Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides The Turn-Based/Real Time with Pause topic

It really is not just about the combat, which is - I believe - what vometia meant.
As described in the BG manual, page 40:


> Just one way to deal with situations, not the be-all and end-all of play.

Personally, I prefer turn based for hard fights and RTwP for trash mobs. It's nice on easy fights to just let the AI quickly dispatch the mobs. Trash fights are good, they make you feel like your character is strong, and it gets tedious when you have to pull out all the stops for every fight.

I thought Obsidian made an excellent call with POE2 with the option to play turn based. What would be great is if Larian evolved that idea a bit further by allowing the player to switch between RTwP and turn based at any time, sort of like VATS.

Give the players what they want, the best of both worlds!

What means hard fight on TB ? More HP ?

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Sometimes I want a good scrap, other times I want the diplomatic or stealth option; sometimes I don't want any specific questing but to explore, meet people, enjoy the dialogue and lore. I was beginning to worry that all those things were just window-dressing in BG.

There was always a lot of combat in Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, so the mechanic is important, but I’m hoping that BG3 will grow a little beyond the first two.

For me it’s always about choice, does my character have a choice to get into or out of a situation where swords and spells fill the screen? Was it avoidable, did I select the right conversation choice, was my charisma to low or was the fight inevitable? All questions that belong in a players head during each encounter that turns bloody and all things that most definitely were in BG1 & 2, I’m just hoping for a little more of that possibility this time round.

Heck I’m happy to hack and slash my way through an rpg too though and that’s were the combat system needs to be enjoyable. What enjoyable is is the whole debate here I guess.

As for the examples listed above, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and anything like that NEED the intrigue, the set-up, the character building and relationships, or the action is meaningless.

I strongly disagree about why TB was chosen for this game. The decision had nothing to do with more accessibility or even the silly argument that the PnP game is TB so the video game also must be TB (which btw Larian devs themselves have refuted by admitting that one could make a RTwP game using D&D 5e rules just fine), although Larian dev's personal preference probably did make a difference. It was chosen because it facilitates multiplayer so much better than RTwP. That's the bottom line. This game is first and foremost an MP game, and all game design decisions - from the combat system to party size to others - have been made firstly to facilitate MP. And for me, *this* is the true deal-breaker, not that the game is TB per se.


You have my respect for saying PoE was a good game even though you did not like its combat system.

Agree wholeheartedly. It is my main grip about D&D 5e. I feel very strongly that WotC's main agenda in 5e was to expand combat in the game at the expense of roleplaying. If Larian wants to truly be innovating and "cutting edge," they should focus on putting roleplaying back into what is supposed to be a roleplaying game.

When it comes to Pen & Paper, combat is in the hands of a GM and how they handle their scenarios. Whilst I can’t answer how it’s handled on the official campaigns, I write my own stories, campaigns etc... and combat, whilst always an option is also frequently not!

I agree with those asking for decent rewards for avoiding combat, but at the loss of potentially interesting loot. Trade off, a tricky decision... or simply the ability to role play and decide based on a morale compass.

Around here, it seems like fans of RTwP are the loud-mouthed and in-your-face minority. And don't lump in RT games like Skyrim; the wP element is a big difference.

Even so, RTwP certainly seems to be the more mainstream, which is a result, I would say, of the lack of choice between the two.

No sorry. Losing out on good loot because you avoided combat is blatantly unfair and very poor game design. A good game developer would find ways to compensate. For example, if a player avoids a combat situation in some way, and as a result did not get some potentially cool items, then the game could immediately spawn (for just that player's game) those items in some other location. You could also have situations where the way you avoided combat was because you talked/intimidated the enemy into surrendering or because the enemy (having some idea of your reputation or your capabilities) simply dropped everything they had and ran away. It is a matter of the developers' creativity.

Nonsense. This would be just as lame as level scaling.

quote=anjovis bonus]
Agree.
If you talk your way out you either get a different item given or more xp, but ,it’s out on whatever that noch was carrying.

When Drizzt waltzed through both original BG games and you didn’t attack him, guess what, you didn’t get his cool sword.

Yeah, for instance, if you really want an item, and the NPC who has won't give it to you when asked, and won't sell it and you can't pickpocket it, and can't be convinced into handing it over and what not, leaving you with the decision to be greedy or needy enough to kill for having it, that makes you a (probably) bad person. A bad person with said item.

There would be no point if one would get everything anyway.

"Give us all you have or we'll slaughter you"
Roll Dice Sucessfull

=> No fight, you have the items :p

Nonsense.

That's fine. It could be a different set of items that are equivalent. That would have the benefit of denying those items to people who choose to fight.

But even more importantly, killing someone or robbing someone shouldn't just be about being "a bad person." If consequences are for real, then such players should suffer real consequences, such as every single soldier and law-enforcement person in the game coming for you, nobody in town willing to cooperate with you, no merchant willing to do business with you. This is the Forgotten Realms, not garbage Rivellon. And in the Realms, goodness and law prevail as the default in most places. This should be enforced against people who go on a robbing/killing spree.

Resentment and ridicule have never made you friends at any realm, son.
Even though I agree that my 'bad person' example was wonky.

Still, a reward out of gratefulness would be worth nothing,
if courage and cowardice were rewarded the same.

Enough with the patronizing attitude. Besides, I'm sure you're the kid compared with me.

Let's not go there. Besides, I'm probably older than your combined ages anyway, and I have a headache.

Hehe. Doubt it. I'm 52.