Were half-steps (chromaticism) used a lot during in Baroque music? Also, which one was used more, stepwise motion or skips?

Dissonance was more common in the Baroque era. This is because Baroque was meant to break the rules of music at the time by making music with a lack of harmony among musical notes.

Explanation:

The definition of dissonance is literally "lack of harmony among musical notes. " Which was used in the Baroque era of music. Baroque originally meant "irregular" but it came to mean extravagant and ornate.

where is the excerpt?

a chromatic scale uses the twelve tones of the octave, while a regular scale only uses eight, or seven different notes (as the first note is played twice)