Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Reckless Attack Barbarian

Reckless Attack should not cost you action point to activate. it should be a fee active ability that gives you the buff/debuff that you can use before your first attack.

I know it looks like it doesn't matter at first glance but it does it, same as for other weapon attacks implementation! You keep on doing this small nerfs. You are devaluing those abilities for no reason(it's all over the game be it Sneak attack, Colossus slayer, Hord breaker or many others) just because some one in the studio belittles the importantce of those changes.

But they effect combat all the time... Here is a small example. barbarian with a polearm in bg 3 gets a rush attack. Well, to get Reckless Attack benefit with the corrent way it's done he needs to hit the enemy but he can't do that cos his out of range. Meaning he/she needs to use rush attack without advantage losing on chance to hit with it just to get in range.

There are small edge cases like that all over the game. You can't do Disarming Attack on your first attack with advantage to effect Riposte or use any of active skills twice per turn with advantage or use rushing attack and lacerate or whatever the case is. Menacing attack and similar attacks should be passive that are applied to attacks anyway but untill that is the case we get less options for Reckless Attack.
It will just get worse IF we ever get multiclassing, all this small changes effect how expiranced rpg playes can play and get the max out of any combat system.

i know we didn't have pop up system before for skills but now we do, so passive charges can be used really well be it sneak attack menacing attack or whatever. Having actives all the time is not the optimal solution all the time.

phb
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.


As you can see no where does it says that Reckless Attack costs anything to use it or declare it. the same should be true in game.

Let me ask this, in the example you give, do polearms get a rush attack option RAW when you equip them? Because I think that the Rush Attack ability was something implemented by Larian.



It looks like Rush Attack on its own provides a number of specific abilities where it confers off-balance to the enemy and moves you forward AND makes you immune to Opportunity Attacks. I think adding automatic Advantage to the attack roll from reckless Attack feels like it would be a step too far.

Do you have another example that may make more sense?

nah that's not the problem at all it's not about the power. i don't think you understand my point.

This is just a by product that was made due to oversigh it just needed a bit more thinking on devs part.

You can add advantage from Reckless Attack to the attack roll for Rush Attack easly so that can't be the reason at all!

The only down side is it can't be the first attack on your turn. but right now it can be second, third, 4th, 5th. That arbitrary rule needs to be fixed.

If i use rush attack as second attack or 5th in turn it works fine. The rules says that you decided when you make the first attack so there is no reason it should work only on second+ "special "attacks. it should work on all of them IF i use it.

Not to mention rush attack is kind a definition of Reckless Attack in itself.

It just a systemic problem that needs to be fixed that's all. No reason you should be limited to only normal attack on your first attack in turn. It just removes smart gameplay that's all end removes edge case use for no reason.

Examples are plenty basically any Melee attack that needs an active icone should work with Reckless Attack on first attack in turn.
All of them work alreaady just not as first attacks in turn that part needs a fix nothing more. It's simple, it shouldn't cost you an action to get a benefit of Reckless Attack ability.

Oh I see what you are saying. yeah if you use Reckless and then Rush attack it provides the advantage.



However you can't just activate reckless attack and then use Rush attack and then follow up with a regular attack - which you *should* be able to do.

So either Larian needs to block off the special weapon attacks to make them unavailable after a reckless attack or they need to make Reckless attack something you activate and it covers any melee attack. It should be consistent though.

It would be easier to show you but i can't because it doesn't work that way and my uploads speed is abysmal in this hills.
but i think we are on the same page now.

it's not that big of a deal to get special attack with advantage you can get that anyway it's just something it should work. So no need to remove anything in my opinion.

Extra small thing if you will that makes the whole thing a better experience.

Kinda a small thing and most casual players wont even need it. In most cases it works fine as is but if you are a good player you can get so much more out of it, out of those small edge cases on the betterfield.

Kinda just a small thing really, but now they always do that. That what's bothering me and multiclassing(IF we get it) will be worst off, multiclassing gets staggered as is no need add to it.
They are constantly changing abilities that effect weapon attacks. THey make them active i mean i get it, in some cases they are easier to make that way. But now it looks to me like they just made a bit of habit out of it and those are hard to break i guess.

Even if in this case it's simple to make. Just make a stance if you will that costs nothing and you can't turn it off. Like we do now, you get debuff/buff but it costs you nothing to activate. The price for activation is the debuff that comes with it. Then you just attack as normal like nothing happend debuff/buff does it's thing.

I totally get it now. it is a small thing but consistency is important.

it's going to matter -also -when it comes to Multiclassing. Activate reckless attack and then strength based melee attack.

yeah for sure.

That said most barbarian vanilla players will just Multiclass into a Champion instead of Battlemaster to get that extra 19-20 crit range but yea. Not always the case, so like you said consistency is important.

You mentioned in your first post the new pop ups so I thought at first that your suggestion was that Reckless Attack should be implemented in the new “reaction” system so that it can either be turned off, set on to make the first attack of each turn automatically a reckless attack, or to ask the player when they make their first attack of a turn whether they want to attack to be reckless? That does sound like a possible extension of the system that Larian implemented, and hopefully will be rolling out for various things like sneak attack, as you say.

But then you compared it to something like a stance, which made me think more of the “old” passive toggles for reactions, and I can also see that working for Reckless Attack, and that approach might be more user friendly for a player who prefers either to use or not to use Reckless Attack most of the time so doesn’t want to be prompted each turn, but for whom it would be a faff to have to go into the reactions menu to turn off or on for those occasions they did want to do something different.

Either of those approaches would seem an improvement over what we have now, but I’m not sure which would be best. Personally, I would tend to almost always use Reckless Attack so wouldn’t want to be prompted each turn, but would want to be able to turn it off quickly and easily in the even I didn’t want to risk being attacked with advantage. But I’ve only played barbarian once in BG3 so it’s not a class I know the best way to play.

Out of interest, as I’m not very knowledgeable about 5e, does the first attack of the turn need to be a melee weapon attack in order to qualify for activating Reckless Attack, or can it be any type of attack? I know you’ll only get advantage if it’s a melee attack, so it would only be worth doing if the barbarian has a potential second attack that turn. But if the first attack doesn’t need to be melee, I can see why the current implementation would potentially disadvantage multiclass barbarians more.

Formally speaking, it's simply a choice you make when you make the first attack on your turn, regardless of what sort of attack it is. It could even be a ranged spell attack; you would still make the choice to be reckless or not at that point.


This means that if you're, say, an Eldritch Knight/Wild Magic barbarian multiclass, you may wish to Scorching Ray three far off targets, then rage as your bonus action, then action surge so you can haul off and attack twice at some other big boss... You're going to want advantage on the boss, but the time you declare Reckless is when you cast scorching ray, even though the attack rolls for scorching ray itself are not affected.

The only issue with it being a 'stance' toggle is that it may mislead players into thinking they can toggle it off again after their first attack, and 'not be reckless' for the rest of their turn, or avoid the advantage that it gives out, and so on. Using the prompt system would help cement the reminder that it's an all or nothign, and you get it for all your (Str, Melee) attacks that turn, not just the first.

Thanks for the clarification

Sorry about that shoudn't have done that.

i droped my gripe in with how Larian is turning every ability that effects weapon attacks and modifiers for those attacks into active skills. But yeah in this case it should be an active, well the old passives we had that don't cost anything but this time around you can't turn it off, once you attack.



Anyway, i now belive i know why they keep making this changes! It's so they have something to put in martial classes hotbar... So said really and it's why we probably never gonna see a proper sneak attack as passive charge in reactions system...

Larain is gutting weapon attacks just so they can make it feel more of video game(more dos 2 like) with actives buttons, finally it all makes sense. But sadly i don't feel any better knowing that, still want a proper weapon, like sneak atack, Menacing Attack and others. hehe ranting again, sorry:))

Having said that Barbarian(Berserker) is an insanely strong class right now as a melee fighter. At level 5 you are the only class that can potentially pull off 6 weapon attacks every single round. (Fighter can do it once with haste + action surge)

Level 5 GWM Barbarian + Potion of HG strength + Helmet of Grit + Haste Potion (or better the spores) at 50% health + Sussar Greatsword + 1 = 2d6 + 6 + 10 = 18-28 damage per attack x 6 = 108 - 168 damage per round plus you have a 60% chance of a critical hit with reckless attack.

I bring this up as an example of how Larian's way of doing things can sometimes backfire and make characters even stronger.

Oh and the way I set this up you end up with 45 (30 + 15 temp)health with 50% damage resistance (max health being 60 + 15 temp). So you even at 50% health you are tough.

yeah like i said it's not about power necessarily. IT would just help with things you can do... open up more smart gamplay. Like you said berserker has plenty power as is same as ranger let say that could do with a few fixs from colossus slayer to hordbreaker, ensnaring strike and so on all again weapon attacks that were changed...