Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New PFH announcement.

Wym? Bg3 already blows any other crpg out of the water

The act of giving a Bardic Inspiration die to a party member has always been a bonus action. Cutting Words was originally a reaction, and depending on what a Bardic Inspiration die is used for, the act of using it is either a free action or a reaction.

Actually, looking back at the tooltip, I grabbed an image of it. It DOES say Cutting Words is a reaction. It just looks like it got MASSIVELY buffed compared to its tabletop incarnation, where it only affected one parameter instead of ALL of its possible parameters.



EDIT: Oh, I didn't notice they looked at Combat Inspiration too, was too distracted by Cutting Words. Combat Inspiration (or well, the base Bardic Inspiration part of it) has actually been NERFED from its tabletop incarnation. It says NEXT roll instead of being able to hold onto it and use it whenever you choose, and the wording implies that it's the Bard that controls what effect it's used for upon granting the die, rather than the recipient.

I have mixed feelings about a flat +4 AC increase, but long term it's a nerf when in later levels it could have been 1d8 or higher instead (as bardic inspiration gets a bonus d2 at set levels), unless the effect also scales and we just don't know it yet. Regardless of how it works, it's going to be bad compared to Cutting Words or its tabletop incarnation if you can't even choose when to expend that die.



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No reaction rework it seems. Cutting Words may be listed as a reaction in the tooltip, but in the combat demonstration they just showed, it appears to be a free action.

All my fears may be coming true. Proper reactions were my baseline expectation for the game, and I was willing to overlook literally everything else for it. But now... I fear for the long term combat design for the game now. If Bardic Inspiration is this restrained, imagine the future Counterspell. It's time to approach every fight with the same mentality I utilized in my DOS2 Tactican runs - powerful sneak attack alpha strikes to kill that fireball caster since we clearly can't rely on the possibility of counterspell anymore, if it even makes it into the game at all.

Counterspell will likely be a fake "Reaction" (free action) that just negates the 1st spell the AI would cast that turn. LOL.

I expected all of this, so I'm not surprised. Larian did not even acknowledge Reactions this PFH and gloss right over it, so that indicates this final game won't deviate much more from this offering.

I'm just LMFAO.

New elf animations boiiiis

Was expecting a proper reaction system, but it was for naught.
They seem very busy with implementing hair options though.

No reaction rework basically means that my interest in this patch suddenly went from wanting to do a full playthrough, to just progressing enough to test out how Combat Inspiration works for a few combat scenarios and then dropping the game until full launch again.

Paladin mains right now should be very scared of how Smite is implemented, among other reaction-dependent features and spells.

This patch was quite...underwhelming. I'm losing hope fast. They spend so much time polishing visuals instead of working on mechanics(atleast as what's shown to us) that I think Larian should become a film animation studio instead.

You can't hold the die because of the limitations of Larian's engine, which is the reason why the reactions can't change in the first place.

Continuing from my earlier train of thought, in regards to Counterspell especially, the action economy means that in most practical cases in fights involving multiple spellcasters, it's going to be a far more effective tool against the player rather than equally effective VS players and enemies.

I had already seen inklings of this in Solasta - in some fights, a player would have to have one spellcaster bait it out with a lesser spell to prevent their second caster from having their major spell interrupted, and that's assuming there aren't multiple spellcasters in the enemy party capable of countering it. Meanwhile the opposite could be true in BG3, the enemy AI is likely to be devious enough to bait out our counterspells with mooks casting cantrips before the boss sends a fireball at us. At least in Solasta, the reaction system prevents enemies from baiting out your own counterspells in this way.

Sure, Larian could design encounters where there's only one fireball caster or counterspell user, but given my extensive experience with DOS2 and how it devolved into most fights having to be resolved within 3-4 turns or half your party was already dead towards late game, I don't expect this. I expect maximum pyrotechnics.

In fact, I can already think of a potential workaround for the problem of Counterspell in BG3 - turn it into a targeted spell that disables the next spell cast by the target. My faith is so low from a mechanical standpoint that this is probably the cleanest solution I can think of and the one Larian is most likely to implement, now that the hope for a proper reaction system is all but gone. And it's still completely inferior to normal counterspell.

I have zero interest in bards, gnomes or hair highlighting. Shovels... big whoop.

I'd like to see Variant Humans, a proper set of Feats, and level 5. And yes, Move/Action/Bonus/Reaction should be there.

Tbh I'm fine with Paladins' Smite in BG3 being "as a free action, spend the appropriate spell slot to add damage to your next weapon attack. If you miss your attack, the slot is refunded." The only thing you lose is the ability to crit-fish smites, which I dislike as it feels too gamey. What, on the exact instant of the blow, your paladin knows that calling upon their god's power will do crit-amount of damage, and then still has time to call upon that power!? I much prefer the idea of "on the swing toward the enemy, they gather power and make the sword smiting."

However, Larian might implement Smite as a dedicated hotbar icon, which would be much worse. You wouldn't be able to combine Smite with any other applicable attack type.

But yeah, for many other reactions/instant actions (Bard cutting words, Wizard shield or counterspell, anyone's opportunity attacks) it's not great...

Did they say if Performance feat actually gives +1 CHA or is it another corny Larian gimmick?

And the idea of playing music with NPCs or even taking a whole party feat to do so....just bizarre, fifth-and-final DLC type idea. You'll try it maybe once and never again.

Yeah I couldn't give a shit about crit fishing, it's extremely gamey.

I hope whatever workaround they plan for Smite means that it won't be automatically blown on your next attack. It's one thing to not have any control over your reactions, it's another thing to be losing resources because of it.

Nothing worse than losing a spell slot/smite cast on an enemy that was already low HP to begin with. Or worse, on an involuntary opportunity attack against said low HP enemy, because we all know how sadistic Larian AI is.

I agree that'd be a terrible implementation. However, I believe that current Battlemaster maneuvers that only have an effect upon a successful attack don't expend the superiority die if you miss(?). Smite, if Larian doesn't add pop-up prompts, should work like this...probably.

Paladin's smite is a minor problem.
In the worst case, all you will lose is the ability to wait for a crit, which in the end doesn't really matter as rest is quite common.
Ultimately, this is a minimal change.
The only situation where I would really be willing not to complain about reactions like in Solost is when most of them are converted into free actions and only those that cannot work otherwise (counterspell) have pop-up windows.
Smite is definitely not among the latter.

It has practically implications for sneaking.

This is a good point. Have your Bard perform near a crowd of NPCs, while redirecting their attention away from another party member sneaking around in the background making their way to the normally heavily guarded treasure chest or something.

You speak as if BG3 was a singleplayer RPG. It is not. Not all of it. Not always. It is also this:

They did a spellbook UI rework but Wizards still learn other classes spells?

They even demonstrate their new "Learn spells" UI for Wizards by showing two Cleric spells, Revivify and Silence, in it.

It seems like a trivial fix to tag spells by classes that have them on their spell list. But now it's really starting to look like Larian dont want to do this and want Wizards to learn everything. Why would you want to let players do this now for so long only to be disappointed later?