Larian Studios
The more I fight in this game and the more I understand the differences to 5th edition, I understand i have to take the advantages the system now gives me or i will fall victim to them.
But it feels like i'm cheesing the game and the game is trying to cheat:
high ground, thrown bombs, exploding barrels, broken stealth, infinitly spawning adds, ranged opportunity attack, backstabs, infinite food as bonus action, getting pushed of cliffs, ground effects everywhere, frightened and prone using up actions, broken invisibility etc.

But i was still having fun with the rest of the game (really!). So i tried more peaceful solutions, and since i was at the goblin camp it was actually quite intesting.
Until i found out a lot of them are really trigger-happy. It really wasn't clear which dialog option would result in happy chatting and which in a fight to the death.
It was very jarring to try beeing nice to the goblins, just to have a few aggro, having to kill them because there is no way of de-escalating the situation,
and then talking to the next group like nothing happened.

it is so easy to escalate a situation with the "Attack" button right in every dialog. But I feel like maybe a "Talk" button in combat could be so much more useful.


ps would also help when wyll aggros in his introduction fight just because he slipped on the icy surface of a stray ray of frost. yes this actually happend to me.
pps not a native speaker please bear with any mistakes i made
To be fair, I think "trigger happy" is a very accurate description of goblins. You can talk to the next group like nothing happened because the first group wasn't in vision of the second group. They don't know what happened.

The situation with Wyll should just be made impossible. I don't think a "talk in combat" is a great option, but a morale indicator might be a good inclusion. If you're fighting a lot of goblins and you kill most of them without any of your characters being downed, the others could surrender.
Originally Posted by nizanegusa
The more I fight in this game and the more I understand the differences to 5th edition, I understand i have to take the advantages the system now gives me or i will fall victim to them.
But it feels like i'm cheesing the game and the game is trying to cheat:
high ground, thrown bombs, exploding barrels, broken stealth, infinitly spawning adds, ranged opportunity attack, backstabs, infinite food as bonus action, getting pushed of cliffs, ground effects everywhere, frightened and prone using up actions, broken invisibility etc.

But i was still having fun with the rest of the game (really!). So i tried more peaceful solutions, and since i was at the goblin camp it was actually quite intesting.
Until i found out a lot of them are really trigger-happy. It really wasn't clear which dialog option would result in happy chatting and which in a fight to the death.
It was very jarring to try beeing nice to the goblins, just to have a few aggro, having to kill them because there is no way of de-escalating the situation,
and then talking to the next group like nothing happened.

it is so easy to escalate a situation with the "Attack" button right in every dialog. But I feel like maybe a "Talk" button in combat could be so much more useful.


ps would also help when wyll aggros in his introduction fight just because he slipped on the icy surface of a stray ray of frost. yes this actually happend to me.
pps not a native speaker please bear with any mistakes i made


I made a thread about it - I accidentally did something in the Grove that made all the Tieflings attack me. Id *love* a surrender option in what are refuges like the grove, BGg, places that would have jail, etc...and let you get rep back reasonably easy. yes, pick pocketers and murderers might exploit it to romp around but increasing fines and jail times or whatever could help deter it. I agree though, more options to just take it would be great!
i didn't even think of surrender! of course! especially when fighting against good people surrender basically means i agree with you and "i made a mistake/there was a misunderstanding".
and surrender against evil people can mean all kinds of things like getting eaten by goblins!
bumping this +1

The ability to make enemies surrender: would shorten long battles, relates to the (currently not-functioning-properly) ability to knock-out enemies, and all-around would make role-playing better as it would mitigate some of the harsh penalties for failing dialogue checks leading to combat. An "oops my bad, peace?" or "I don't want to go through the tedium of killing you" check.

For example, in the underdark there is a group of enemies who all gain the status condition "frightened" during combat
The kuo-toa when I kill their "God" (a redcap was tricking them into believing he was a god and got mad at me for exposing him)

This would be a perfect opportunity to make a intimidate check to end combat peacefully, but instead I'm forced to play out the entirety of the combat even though I'm basically guaranteed to win. Especially since I didn't want to kill these enemies in the first place, I just wanted to help! [see spoiler]

I'd suggest a persuasion or (str based?) intimidate check, with rules such as:
-It costs an action, so you can't just freely spam it
-The difficulty goes down slightly for every enemy you kill/knock out, and a lot if you kill a "leader" (it could start at DC 20+the enemy's level, making it unlikely to succeed without demonstrating your superiority first)
-Maybe it isn't possible for all combats. And/or it's only possible after you kill a leader (e.g., Minthara attacking the grove, my example above)
-Maybe you can only attempt it once or twice per combat. After a 2nd fail, the enemies refuse any additional attempts to talk.

Finally, this would also enable you to talk to NPCs that start out hostile: like the initial goblins attacking the Grove.
I'd also like to add the "Run away" feature which perhaps randomly drops you off somewhere in the map in order to escape combat you know you are going to lose. Perhaps have a DC check to see if you can escape.
Originally Posted by Old-School-Gamer
I'd also like to add the "Run away" feature which perhaps randomly drops you off somewhere in the map in order to escape combat you know you are going to lose. Perhaps have a DC check to see if you can escape.

That would also be much appreciated! Maybe an athletics check (to make that skill more useful), and re-using many of the rules I suggested above. Or a stealth check, with the DC lowered if all of your party is currently Hiding.
Posted By: CMF Re: Combat, De-escalation and Peaceful Solutions - 29/10/20 02:45 AM
Not sure if it is known, but you can run away already, albeit not instant button press for a chance to run away.

If you move outside of combat range the engagement ends. This usually relies on sprinting away and crouching for stealth. Sometimes enemy pathfinding is bugged and they don't go explore your last known location (that beam of light on the ground when you stealth), but other times they walk up to it and you are back in the visible cone which may break stealth.

I have saved myself from lost combat a few times by having one or two characters run away and revive my downed allies later, or throwing down grease and web spells to slow down pursuit of enemy combatants to get more distance.

Expeditious retreat and sprint really help you cover ground to get away easier.

As far as ending combat peacefully, there are a few fights that I wish the knockout function worked better for and hoped that it would change the story/reactions, but at the moment it seems to just end combat in a roleplay sense, but not change anything as far as story.
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