Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Rest System - Too simple/easy

Hey all,

Thread to discuss the specifics of the rest system.

My initial feelings on it are that it is too simple, and there are a number of class features and so on which are dependant on a more robust system. The DMs guide says 6-8 encounters per day, with two short rests.

This is important because a number of classes recover class resources on a short rest, but most only on a long rest.

Short Rest:

Warlocks recover Spell Slots
Monks recover Ki points
Fighters recover superiority dice
Druids recover wildshapes

These are considered to be the "short rest classes", there are examples of other classes regaining stuff on a short rest but these classes recover their main resource on a short.

So why is this a problem right now? For one, we only get one short rest per day. Secondly, we can long rest whenever we want without consequence. This means the class balance is pretty whacked out, and there is no reason to pace your use of powerfull spell slots and abilities. This is manifest in the game right now as combat is exceptionally easy.

A note here on food, baically food right now is like a mini health potion (or major one if you have something big). I think food should form part of the rest system, as a replacement to hit dice. When you take a short rest the party should be able to eat food and recover health based on how much they eat, which solves one of the problems. It also makes a use for the food based spells, create food and water, goodberry, hero's banquet.. etc.

You should also have to "build up" to a long rest in some way, gating them behind the content you've completed. I'd welcome any ideas on how to do this which would fit into gameplay.

A number of encounters completed?
Milestones based on overall progress?
XP gained?

Time passed.

Hmmm... I think I agree with the idea of food not restoring health, but being part of food rations consumed at a long rest (like Solasta does). If you are out of rations, you can still long rest, but anyone not fed, I don't know... gets a point of exhaustion, maybe?

It doesn't necessarily need to be that, but there should be some resource cost for long rests so they're not abusable. As long as there's a resource cost, there's no need to "build up" to a long rest.

Also, there should be 2 or 3 short rests between long rests, not just one.

Might be too difficult to gauge and implement, but there should be a limited number of long rests you can take before the bug in your head takes over. Maybe warning signs along the way and/or incremental changes to the characters (or Con checks to resist these small changes).

I think the narrative conceit here is that these tadpoles are not tadpoles.

Just letting me take more than one short rest a day would be an improvement. A lot of times I’m taking long rests because I can’t short rest at that moment.

That's not going to work, because it would be too easy to get into a "Walking Dead" state where you reach "Number of Long Rests Before Transformation -1", but are unable to complete the process of removing the tadpole without needing to take another long rest, and so your campaign will be over, forcing the player to start a completely new game.

If you don't think that will happen, look at how many people, in early access, are complaining about losing progress because they are relying ONLY on autosaves and never saving manually.

I said short rest for food for a reason, long rest should always be a full char reset and heal for everyone - just like in 5e rules. But you shouldn't be able to just long rest whenever you want.

Pretty difficult to implement and make work, since you could just sit AFK in the game to allow time to pass, doesn't really solve the problem - but could encourage another negative play experience/exploit.

Yea spamming long rest makes 5e very easy. Maybe put timer on long rest? 1 long rest every 30 min?

The long rest mechanical has to be changed, in my opinion. Being in a dungeon, take a long rest in the campfire and then return exactly to the same point you were in the dungeon? For me makes nonsense

Yup this is the situation I imagine they are trying to prevent by limiting the number of long rests. It's a difficult thing to balance I would imagine since the game doesn't measure time against anything, and various quests/encounters are tied to the camp. I am starting to think that the best solution might be to just make it impossible to do long rests inside a dungeon or something, and only allow it to be initiated outside. That doesn't prevent people from taking all the long rests they want but it would at least prevent people from abusing it in tough situations without having to do something cumbersome like walk out of a dungeon first.

I've been thinking about it and I think my Player knowledge at the start of the campaign made me cautious, because I knew I had maybe 7 days before I'd become a mindflayer. That seems to be an incorrect plot assumption, but what if we were presented with timers for the major events along the way? At first a timer to say you'll become a mind flayer, then a timer for the druid grove internal tensions to erupt, then a timer for the golbins to attack.. all counting down in days, with the consequence being that the plot moves on without you. Maybe the druids expell all the tieflings, and they get slaughtered.

Another simple idea is that if the game decides you're resting too much that you get attacked at camp, like a DM might do if his PCs tried the same thing. You can then warn the players that they're resting too much and they need to make progress in the game before they rest again, or the attack might repeat. It'd leave some flexibility to rest if you've over-extended yourself for a few encounters that day, but if you make a habbit of it the game starts to deny you these rests.

Well, like I said, probably too difficult to implement. Anyway, the point is something needs to be done. No resting in dungeons is a fine idea, but doesn’t really solve anything since that would just mean exiting to rest and making outdoor adventuring easier/more convenient. Maybe designated long rest areas? A long rest timer?

Not a fine idea as it eliminates the possibility of getting ambushed

Oh, now I get why you were complaining that "combat is too easy". You are one of these guys who use absolutely everything and rest after every single battle.


That said, I'm all for imposing some (limited) restriction to rest-spam.
The old Baldur's Gate games were even worse in that sense. You could literally rest on a whim in the middle of a dungeon with the only downside of a low chance to experience a random encounter.
Even back then, I remember how I had the self imposed rule to have max one rest per dungeon IF extremely necessary.

Ambush? Can that happen now? If ambushes are a thing in the game, why are designated areas and timers at odds with it?

No, thats part of the problem but combat is insanely easy even if you limit yourself to cantrips. There are very few "hard fights" in act1 it would seem, even the beholder and the 3 goblin bosses (and the entire castle full of golbins) is trivial for someone who knows d&d and has played any kind of RPG game. Please don't make assumptions about me because you disagree with my feedback. The combat in this current iteration is too easy.

Just a thought ... maybe they are purposefully letting us have unlimited long rests for now to help ensure enough opportunities for dialogue and interactions with origin characters.

Most players enjoy challenge, hence why we have this thread. Players that enjoy challenge are saying the rest mechanic makes the game too easy, which is largely true. But maybe the correct solution is to simply add additional difficulty levels to the game for players that want more challenge. As it stands now, the rest mechanic is only one feature that makes the game easier, but another includes the infinite use of familiars (especially imp familiar). In its current state, the game is whatever you want it to be.

Some thoughts I've had about improving rest:

- Have a fillable bar that resets after every long rest and is filled by doing things in game (ie combat/talking to npc/exploring unexplored areas/turning in quests/taking a short rest). Each activity would fill the bar at different rates.
- When taking a short rest have the option to use hit dice or not. Also how many i want to use and what type(if multi-classed) I may not care to heal the 2 missing hitpoints.
- When taking a long rest in a dungeon or similar location you don't have access to the full camp.
- Increase short rest maximum to 2 or 3

As for food it should not heal. Maybe some special food might give a minor buff like +1 to perception till you take a long rest,

Just some of my thoughts on the subject