Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Dodge and Ready action and Reaction system!

If Larian were to implement the Dodge and Ready action on top of a working Reaction system... aswell as get rid of the silly height advantage/disadvantage, do away with the ridiculous chain link character selection process and make wizards unable to cast all damn spells, this game would be freaking killer in combat, I think. What do people think of that? Also, are there more things?

All else aside, those four things (chain system is an essential change too, but it's aesthetic and UI related, rather than actual mechanical) would got the vast majority of the distance to solving my 'doesn't feel like playing D&D' issues with the game; not quite all, but definitely a majority. It think that many feel similarly, and have been giving feedback to that extent, but it's worth remembering to keep that pressure on each subsequent patch that these things don't happen - and keep on their radar as things people still strongly want.

Exactly. I feel I would be pretty much content with those changes. I ... would also like to see some changes to class and subclass mechanics, but overall I would be happy =)

I could care less about the chain system, you can swap between toons using number (whatever) keys/macro them to mouse buttons, right click / drag also if need be. Larian stated in a interview I think it was that they want to shoot for a more realistic version of combat, were combat flows well, a reaction system would interrupt the flow and it would be highly annoying in multiplayer (I've said this before some where). Height advantage/disadvantage; rather see a +2 instead, pretty sure this nullifies several spells and abilities making them less ideal to use (this was said in another thread who knows where).

Dodge and ready, I really don't know anything about dodge in 5e so I won't comment a ready action would be cool.

A cover system would be nice, doubt well see one though.

Ability to hide UI elements specifically in combat like the mini-map would be great. Condense down the initiative order portraits also.

and donkeys.

They said it, and it was every bit as bogus and false then as it is now - A proper reaction system would never slow down the game by any noticeable margin alongside the magnitude of the innate slowdown caused by multiplayer characters actually deciding what to do with their turns. One is always going to be insignificant alongside the other. You can draw a fairly legitimate tabletop comparison here - Sometimes a player will, indeed, hesitate for a couple of seconds deciding whether to burn their reaction on something or not - but that few seconds, IF it occurs, is insignificantly small compared to the simple time that other players take to decide on their turns. Claiming that reactions would interrupt game flow and cause slowdown in combat is utterly false, and a poor excuse - another contemporary game illustrated and proves this beyond any shadow of a doubt, and Saito Hikari posted a very instructive demonstrative video about this a little while back. A few, in fact: (Here), (Here), and (Here), and I'd really strongly encourage others to take a look at them before they think about claiming that proper reactions slow down combat - they actually don't. They make it more reactive, more engaging, and overall faster paced as an end result.

I have a personal suspicion about why the Larian statement is that a proper reaction system would interrupt the flow of combat and be annoying in multiplayer, but it's not a charitable opinion.

it would niara, reaction system will pause at least twice per character or player, opportunity attack and reaction and that is just confirming it, imagine if someone thinks about it and says no and another shows up and another and another within one round. Now add in people's reaction time to the reaction window and the time needed for that. This is not including npcs taking there turns and such.

It is NOT false it is true, very true. go play Solasta, good example of how it would work then add in multiplayer to that game. I would never touch that.

Yes go to those links and tell me (since they all are solasta) that feature doesn't stop or interrupt gameplay. That is what it does.

Dodge -> I would like to see it too. Sounds easy enough to implement

Ready -> That, on other hand, should be complicate; and from a player perspective the result does not worth the time consumption. AMOF you even need to "confirm" the activation of your prepared action using your reaction when the trigger happen.

Height advantage/disadvantage -> It's not 5e but I like it! It gives more "meaning" to verticality and to position on the battle field, and mainly because it does make sense.
EDIT: Someone suggested a bonus of +2 instead of advantage... I would be down for that!

Make Wizard not been able to cast all spells -> By the Nine Hells, I really agree with this one!

Chain L. C. -> I agree that it is a system that should be polished, but it's a minor thing IMO.

I am not sure how to program ready, perhaps it can be you click it and then click an action. This puts a pop up somewhere on your screen with a button, and then the fight plays out as normal, but when you want that action to go off you press it and it does maybe?

Yeah, I have to agree that it doesn't make sense to not have a proper reaction system for better flow in multiplayer when by definition a person taking their turn can take as long as they want. They could put the Reactions on a timer so you either take it, and if choose to pass OR wait for it the time out, you do nothing to that trigger.

Even if they don't want to go the Solasta route, I'm sure there's something better than pure automated reactions which is quite limiting.

Larian's initial attempt at reactions is very close to what players might expect from readied actions. So I do not think it will be complicated at all.

An opportunity attack *is* a reaction and it uses your reaction for the turn. Please understand what you're talking about before you object to it; any point you might validly be making is diminished when you say things alongside it that make you look and sound ill-informed.


Please watch them yourself; they illustrate combat that is MUCH faster, smoother and generally more fluid than anything BG3 has to offer right now, at all. Combats there are clean and quick, and responding to reactions takes lass time overall than the activity of deciding your turn, by a large margin.

Since you asked: Having watched the videos, multiple times for comparison, and having played the game myself, I am certainly prepared to say unequivocally and without hesitation that that feature does not stop or interrupt gameplay in a meaningful way, does not damage play immersion relative to the turn-based structure of the combat, and indeed adds a level of reactivity and flexibility that improves engagement, enhances immersion, and ultimately speeds up the progression of combats overall due to increasing the pace at which things happen. Yes, I do say that. I feel like one can't say otherwise in good faith and honesty if they actually do watch those videos... to say otherwise feels abjectly disingenuous to me.

In the videos linked, the player had the opportunity to make countless opportunity attacks, other reactions, and also other decision point abilities such as divine smite. Throughout all three videos and dozens of examples, all of them, with the exception of TWO instances took less than a second from notification to resumption of action. The two cases where it took more than that were one instance where the player hesitated for about a second and a half about whether to use a second level smite or not - so, in fact, *not* a reaction, but an ability that both games will absolutely *need*, and a time loos that you would *Not* recoup by not having a proper the reaction system, since that decision - which level of smite to use - will still need to be made by the player at Some point.

The second time, out of all of the many examples, that took longer than one second to complete, was an instance where three characters had the ability to take an OA in response to the same event. this one took about two seconds, while the solo player manually selected which ones would strike and which ones would hold onto their reaction. This would actually be concluded FASTER in a multiplayer game, since the three characters would each be making their decisions independently and Simultaneously, rather than being selected one after another.

The player took far longer - and far more of their theoretical multiplayer partners' time - deciding what actions to take and what spells to cast on their turns. they were a fairly quick player, generally speaking, and even then, the amount of time they took deciding which skills to use, testing the ranges of their abilities and reconsidering, or otherwise working out their actions, utterly dwarfed the amount of time taken on reactions and decision-point abilities into nigh insignificance.

In Multiplayer games, which I have also played my fair share of for comparative experience, including multiplayer BG3 and multiplayer DOS2, the thing that slows combat down and interrupts play the most, by a very, very long margin, is exactly this - each individual player examining the field, moving the camera around, looking at things, checking distances on their skills, re-reading tooltips, selecting spells/abilities, reconsidering, and generally deciding what they are going to do each turn. The Less-than-a-second that it takes a reaction opportunity to notify, and be taken or passed on is completely insignificant compared to that, and these videos actively prove that fact, if you take the time to watch them.

huge +1 to:
- make Wizard not been able to cast all spells
- add dodge and ready action
- change height advantage/disadvantage: i agree with people who say should be +2 instead of advantage
- overhaul reactions, im really curious how they are going to do it as it could add a LOT to combat
- im also hoping they are looking into how hide works, seems a bit OP?

Im fairly optimistic now that i saw what they did with Patch 5.

I think on the contrary that reaction is what gives Larian the perfect reason to choose turn based over rtwp since the beginning and why they have to focus on and nailed it. 5e without a real reaction system removes a big part of strategy, and for me what would makes me quit. They are probably trying to make it more appealing over a simple pop up. Maybe something like ff7 Remake slow mo atb with a timer for example?

Not sure if you guys happened to hear me saying it before, but I too dislike the chain system.
Moving on...

It's basically the XCOM "overwatch". Except it can be both a melee and a ranged thing in this case.


it gives, in fact, TOO MUCH meaning to verticality, factually making so that just being a couple of meters above the target is more than enough to trump/make redundant countless spells and class-specific abilities.

I still consider this a bug/non-implemented feature. I refuse to even consider the idea that they could actually evaluate this a proper feature.

No, it's not. It's a terrible UI/control scheme, that can single-handedly harm the enjoyment of the game.

Even my very recent discovery that Larian at some point DID implement a keybinding for "chain/unchain all" (it's called "TOGGLE GROUP CONTROL" and unbound by default for some UNHOLY reason) can only mitigate the frustration that this system causes only to a limited degree.
Because at its core it's still bad and the only way to salvage it is basically to not make it work as it does now.

Also, I'll joing the "Team Calling Bullshit" when it comes to the argument "Reactions slow the combat". How does it "slow the combat to have more chances to intervene/actively participate to it rather than just being a witness while you watch 15 NPC queueing their actions after your turn?

THEY DID? Need to look this one up.

Chaining system seem to get some attention (unchaining and chaining characters seems more reliable). Though it is bad to begin with, I am not sure if we can realistically hope for anything more then making what we currently have more usable.

Still, I can live with chaining, not so much with the "hotbar" - I swear, it is so annoying - I get new character, and instead of enjoying the new skils, I have to open the skill UI, dive into hotbars and make some sense out of it. On top of that, in spell menu, they need to stop polluting higher spells levels with upcast versions of lower levels, and please, seperate spell levels when we choose which spells to learn.

Overall, yeah, advantage is too much. I think nerfind jump already helped a lot, but for example it is so easy to get sneak attack through highground, and it's a massive boost of damange and chances to hit. Backstab is gone, and things are already much better, with me finally using spells and such. Frankly I think boost to attack range would be enough to make high ground valuable to ranged/casters - but anything below "advantage" would be welcome at this point.

My point still stands even if I was wrong about OA

I wouldn't be faster in multi or single, it would faster based on the player doing the reaction. Some players take a long time to decide on actions, this slows down time while playing, add-on a pop up window for reactions and it stops combat and waits for the person to answer the box.

You would think people would be more inclined to reducing time in combat, not add more to it, guess not.

It's important to keep in mind what is a reaction, and most are not problematic at all.

• Opportunity Attack, an enemy needs to try to walk out of melee range.
• Absorb Elements: there needs to be an incoming spell on your character.
• Hellish Rebuke: an enemy has to damage your character.
• Shield: an attack need to be coming at your character.
• Featherfall: any character needs to be airborne and falling.
• Counterspell: an enemy has to attempt casting a spell

Might not make it into the game

• Gift of gab: mostly for social, would be hard to implement in the game.
• Temporal Shunt: should be readied as well for the reaction.
• Soul Cage: an enemy has to die, it's also necromancy which may not make it into the game.

What is problematic, but not a reaction...
A paladin's Divine Smite, whenever they land an attack they can use a spell slot for Divine Smite. This is only a possible issue for the player playing as the paladin. And it should operate fine working as Hellish Rebuke currently is in the game, where the player preps it before hand, when they would want to use it.

The only reaction that might be an issue is Counterspell.

Gift of Gab wouldn't be too hard I think.
Just in the current UI, similar to how you can add bonuses, have a box that possesses the things that may allow you to reroll, such as Lucky Feat, Halfling's Luck, and in this case allows you to spend a spell slot to reroll a Charisma check in a conversation using Gift of Gab.

And for Reactions and Smite, I would prefer a popup, but perhaps allowing us to have the type of reaction "prepped" would be a good way for players to control what popups happen because some may have Hellish Rebuke because Tiefling, but would rather not be prompted to use it in every fight.

Well it's about changing the character's memories, and resetting a social interaction. I don't know if it's the highest priority.
(And I intended for a different choice of words, but it's hard when you're focused on recalling all possible reactions).

It still doesn't impact combat, so it shouldn't be an issue for multiplayer.

What's your alternative to a pop-up reaction system? The toggles we have now? While this doesn't have a large time effect right now in BG3, higher levels and the implementation of more reaction-heavy classes (e.g., spellcasters' counterspell, Bards' cutting words, Paladin's spell slot smiting) will make this toggle system more time-consuming. Especially for resource-consuming reactions, where players will hem and haw about possibly committing a high level resource (e.g., 3rd level spellslot for counterspell or smite), when the auto-reaction system might use it on a cantrip or 2-hp enemy.

For a specific example, let's use Paladins' smiting.
- Using a toggle reaction system, every turn Paladin players will need to decide what level (if any) Smite to toggle on for application to an opportunity attack.
- Using a pop-up reaction system, the player needs to make the same final decision (what level smite to use), but only in cases where an opportunity attack is actually provoked and the player will know what enemy they're attacking and thus won't need to consider things like the possibility of wasting a high level spellslot on a 2-hp enemy.

So unless Larian dumbs down the toggle reaction system (e.g., Paladins can't smite on reactions, or maybe they always smite on opportunity attacks using the lowest/highest spellslot), toggle reactions for Paladins will end up taking a similar amount of, if not more, time over the course of the game. Just that the time will be spent during players' turns as opposed to between enemy turns. (Though yes, I acknowledge that pop-up reactions can significantly slow the game down if the player leaves to get a snack after their turn ends.)

Possible solution: a mix of toggle and pop-up reactions. Basically, you toggle which reactions the game should ask you about (e.g., opportunity attack, counterspell, smite), and then when/if that situation occurs you also select how/if to use them. For my spellcasters I'd always have "opportunity attack" toggled off, so the game would never bring a pop-up for this. And the toggles never commit you to using a resource, so turning them on/off during your turn will be a much quicker decision.