I do not see the abuse though. It is obviously considered a necessitiy by the Devs to constantly rest, since companion and story interaction happens there and several characters are severely disadvanta This is not a bug/exploit in the rest system though. It works as intended. It replenishes your spells and skills. The real culprit here is how stealth works in this game. You could technically do the same with whatever ranged option the wizard has right now (crossbows? shortbows? Barrels?). Cantrips would work as well, I suppose. This is precisely how I killed the Phase matriarch. Turn-based, stealth, stealth ranged shot, restealth, end turn, repeat. You could do this in melee as well, as long as you are not in LOS of other enemies, which I tried in the swamp with the mud mephits. Killed two from stealth in melee and one in ranged, before actual combat was initiated. Even if you are in LOS you could pop an Invisibility potion. The abuse/exploit is the stealth mechanic, not replenishing your skills through resting.
Stealth is not the only problem here, long rest is too. The combination of both makes the game so cheesable it becomes rather ridiculous over being fun and enjoyable.
When you haven't finished a combat sequence properly, like my example with the minotaurs or the redcaps, you should not be able to rest until it is complete. Each battle should be viewed as a task you have to finish as a whole before taking a rest.
Oh, yeah, I can agree with that, I would like fights to be consistent. So you aggro this particular set of enemies, regardless of the approach. Auto-save upon the fight so you can always decide to go back and rest if your available resources are not enough. It could clash though with the encounters, though. The Matriarch fight, for example, rather banks on you taking out the eggs, before initiating combat, as these are up to 15 (18?) additional opponents. The examples however are still not logically consistent, resting in between mobs helps if you want to employ a certain tactic (like grease followed up with a firebolt, or similar synergies) or if you want to use higher damage skills that have a limited amount of uses. The sickness is how stealth and initiating combat works in conjunction especially with a ranged component. What symptoms that sickness has is up to you, really. You can use the rogue with stealth attacks, a cleric with a ranged cantrip or high damage level 2 spells (with resting in between), or you can use Lae'Zel with a shortbow and a low chance to hit. Any fight will eventually be done.
