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

Yeah, you know how the original campaign had random encounters in the earlier areas outright fleeing from you once your level got high enough? None of that appears to exist in Lost Valley due to the more open-ended nature of that campaign. While you still run into stronger enemies the further you get away from the main city in Lost Valley from the looks of it, the more open-ended nature of the campaign (as in, it's possible to reach endgame in some of the factions very early if you super commit to them instead of trying to advance all of them as far as possible first in order to gauge your options) means you can probably run into the harder random encounters a lot earlier than expected.

Especially if you fully side with the Resistance or the People early, since their quest lines quickly take you to the edges of the campaign map where most of the highest level random encounters appear to be.

Honestly, it seems like the intended progression is to progress with the Forge faction first, since they control the vital Scavenger system, it seems almost impossible to get into negative relations with them outside of some VERY specific choices, and that's the only faction you can reach near endgame in without pissing off the other four factions (you only get a reputation drop in another faction towards the very end of that questline from what I've observed). The faction questline is also the longest and there are also a fair amount of sidequests started by NPCs of that faction too (including one that leads to an entire dungeon which none of the other factions point you towards), while the other factions don't really have any sidequests at all.

I'm sure I've said it before, but I have my own idea for reactions, which combines elements from both Solasta and BG3 ways of doing it.


1. PC's can toggle what reactions they prefer, but there are still always reaction pop-ups. What the toggles do is set the default to either use or don't use. Example: a Wizard has Shield as "yes" and Opportunity Attack to "No".
2. When a reaction is triggered, players have 6 seconds to respond - that helps keep things speedy for multiplayer.
3. If players pick a choice, either use or pass, it happens immediately in both cases.
4. If the players instead wait for the 6-second timer to elapse, the default reaction gets used. If the prompting action is an archer shooting which will miss the Wizard's AC + 5, the Wizard will by default cast Shield using the lowest available spell slot. If the prompting action was a goblin running out of the Wizard's melee, the Wizard will do nothing.

This solution gives the players flexibility to use their resources how they want, and the timer on the reaction keeps the action moving fairly quickly even if the player has stepped away.

***

I have to say that I also like Solasta doing automatic Arcana checks when a spell which could be countered is going on. If the player passes the Arcana check, the Counterspell reaction prompt identifies the spell, letting you decide to take it or counter it. If you fail the check, all the reaction prompt says is "X is casting an Unknown Spell", and you have to gamble on whether it's worth the Counterspell usage or not.

I didnt read futher ... this would make it HARD PASS for me. :-/

I wouldn't mind if it was a full pause, but I believe Larian had stated in the past that they want a fully automatic reaction system with no player input, in part to keep combat flowing smoothly for multiplayer. I'm trying to suggest a compromise because it'll be more likely to be positively received.

I dunno, sounds like excuse to me (and lazy one actualy) ...

Sure, smooth combat would be fine and true timed reactions could help to achieve that ...
Then some player gets their turn ... and they are choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... and choosing ... you get the idea.

I mean ... make multiplayer as smooth and fast as you like Larian ... but if you pick one design phylosophy, aply it to everything.
This game (at least so far as i can tell) in every single aspect goes with phylosophy "take your time, the WORLD will wait for you, player(s)" ... and that should be either applyed to everything, or completely changed ... no middle ground here.

sadly i'm no multiplayer person here. believe it or not i have yet to start not even once DOS2 multiplayer and have no idea how it played. thus i don't care much about multiplayer but i like the best single player experience. this is not to shaft multiplayer gamer but just requesting Larian for not shafting single players as i bought the game for the single player experience.

I don't do multiplayer either, at least not in a single player game.

If I did, I would want macro reactions.

My wizard get below 5 hp and auto bonus action teleports and runs willy-nilly yelling "Feets don't fail me now!"

Dear friends, a question for the connoisseurs of the 5th edition of DnD and Solasta. Solasta has a bonus feature that can be selected at level 4, Flawless Concentration (cancel the saving throw to maintain concentration when taking less than 10 damage). The question is how it is implemented in DnD 5 itself, and is there any chance to see something similar in bg 3. IMHO with this feature, playing as a druid becomes much less ass-burning.

It's actually a homebrew feat since Solasta can only use the SRD.

I think the closest thing to it in official DnD is the War Caster feat, which also has the same advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration that Flawless Concentration does. Except instead of canceling saving throws if you take 10 or less damage, you get the ability to cast spells as an opportunity attack reaction, and the ability to cast spells even with weapons and/or a shield taking up both hands (the latter of which I don't think BG3 will bother with, for good reason).

I gues this is as good topic as any to mention this ...
I was just recently thinking about popular auto/ask/off suggestion ... and while i suported it in the past a lot ... i may have find a tiny detal that can potentialy make quite some mess. :-/

I mean, if it would be universal setting ... and all reactions would be either auto, or asking ... then there is no problem.

But once you set every reaction separately, there is no way to set some on auto, and some to ask ...
Since (and feel free to corect me if im wrong) it would quite suck if you would have Counterspell set on ask ... bcs you dont want to spend your spellslots willy-nilly ... but you cant cast it, when you wanted bcs some enemy allready triggered AOO on your caster, and therefore you have no reaction anymore. O_o

Thoughts?

My main thoughts are that I want full control over whether I ever use my reaction or not, in the moment, every time... And you're highlighting one of the reasons why even having a three-way toggle, as palatable a solution over the current system as it may be, is going to come up less than satisfactory at times. The only way it doesn't is if the toggle is universal, rather than individual, and then it can only be flexible enough if set to 'ask' - which puts us back at putting it in the player's hands every time.

To be clear, I'm still for options with a fully fledged reaction system, allowing players to automate it to various degrees if they want to; the three-way toggle is the best way to make everyone satisfied - as long as those options contain full player control, ask me every time, as well.

There's no problem here in my opinion. You decided to set AOO to "auto" or "ask" and said yes, using up your reaction for that turn. If you wanted to ensure that your wizard would have the opportunity to cast Counterspell, then you should have either set AOO to "ask" and said no, or set it to "off." (As a caster, you probably almost always want to have AOO set to "off.")

I kinda agree mrfuji3 ...
I just thought it should be adressed (maybe with some warning sign, or at least by its own popup in Tutorial), so players are not surprised and frustrated if (gods forbids) Larian would decide to implement it this way.

+1
I'm always in favor of improving BG3's tutorial system for all its mechanics & UI.

TBH I feel the same but for different reasons.
I'd also like to have full control or at least a better control than the ON/OFF thing.

But playing bards highlight something else... I just dont want the game to "ask" me things so often.
With combat inspiration it could lead to :
- Attack roll : ask
- Damage roll : ask
- Ennemies turns : ask (ST, AC)

I love the system in solasta but lets be honnest, it annoyed me a lot sometimes (a reason why i never re-played a paladin) and it really break the flow of combats. I'm not sure I'll enjoy playing bards if it may mean 4+ more reaction popup in a round...

I guess universal toggles set on "ask" would become boring really fast due to the number of possibilities some class features may lead to (depending our subclasses and party composition).

And what about individual toggles ?
Does the combat inspiration gives 4 toggles to set up on/ask/off or a single one ?
Managing 4 toggles is already a pain. I cannot imagine what it would be if it was deeper than "on/off"...
But a single one doesnt give you any control if not set on "ask" and will ask you a lot of time if it is. So what ?

Well, i gues you are right ...
Still think this matter should be adressed in tutorial so new players are informed well.

As for Paladin ... i can imagine it goes frustrating.
But i believe in this particular case (since feel free to corect me but i think Smite is not a reaction) it would cause not colision, if set on auto against stronger enemies so you dont have to re-confrim it for every single swing.

How do you say "auto against stronger ennemies" with a toggle ? Should they add multiple toggles for everything so we can enable/disanle things ?

You're right with divine smite but it can be used during an AoO.
So lets imagine we have set all reactions on "ask", the game is going to ask if we're doing the AoO and THEN if we use pur divine smite + which spellslot ?

On top of that, what when 5 ennemies are moving together with the new "swarm AI" ?

The more I think about it, the more I think we should be able to manually configure our reactions during our turns with specific options to have more control.

Like Hellish Rebuke.
The problem with Hellish rebuke, in my opinion is not that you have to cast it before. It's that I have zero control on the target.
The game could just ask me to target lets say up to 5 ennemies (or click the "all ennemies icon") before casting the spell.
Lets say I choose 5 targets, the first one in the initiative order among those that's attacking me I've selected burns.

If I can "recast it for free" at each turn, I have way more control on the triggers than currently for the price of an additional things during our turns on top of not adding flow breaking questions during rounds.

DAO tactics system letsgooo

Eh. If we have to recast reaction abilities each turn, specifying the targets each time, then I feel that will end up with *more* clicking than pop-up prompts.

You dont have to. You can if the reaction hasn't triggered yet.
I'm not sure but if I'm not wrong DAO has some kind of sheet to manage the AI of companions that could apply. Seriously I don't have a lot of fun managing things written in a virtual book. But it may be a mistake, or just an opinion.

I never said with a toggle. O_o
I just presumed there is still a player behind the desk.

Honestly, i believe this all could be done in single question ...

> would you like to use your Reaction for AoO? Y/N
> would you like to add Smite? Y/N/Crit Only
> wich spellslot? 1/2/3/...

(Obviously it presumes that if you miss, it will not consume your spellslot, since that would be just nonsense.)

You set whatever combination suits you, and the game will do it.

I would not like to have "Ask" option to ask you every single step one-by-one that would be pretty anoying indeed ...
But i believe we can make few steppes at once in this.

No idea, believe me or not i havent seen it yet.
My game was extremely unstable until just recently.

Will tell you, after i get this new feature under my skin a little.

This sounds like good idea. :3
I like it!