Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Reactions and game speed

So right now, reactions is handled on a "Toggle on/off" with a first come first reacted to way.

This works for attacks of opportunity, but DnD 5e has so many reactions you can take that won't really suit the current system.

Some iconic reaction spells like Shield and Counter spell won't be very worth while if they automatically go off against the first attack or spell that is used. Reaction is the last of the "action types" like Action and Bonus Action. It should be it's own little mark at the bottom of the screen, and using it should be a choice.



I think the only usable system for reactions is actually a "pop up" window, where you can select which characters should react to a triggered event. If a spell is cast, anyone who has counter spell, a spell slot AND a reaction available should be listed, and I can select the one to cast the spell.

With shield the attack should be shown if it hits, and we should be allowed to choose if we want to use shield if we have the spell, the spell slot and a reaction available.

And there's lots other opportunities for reactions. Sentinel feat is a very popular feat that uses your rections too



Now I hear people saying "But it slows down combat", but does it really? Combat is currently poorly optimized, and the animations are slow.
A poorly optimized combat shouldn't stand in the way of implementing 5e rules correctly. The poor AI that get's stuck all the time + an option to speed up movement, leaves more time for us the player to do things in combat, like our actions, bonus actions and reactions.

Post copied from another thread.

It seems to work perfectly fine in Solasta to me.

Solasta's implementation of reactions is very well done and they don't disrupt the flow of the battle at all.
If they aren't implemented in the full release of BG3 fear it's going to be a detriment to the game's overall quality.

To quote a friend of mine:

The game as promised shouldn't be sacrificed to game pace.

Larian said DnD 5e, so they should make DnD 5e first, then optimize around that.

Agreed. I'm fine with homebrew additions, but they shouldn't come at the cost of removing core features.
For now I'm just going to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they aren't included due to the game still being very far away from its full release.

I wonder how it will work for Paladin Divine Smite. It's a powerfull ability especially because you can do it AFTER the dice roll, meaning you do it only on a success hit or even only on a critical one.
The only way I can see here is like actual reaction toggle but with the effect only on a success roll, we'll see.

Even in Solasta, right now, you get the popup windows (I don't like this system, but how to do it ?) but you don't know if it's a critical hit or a regular one.

There are a lot of things hard to implement in BG3 with the actual system. Another example, the ranger (hunter) ability "Horde breaker", in PHB it says "when you make a weapon attack" meaning it can be triggered by your main-hand attack, your off hand one, on extra attack, etc... Right now, in BG3, it's a "skill" button and it strikes with your primary weapon, you don't have any choice, and we don't know if it will work with the "extra attack" feature. If you have to choose between making 2 attacks or that feature, it will lower the power by a lot.

I really hope they will unlock character progress to lvl 5, because there are a lot of new things at this level, and so a lot of possible bugs/misconception (also multiclassing)

It wasn't exactly like that. In fact, from the beginning, they announced that if something doesn't work well (or it won't be fun) in a turn-based game, they will change it.

This thread was made before but let me reply to you again.

The pop up box is dumb. Why? Because it would pop up EVERY time there could be a reaction. now imagine that with the things you mentioned.

There is of course an easy solution to this, but its a bold one:


Have a button press to open the reaction Box. Basically a timed button press.
The enemy turns to run away? Press a button to open the context menu to do an opportunity attack.
Simple.

That way the gameplay is

A.) Much faster than with a Box that pops up by default
B.) much more controlled than it is with larians implementation
C.) you actually have something to worry about when its not your own turn, something that esepcaily people in multiplayer will certainly apreciate

One easy solution - just give us the options. E.G. Update the "Reactions" toggles (on the right side) to be able to activate the following modes:

1) Off

2) Automatic

3) Prompt Me


This lets us control the pace of the game and also apply prompts to the things we care about - Attacks of Opportunity? Auto. Counterspell? Prompt. Etc.