Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Reactions and On-hit Effects

Link to Reddit Thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/j4jl98/reactions_and_onhit_effectstriggers/

https://youtu.be/lvBec5nrogw?t=698

When asked about reactions, they literally referred to them and "on hit triggers" as functioning in the exact same way... all of which must be declared when you use the action.
IE: You can't decide to Divine Smite on a crit.
IE: You can't opt to use Precision Attack after you see the number you rolled, but instead must choose when you make the attack

Do you guys understand the implications of this?

>Imagine playing a War-Caster feat Wizard. Your possible reactions include:
1) Shield
2) Absorb Elements
3) Counter Spells
4) Attack of Opportunity
5) Attack of Opportunity w/ a spell
6) *etc*

You only get ONE singular reaction every turn per character, is this REALLLLLYYYY something that should be automated? I believe we should have the option of using pop-ups, or atleast have a set of parameters/conditions that must be met in order for said effects to trigger.

How are effects like Cutting Words going to work? This is a massive hit to the effectiveness/purpose of abilities such as it.

DnD 5e has 2 things that are core to its combat system: Its Action Economy, and Bound Accuracy. This "automated" system takes 1/3rd of the action economy, 1/3rd of our turns, and streamlines the process... taking away decision-making from the player. And if thats what people want, cool. But I think the option should be available for those that wish to actually have tactical control over their characters.


My suggestion to fixing this?

Give Reactions/On-Hit effects a Set of Toggle-able Parameters:

>Disabled
-Disables the ability from triggering via on-hit or reaction. (FE, you may not want to use Attack of Opportunity)

>Auto (Enabled)
-Having Auto Mode on would automate the process, as it does now... however with the options described below.

>Manual (Pop-ups)
-Having Manual Mode on would enable pop-ups.

Options>

>On-miss <----- For Example: If on Manual, Precision Attack pop-ups would appear only when you miss an attack. If on Auto, it will automatically trigger upon a miss.

>On-hit <----- For Example: If on Manual, Shield pop-ups would appear only when you are hit by an Attack. If on Auto, it will automatically trigger upon being hit.

>On-crit <------ For Example: If on Manual, Divine Smites pop-ups would appear only when you score a critical hit, If on Auto, it will automatically trigger upon a critical strike.

Edited by Music4Theraphy: Format Changes, make post more pretty. Gave examples. Clarification, and Link to Thread on Reddit.

I concur with what you have said. Having played the solasta demo, in which pop ups are used for reactions, they don't feel intrusive at all to me and combat still flows well in my opinion, but if people are REALLY against it for some odd reason, then having the option to turn off pop ups is fine I guess, but in order to run off pop ups without hurting yourself too much, having some way to further specify exactly when you want to use a reaction (or on hit effect) rather than just using it as soon as it is able to be used would be preferable, so your suggestion is good.


Specifically regarding on hit effects:
My interpretation of why Larian may find it difficult to have on hit effects as a pop up rather than picking them in advance, may be partly to do with animations. E,g. if an attack that uses divine smite is intended to have a glowy weapon effect, they can't have you swing a non glowy weapon - hit.. and then retroactively add the glowyness.. which I think is part of what the guy i nthe video was talking about with menacing attack "you can hit and then decide oh it was a menacing attack all along, and it works fine in tabletop because its all in your head" (quote from memory).. because he's thinking of you essentially rewinding the game to the start of the attack, and then doing some kind of special attack. The simple way to fix this is just to make sure that the results of the hit are calculated before the animation starts.. then pop up.. then run animation and roll damage.


Specifically regards to reactions:
The main argument I've seen from other players against pop ups is that in situations where you have a large number of possible reaction options you'll get a very large number of pop ups as all these events trigger. The thing is each character only gets one reaction per turn, so fi you are happy with the automatic route, where you automatically trigger the first reaction that is possible, then you'll at most get 1 reaction pop up each round per member of your party, not a big deal.. now my suggestion would be to allow the toggles for which reactions you want to take to work even if you are using pop ups. So lets say you're a wizard and you never want to take a normal weapon attack of opportunity, you could disable this reaction and NEVER get a pop up for it! Or if you have counter-spell prepared, but you're in a fight with a bunch of weaklings and don't want to get a pop up every time they cast gust, toggle it off. So you can combine the two systems to limit the number of reaction pop ups, without removing any player agency.

Like the OP suggested, you can have 2 version of divine smite, 1) activate on hit, 2) activate on smite, and choose which one you want to trigger. And I dont think the animation part is hard to implement, you don't need to redo the animation because in a PC game, dicing is done automatically by the computer, and it is calculated before the real animation happens because miss and hit shall use different animation. So put a trigger between the dicing and animation is totally doable, so if you roll a nature 20 and triggered the smite trigger u setup, the computer will decide to use the smite animation. I don't see any difficulty here.

But at the same time, pc game and trpg is different, you do feel very excited when u roll a 20 and decide to use smite on paper, but if u put it on a trigger and it occurs randomly, i'm not sure if it will be as exciting as it is on paper.

Having the pop up system here would possibly make it more exciting then?

It would definitely feel better to click a button to smite KNOWING that you are going to do monster damage, as opposed to smiting and then finding out afterwards if you did monster dmaage or not.

That's why in table top crits feel nice.. when you roll the 20 you get excited because when you roll damage you know you're going to roll big. Crits in a video game never give that feeling, because you're always told after the fact, there's no time to get excited because the damage is already done and you've moved on to the next thing.

- Imagine this in a twitch stream situation, how much more exciting would a smite be if when the streamer crits he gets a pop up, he gets to shout out "Yeah baby I'm about to lay the PAIN on this guy" and all the lurkers can flick back to the stream to watch and react as the streamer clicks the smite button in anticipation of the huge damage.

so we already had a thread on this and my opinion is the same as it was back then.

I dont like the menu popping up every time you have the ability to do this. Why? because it slows down the gameplay. Once for On hit actions but doubly so for reactions.
Having to tick a box for "i dont want to do my opportunity attack right now" any time a goblin moves next to you would make my head hurt.

The solution is simple:
when an enemy does an action, you press a button. If you press the button a context menu pops up and you get to choose a reaction.

Simple, easy, elegant.
And since Baldurs Gate fans are used to real time anyway i dont think anyone can complain that its too "Action oriented"
its basically how it works on the tabletop.

You could always have the option for it to always automatically pop up if you want.
But i dont want it to be the default, it would slow the game to a crawl.

@Sordak

It applies to on-hit effects as well, though. Using that system, how would a Paladin choose to apply Divine Smite to a crit? How would a Battle Master Fighter apply Precision Attack to a miss?

Hence why I recommend introducing parameters to streamline the process, making it more fluid for everyone. You could still opt to use pop-ups, it wouldn't be the default. This would be an improvement for everyone.

I would leave on automated mode those reactions which are win-win doesn't matter what, like opportunity attack. On toggle I would place those which have a bit of fighting style change in them, like parry all the time. And I believe Larian is making it that way. But I would add pop up for casting spell and similiar reactions, so players would be able to decide not to waste the spell on reaction.

I respectfully disagree, Oportunity attack is not a win win. There are enemies that damage you or your weapon if you hit it in melee. Also you only have one opportunity attack. Maybe you prefer to use your AoO against the mage that flees and not against the armored hulk that moves before the mage. Maybe you do not want to make an attack and prefer to use your only reaction in this turn to cast shield or use defensive duelist to defend yourself against an attack instead; or your shield to cover an ally.
There are also feats that allow you to choose to use a spell instead a weapon as an attack of opportunity, like war caster. It would be more useful if you can choose what you want to use depending on the enemy.

It´s one of the reactions you really want to be able to pick your target, unlike absorb elements, feather fall and such.

As sordak said we already talked about it on another thread.
I still don't have THE solution but I think this is one of the biggest challenge for Larian.

We absolutely need proper reactions for every possibilities you find in D&D. That's something that could give a way better "real time" feeling inside the turn based combats. That could leads to more intense battles during which players would have to stay focus everytime.

The popup solution looks fine to me but only if you have a short time to react. The game can't auto pause everything everytime a reaction is possible because the flow of combats would be awfull.

Being able to press a button during, let's say 5sec, to enable the popup and the pause looks good.
That way you have to stay focus but you can take your time to enable your reaction or not.

Of course this could be the standard but nothing prohibits the creation of other options.

That´s how it´s made in games like "The last Remnant" The game goes into slow mode for a few seconds, you can push a button to make a block or a riposte and the enemy turn continues if you do nothing.
Still prefer the way it´s made in the Solasta, direct prompt required (I mean, every character has one reaction that you may not use this turn. In fact most offensive reactions are not very common unless the enemy has the tactical savyy of a concrete brick, and defensive reactions like shield, absorb elements or Hellish rebuke are limited by your number of spells) but it´s a valid option, better than the actual alternative of the gameplay.

Both ideas for solutions sound great to me. Either would work imo, as long as the option for the player is there to choose. 😁

I would really prefer and appreciate a popup of some kind to allow me to pick reactions to use.

However, if that is out of the question would a script system for reactions be out of order? I'm thinking something like Dragon Age 1 (with advanced tactics mod) - where you can set a few "if X then do Y". That could work well for reactions.
If enemy hits me within X armor class THEN cast shield.
Use Smite if I score a critical hit and enemy is > X% health.
If enemy moves out of my threatened area, then [Attack] or [Cast spell] if spell slot is available -> chose spell AND enemy is >X% health.

Could become too convoluted, but it's the only way I see allowing for complex decisions without allowing the player to make the decisions (which, again, would be much preferred).

I would also agree with including the option for popups.

Examples include use of hellish rebuke - 2 enemies are attacking my warlock - 1 has 3 hp, the other has 10hp. I would like to use hellish rebuke on the target with 10hp rather than overkilling the enemy with 3hp.
Similar for shield - I don't necessarily want to use shield against the first enemy that attacks me on a given turn.

For hellish rebuke this makes that particular spell much weaker than the version in 5e as the spell is potentially wasted if nothing attacks you after casting. You also lose a bonus action to cast it which could be spent on something else.

Re: autopausing this is probably fine as an option for single player. For multiplayer I would recommend following whatever the session host chooes rather than going with individual settings.

Another option would be inserting the character that can make a reaction into the initiative order when the option to make a reaction arises. They would then be able to chose the reaction at this stage before reverting to the opponent's turn.

I don't see this happening at all sadly.

I think what Music4Therapy is saying seems like it's needed.

The way I see this, is for every reaction that your character has, there needs to be a toggle (on/off) then a target for some special cases (Counter Spell). If multiple reactions exists for a single type, then only one choice can be made at any given time.

There can easily be multiple reactions on the various actions, so this is why a choice is needed to be made.

Larian has decided to have things automated because they feel it hampers in some way their game, for the overall worse, instead of better. Going as far as having every action that causes a reaction to display a popup if you want to take your reaction is too much control. But, I think having reactions pigeon holed to just automatically fire without any type of control is for the worse, instead of better. So, I think a happy medium would be a toggle and priority.

The way I see this is on a players turn (or outside of combat), said player can toggle on/off any reactions they want to go off. So, if a player who sees a caster type and has Absorb Elements, then they will toggle on Absorb Elements. If a player didn't ready a reaction toggle, then it won't fire, because the player didn't expect it or wanted to save it for a later turn. I think this creates an interesting dynamic that reactions have to be chosen to react a specific initiative/turn orders. Also, some reactions can only be toggled on/off during your turn, so this would allow faster initiative characters to surprise opponents and not be allowed to react.

Now, thinking about this a little bit deeper, a reaction could go off multiple times before your next turn so how do you get to make a choice of when you want to fire that specific reaction? In an example, multiple spell casters and wanting to Counter Spell. Then you pick a target you want to counter the spell from. Now you make a decision to focus that target, and if that target casts a spell, your going to attempt to counter that target. Sure, you don't have 100% control in that you get to see what each caster has casted then choose, but you at least get to choose the caster you want to attempt to block. And if the caster does not cast a spell, then your reaction basically did it's job against that target, no spell cast.

On an software engineering standpoint of view, I see this being pretty simple with a toggle and underlying list of actions. As long as each of those action types have been properly flagged, then each reaction can easily be turned on/off, so the technical details seem pretty straight forward.

But, as detailed here, leaving the current game state isn't an overall good experience but going for 100% control isn't acceptable to Larian's eyes, I belive. So, having a toggle is perfectly acceptable, and it seems they are already headed in that direction with the little window that you can toggle on/off reactions. They just need to allow all spells/abilities that have reactions to be toggled on/off.

Edit: Also, some reactions don't even need to fire, even if the action has been met, if it doesn't make sense. In an example, Shield. You toggle it on. If a fighter comes up and attacks and literally rolls a 1, your not going to automatically cast Shield because the attack was not successful. Again, these kinds of cases are super easy to see and program up front. Same with Counter Spell, if you target a Wizard, that attempted to cast a spell while in combat and loses Concentration, the spell was never casted, so Counter Spell won't go off. All of these are straight forward to see and still automated. Of course, in that situation, some would say to not even target Counter Spell on that Wizard in hopes the AoO breaks Concentration, but that is a gamble that the player would need to make.

I think that's sort-of what Larian is intending to do with the reaction panel. You can move around reactions on that panel, which suggests ordering the priority and there are little glowing dots rotating around the outside, which indicate if it is set to "auto-cast" or not. (It reminds me of the "auto-cast" dot borders from Warcraft 3.). I was able to move "Riposte" on my fighter to a higher priority than AoO. But the interface needs work, and I think it is incomplete. I hope that you'll be able to select different party members on enemy turns and adjust their reactions on the fly.

Yeah, you can do that too in the old Dragon Age games too. You can set the IA with priorities to use one ability or another when something happens.

I do not know if this is going to be the final version, but right now you have to be a clairvoyant of sorts so you can set your reaction beforehand instead on using your reaction when needed.
Following the previous example you have to know that you will need to use absorb elements (or feather fall, or shield) instead of your attack of opportunity before you enter the cave because if you enter and the goblin shaman or goblin archer with a fire arrow goes first, you are going to take all the fire damage even if you have absorb elements prepared in your spell slot. (or shield, or free fall, etc)

I just don't see how well received a "pop up message" for every single reaction could be. But, currently, if you can't give a specific target and priority to reactions, they feel out of place, as if your forced to take them when you don't want to.

I believe the overall community would better receive the reactions if they at least could choose who they want their automatic reactions to target or if the ability is on but no target, on the first instance it could automatically react. It already seems Larian is moving that direction, we just need the ability to choose a target for each reaction so we can make a choice who we want to react against.

This mechanic has to be in the hand of the players, not in the hands of an automated system, period.

i would very much prefer to have the option to toggle an autopause for a set of user defined triggers (like: no Sentinel 'punish' reaction attack, yes Riposte), skippable by some shortcut if i want to let it pass