Reaction

kale

Hello there,

The character sheet in BG2 has an entry called "reaction". The handbook explains what "reaction adjustment" means, but doesn't mention "reaction" as far as I can tell. What does the "reaction" multiplier do?

iosfrustration

Reaction can refer to Reaction Adjustment; an adjustment to weapon speed based on Dex. Weapon speed does not change your attacks per round, but it does change WHEN in the round you attack. There are a few cases where getting your attack out really early in the round can be extremely useful

Reaction can also refer to NPC reaction; how you are viewed by NPCs. a combination of reputation and CHAR. Normally this adjusts prices in stores and nothing else. Unless the NPC reaction check is so low that they refuse to speak with you, or you get attacked in the street.

On my evil play throughs I normally play the “magnificent bastard” or “villain with good publicity” archetype so I don’t have any funny low-reaction interactions, Come of the folks in this board play ax-crazy chaotic evil parties and might have some funny low reaction interactions

jmerry

The stat on the character sheet is for NPC interactions; it's entirely based on reputation and charisma. Note that this may vary based on which party member the NPC talks to. I've never seen "reaction" used to apply to weapon speed, and dexterity doesn't affect it in the vanilla game.

kale

So from what I reckon "reaction adjustment" is for npc interaction and the "reaction" stat then refers to when in the round you attack (and the more + in that stat the better I suppose)?

Not sure why they couldn't give the two stats different names to make it slightly less confusing:D.

iosfrustration

Per Jmerry above (and he would know!) I think D&D2.5 adjustment to weapon speed based on DEX was never implemented in vanilla BG2.
One of the things I liked about the later versions of the D&D ruleset was that ALL the stats had value.