Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Reactions like Solasta!

To play Devil's Advocate (I don't want presets), they could definitely work equally well with the failed Arcana roll system. Just add a single preset:
"If you fail the arcana roll, use Counterspell: Yes/No?" Perhaps you could still use information about the spell's level even in a failure? Or you use the level/CR/HP of the enemy creature...

a.) Why do you know the Shield spell on your Paladin if "he's not going to use it because he's a tank already"? At that point, you should forget the spell and replace it with something else or (in an ideal BG3 prompt system) generally toggle off Shield prompts.

b.) "Even 1 mage and 1 cleric is likely 2 prompts per round."
- It is only 2 prompts if you always respond "no" on the first prompt and you have enough spell slots left.
- Didn't you just write multiple paragraphs about how, in Solasta, being prompted 1-2 times per round was "essential" to the fight? The same would hold true here.

c.) 30 goblins or a dozen duergar with a large fraction of them knowing spells...would be "VERY prompt heavy."
- What are the chances we actually fight dozens of enemies at level 5+ when we have significant (>2) spell slots left for casting counterspell, AND many of the enemies cast spells, AND we'd be in a situation where we'd want to use Counterspell against one specific of those dozen+ enemies instead of the first or second, AND we don't use our reaction on some other ability? If any of those are not true, the amount of prompts drastically decrease.

The ability to turn off prompts for specific abilities seems essential for a BG3 prompt-based reaction system. You can then turn off prompts in encounters where you are fairly sure you won't need that reaction: e.g., Counterspell against dozens of cantrip-using enemies, etc. This fits perfectly into the 3-way: "Prompt me" / "Auto-use" / "Off" system that I'm in favor of.

Let me rephrase: IF the Arcana roll is used to determine if you know the spell or not, the prompt for Counterspell is essential to combat. If not, which I'm personally fine with if they don't do the Arcana check, it could work with presets.

But seriously, if I was Counterspelling against Fly the entire time, I'd actually have preferred a preset that would just auto say No. Even Shatter is kind of a waste of a 3rd level spell.

And it wasn't 1-2 times per round. It was 1-2 times per combat. The combat was 6 rounds and I was only prompted 2 times for reactions.

My fear is that prompts COULD get heavy depending on the party and enemies you are fighting. I don't need a Counterspell Reaction Prompt every time an enemy casts Ray of Frost or Fire Bolt or something low in level, and I don't want to Counterspell Fly.

OK. Yep. Here's another scenario, but this one is prompt heavy. Literally happened:

Level 10 party of 4 - Sorcerer, Paladin, Druid, Barbarian (same group). Also summoned bear companion.

In this encounter, there were 2 NPCs that were allies.

Round 1. Sorcerer fireballs enemies. Enemies run up to party and surround them. NPCs attack to help the party from a distance.

Round 2. Sorcerer uses invisibility to escape out of their midst. Enemies decide to leave combat without disengage. Prompt for Barbarian. Prompt for Paladin. Prompt for Bear. Prompt for Druid.

Round 3. Sorcerer moves to get into range of enemy flying mage. I have her fly so she turns visible. Enemy mage casts a spell. Prompt. Arcane succeeds. Scorching Rays. Not worth it. No. Enemy legendary leader repositions to attack my druid. Prompt for Barbarian. Prompt for Paladin. Enemy runs past bear to attack NPC. Prompt for bear.

Round 4. Sorcerer kills enemy mage with magic missile and hits others as well. NPC moves in to attack enemies and then withdraws. This draws one of the last two enemies my party is fighting towards the NPC, once again triggering AOO. Prompt for bear. Prompt for Druid. Prompt for Barbarian.

After that, the reactions started becoming less frequent, but for a bit, my goodness! It was happening a lot.

Now, imagine if I had presets for AOO and Counterspell. Enemies decide to leave combat without disengage. I have preset All Enemies for my Barbarian, Paladin, Bear and Druid. No prompts for Round 2. Same result because I clicked Yes each time anyway with the prompts. Why wouldn't I?

Round 3. Sorcerer doesn't have Scorching Rays as one of the trigger spells for Counterspell preset. No prompt when the enemy mage casts Scorching Rays. Again, no prompts for Barbarian, Paladin and Bear. All yeses again, so wouldn't affect combat.

Round 4. Same. No prompts because preset would handle all AOO just fine.

Prompt Only Method? - Number of Prompts = 11 in 4 rounds.

Preset Method? - Number of Prompts = 0 in 4 rounds.

Same results.

Yes. This was an unusual Solasta moment where, for some reason, the AI had both enemies and allies triggering AOO a lot (the NPCs triggered AOO a lot too), but regardless, it happened. Frankly, it was annoying, and it only happened for a few rounds.

Now, this is what I'm afraid of in BG3: imagine you have a Ranger with an animal companion, a druid with Conjure Animals 8 wolves, a Wizard with Counterspell, plus maybe Astarion with Uncanny Dodge. Imagine they are fighting against Nere and the duergar.

Nere casts Misty Step. Prompt. Counterspell? No. He ports down by Astarion and hits him with his rapier. Prompt. Uncanny Dodge?
Yes. Duergar casts Enlarge. Prompt. Counterspell? No. Duergar casts Enlarge. Prompt. Counterspell? No. I'm not going to waste a level 3 spell on Enlarge or Misty Step. Those are lame. Duergar Mind Master casts Dominate spell. Prompt. Counterspell? Yes!! Duergar runs past Ranger companion to get to my Wizard. Prompt. AOO? Yes. Druid casts Conjure Animals. 8 wolves appear. Position wolves around duergar. Duergar Swarm AI moves. Several duergar are trying to get at my party and either leave melee range with wolves or run past them. Prompt. AOO for wolf? Yes. Another duergar moves. Prompt. AOO for different wolf? Yes. Another duergar moves. Prompt. AOO for different wolf? Yes. And so on. All because the duergar don't care about the wolves and are trying to get to my party.

Do you see how quickly this could get REAL prompt heavy? The above scenario is head canon, but it is based on how the AI had Nere and the duergar act during several legit playthroughs. The only head canon aspect is me adding level 6 spells and abilities to it. It's what I'm afraid of if we simply go with the Solasta prompt route without some form of presets.

And every single one of those prompts could be eliminated by a few simple default presets providing the same exact results without combat being interrupted even once.

Idk if anyone else has said something like this but honestly the best way to do it imo is keep the layout as it is and tweak like this:

Reaction toggled on = automatic yes no matter what.
Toggled off = ask the player whenever the opportunity rises to use it - left click for yes right click for no.
Removed from hotbar (or a third toggle maybe, with a red X across the icon) = automatic no, no matter what.

I don't want to be bombarded with yes/no's every turn for reactions I barely use. Being able to fully customise the rate of automatic uses (and not-uses) per reaction would be way more streamlined, and then you can have the yes/no for the most situational of them all.

The present preset suggestion is something more like this:

Toggle Reactions Prompts - On/ Off

Attack of Opportunity - All Enemies/ Selected Enemies/ Off

Shield Spell - All Hits/ Magic Missile Only/ Other Only (And it only triggers if the attacker hits by AC +5 or less so that you only use Shield if it will make the enemy miss.}/ Off

Counterspell - All Spells/ Default Spell List Only/ Selected Spell List Only/ Selected Enemies/ Off

Yeah. That’s basically the dominant suggestion: have a PROPER reaction system in place and then leave freedom to automatize it for people who don’t like tactical gameplay.

Correction. YOUR preset suggestion is like that. I don't oppose your preset suggestion as one of possible options, as long as a more-basic "prompt me" is another option. And honestly I'd prefer entirely reworked reactions (e.g., Cutting Words) over having such detailed presets.

Others' suggestions are closer to exactly what @lilaque said. Every reaction has 3 simple settings: prompt for use / automatic use / never use.
I would suggest a 3-toggle state instead of having to remove the icon from the hotbar. Solidly colored = automatic; blinking or circularly-moving-light = prompt; dim = off.

yeah, me personally I would much prefer to specify automation with the option to have prompts for specific reactions, rather than hyper-organising (which I would find overwhelming and even less streamlined than how it is now), but I would be happy if they added hyper-organisation as long as auto/prompt/ignore was an option too

if the hyper-organisation was the only option it would probably ruin the game for me ngl.. I adore tactical gameplay but sitting and going through a checklist for every single situational use for every single possible reaction that each member of my party could perform would be a ridiculous amount of tedium.

I hope if they're watching this thread they take the whole picture into account.

This is a common misconception, though, about the preset suggestion for Reactions. For 99% of all Reactions, it is NOT hyper-organizing.

Reactions (Default preset is the first option listed)


Of all of these Counterspell still remains as the ONLY one that could get intense. I admit, Counterspell is still a potential Prompt Always reaction. I am still unhappy with it in terms of presets. There are just too many potential issues with a preset.

Take Philomeen
All the others, though, can be NOT prompts, and they'd work just fine...

...IN THEORY. Again, I'm not saying that I think this idea is the absolute best solution for reactions. I'm just saying I'd be willing to test it. We wouldn't really know if it'd work unless we tested it. Who knows? We could test it and it could drive people absolutely crazy with reactions being triggered at times when players don't want them to and not triggering when players want them to trigger. OR, we could test it and find that it works beautifully and keeps combat flowing smoothly without tons of prompts and interruptions.

Note: I also intentionally left out the Bard reactions because I haven't played enough of Patch 8 to know how Larian has implemented Bard reactions/spells. So, I can't speak to Bard reactions yet.

To be clear, would these reactions would happen automatically in your suggested system, on the first valid enemy (either of "All Enemies" or enemies that you "Select" Each(?) Turn) that triggers it?

Or does the game show y/n prompts, but only activates for your chosen presets?

Being able to select which creatures can proc your reaction when you select it on your turn. This to me seems a much simpler and less overwhelming solution than having a pop-up for every option. You do give up some level of precision but have a lot more control than the way it is now. Presetting your reaction might be the best option for most people as it doesn't slow down combat that much and is easy to understand without the pop-ups.

Until you'll actually try to use it for few hours.

At first, it was just auto, but I thought a separate toggle could control prompts if people like prompts. Those who like prompts toggle them on.

So both.

Now consider a party of 2 clerics and 2 wizards in MP facing a larger group including 3 spell casters. This is where is gets clunky. SP 1 wizard vs 1 another caster isn't the issue

Ok, we have considered and we still want it. Now what?

It's a turn-based game, I am quite prepared to spend the time necessary to fully manage my reactions, thank you very much. Yes, a slightly more elegant system for implementing full control would be nice, but anything that removes my agency or limits my reaction choices, compared to being prompted, is a no no.

Sorry. I'm on their side with this one.

Party of 2 clerics = 2 reactions maximum during each round, and that's only IF enemies trigger AOO. Not very disruptive.

Party of 2 mage's = maybe Counterspell Reaction or Shield or Absorb Elements replacing AOO as their reaction each round because why would you AOO with a mage if you have those spells.

It's really not much different from a party of rogues or fighters. You'd have relatively the same reaction counts.

We <> all players

I don't mind both but would prefer a default preset settings to allow proper flow especially in MP

I can totally understand the prompt only argument. It IS a turn-based game. By having prompts, you actually get to DO something during enemy turns. The preset auto reactions system means you just watch.

Part of the point of the reaction system to begin with IS that you get to do something during enemy turns. You aren't just helpless as you watch them.

I have done several Solasta battles again since discussing this - characters at level 10. It's really not annoying or bad. The number of prompts is usually quite minimal when based on reactions only.

So, even if they did no presets, I'd be happy with the Solasta reactions approach. It really isn't any different from a true Tabletop experience where the DM says, "Hey John. Goblin 4 is casting Fireball. John! Stop watching TV for a sec. Goblin 4 is casting Fireball. Wanna Counterspell?"

That's an...interesting "true Tabletop experience" you have there. xD

As a DM, I'm certainly not going to prompt a distracted player to take an optional action outside of their turn. If they stepped away for a minute to go to the bathroom or get a snack, sure I'll wait for them if I know they could respond to an enemy action. But watching TV?!?! Nah; you're getting your ass fireballed.

Include me (and likely a sizable chunk of the 80+% of people who prefer prompts over auto-reactions) in that "we."