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.
Into the Abyss starts with you captured by drow and escaping a battle between drow and demons.
That said, I tend to find magic in the PnP game is also more efficient if you focus on buffs, debuffs, crowd control, and utility...with healing and damage being the least efficient usages. Thankfully this edition has at-will spells that are still useful even after the big magic has been used for the day.
