Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Melee and archery combat felt lacking in depth. Here are my suggestions.

In a quick look, these are my recommendations:
1. Give weapons more “weapons based attack actions”, let them be used along with normal attacks and treat them like skills. In return weapons based attack actions should cost an Action + Bonus Action.
2. Archery should involve a basic arrow count that should replenish during short rest.

Most playthroughs, I favor the melee/archer that holds the line in the front. It comes hand in hand because the PC normally is the one that instigates most fights thru dialog, that isn't an ambush. But from all my time in game (two full playthroughs), I've always felt like the game was lacking a solid combat experience. I'm not a DnD player so I don't know what things are solid game rules and designs of 5e. So this is just my look at things from a gamer’s point of view within the BG3 current standards.

1. Give weapons more “weapons based attack actions”, let them be used along with normal attacks and treat them like skills. In return weapons based attack actions should cost an Action + Bonus Action.

Where I felt the game lacking was in the sense of melee combat not being very...combat intricate. Meaning any class that was focused on melee fighting seemed really dull. We get our basic attack that is our spam attack button and then we get this "weapon based attack action" that can only be used once per short rest. Honestly right there I feel like is a crime. Why as a melee focused fighter am I only getting one spam attack and then another that I can only use “one per short rest” that’s just a weapons based attack action? That’s not even once per battle! That is an incredible ridiculousness that my close quarters character only knows “swing weapon” as his only spam attack action. While wizards have a list of spam cantrips that they can apply to a variety of situations. It was insulting to see their fully kitted hotbar of spells and actions. While my warrior, later on can, gets his four Battle master skills…what a joke.

Let me continue now with the “weapon based attacks action” are really unimpressive. And I don’t mean by the current abilities, I mean by the list of abilities. Right now there are just 6 different weapon based attacks actions. With one of them being only for archery and then another only for staves, so leaving us really only with 4 weapon based attack actions. That super unimaginative in my opinion for the melee and archery based combat players.

Here is a list on the current weapon based attack actions and what weapons they cover.

Cleave – Hit multiple enemies in an arc in front of you
• Battleaxes
• Glaives
• Halberds
• Greataxes
• Greatswords
• Longswords

Slash – Cause an enemy to bleed for 1d4
• Cleavers
• Daggers
• Handaxes
• Rapiers
• Scimitars
• Shortswords
• Sickles

Smash – Stack additional strength multiplier
• Clubs
• Greatclubs
• Maces
• Mauls
• Morningstars
• War Picks
• Warhammers

Rush – Charge forward and hit multiple enemies and object in your path
• Spears
• Tridents

Pin Down – Reduce target’s movement speed by 10 ft
• Hand Crossbows
• Heavy Crossbows
• Light Crossbows
• Longbows
• Shortbows

Topple – Knock down target to prone
• Quarterstaves

Like I was saying, I’m okay the current weapon based attack actions, but what I don’t like is the lack of how many there are. I don’t want to say that each weapon should have it’s own weapon based attack action, but there certainly needs to be more. These attacks aren’t to out class the battle master skills, as those are specific, have strong effects and cost/deal a 1d8 to use. These new attacks I’m proposing are specific on the imagination of having weapon proficiency in these specific weapons and to be used along with the generic “attack” spam for melee and archery based characters. Their difference is that they should cost an Action + Bonus Action and should work along with “extra attacks” in higher levels. You won’t be able to spam these attacks tho as they would need the additional Bonus Action. Multiple weapon based attack actions should be available per weapon and treated as skills.

My new weapon based attack actions and old ones:

(New actions)
Feint swing – Stack additional dexterity multiplier to attack roll
Lunge – Add 1d4 to your attack roll
Heavy strike – Add 1d6 to your damage roll
Ready guard – Incoming attacks get a 1d4 penalty for 1 turn (requires concentration)
Focused shot (archery) – Add 1d4 to your attack roll

(Old actions)
Smash – Stack additional strength multiplier to attack roll
Cleave – Hit multiple enemies in an arc in front of you
Slash – Cause an enemy to bleed for 1d4
Rush – Charge forward and hit multiple enemies and object in your path
Topple – Knock down target to prone
Pin Down (archery) – Reduce target’s movement speed by 10 ft

List of weapon proficiencies and what weapon based attack actions they should have:
Simple weapons (2 skills)
• Cleavers – Heavy strike/Slash
• Handaxes – Heavy strike/Feint swing
• Daggers – Feint swing/Slash
• Shortswords – Feint swing/Slash
• Sickles – Feint swing/Slash
• Maces – Heavy strike/Slash
• Clubs – Heavy strike/Slash
• Greatclubs – Heavy strike/Smash
• Quarterstaves – Ready guard/Topple
• Spears – Lunge/Rush
• Shortbows – Focused shot/Pinned shot
• Light Crossbows – Focused shot/Pinned shot

Martial weapons (4 skills except for archery)
• Rapiers – Feint swing/Lunge/Ready guard/Slash
• Scimitars – Feint swing/Lunge/Ready guard/Slash
• Longswords – Lunge/Ready guard/Cleave/Slash
• Greatswords – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Cleave/Slash
• Battleaxes – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Cleave/Smash
• Greataxes – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Cleave/Smash
• Glaives – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Cleave/Smash
• Halberds – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Cleave/Smash
• Mauls – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Rush/Smash
• Warhammers – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Rush/Smash
• Morningstars – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Rush/Smash
• War Picks – Heavy strike/Ready guard/Rush/Smash
• Tridents – Lunge/Heavy strike/Ready guard/Rush
• Hand Crossbows – Focused shot/Pinned shot/Ready guard
• Heavy Crossbows – Focused shot/Pinned shot/Ready guard
• Longbows – Focused shot/Pinned shot/Ready guard

Important takeaway’s are weapon based attack actions should cost an Action + Bonus actions and be usable along with the basic attack. That there should be much more weapon based attack actions and that these actions are treated like skills.

2. Archery should involve a basic arrow count that should replenish during short rest.
The intention of this is not to have an economy of arrows in the market, but to put an emphasis on tactically using your archer based character correctly. So many times I have my archer based character (or an any character with a bow) just take pot shots willy nilly at enemies when they could. There was no real incentive to always put my archer in the “best” position. There would be instances when I considered better positions, but it was never a “need”. With a basic arrow count, it’s now in your best interest to make sure all your archer’s arrows hit their mark. This is to tie in with the additional skills I have listed above such as “focused shot”. I figure 20 is a reasonable number for a basic arrow count. Arrow recovery should be a thing following this topic but I’ll leave that to the RNG of things for recovery success. With lastly on short and long rests, your quiver of basic arrows gets replenished completely. As far as the economy aspect of this goes, basic arrows by themselves should be 0 gold, in a full quiver they should be very cheap. So no basic arrow spam selling.

It's not perfect and I'm sure I may have a flaw in my idea somewhere, but let me know what you guys think. Again I'm not a DnD player so I don't know any specific rule sets and what not that I may have broken (I tried to stay in the rules to the best of my knowledge), but this is just my point of view to give melee and archery combat more meat.

I think you're really going to like the paladin. They get access to a lot of different smites that have different effects.

Hopefully they will add more of the battle masters maneuvers soon. They only have 4 as of now, so they are missing 12 maneuvers out of the PHB for a total of 16.

Open hand monks also get a few different attack variations.

I'm mostly just addressing the lack of depth with the basic weapon-based attack actions, but I am excited to see more Battle master maneuvers in later levels.

According to PHB you only have the attack action with your weapon. The once per rest special attack is an invention of Larian.
Some magic weapons may have special magic abilities though.

Limited arrows per rest is pointless as long as resting is not restricted at all.

In BG1+2 half of my inventory was filled with ammo and one of my priorities was to get a magic weapon with infinite ammo.
BG3 has no limited inventory slots and arrows have no weight, so that's pointless in BG3.

D&D isn't really deep when it comes to melee fighting. This is not a focus of the game. The tactis are a result of resource management (something the current encounter design and rest mechanics don't really support in BG3). If you look for this kind of depth as per your post when it comes to fighting you will be disappointed with D&D as it doesn't try to be a tabletop too focused on detailed individuals tactics, more on group interaction. The rules here are steamlined to keep the flow while playing at a table. Might not be the deepest experience when playing solo on PC, but adding abilities and changing action economy as Larian shows can easily disrupt the balance deeply (though I admit the limited weapon special actions are something that I don't mind).

So if Larian continues to diverage from 5e - why not. Its already a total mess so at least add something that might be far more interesting than those surfaces and shoves. But if they go back to 5e I don't think these have really any place.

The tactics you're referring to when talking about archery would just bog down the game in the everyday minutia of things. It's not like the enemies are "thinking tactically about their arrows" they're shooting every chance they get.

I agree with the statement... But not with the solution.
Too many "skills" for everyone is going to be very confusing.

D&D already have multiple things to play with. Keep in mind we're only level 4 and remember that Larian didn't implement everything D&D has in its rules that really increased the depths of combats :
- shove to prone
- help (to have an advantage)
- dodge
- ready
- proper reaction
- flanking
-...

These are the only exemple I know about D&D, but I think there are more.

On the other hand, action economy is terrible in BG3 at the moment.
Shove, jump, disengage, dipping... The way they implement bonus action is also terrible.
In D&D, if the conditions are good you have an opportunity to have a bonus actions.
This increase the tactical value of the game because you have to choose the right moment, the right build and/or you have to create the conditions/react to what happen.

In BG3 bonus actions are NOT bonus action... They are just a second action.

Action economy and ressources management are 2 things totally missing in BG3...
They could really increase the depth of combats and the tactical value of the game with a few (maybe I should say many) tweaks.

They don't have to add 36 New custom things... They just have to trust D&D.

About Ammo, they should just give us +1 or +2 arrows instead of their elemental things everywhere.
A +1 arrow is a little boost to the %to hit (what they want because the D2/ frighten them) and is something we could have to manage. I'd love to have limited normal ammo but this is not a popular opinion.

Agree with all of the above but don't take my special arrows away. :P Just make them harder to get

As for the enemies, If they make the AI smarter it would work better for a lot of things. They would run out of arrows in a long encounter and have to switch to melee or run away, just like the player. Limited arrows just makes more sense to me and I say this as someone who rarely does melee in any game.

Oh definitely not removing special arrows. I'm just saying add basic arrows haha. I feel like if basic arrows were added, it just adds to the whole dynamic of archery. Special arrow or basic arrow. I just hate that special archery attacks are currently "spell slots". Doesn't set with my charactee lore that I'm a heavy armored ranger knight...casting spells...nope.