How do YOU organize your hotbar?

[Orion Invictus]

I figured talking about the game itself would be more entertaining than the usual discussions we get here, so here we go.

On the left side, I leave the basic actions (sometimes I remove jump and throw if I need space, because I already know their hotkeys), followed by things that are inherent to my character (spells/abilities that don't go away even if I respec), then "always prepared" spells from my class, then weapon abilities, and finally equipment abilities. Basic attacks are always removed because you literally just need to left-click on enemies with the weapon equipped, so that seems pointless.

In the middle I order the spells by level and how harmful they are. So healing spells and buffs
before damage spells, low-damage spells before high-damage spells - you get the idea.

On the right I have 4 containers. The first has healing stuff (potions, antidotes, and so on), the second has buffs (resistance potions, poisons and oils for weapons, and so on), the third has throwables and special arrows (self-explanatory), and the fourth has scrolls (except revivification scrolls).

I think this is a decent approach, but I'm still getting used to checking the second bag before attacking. All those buffs are going to waste, I might as well sell them.

[Orion Invictus]

I forgot to add: on the "Custom" part I leave buffs that can be cast freely and last until a long rest, and/or need to be cast after every long rest for a character to be useful (things like Bind Weapon and Longstrider). I leave them on 1-9 hotkeys (never reached further than 5 so far), with 0 being reserved for cleaning stuff.

[LordNibbler]

With mittens on, 'cause that bar is hot!

Erm, the basic bar is always "Common" (including weapon effects and Illithid powers) / "Spells" / Items. But it's also different for every class/char, as some have more spells, others have more other stuff, but nothing fancy, simple is best ;)
Oh and if you are interested in the specifics of the spell section: Cantrips / "(bonus) action spells" on the first row, then sorted by spell level on the left side, and "special spells" (like Rituals or Class specific spells) on right side - it's a system! ;D

Though, I would very much like to have 2 or 3 columns more, as there are just these couple of spells too many, which I find annoying :/ (and there is certainly enough screen space for that)

Edit: picture, because everyone likes pictures:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3101688453

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

How do YOU organize your hotbar?
I figured talking about the game itself would be more entertaining than the usual discussions we get here, so here we go.

On the left side, I leave the basic actions (sometimes I remove jump and throw if I need space, because I already know their hotkeys), followed by things that are inherent to my character (spells/abilities that don't go away even if I respec), then "always prepared" spells from my class, then weapon abilities, and finally equipment abilities. Basic attacks are always removed because you literally just need to left-click on enemies with the weapon equipped, so that seems pointless.

In the middle I order the spells by level and how harmful they are. So healing spells and buffs
before damage spells, low-damage spells before high-damage spells - you get the idea.

On the right I have 4 containers. The first has healing stuff (potions, antidotes, and so on), the second has buffs (resistance potions, poisons and oils for weapons, and so on), the third has throwables and special arrows (self-explanatory), and the fourth has scrolls (except revivification scrolls).

I think this is a decent approach, but I'm still getting used to checking the second bag before attacking. All those buffs are going to waste, I might as well sell them.

I would say I keep it classic...
https://i.ibb.co/njRzwy4/screenshot-1701435920.png

The left side of the hotbar I adjusted to actions I use and removed which I do not use. The right side for items is depending on the class often larger than two columns.

What I like to add is that I keep the hotbars quite standardised through the whole party.

Aka jump, dash, etc. you find it all at the same placement for every character so when you switch you do not see any changes. Spells, attack skills and such are row dependent with bottom and top for heal support and middle for ranged and melee. Spells sorted by type and spell slot level. Containers I never put in my hotbar - following my principle: if I put such onto my hotbar I could as well take my time to choose carefully from the inventory.

Thankfully the game is turnbased so the hotbar is more of convenience than necessary for quick access.

[Dragon Master]

Well, for anyone who isn't a barbarian I take off the improvised melee weapon because classes like druids, clerics, bards and so on basically never use it.

I like to put the racial or the class features next to the weapon skills, particularly for the caster classes because their magic bar will be filled up.

I organize my spells with cantrips on the left side (but only the ones I use regularly, I can click on the cantrip icon above the hotbar for the once-in-a-blue-moon ones). After that I lock the hotbar so when I switch up spells or take them off it automatically sorts them for me while my regular mainstays stay exactly where they are.

As for the custom section, that changes based on the character. Usually the custom section is where I'd have the items I have in abundance but don't want to track down through the whole item section of the hotbar, or the class/race specific actions once I get the hotbar filling up so it's easy to find. Things like the always prepared spells, the racial cantrip that Shadowheart and Astarion have, dragonbreath if I have a dragonborn character (my first one was that).

[Brian Sirith]

I gave up. Now I ‘organise’ as I go. If I find I’m using something often I drag it in a more accessible place.

Nice topic btw.

[Malidictus]

With great disgust. Some characters - particularly Clerics and Paladins - end up with so many spells and abilities that even 5x17 can barely contain them. I know this is just DND so I'm pissing in the wind, but I would really, REALLY much rather have fewer spells overall with more spell slots.



On topic:

Common has melee weapon actions on the top row, common ranged actions on row 2, "blue movement" (dip, jump, shove) on row 3 and "brown movement" on row 5. Additional actions go after on a case-by-case basis. Movement spells (Shadow Step, Fly) go with the blue movement abilities, additional weapon attacks (say, Charger) go on the melee row, etc. Anything left over (like Paladin Auras) go in a column on the far right of Common.

The second field is all spells grouped by some common denominator. For my Life Cleric Shadoweart, top row is all healing spells, row after that is all party buffs, row after that is attacks, row after that is out-of-combat or misc stuff.

For non-spellcasters, the second field is their "resource-costing" abilities. For Battlemaster Kharlak, it holds a row of melee Manoeuvres, a row of ranged Manoeuvres, then I forget what else. For Monk Gale, top line is bonus-action unarmed attacks, line after that is action-costing Ki attacks, line after that is movement abilities (disengage, sprint, dodge). Forget their exact names.

I'm very, VERY tempted to forego the three categories and just make all their loadouts custom, to be honest. Every time I switch items, my ability bars get shuffled around.

[EricHVela]

I'm using a controller. No matter how many things you have, it'll always be available in a growing number of wheels. There is no hotbar while BG3's in the controller mode, but it isn't needed. There are two huge caveats, though.

Wheel management: Not everything gets added to the wheels automatically. (The Recast Speak with Dead spell has to be manually added to a wheel now, but this wasn't always the case.) The automatic arrangement is a jumbled mess of basic abilities to start and only gets messier as you gain stuff unless you constantly manage them manually each time you get anything that can be activated or cast.

General interface: Some things are mouse-specific and moving a selector icon around to click on stuff can get tedious versus a quick point-and-click mouse action.

Sidenote about controllers: Now that BG3 natively supports DualSense in Windows, I had to change its icons in the settings back to Xbox because I got so used to the prompt for X being on the left (Xbox) instead of down (PS) and I kept getting the prompts mixed up.

[Mander]

Big, thick and with as much girth as possible.
From left to right: actions, melee, ranged, special (summon scratch, for example) for the actions (disengage as dead last, because we don't believe in retreats).
Then cantrips, passive buff (longstrider, speak with animals and so on), crowd control spells (regardless of level) and finally AoE Spells ordered for element.

All ordered, disciplined and with an easy to browse structure.