The toolbar has about every possible thing you need to play fights intelligently. Abuse the systems Larian has given us! To be fair, I always felt like I was playing DOS2 really stupidly.
- Positioning matters. Run away around an object.
- Know who has a reaction. Use that to pressure enemies instead of the other way around.
- You don't need to be at full health every fight (a tabletop DM will tell you when you can take a long rest).
- Characters can go down mid-fight. Use Help, a lot.
- Scout, hide, fight like a dishonorable fiend.
Players shouldn't need to rest as much as people are doing. Resting after every encounter is not helping you learn to use the systems as a whole, and combo effectively across the classes. I actually think I'm not resting enough, because I'm way behind on party character development.
I think a decent compromise might be to let players have a single low level spell slot back on a short rest. The wizards should still get their arcane recovery for higher levels.
The problem is that the game really doesn't teach new players that they need to abuse the system. And personally I don't feel like that level of knowing and abusing the system should be necessary in the default difficulty of the game. Really, nothing is helping new players learn to use the systems and I think that's the biggest problem. I don't have much real experience with either 5e or Divinity: Original Sin 2 and so I'm trying to play this game like I'd play most any other cRPG on normal difficulty, which does not call for the level of tactical engagement you're describing.
