Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 and the 5 minute adventuring day issue

Disclaimer: After completing 2 full playthroughs of BG3 EA I think I can safely say I like the game quite a lot (and I'm someone who doesn't like turn based RPGs) but I also think there's room for improvement. One of the issues I have is that I think the game has a pretty huge problem with the the infamous "5 minute adventuring day" issue.

The meaning of the notion: As those who play tabletop D&D undoubtedly know, the "5 minute adventuring day" issue is the situation that happens when (usually inexperienced) DMs allow parties to rest more frequently than they should. This is a problem because the game is supposed to be ballanced around the party having having from 6 to 8 encounters per day forcing players to manage their resources to stay effective during the adventuring day instead of buring all of their rechargeable powers (i.e. "going nova") even when faced with minor encounters and then resting. This is also an issue because certain classes like the fighter and to a lesser extent the rogue are meant to be more reliable than others who instead enjoy stronger "power surges".

The issue in BG3: After playing the game for a considerable amount of time and testing things a little I found out 2 things. (1) You can successfully manage your resources and have several consecutive encounters in BG3 without being forced to resort to a long rest. (2) There's pratically no incentive of any kind to do so, as resting after each encounter makes you way more effective in combat because you can burn all of your rechargeable powers in one go without consequence.

Why it is a problem: Again, 2 reasons. (1) This kind of "playstyle" risk destroying suspension of disbelief as your party of adventurers supposedly on a urgent timeframe (having time bombs set into their brains) wastes days at camp after every minor skirmish, which is admittedly not a very heroic behaviour and makes little sense considering they don't know how much time they have before turning into mind flayers. (2) This risks making some classes like the fighter difficult or even impossible to ballance when compared with other classes covering similar roles, namely the barbarian and the paladin, because those classes have abilities that allow them to greatly outperform fighters on the span of the single encounter (rage and divine smite are the powers that make these classes become better fighters than the fighter on the span of a short adventuring day).

How can the problem be solved?: I have 3 suggestions.
1. Introduce more areas where resting is impossible as you did with auntie Ethel's dungeon. If a player is forced to backtrack for a long time and has to invest time doing so he's less likely to just run out rest and come back. If they do so anyway consider respawning monsters into the area, reducing (or not giving) xp for their defeat.
2. Make time count. Again, this is already partially in the game as seen with the events of Waukeen rest. If players rest before completing a time sensitive mission consequences should be a given soing as far as causing sidequests to fail and main quest to incur into setbacks and complications.
3. Make resting at camp less secure than it is now. Set a counter on the number of times certain parties rest and make those who spend way too much time at camp more likely to be attacked losing the benefits of rest altogether. Also, make resting from more dangerous zones like the putrid bog or the underdark more dangerous than doing so from a safe zone like Silvanus Grove or the Goblin Camp (as long as you are on friendly terms with the denziens, of course).

I believe that by implementing these changes the game will become more well rounded and offer a better experience over all, but I'd love to hear from other players here if they had the same experience as me and if they think resting after every encounter is a problem or not for BG3.

Is there some reason that you feel compelled to participate in this? I mean, if it's happening in your SP campaign, it's happening because you allow it to happen. I don't do this, I tend to rest when my session is over. I use food for healing after fights, and I try to not expend all my "Oh crap" spells, just in case something big comes up. What I find hard to believe is that someone in France doing this is going to somehow adversely affect someone in Canada. Especially if they're not in a MP session together. To me, this is akin to being upset that someone rolled up a female Drow wizard, when everyone knows that only male Woodelves can be wizards. In other words, this "issue" is really a non-issue, because if one is dead set against it, they are more than free to not do it. It's not like the game forces it on us, after all.

So no, I don't think that George resting after every encounter is a problem, if that's the only way George can play. George did, after all, spend his money on the game, the same as I did. I think it's a rather silly mechanic, and won't be using it, but I'm certainly not going to be prepping up the bonfires, and sharpening the pitchforks over it either.

It is a problem because it shows that Larian has not properly paced and balanced the game.

I believe that forcing the players to "act the way you want" is not the way to go and because there's no day/night timeframe/clock, it would take a significant rework of the application (per 5e you can only benefit from a long rest once every 24 hours).
Like you mentioned in your post "You can successfully manage your resources and have several consecutive encounters in BG3 without being forced to resort to a long rest." which means that you tried that play style. I do the same thing on purpose, extend my time between long rests, because I like playing as if this was a PnP game. However, there are times when I've gotten my self into a jam and needed to have a long rest. Having the option of a long rest at any time, made the game more enjoyable for me. There are those that will "abuse" this option/ability but that's entirely up to them. As another example, there are MMORPG games where you would die and you can simply respawn. I've played in groups where the players would not respawn and either wait for a good samaritan to rez them and some groups that play permadeath (even though they don't have to). Leave it up to the players how they would most enjoy the game and not force them to play as you feel it should be played.

How so? As I stated, I only do Long Rests at the end of my playing sessions, meaning that it's entirely possible to play a lot longer than 5 minutes between long rests, like 4-5 hours longer.

This "issue" seems a lot more like "I don't like that someone else may do it", and someone else is likely to, than any real problem with the mechanic. I think I've only ever used Short Rest like 3 times. So no, I'm not seeing it.

I like restricting rests, but not in a way that causes monsters to respawn (I feel like that would potentially generate a lot of trash fights, since you won't respawn bosses/special encounters). Regardless, doing the same fights again is always boring (feels like a reload punishment).

Maybe instead, it's a set of skill-checks for you to get back to camp (depends on where you are). A combination of survival (if in nature), stealth, perception, etc. Potential random encounters due to failure. Interesting opportunities if critical success (i.e. ambush the ambushers, etc).

The only other thing we have to take into consideration is the current "teleportation" system. Maybe it's disabled within the dungeon, and a skill check is required to use (simulating a stealthy escape), or a monetary cost is required (a teleportation stone you have to buy).




I personally don't mind this one too (as long as it's not the entire game), but I know there are people who absolutely hate timed-scenarios. Just the idea of "time-limits" break certain people - I remember the Chapter 1 complaint threads in Kingmaker (despite the game giving you far more time than you actually will need).

I think this will work well if failure leads to an interesting scenario instead of game over - i.e. Disco Elysium




I think the idea that there's a skillcheck to get back to camp will accomplish this. This lets Larian get away with using 1x Camp location instead of having to design a new one for every new area.

I don't know why people want random encounter so much. They don't matter as long as you can save and load the game without restriction.
This will end up the same as in the old games where you were just loading the game when you attacked (usually you rested when your characters were weak / had no spell slots).

With all due respect, if we have to think like this there is no reason to improve the game outside bugs and crashes.
Is there an unbalanced class? Don't use it.
Is there an unbalanced spell? Don't use it.
Is there an unbalanced mechanic? Don't use it.

Is this an unbalanced game? Don't play it.

Hold up. Where do you get this notion from? 6 to 8 encounters sounds way to much....

-edit-
Nvm, found it. Page 84 of the DMG.

You know what the problem about holding onto that number of 6 to 8 encounters is though? It assumes that the encounters are medium to hard in their difficulty.

And let me just tell you this. Not a single encounter in this game currently falls into that category.at the levels that you approach them. Some of the gobbo fights could be hard if you approach them at lvl 4 but aside from that.... Hard to deadly is all we get. So the number of 6 to 8 is also not realistic

Except that we do have a MP component? On the other hand, this isn't an MMO, and someone resting after an encounter has absolutely no effect on my gameplay. A bug with saves? Yep, needs to be fixed, as that will adversely affect my gameplay. A bug with how a spell is supposed to work, yep, needs to be fixed, it can adversely affect my gameplay. Saving during combat, or changing armor? Yeah, that's not supposed to be a thing, but since I won't do it, because I don't think it should be a thing doesn't mean it's going to break my gameplay when I don't. George resting after every encounter in a SP game? Who's George? But from where I'm sitting, this is more about that fictional George. After all, he might be able to beat the game doing that, and we can't have that, right?

The other side of this argument is that we don't have all the difficulties yet, and we don't know, for sure, how they're going to treat any of these things. Now, I'm all for removing all but the hardcore difficulty after release. I mean, I played all of the DA games on Nightmare right out of the gate, why should anyone else be able to have an easier time of it. /sarcasm, except the part where I played on Nightmare. There are things that need to be fixed. This is a thing that isn't broken. This is a thing that may well be part of this difficulty, but won't work in harder ones, which will be fine too. But right now, when the idea is to get a feel for how players are making it through the game, not so much. Because this kind of thing may well show that it needs to be adjusted for higher difficulties, or even this one on release, if there are lower difficulties. But expecting everyone to be hardcore is defeating the purpose of EA, because you can bet that there will be non hardcore players after release, and the game has to be balanced for them too.

I've seen this discussion crop up a number of times and wondered why no one has suggested just implementing a hard cooldown for long rests. It would be very easy to incorporate into the current tutorial on resting and would eliminate the problem of rest-spamming while allowing folks to wait out the CD if they have to (which honestly isn't likely, given the availability of healing in the game).

The problem with sensible mechanics like hard limits on rests is that these days these are the sort of things that make Polygon/Kotaku game journalists cry "IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRESS! ELITISM! GATEKEEPING!" and write articles against your game.
You know, like the whole Sekiro debacle.

The good news is that no one really gives a fuck. It's just the gaming press nodding knowingly and patting each others on the back for being terrible with games.

The game does not have to be adjusted to the same number of fights as P&P. I would even say it shouldn't. In the game, you don't have DMs that can help your team adjust fights to their skill or luck. Combating AI is ruthless in this regard, and will incessantly punish the player for poor build or team composition.
The fights cannot be too easy, otherwise some players will get bored instantly or too difficult for the same reason.
How often you need to rest depends primarily on your build and party composition. Not every player will know (and shouldn't) how to optimally develop the character.
Most likely, he will also choose the companions he likes the most (some of them have really bad stats).
The player cannot get to the point where he cannot do anything.
Let's add the difficulty levels to that and we have a problem if we suddenly introduce a rest limit.
Most likely players will rest every 3-4 fights on normal level, on the highest difficulty level I suspect it will be 1-2.

It actively encourages people to use alt + tab instead of playing the game.

I am not sure how I feel about this. At higher levels I would probably prefer some sort of limit for long rests, but definitely not a timer. My irl time shouldn't be wasted by in game time, and if I had a rough fight then I would have to wait it out.

If there was some story development though - that would be nice. Would raise the stakes for each fight.

It is not a good idea. If they tried something like this, players would feel they had to hurry, and most likely most people would hate it.
It's not without reason that it's hard to find a game that actually introduces such a mechanic.
Most players prefer to play at their own pace.

Yeah, true. Plus, if you limiting it to only high difficulties then you are spending resources on something most players won't see.

You know I remember back in High School tag teaming Ninja Gaiden Black with my best friend, I did the bosses he did all the platform jumpy shit I was (and still am) terrible at. Loved it, it was a great week and a ton of fun. Then there was the original Dark Souls. I didn't realize I was supposed to run by that fat bastard boss in the tiny room filled with jars so I spent five hours getting the timing right to beat him down with a sword handle only to be rewarded with some jenky mallet I couldn't even wield. Hated it, loathed every moment but I was determined not to give up simply because it was difficult. I promptly quit as soon as I beat the encounter.

You never know where someone is going to get their greatest joy in a video game, or which game will be someone's introduction to the genre. I say let it ride, allow people to sleep as often as they like. The needs of those who can't get by without relying upon their spells I think outweigh the desires of those worrying about how someone else may be playing.

Kingmaker didn't have any "hard limit" on camping (Pathfinder's equivalent of long rest) but it was absolutely brilliant at giving you plenty of reasons to not abuse it.
Well, sometimes it was brilliant, at least. Other times it was admittedly a bit of a prick.

Maybe it is, when someone mentioned the time limit in pathfinder I took a look at the forums and it wasn't the most-liked feature and this is still quite a niche game.
I can only imagine what would happen on the bg3 forums.