So right now the mechanics behind resting/food are pretty barebones.
What improvements do you suggest to make resting a useful (at least not frustrating mechanic).

What we have at the moment:
  • one short rest for each long rest
  • no limitations on how often you can use it
  • you can eat food whenever (even during combat)
  • long rests advance the story


What suggestions will be valuable for Larian (for how they approach the game design on a broader scale imo):
  • Mechanics should be based on Pen&Paper rules (if it's not possible to copy P&P it should be at least be recognizeable/inspired by it)
  • Mechanics shouldn't not feel frustrating/pointless/laborious just for the sake of staying true to P&P and be fitting for a video game (alot of wiggle room for higher difficulties imo)



Some general proposals by me:
  • increase short rests to 2 or 3 before you can use a long rest so short rest based classes are not at a disadvantage
  • Resting mechanics should feel rewarding (Story/health/spell slot regen) on lower difficulty levels but also have some depth/possible punishment to it on higher difficulty
  • Resting mechanics can be used really well to adjust difficulty since resource management is such an integral part of the game
  • Access to food consumption: E.g. 0-Always, 1-Out of Combat, 2-Only during Rests, 4-No HP Regen if no food is consumed during rests, 4-Give Exhaustion mechanic if you dont eat/drink during rests



Somehow control how often long rest/short rest cycles can be used (Here are some possibilities i thought of but maybe there are more and better options?):

Random Encounters:
  • Don't like it since it's hard to balance and can be abuseable to farm loot/exp
  • It's only game over with extra steps. You can come in a situation where you are to weak to rest since you can't beat the encounters and that's why you want to rest in the first place to be able to beat some encounter


Mile Stones:
  • You get access to a new cycle of short/long rest at certain Mile Stones
  • May also be hard to balance if you're unlucky and hit a lot of milestones and suddenly you have a shortage of rests


Timer:
  • You are on a timer and resting let's the clock tick
  • Mechanically the best solution imo but it doesn't feel good to a lot of people
  • Maybe you can introduce the timer mechanic in a way so it doesn't feel like you are on a timer?


Cooldown:
  • Similar to Mile Stones but more flexible
  • Cooldown to rest cycles regarding some ingame time, number of encounters, game progress?


Buffer system:
  • You can rest whenever you want but there is a limit so you ahve to plan how you spread otu your rests
  • You could link it to food so you can only rest with food and the amount of food limits how often you can rest in the game (that way you could control the resting system better)