Sawyer hates casters? Not my impression from Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 or Tyranny. Never played old Icewind Dale though, only EE. I found that casters can trivialize a lot of fights clearly meant to be challenging in those games, but admittedly work better as buffs and crowd control than pure damage. Which i find to be true for BG 1&2 too. PoE and Tyranny (and D&D 5e) just seems to make non-casters more relevant than they used to be.
1. The story makes little sense starting at lvl 1, I agree. EA being limited to the earlier parts of the progression makes sense though, being EA.
2. It's a 3rd lvl Druid or Ranger spell, so outside our current lvl range. A Druid could do it at lvl 5, when they get implemented.
3. I agree, there should be a few more short rests than 1 per long rest. 2 or 3 total would probably be fine.
