Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Reaction System_NEW IDEA

Dear Larian and Dear all,

I thought of a cool idea to include a proper reaction system in the BG3 without disrupting the gameplay!
The idea is to be able and 'Pause' during the enemy's turn.
For example. You know when you have all the time in the word to decide what you want during your party's turn, but everything happens automatically during the enemy's turn? What if there was a pause button. And when you see above the Goblin the text: " Casting a spell", to be able to hit pause, click on Ally, have only reactions spells light up/or 'reactions toolbar' and hit counterspell. Or you have a character Monk and you see the enemy is 'Preparing an attack/Aiming', hit pause and click on 'Uncanny Dodge'.

In this way, if you don't have any reaction spells or don't want to slow down the encounter, you don't hit pause but when you do you are able to React properly.

I don't know if this was discussed previously, but I believe it's a great idea

Maybe I'm going crazy, but I can't be the only one who thinks that being prompted to make a decision during the enemy turn is not "disrupting the gameplay" but if anything actively participating in it.

Anyway, this idea comes with a lot of problems. Too prone to human error, to occasional distraction, too reliant on timing (and that's assuming the enemy turn plays smoothly without any noticeable hiccup etc).
It's also fundamentally impractical to use for any reaction that can't be called at will (like, say, Cutting words) but requires specific conditions to use.

One of us if definietly going crazy ...
Bcs i see it exactly the same.

This.
Who the hell can't be bothered with a few extra seconds to do reactions right in a TURN BASED RPG?Larian has already sped up combat with simulatenous initiative/attacks so what gives?
It has to be a minority of ppl right?Man I hope they do it right and ignore the ppl who want to speed trough combat.

Respectfully:

It does make sense according to the RAW.

Reactions and readied actions are part of your turn.

But no, you are not crazy: D&D rules can be very complex, even for veterans of the genre. Plenty of rules, spells, and tactics I have yet to try.


In an online table top session, a DM will manage this by asking the dormant party member to "wake up".

...I'm not sure what you are trying to tell me here, if I have to be perfectly honest.

First, because reactions and ready actions happen in fact during the enemy turn (the latter are DECIDED during yours, but that's another story); second, because the equivalent of "the DM telling the player to wake up when needed" would be precisely the "confirmation prompt".

Sounds like we are on the same page...yep I misread.

We are in agreement.

At least I feel the same. I also agree with rest of the post and how trouble some an “active” pause would be - especially characters often doing their actions before the camera manages to pan over to them.

Yup. Just PLEASE give us the option to have ACTUAL reactions, like Solasta..

Exactly ...

Create whatever half, semi, or fully automatic shit you want ... just give us option to have full control by popups and we will be happy.

This system already exitst. It's called reactions, you can see its implementation in Solasta. IT IS FING GAMEPLAY, HOW IN THE WORLD IS IT DISRUPTING TO GAMPLAY?!


This is an awful idea because it would make it possible to miss your reaction (while sipping tea, for example). It's not a shooter, nothing should require immidiate attention with limited time for you to decide.

The camera thing is what got me about the whole idea of players hitting pause or something during an enemy turn.

Larian's goal seems to be to speed up combat so much that you barely know what the flip is happening. Grove fight with Aradin. Camera jumped numerous times to NPCs and they had acted almost before the camera was on them. There's literally no time to hit spacebar or something to pause the enemy turn to react.

I agree that the best solution is most likely the Solasta/Composer one on the Megathread. It gives absolute full control to the player, and as Niara had pointed out, reactions only cause prompts when the right conditions are met. It isn't constant or even super frequent.

Also, Reactions done properly actually allow players to play the game during enemy turns instead of always just watching the game play out. Although I still think presets could work, it is as a few said at one point. Presets mean you just watch the combat. Prompts mean you get to participate. So presets, imo, would be a secondary option if for some reason prompts that interrupt would be the primary solution.

Oh, and I'll add this too. ESPECIALLY for new players, prompted reactions are vital and how a DM would play Tabletop D&D. If I have a new player, they know nothing about what their characters can do. So, as the DM, I would prompt them during an enemy's turn. "Say. That goblin just ran by you. Want to use your Attack of Opportunity? It's your Reaction. You get 1 every turn."

New player then says, "HECK yeah! Why wouldn't I want to?"

If a new player is playing D&D and the DM doesn't prompt them, they have absolutely no clue they even have the option to hit an enemy who runs past them in melee, let alone using more complex reactions.

It's really bizarre to me to have a game which can be "saved" at any point, even in the middle of a combat, but which can't be "paused," like ever, for some strange need to be cinematic at all times. Like it was a film reel that would melt or something if it ever stopped moving for more than couple seconds - with the exception of the PC's freeze frame on their own turn, but nowhere else?

The disconnect is super strange. There's this idea like 'No fucking way will this game ever be real-time with pause!' so they get rid of pause as a concept and time as a concept altogether, to make totally sure of that, but then the game ends up feeling somehow more like a real-time pressure cooker than real-time with pause ever did for me lol. How did this happen?

I know this thread, like many others, is about reactions, but it's kinda more basic than that.

When you can't pause at all, something even weirder happens, which is that "real-time" (which before was actually a euphamism for "game-time") actually becomes real. It intrudes on the player's real clock outside the game. It dispells the illusion that seperates the Character's sense of time from the Player's, which is like the opposite of what I want from a Turn-Based game. The only thing worse than slamming the space-bar constantly is not being be able to slam it at all, ever.

Big time NO. NO NO NO. I do not want to be clicking reactions every time the enemy tries to do something. I caved and bought solasta for 60% off, and one of the things that is constantly pissing me off is “react to this”. It should be defaulted.

I am playing to have fun, not playing a clicking simulator.

You would not be clicking reactions every time the enemy tries to do something; that's an exaggeration. Maybe, if you choose an incredibly-reaction dependent team (and you set all of your reactions to "prompt me" instead of "off" or hopefully "toggle" is still in the game), you'd use 2-3 reactions per round. And that'd be on the high end of things. Reactions only happen when a trigger occurs (barring a few omni-activateable abilities that *should* be modified for game use), which won't be every single enemy turn, let alone action. Then, using your reaction...uses up your reaction. Thus that character wouldn't be prompted any more until after their next turn.

When playing Solasta, in your party did you have a Paladin and/or someone with Protection Fighting Style and/or a Sorcerer with metamagic? If any of the above, then you probably got a much higher number of prompts than I think you should ideally/typically get in BG3. (I think Paladin smites should be a toggle; you can always choose something other than Protection Fighting Style; and metamagic should also be an icon instead of a prompt).

For the abilities that are usable after ~any roll, I agree that they should be modified. But the other things like AoO, counterspell, hellish rebuke...they really either need to be prompts or overhauled for Larian's automatic reaction system.

+1

I have a paladin with Smite Level 4 and a Sorceress with Counterspell and Shield and a Rogue with Uncanny Dodge. Yes. It can get a little heavy on the prompts, but I still don't think it's that bad. Still, that's why I was considering the preset method and trying to maybe figure out a solution to make it work.

Some thought I was exaggerating about the prompt frequency, but some battles it is a bit much. That's again why I thought at least some sort of presets would at least cut down the frequency.

I remember one battle in particular. Sorak triggers AOO. Yes? With Smite? Sorak hits rogue. Uncanny Dodge? Yes. Another Sorak triggers AOO. Yes? With Smite? Sorak casts spell. Counterspell? No. Not wasting it on enemy's level 1 spell. Other Sorak casts spell. Counterspell? No. Another baby spell. I'd rather cast Fireball on my turn.

Even still. It wasn't that bad, and it wasn't like that happened every battle.

Which is why things that aren't reactions (e.g., Smite) and/or that would prompt on every single roll (e.g., Cutting Words) should probably not be prompts, because these would result in an overabundances of prompts.
- Cutting words in BG3 is imo a great solution to this type of ability - modified to be a weaker pre-cast but with a broader area & longer time of effect.
- Smite should be a toggle that automatically adds the (player-chosen) slot level to your Paladin's successful attacks. You'd still get prompted for AoOs, and would possibly be able to toggle Smite off while reacting to that attack, so you'd always have perfect control over when and how hard you Smite. You'd only lose on the ability to crit-fish Smites, which...too bad.

Yeah. I still think Counterspell should have some sort of presets too. Getting prompts every time a cleric casts a level 1 healing spell or some goblin Booyahg casts burning hands seems silly. I'm not going to waste a level 3 spell slot on 99% of level 2 spells and lower, and even a good number of level 3s. I save it for big spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Stinking Cloud, Cone of Cold, Cloud Kill, etc.