Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback [suggestion] Range / melee weapon slot rework

I'm not sure I read a parricular thread about it...
I think I see it in a few big feedback topics but anyway.

The game have to change the melee and range weapon slot to "weapons slot".

I.E we would be able to equip
- 1 range + 1 melee set (2H, Dual wield, 1h+shield)
- 2H and 1H+shield
- 2 ranged weapons
- Dual wield + 2H
- Dual wield + 1H and shield

This is necessary according to me. I can't understand why we should be limited to 1 melee and 1 ranged weapon.
It's also necessary so we can access different damages types during combats (slashing, piercing, magical and non magical,...)

What do you think about it ?

PS : being able to choose and swap our weapons from our inventory is something that really suck. I hope they'll change that.
PS2 : swap from a slot to another should probably cost a bonus action or should be only possible once during our turn.

edited 28/12/20 after you gave a few feedback

1 slot only. either melee or ranged, not both. you have to use an action to swap it out. thats what id prefer.

1 slot, if you can't change during combats via inventory is not enough. This would mean an archer can't fire an arrows before going into melee...

On the other hand being able to change in the inventory looks cheesy.

That's why 2 slots is good. It's not too much and it's not too few.

About changing on combats from 1 slot to another, according to me it should cost a bonus action.

I think it's OK to have a melee and a ranged slot.
Having several slots you can fill as you want would also be OK, such as BG1+2, though most players would use melee plus ranged anyway.

We should absolutely not be able to switch equipment during combat outside of switching between different weapon slots.

I honestly hope you will need an action or at least bonus action to swap weapons. I think this is missing for proper balance as right now its too easy. I must admit PoE2 option to have a onehanded melee and ranged weapon, while switching costing an action was an elegant way of making it a reasonable trade-off.

I like playing melee character and I'd love being able to Swap between 2H and 1H+Shield when required by the situation.

A strenght melee character will have a terrible %to hit with ranged weapons... Maybe it's Time to use dash/ready/dodge or any other utility skills/items instead of using a bow with someone who doesn't know how to aim.

You're right : most players will have a ranged + a melee weapon... But that should be a choice.

Another exemple is when we'll have a lot of powerfull stuff. Being able to swap between weapons that have different properties could be usefull (ennemies having elemental or magical resistance,...)

Actually, you can, you just don't have a swap key/button to do it, you have to equip them and you can do that during combat.

Not necessary, not if that STR based melee character has high DEX. Example: Human can easily get 16/16/16/9/9/9 or something to that degree.

Again, you can swap weapons in combat.

There certainly should be the ability to swap from 2 hander to 1 hander and shield, or from single weapon to dual weapon. Should also be able to swap between a slash weapon set up to a bash set- up as different damage types are needed for different critters. I always enjoyed games where this was somewhat class based - a fighter build should have the ability to switch to more sets than a mage type for example, based upon skill and familiarity with weaponry. Often this class distinction was further buttressed by feats granting additional weapon set slots.

Something along the lines of fighters - 4 slots, mages 2 slots, thieves/clerics 3 slots (perhaps some additional variety via sub -class). If I recall correctly, many games such as BG1/2, PoE, DA and others made use of similar features.

That was my memory too. That in the UI of the old BGs only pure fighters types had the 4 quick slots for their weapons. They also slipped in some UI compromises that had to be made if you wanted to multi or dual class, where part of the price you had to pay was somewhat trickier tab management as a little trade off. UI interpetation is one of those things where I think they can reasonably get away with a few things perhaps not strictly by the book, just to make each class type feel a little more unique. Certainly if that were the case it'd be nice to see the fighters get some love by being able to save out more quickslots for weapons sets or something similar. For right now the hotbar feels like a bit of a free for all and class archetypes each treated basically the same way.

I think the decision to use only the hotbar as the entire spellcasting interface is more than a little problematic for this stuff (among other things.) Right now the main character, equipment, and inventory tabs feel pretty overlapping, sort of reduntant and sometimes counter intuitive in terms of how they work or what they're meant to do exactly. Sort of like having 3 tabs to do the same sort of stuff but where none of them can really handle it. Not that I miss the tetris juggling mind, but I sort of struggle with Larian's version of the game tabs, and especially the inventory/equipment tabs.

I wish the hotbar type bars had a more clearly defined use, and sort of wish each class had a bit more flair there like the old BG games.

I remember being pretty excited the first time dual wielding was introduced as a thing. Or later in NWN where you could set a quick switch for sword/shield or dual wielding or ranged on the fly. Without having to open the inventory screen and muddle around. That felt like "yeah, now we're talking! QoL" So it stings a bit trying to do this sort of stuff out the inventory tab again or char tab (which oddly feels more the place to deal with changing out and readying equipment, than the tab actually called "equipment.") Anyhow, fair points I think.

The way they have swapping now is "abusable" but it's honestly fine. 99% of use situations aren't abuse, they're people fumbling through a UI or being indecisive, which a game should be forgiving about. Melee and ranged being separate as well is also fine, it's just a UI element but the game does the legwork for stowing/drawing. You still need to be aware of which is drawn/stown for OAs.

What they need to fix is the UI for casting spells and abilities, because having everything on one bar sucks. They should make it so you cast a spell via a spell slot rather than picking the spell and then the spell slot. This would let them automatically factor all the rules for casting spells via spell slots without the player needing to do any of the legwork as well as letting them hide all the spells, which itself helps the UI stay free of clutter. Then you only have the spell slots and whatever other abilities you might have available. You could even make cantrips work the same way as a "spell slot 0" sort of thing.

Thanks to give us the only possibility with human about abilities.
Being able to swap weapons in our inventory is 1) boring (QoL) 2) cheesy (that shouldn't be possible in combats)



This.
Slashing/bludgeoning/Piercing - Magical/Non Magical - Elemental damages.
There are lots of damages types and we also should be able to swap from one to another without going in the inventory.

About slots, yes that's how it worked in the old BG.
I'm not against the idea but to me, 2 weapons slots for everyone is fine. I never use all slots when playing BG1/2.

Now I could agree with this here just like when you drink a potion.

I think we could come to a compromise, because switching weapons instantly is how i do it in 5e and i think it makes the combat run a bit smoother than it would to waste resources on it. An action to swap weapons is too much whenever every other member kills the enemy before your next turn. Perhaps there could be a gameplay option to toggle between instantaneous switching or bonus action switching weapons, but maybe that's incompatible for the rest of the game.

5e rules allow you to draw as part of the action to attack, and rather than everybody dropping their weapons like litterbugs we just generally ignore drawing/stowing rules unless somebody takes it to some extreme.

In exemple, if someone look in it's bag to change his weapons ? :P