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

Is this really a debate for anyone who actually plays and loves dnd? I haven't met a dnd player who doesn't think real time with pause is not sabotage of the awesome tactical aspect of dnd (love Fireball? too bad).

I would expect those who think it's a debate to only know the videogames and haven't had experienced what tactical combat in dnd is. Which is not something to be blamed for, of course. But please, try it out before trying to push for the sabotage to continue.

This is not part of this thread's issue, but yes I completely agree. Larian seems to have this pig-headed stubbornness about including pause during exploration that I find completely baffling. It's very annoying, and is something on my now very long list of essential mods I am hoping for.

Fair enough. My view is the exact opposite.

What is an improvement is in the eye of the beholder. The things Kingmaker left out for the game to work in RTwP are all things I couldn't care less about and which I don't believe add anything of value to my combat experience. All they do is to make combat longer and more tedious and more aggravating. I play role-playing games for the role-playing and NOT for the combat. As such, the combat part is something I consider I have to tolerate as the price to be paid for getting the fun role-playing parts of the game. ANYTHING that makes combat move along faster is ALWAYS my automatic preference, and the less combat there is in the game the better. That's why my hope had been that even though BG3 has TB combat, which I hate passionately, the game would have not that much combat overall so that I could at least enjoy it for its non-combat parts. But going by what I'm seeing in various streams, the game constantly throws silly combat encounters at you. So there goes that hope.

In principle, I would agree with this. And that is the only reason I am still here in this forum and remain so passionate in posting about the game. I love the Forgotten Realms, and consider it to be the best high fantasy setting of all. I also love D&D, though everything about it other than its combat mechanics. And I love the original BG games, because 20+ years ago they were the first RPG video games I ever played. So to repeat what I say above, after learning this game would have horrible combat that I will hate, my hope was that there would be enough in the non-combat parts of the game to still make it worth my time to play the game. But right now I am deeply skeptical of even that, especially in the context of a four-person party size and utterly unlikeable companions.

Well, I have been playing PnP D&D since the early 1990s, so how does that square with your claim?

D&D is a bad game to play purely for the roleplay honestly, You'd be better with something like FATE/Fudge or maybe the Cypher system. Obviously, you should do you, but D&D mechanics are weakest when it comes to the social aspects, and if you refer purely to roleplay without the mechanics that support it, its another totally separate conversation lol.

Combat is one of the pillars of D&D, and a huge proportion of the games mechanics are tied to combat.

Equally, as you just outright stated you're going to dislike having to get into combats regardless, it almost feels like this thread is somewhat moot for you?

My experience of combat in BG3 has been that it isn't slow unless you're the sort of person to agonise over your options. Something that is as annoying in pnp as it would be in this lol.

I think the other thing is, you don't care about a bunch of the mechanics, which doesn't suggest you hate them any more than the overall combat itself, whilst lots of us DO care, which is why we are here.

Ultimately, I want a game with a great story and interesting characters and choices to make. I'd love it to have some strong ties to BG1 & 2, though I'm not holding my breath there based on EA build at least, Beyond that, I want a good D&D 5e experience within the realms of a CRPG, particularly because I hope they'll include the DM mode and controls like they did for D:OS2 which would potentially allow me to play D&D 5e in a whole new way with friends.

I started playing D&D 2e in the 90's, but over time I moved onto various other edition of D&D including: D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, and last year started playing D&D 5e. I love D&D, and prefer RTWP when I am in control of everyone in the party. If in BG3, you were ONLY in control of your own character, I actually wouldn't mind it being completely Turn Based. But I LOATHE having to micromanage more than 1 character each turn. It's like when you are at an actual D&D game, and the other 3-5 players don't show up, but the GM hands you their character sheets and tells you to play their characters for them. It isn't fun, atleast not for me. I want to play ONE character, not everyone elses. RTWP games generally let me do that because of the AI that they usually come with.

This is the most detailed and comprehensive plan for implementing RTwP into the game... and you have listed 14 pause conditions, with the possibility for more. As Swen noted, a 5e RTwP system means that combat would be a series of constant pauses anyway. (See 29:24)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/763351879






It's because of the free-roaming drop-in, drop-out co-op. But exploration mode pause is already in. Press space to enter turn-based mode at any time.

Sounds to me that what you really want is AI for companions. There is no reason you couldn't have it in turn-based.

AI companions as an option actually would be quite nice and actually add to the pen and paper sort of feeling. Hmmm

First and foremost, let's be clear - I love turn based combat and Larian's D:OS1/2 was absolutely great implementation of that with their homegrown rules, abilities and systems for these games.

That said - I really think BG3 turn based feels lacking and is probably too tied down by D&D 5e rulings. I understand that they have little choice in this because of license and all, but you very often end up with these super protracted battles against hordes of trash that ends up being a circus of misses on both sides leading to half an hour, if not more, battles where nothing actually happens. Like you sit in front of your screen and drool on keyboard while those 15 NPCs take their bloody turns only to finally have a go and get a bunch of misses or glancing blows out of it and the round it goes for what feels as eternity until you finally win the game of whack-a-mole.

Screenshot I attached below shows exactly what I'm talking about, it's a literal infuriating slog, where you go against a horde of pathetic enemies that can't even hit you for shit once you take out those 2-3 NPCs that actually mean business - this takes forever... *groan*...

I totally think they need to introduce ability to switch to real-time mode just for that and on top of it introduce combat speed slider and/or some adjustments to encounters or some such where at some point if you are obviously winning then weaker enemies start to flee for good and remove themselves from combat for good. Like tag trash mobs as minions and have them start turning tail once you take out all the officers/bosses/lords/lieutenants and so on - heck it would only make sense in that screenshot case, I slaughtered all their leaders in the temple and then took out big ogre and couple NPCs that are not 10/13 HP fiddle, that's a call to start packing there.

In short, you can't really toss D:OS2 hordes at us without D:OS2 action economy and with a bloody d20 D&D dice on top of it making Xcom games with their famous 99% chance to hit memes appealing. It is just a pointless slog.




And yes, as mentioned, I understand Larian is tied down by WoTC rulings and license, so they can't suddenly give everyone multiple actions per turn or make everyone do huge cleaves and such out the wazoo at will exactly to deal with above, like in D:OS games. That's why they probably begged WoTC to allow every class to have cunning action or some such and I guess this is why you have things like single target spells and abilities create surfaces, so you at least would get a bit more out of your turn. I totally understand and support them on that, even if it makes some purists screech.

That's true. A RTwP implementation could totally have an auto-pause on Reaction Opportunity.

It's a party-based RPG. you play the whole party.

I can't imagine playing the original BG without controlling all the characters, and I (pretty loudly) criticized later BioWare games when they started to take that option away (NWN gave direct control over only the main character - KotOR let you control any character, but only one at a time - same with Jade Empire - DA:O gave back full party control - DA2 returned to the KotOR design, but compensated with the best customizable AI system I've ever seen - DA:I eliminated that AI control system - and the ME games aren't even really RPGs).

turn based. its a fucking tabletop game ruleset, every mechanic is turn based like initiative, movement, durations etc.

D&D is a party-based RPG. When you play D&D, do you play the whole party, or do you play ONE character within the party? This is the crux of my issue. Whether it is Turn-Based or RTWP, if the game is supposed to emulate D&D and use their ruleset, I only want the choice to only control one character (without playing lone wolf or multiplayer).

First off, I just want to say how refreshing it is in this forum that you seem to be someone who enjoys having a conversation with people you may disagree with, and a civil and interesting conversation at that.

Yes I myself have, after more than 25 years playing D&D, recently come to the conclusion that I don't much care for D&D mechanics, in particular its emphasis on combat, the combat system, and that it relies so heavily on random chance for pretty much everything. But at the same time, I did mention above how much I love the Forgotten Realms as an RPG setting. I am a huge FR lore fan, have almost all the 3.5e FR source books and also almost every FR novel written. And that's what keeps me tied to D&D, because I cannot get anything FR-related without also taking D&D. Furthermore, I cannot be divorced from the combat system of cRPGs either because if I'm going to play D&D cRPGs then that's going to come with combat, and likely a lot of combat. So this thread and its discussion are not moot for me as long as I want to play cRPGs in the FR setting. If the day ever arrives when WotC starts making D&D RPGs that are low in combat, THEN this thread will at that point become moot for me.

My hopes now rest entirely on what the head of WotC has repeatedly said in various interviews including at the beginning of this year, which is that he intends for there to be at least six or seven D&D video games between now and 2025, and that he wants to ensure they make a range of different types of games to cover all D&D fans. Now surely this will include games I simply won't play such as mobile/console-only games or card games. But also surely I would hope there will be classic cRPGs in there besides BG3. And hope fully one of those games will have a RTwP combat system while also being a good story-driven role-playing game. If I had my druthers, I would love for WotC to approach a studio like Obsidian and ask them to make a RTwP D&D game. That would be awesome. Then, I would also love for them to approach someone like CDPR and ask them to make a Witcher-like game set in the FR, perhaps using the Cormyr Saga books to tell the story of Cormyr where we get to play Azoun IV from his young days to his eventual death. That would be so cool. Playing any of the great FR characters in a cRPG would be fantastic, such as The Blackstaff or The Simbul or Erevis Cale. There is just so much potential available for D&D games beyond BG3.

The players, collectively, play the whole party. BG3 is single-player, with the one player taking the place of the players (and arguably the DM, under some circumstances).

The BG games have always been party-based, with a single player playing an entire party. They are RPGs in the tradition of classic party-based CRPGs such as Wizardry, Ultima, and Might & Magic.

Yes I also have concluded the same thing. But surely it could be added in just for single-player?

In any case, now that the game is out and presumably you are actually playing it, please tell me this. When you use the spacebar to enter TB mode in exploration, can you directly exit that mode just like that, or do you have to take some actions while in TB mode before you can disengage from it? In other words, does it functionally work exactly the same way as pausing the game, which is to say that time inside the game does not pass when you are in TB mode?

No action is required. It's just like pausing, except that after you return to real time, you can't re-enter force turn-based mode until one round (6 seconds) have passed.

Action is only paused in a certain distance of your character. Characters who are far enough away can still move in real-time until they get closer. The distance seemed a little inconsistent to me, but it's no closer than 17 meters apart before a character moving in real-time is forced into turn-based.

Huh. Well that is very weird, because it would mean you will end up with two different timelines, wouldn't you? One for everyone within that radius and another for the rest of the world. It also would mean that in the world overall, time is passing while I am in TB mode. So if I leave my computer to go do something else for a couple of hours, that amount of time will have passed within the game for the world overall.

I wish someone from Larian would provide a definitive explanation of this.

How much it matters depends on how your actions and in-actions translate into timed events happening. I am not sure how much of that there is. But I'm not going to say that it doesn't happen.

On my first play, I talked to a character grieving over someone killed in battle, and I chose options that would provoke her to make a certain choice, and she rushed off to do that.

On my current playthrough, I didn't talk to her at all, but after I walked past a certain point, I saw her rushing off to do the same choice, and that was quite interesting.

Thanks, same to you! I've noticed from some other threads that we probably have a reasonable amount in common outside of the like/dislike of D&D combat mechanics lol.

I hadn't seen the bit about so many games coming out, that is indeed interesting, and yeah I also think CDPR would be a great company to approach for a witcher-like game. They'd probably do the first good drizzt game tbh. I can understand the point about loving FR, it's my favourite D&D setting too, running a forgotten realms game using a different setting would be possible but would absolutely create more work for the GM, it's true!

I think when it's all said and done, so long as the game is fun and has an interesting story, there is a good chance we'll all overlook the mechanics we don't like. But time will tell how good the story actually ends up being.