Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Dev Blog: Patch 9 is Coming

AD&D had weapon speed, but it was removed in later D&D versions - too much for most people to think about I suspect (I barely remember it)..

The biggest disappointment for me so far is the railroading in terms of exploration. Hardly anything you can climb, and if so only very narrow spots, swimming, canoeing etc. is not available, no logging of trees getting you over a river etc. Whatever you can think of, you can do it was the advertisement. Well, my hopes are not very high any more...

Climbing would really have been a VERY good feature in the game especially with the verticality.
I still have nightmares of my characters falling in the spiders nest during the fight versus Dror Razglin and that are unable to re-join the battle. Spider climb / Fly / Ropes and climb would have been really good with such a verticality.

I personnaly don't mind at all about being able to swim and canoeing in a heavy armor... But more interractions with the environment would have been very cool (like as you said logging trees, cutting bushes to find new pathes,...).

Sorry GM4Him, but nerf weapon fighting is nothing like fighting with real weapons. Someone quick and nimble could jump inside your swing of a great axe or a long sword and stick their dagger in you 4 or 5 times before you could even begin to recover from your missed swing.
Check out your local Ren faire next time you get a chance and pick up some of those weapons they have for display / sale.

You're missing my point. It's not about whether you can get in multiple jabs compared to someone's greatsword. It's about whether you actually would. When facing off against someone, you don't just rush in and go all crazy jab fest. You look for a single opening and strike, dodge, block, dodge, strike. In real combat, you die if you just rush in and try stabbing 5 times with a dagger.

It's kind of funny that they used that tag line when describing their game system in the early days... and it's countered by something as non-problematic as "I'd like to cast fly, at third level, in this supposedly D&D video game, in order to float 20 feet up in the air and avoid the melee warriors". It's not even thinking of something weird or unusual, it's just a tactical choice of core mechanics... and the game engine literally cannot handle it.

I think, like hit points representing skill at higher levels as much as ability to take punishment and armor is a binary effect (Hit or not Hit) which is the opposite of combat where armor can slow you down but add the benefit of absorbing impact, weapon speed is just opens up a whole can of worms. Yes, a dagger can attack more quickly, but it's much less effective at blocking heavier weapons, and the act of trying to get inside the swing is basically risking an attack of opportunity. Rather than all this detail (which was sort of in the 2nd Edition Players Option rules), just get rid of weapon speed and imagine the combat how you want.

I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.
In real combat, not nerf or dnd combat, if you've got a giant weapon that you have to "wind up" to swing, you're dead if I can jump in and stick my dagger in your neck before you can hit me, period. That's just how it works.
I'm not arguing DND rules or nerf combat, I'm talking realism.
Have you ever, or even seen someone, swing a baseball bat at someone when they don't already have it cocked back? If the target isn't drunk or stupid, they're not getting hit.
A quick nimble guy with a pocket knife is going to kill a big slow guy with a baseball bat 99% of the time. That's just how real fighting works.

Lol. I love when people just flat out say you're wrong. There’s no doubt a dagger CAN make a much faster strike than a two handed sword at full swing. But most weapon attacks aren't full swings. They are also quick thrusts, jabs and slashes. Because the reach is greater on a sword or axe, a dagger is typically less effective in combat because the sword or axe bearer has a much greater area of attack. It's harder for the dagger wielder to even get close enough to strike.

I'm also not talking nerf or D&D here. I only brought up nerf because my point is when you are in even mock combat with someone else, you don't just rush in and strike a bunch of times simply because your weapon can make a faster strike. Timing is everything. You fake a jab, dodge, sidestep, dodge, wait for your opening and then go for it. You would ONLY ever go for the barrage of fast strikes with a dagger if your opponent was momentarily stunned or defenseless - aka a Sneak Attack or Coup de Grace.

D&D 5e combat simplifies all this. I hit with my greataxe and do 4 damage. That's like a swift jab of the weapon, maybe even with the butt end. I hit and do 16 damage. Ah, now that's a full swing timed just right. I jab with the dagger and do 2 damage. I cut a slice on my enemy's arm. I did Crit and dealt 12 damage with the dagger and sneak attack, simulating maybe a series of quick jabs to the back or side after my enemy swung and left himself exposed. It's however you want to interpret it. However, it's all still there.

Very rarely do I ever flat out say someone is wrong. Only when I'm really convinced that they are in fact, wrong.

Point being, IF the quick guy can get inside of the swing of the big guy, one jab of an ice pick in the ear is going to end the life of the guy that can cut you in half with a great sword, great axe, halberd or any other weapon that REQUIRES distance to be effective.

But I'll rephrase out of common courtesy.

I still THINK you're dead wrong.

Well, this is exactly what i meant. I said weapon speed. That is not exactly what i meant. Thing is, a 2-handed sword for example weighs about 7-10 pounds. May not sound much, but swinging that around is quite exhausting. Noone even a little trained in that just goes around and does big swings. Those things are pretty balanced though so they can be pretty versatile.
Taking a greataxe or maul, even if the weight is the same, is a lot harder to control. Most of the weight is in the head. Ever tried to do a full power swing with a sledgehammer and stop it? And those usually do have only like...4 pound heads.

in D&D a 2H does 2d6, GAxe 1d12 and the maul...also 2d6 i think? But a full swing with a 2H sword will not be as devastating as a full swing with a greataxe. So even the Dmg is not even realistic. Logically a 2h should do less dmg but have a better speed (or rather initiative) than a Greataxe.
To implement that in D&D you would have to change quite a bit though.

I just said i missed it exactly because of that. But i tried playing RoleMaster once and i prefer D&D. too much realism can ruin the fun^^

Hmmm. I'm not sure how we got on this topic with the Patch 9 thread, but whatever.

So, here's the part where we're missing each other, I think. "Point being, IF the quick guy can get inside of the swing of the big guy, one jab of an ice pick in the ear is going to end the life of the guy that can cut you in half with a great sword, great axe, halberd or any other weapon that REQUIRES distance to be effective."

So, "REQUIRES distance to be effective." That's the thing. You are focusing on what is REQUIRED for serious amounts of damage. However, in order to do SOME damage, you don't need to do a full swing with any weapon, big or small. And that's where the disconnect is.

A greataxe does 1d12 damage. Greatsword does 2d6. So, you can actually do a minimum of 1+Str Bonus damage. Not effective. OR you can do 12+Str Bonus damage with a full - effective - swing.

See. There are LOTS of ways you can use a sword or axe or staff or whatever while in combat that does damage but isn't necessarily effective. Those methods are quicker attacks with those weapons. They aren't necessarily effective, but they are faster than a full swing, making the weapon just as quick and effective as a dagger depending on what type of attack you are making.

Standardly, a person wielding a greatsword or greataxe won't get that many full swing attempts that do 12+ damage when facing any enemy, big or small. A person with a greataxe going up against a dagger wielder will likely do a jab with the head at the dagger person, smack them with the butt end, do a small swing/swipe, try to bash them with the staff part of the greataxe, etc. Then, when the timing is right, after throwing their opponent off balance, they take the full swing, dealing in D&D 5e terms, a full 12+ damage. MOST of the time, though, the greataxe won't be doing a full swing, so again, no slower than a dagger.

And notice, the dagger does a fairly consistent amount of damage each time. 1 or 4+ damage is very little difference. This is because with the dagger it doesn't matter whether you do a quick jab or a slash, it's going to do roughly the same damage.

My point is that the 5e system is pretty darn good if you truly understand why things are the way they are. A person with greater strength will have an easier time wielding a bigger weapon like a greataxe, so they have a faster strike and are more likely to hit than someone who has like 10 Strength. Meanwhile, a faster person will have a much better chance of hitting with a dagger against a slower person because they can get inside their attack zone and make that quick jab before the slower person can dodge out of the way or bat the attack to the side with their big weapon.

Nevertheless, as soon as you start adding weapon speeds into the mix, realism actually starts flying out the window. I've tried it when I was attempting to create my own RPG. What you get are these dagger wielders with like 3-5 strikes to every 1 strike from a two-handed person - no matter how strong they are or how capable they are at wielding the big weapon - and suddenly the fast dagger wielder is beating the living tar out of the big guy who has no chance at stopping him. When, in real life, the two handed big guy would likely wipe the floor with the dagger wielder because the dagger wielder has a puny six inch knife and the big guy has this seven foot long sword that can run the dagger wielder through before the dagger wielder even gets within 5 feet of him. Why? Because the two handed sword guy doesn't do a full wide swing with the sword. He makes a quick jab/thrust at the dagger person as the dagger person makes a measly attempt to try to get in close.

Well. Salo, and the rest of the team, even though I have recently been quite critical I have to say that I love this post. It's full of energy, informational and shows some good bits of "behind the camera"-work which is always fun and lovely to see. I really hope you'll be able to give us more like this as we creep closer to full release.

Neat Explanation, never looked at it that way. I like it

Sounds good GM4Him. I won't spoil this Patch 9 post any further with of topic chatter.

Looking forward very much!

https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1597651903114100736

Larian started teasing ...
They usualy do that 2 weeks in advance. :3

I go write my letter to Swenta. ^_^

My vacation starts at 12.12. it would be good timing.

I have an intuition that they would like to release the patch first week of December, but it could be the second.
That avoids most of the vacation time that is certainly to come in mid to late December...because I think it would be PR nightmare for the patch to really need hotfixes and no staff available to fix and stage.
That's my thought on timing...and of course, I prefer it sooner than later, but December *is* a good month to spend a lot of testing/playing.