Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Mechanics Behind Food Items/Consumption (Cooking?)

Greetings Larian/BG3 forums!
I wanted to express interest, and open up space for the interest of others in the topic of the game mechanics behind food, as in the gameplay demos we have now seen that food items are going to be lootable and available to players.
This then begs the question of how these items are going to be used within the game by the player.
To me, there would seem to be roughly 3 major possibilities, one of which i think is best and will argue for.

-1) Food items have no in-game use, and are meant to be sold to vendors.
-2) Food items are consumables, and restore some in-game resource (such as health or spell slots..) and/or give players a temporary buff. (this was the system in DOS and many other game)
-3) Food items are a necessary resource for player survival.

The first option, which essentially gives food the role of a non-coinage treasure item, is a bit odd, and begs the question of why food would be a lootable item in the first place.

The second option, which is a much more common system, I think has several major flaws, all relating to the fact that food is thematically mundane and common by its nature. First, it essentially makes food take on the "role" of potions, or other magical consumable items, which if done right makes genuine magical consumables feel a lot less unique or special, and if done wrong could dilute the mechanical need for potions items at all. Second, if the mechanic is more so "food gives buffs," then again because food is mundane and abundant, the buffs it would give would have to be proportionately minor, which would mean that, at best, food would be something that is there, but can basically be mechanically ignored entirely (so then option 1) essentially..), or, at worst, would become tedious "buffing prerequisite" to all or certain instances of combat, which involves guesswork, and moreover isn't in any way "fun."

So then, what is the mechanical solution? I would argue it is the third option. But how should such a "survival mechanic" be implemented? Especially in a game where, as yet, there is no indication of independent temporal/day/night cycles. I want to argue that is could best be implemented, and should be, as a limiting factor on Long Rests in the game. Short rests would be free, but in order to have a Long Rest, a certain amount of food rations (maybe even firewood as well), should be required, in order to make the decision to Long Rest at any point in the game require more thought, and not be something that could be spammed for convenience (as I remember being the case in previous BG games even...), as it would require (maybe finite?) food resources. This could also make in-game inns in towns more mechanically valuable, and noticeable, as well.

Although, this is all assuming something of this order isn't already in the works by Larian for BG: 3.

Thoughts?

One direction I think food could go is that you could combine 3-4 or so food items to create a Ration item, which would be consumed during a long rest - perhaps as a way of discouraging overuse of long rests. (Although it's not clear at this time if rations will be a thing in the game at all.)

That idea does have some problems though, as by the time you get to level 4-5 or so, you'll probably have more than enough money to purchase as many inn rests or as many Rations as you feel like carrying, and that mechanic limiting long rests slightly will be irrelevant.

I fear though, that food items might go the same way as they did in DoS 1/2 and function as ingredients for an overly elaborate recipe system no one actually uses, so you end up carting them around forever and never using them.

I´m in with the use of food, cooking, etc.

In D&D also there`s a cooking tool and you can choose to be trained in it. There´s no official use and cooking recipe rules in 5e (you know, IKEA edition) but it would be great if you can have some cooking recipes to use.
In the previous Larian games, you can create some tasty dishes combining different ingredients and Larian is known to give you options to interact and combine things of the environment to create useful items. That is one of the things I would like to see in BG3 that is not strictly in D&D.

In POE2 games you can create different dishes and eat food while resting to obtain several buffs. That would be a nice addition to the game.


The use of food, drink and sleep would be welcome for a "survival mode" if they want to. Optional because many people do not like that kind of things.


PD: IIRC I often used food items in DoS2, like the white tea that improves your AP, or the heal+poison resistance food, the black tea that gives you 75% fire resistance and the garlic that gives you immunity to disease and infected. At low levels stat-enhancing food that also heals your is useful too but those are outclassed fast in the middle-end game. Your healing spells have a cooldown so you can spam healing non-stop. Maybe those would be more useful in a D&D setting with limited spell slots.

I still remember discovering that the only way to craft Peace of Mind Scrolls was to use a Crab Claw, which you're only guaranteed to find in two places, dropping off the one singlular crab in Fort Joy and the one singular crab on the Nameless isle. That was emblematic of a system where your inventory gets cluttered with dozens of different items, the majority of which are used in one and only one crafting recipe, which you usually needed to look up on a wiki.

That´s why you have your chests in the ship, to store those items and create consumables, weapons and stuff you need when you find the right ingredients. No point in being able to craft 200 peace of mind scrolls in the same run of a spell that gives you:

Target gains Clear-Minded, which increases Strength, Finesse, Intelligence by (1 + amount scaled by level), Wits by (2 + amount scaled by level), and grants 20% Accuracy. Protects against and removes Blinded, Terrified, Charmed, Taunted, Sleeping, Enraged and Mad.

No point being able to craft only two (2) in the entire game.

pathfinder kingmaker had cooking mechanics and i liked that.

Generaly restign should consume ressources, hopeuflly a lot. rest spamming is a problem in CRPGs

That's a really good point, it would be cool to try to figure out all the different ration recipes, similar to Dinners in DOS! We haven't seen any in-game crafting yet, but knowing how fun that system was in previous DOS games i would hope Larian wouldn't be afraid to integrate it into BG.

If they really wanted to do a buff system (though i personally don't much like them), they could differentiate certain special, rarer rations as well to give minor stat bonuses, like +1 to a skill or ability for the day (which would at least get rid of the weird "eat before combat" dynamic)

A buff system, camping mechanics or a survival mode, there are plenty of options if you add cooking mechanics. And as stated before, there is a cooking proficiency and cooking tools already in D&D5e. I didn´t see any tools used in the gameplay, tho (Mason´s tools would have come in handy when Lae´zel demolished the stone wall).

I hope we could have a complete crafting system when the game is released.

You know, at some point you have to draw the line and say, "no, we are just not gonna do that." Most food items offer little story value ... unless of course we are talking about Couatl wings with hot sauce (+1 spicy)!

o.O Well, potions, scrolls and wands also offer little in story value, Do you want Larian to wipe them out of the game too?