - now (I assume) I have to decide between whether to use my reaction to hit the goblin I wanted to hit with my normal attacks, or to let it go and keep my reaction for shield (I'm an eldritch knight fighter after all). this is not a tactically good situation I've been put in; I can't direct my own abilities the way I want to, it feels.


Action and bonus action points are restored. unless you already used them in the first movement phase - which seemed to imply that doing so would not see them restored until the next combat round, and we're still in the first... so... if this were the Second combat turn, we wouldn't have had any action or bonus actions to spend in that first phase at all, since we would have used them last turn and they aren't restored until now., unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning here. And, if we did have action and bonus actions to use in the movement phase before this phase on this turn, and used them.. then they wouldn't restore now anyway, because using them there implied that they wouldn't come back until next round. Okay, this is confusing.

So, does this combat phase happen after the FIRST movement phase... or does it happen after the LAST movement phase, or does A combat phase happen after EVERY movement phase?

Regardless... I didn't move, because I didn't want to use the chase command to use up all of my movement instantly... but I had to let that goblin run away, since I wanted to keep my reaction. Now I have no goblins next to me and its the combat phase. It seems like I cannot move, unless I use my action to Dash (despite my still having 30 feet of my movement left, unused); I cannot attack anything, and have no choice but to defer my combat phase until later, apparently, because I need to be in range of a goblin to hit it with my sword and I'm not.


So, how this feels right now is that, I rolled top of initiative, and despite that, I've functionally had to skip my turn while other creatures have acted all around me - that goblin who rolled below me initiative, but close enough to still be in my movement section has now turned and fired a bow at me, while I, with the better initiative have been unable to actually attack anything.

It also seems like we've got some ridiculous Achilles and tortoise situation going on where someone can input chase and someone can input avoid, and so they skitter down the movement phases until they've both run out of movement with neither of them managing to make any melee attacks because the timing is literally always wrong for it. A single turn would take forever, like this, or so it seems.

==

Let's suppose that the first goblin didn't move, because it intended to attack me. Okay, great... NOW when the first combat phase comes up, there's a goblin close to me, so I attack it. I have two more attacks, but the goblin is dead. What happens? How do I move to and target attack on those other two goblins before the end of this 1st turn, which feels like it's going on for a dozen mini-turns already? It sounds like what you may actually want is a real-time combat game, given the way you've mapped some of this out and the things you've emphasises.

Sorry if this seems overly critical, but what you've set up feels excessively, needlessly complicated and convoluted, would likely be confusing to new players, feels counter-intuitive in several aspects, and ultimately seems to actually ROB players of tactical flexibility because it extrapolates intention out of the players hands in ways they may not want (such as chasing that goblin that ran off for all of my movement, which I only wanted to use some of at most). You still have initiative, but initiative seems largely pointless when you get right down to the actual play mechanics, and simultaneous action has, itself, a whole host of other issues that don't mesh well with an individual turn-based system.

It sounds like you might want to design your own new system for a tactical game, that plays by its own set of rules, and it might be really neat and fun to play - but it won't be D&D, or anything resembling it by that point. If I've misunderstood how this is meant to work, then all I can say is take that as a comment in and of itself. Best of luck refining your idea ^.^

Thanks for your input please continue to be critical. Your point about loosing your initiative is valid. I hadn't considered that. Maybe during the first melee round you may only move once it's your initiative. This wouldn't solve every initiative loss but if initiative is broken down into 10 segments with each segment being about 1/2 a second each someone who rolled an initiative just one point higher than yours would only be 1/2 a second behind you enough to strike first but not enough to move 10 feet and strike. Although attacks that have movement in them such as rush attack would allow you to make up some of that ground.

you would receive the same amount of bonus actions per round an you do now with them resetting on your combat action turn.

If someone is running from you there are attacks such as pin in place or spells, web, hold person, sleep to aid you in catching them, there are also haste, dash, misty step, etc... to aid in movement speed. This is part of the greater strategy in playing the game. I currently use both my wizards and clerics for direct damage spells only, with little need for them to cast anything else.

Also with the turn based rules my 3rd level thief was able to solo the all of the goblins without taking any damage or resting at all.

Hopefully most of the confusion would be removed by having smart bars that gray out or remove actions that you cannot make at this time.

Also have been thinking archers may need movement restrictions as what person can run at full speed draw an arrow load it and fire with any kind of accuracy.. Thus if you a chasing with a sword they may run to avoid you but they will loose there ranged attack. The larger the bow the greater the restriction.

A real time based game is kind of what I'm trying to simulate but with time to make complex divisions that you wouldn't be able to do with multiple bars of actions and as many possible choices D&D offers.

In the original version of D&D time was broken into segments , weapons had speeds, and spells were broken down to segments to cast, thus a wizard would state he was casting a fireball, the first part of the spell was verbal second part was the components and third was the action part which allowed some characters on the outer part of the blast to avoid damage by jumping out of the way. Or a fighter to disrupt the spell by attacking during the verbal or component part of the spell. Obviously it was to cumbersome and the rules were modified the improve game flow but now we have computers to track these things in the background, so why not add them back in.

Movement phases happen every segment, each character rolls initiative and is placed into 1 of 10 segments which is your your combat phase. Movement always comes first then combat.If there is no combat during a phase movement phases will be stacked together and take place in one turn.
Deferred actions does not change your original initiative placement.