Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Camping and resting.

When you said there should be "Pressure from the tadpole" -- to me, this implied that the main quest will have some kind of time restriction.


I can give you examples, but they're mostly moot on the basis that "a (good) GM won't let you do that" -- bear in mind that this is my point and that the problem is that BG3 does not have a GM. What happens then is you have situations like in the original Baldur's Gate where you could essentially spam rest without consequence. Tell me what's stopping you from spamming rest in a regular D&D session? Concepts like it takes 8 hours are meaningless if time is meaningless. You need a GM to build consequences.

Munchkins are a meme in D&D because they give headaches to GMs. No one complains about munchkins in a tactical board game like Warhammer. Tactics is how the game is played. If you want tactics, you need to lock these rules down.

D&D is not a system that's well designed for people who want to "defeat the GM" because that's not what D&D is about. If the GM wants to kill your party then your party will be dead. It's that simple.

D&D is collaborative and the GM will adapt to the players. In D&D, the tactics are not necessarily important, depending on the group. In many cases, you can expect a GM to reward for good roleplaying even when it's bad tactics. Any time a D&D session is "tactical", it's an illusion. The GM is actively deciding on the level of challenge and the GM is always actively making the decision not to kill your entire party.

When translated into a video game though, that changes: the level of challenge is relatively fixed and it is possible to "win" against the game.

Tactics are very good and I enjoy this but not when they detract from roleplaying. Especially considering that one of those tactics is save-scumming.

I don't know that your suggestion is super productive really.

Anyway, Pathfinder: Kingmaker's system was far from perfect. It could easily be spammed except for only some minor consequences coming from the timed quests. And there was a bit too much freedom in choosing where to camp. I don't know how a day/night cycle substantially improved Pathfinder. I don't recall it doing anything really. Maybe someone would like to explain why it's so important in Pathfinder: Kingmaker?

I like your thinking, but I still think it's worth trading this off for a more immersive and dynamic campsite.

The idea that you have a magical campsite that you carry with you everywhere is a little bit weird. I really think it's better to have the campsite adapt to the locations you're travelling to. This means the campsite will lose all of that unique charm, but I don't think we should be heading to camp in order to do more exploring. Camp should be something different.

Hello guys,

With the upcoming release of resting and camping, and the way the current game is being played we should talk about resting and camping and how to balance and improve it.

- some of the issues are "sort rests are essentially a spam-aoe heal/mana regen"
- frequent camping is to easily accessed (ie you can (short/long) camp anywhere)
- frequent camping impacts some classes viability (making casters more or less powerful) For example, if you could only camp in some area's, casters would become more or less validated depending on a n umber of other external factors. classes less dependent on camping like fighters are gain value when camping can be done less frequently.
- frequent camping impact the difficulty and progression rates of the game (camping and regenerating more means its easier to heal, get more spells to cast etc)
- frequent camping influences the power of non-combat related choices in the game essentially making things like intimidation etc less important.


Just a few issues to start it off.

How do you feel about it and what do you think should be done to remove / change short/long camping to improve the game?

It is very easy to miss companion scenes now. I would like something to indicate when a companion has a scene at camp so that you don't miss it (or some other way to ensure they aren't missed). Other than that I am happy with the resting system. I especially don't want timed quests added.

Do you mean, The camping system itself has a timer on it so you cannot access the companions quests etc? If so, this is an interesting take on it.

The way I see it, there are three or four large issues with the camping/resting mechanic in the game as is:

Most glaring issue is the lack of a Day/Night cycle:

Sadly, Larian seems dead set against implementing a proper day/night cycle as in the original games. The reason given for this is to my knowledge what I consider a rather poor excuse to follow the DOS2 formula: That a day/night cycle would require a massive overhaul of the AI "living routine" akin to The Elder Scrolls series. This disregards the fact BG3 is a mostly linear game with static encounters unlike the vast changing sandbox that is TES, and a day/night cycle would ONLY require the illusion of passing time. The AI would largely behave very much the same, bar having the added potential of camp-fires and additional sleeping enemies (reflecting nocturnal/diurnal patterns). Encounters with sleeping enemies could be balanced with adding more of them. If Bioware managed to do this in 1998, Larian can do it over 20 years later.

This change would bring immersion to the eternal day, it would bring variety and new interesting tactical opportunities. It would set a sort of framework/suggested limitation to resting and thus also address some of the balance issues in a roundabout way.

Other major issues:

* How the camp is static and does not reflect your area, breaks immersion.
* How resting is near unrestricted when the story impresses upon us we are running out of time, is an immersion breaking narrative dissonance.
* How virtually unlimited resting in D&D where are classes built on a more restrictive formula, affects balance. When boredom/patience becomes THE limiting factor (like ie. weapon dipping); you know the game design is BAD.

Suggestions for improvements:

1. Immersion/narrative dissonance. Camp could be explained to be a specific place, perhaps a pocket dimension, connected to a teleportation/dimension door device. This dimension could even have time flowing differently (ie. eternal night) that would also address the narrative dissonance of you resting and relaxing while the tadpole eats your brain/nethernese destruction orb beating in Gale's chest. Both allegedly ticking time bombs.

2. Balance. Tricky subject. Clearly an already relative weak subclass like the Champion Fighter compared to the likes of Battle Master, is weakened even further. Yet once per day abilities like their Action Surge can in effect be used once per encounter if resting in between every fight. Full casters are significantly stronger, but casters like Warlock less so. I would suggest balancing these directly by making some several abilities stronger than the rules normally dictate.

Example: Champion Fighter's level 18 ULTIMATE ability is akin to eating one or two of Larian's magical healing apple/food stuff (a micromanaging implementation I dislike, just give us passive regeneration as part of tadpole powers if you must). It is very weak in RAW, it is practically useless in BG3. Stuff like this would NEED to change.

I agree. the lack of a day night cycle is jarring.

- frequent camping impact the difficulty and progression rates of the game (camping and regenerating more means its easier to heal, get more spells to cast etc)

This.

To be honest, i expected the devs to balance the gameplay pacing to something like having 3-4 encounters (1 smaller dungeon) per long rest in average, to make the resource aspect of the game meaningful. Number of encounters between LRs could be more as you level up and have more actions/spells/hp etc. But clearly thats not the intention? At the moment it seems you can just spam LR anytime.

Im looking forward to see how they try to tweak this via higher difficulty modes, especially that camping is now tied to story moments.

The Resting system was always an integral Part of DnD. It was always a tool for a DM to balance things.

Its also Part of the special appeal of DnD.

In DnD a Typical adventure calls for a decent into a Dungeon to find/ Kill / Destroy / Rescue something important. A HUGE part of the dificulty is preparing for the Dungeon (buying potions, ropes, Torches, holy water and ton of other Adventuring tools), and also get the casters prepare spells according to what you maybe expect to encounter.
This ALWAYS Provided an additional layer of tactics and deceisions to make.
A Huge part was always to organize your Spells and resources along the way and dont fire everything you got because you dont know when you can afford to rest next time.
In fact the WHOLE GAME evolved around that as a good party combination always had a healthy mixture of very resource independent Classes with some highdependent classes and some in the middle row. In DND a group of 6 wizards is crap because while powerfull in a single fight you wont get far into the dungeon. While a group of 6 Paladins will be extremly selfsufficiant and thats to their inate healing abilitys while beeing tanky will allow them to stay alive long without a rest. But Lacking any form of Crowdcontrol the Paladins will be easily either outnumbered or stoped by something heavy magical.

THe list goes on as every class has a set of Roles depending on how they are skilled. DnD was ALWAYS about diferent skillsets working together to complement each others.

And the Resting / Camping mechanic always worked INTO that goal.

Larian has never understood those DnD mechanics, and probably never will. Most of their fights are typicaly Hard and require you to THINK how to beat the enemy. However in DnD alot of the challenge lies not in beating the enemy but using teamwork to be extremely efficent to not waste all resources.
A typical DnD dungeon in more glorious days was not filled with one deadly encounter after another. It was filled with obstacles towards your goal. So many trash monsters that didnt pose a huge Danger on themself, but in numbers beeing able to wittle you down slowly. ALso Traps, mazes, and other stuff to make you waste REsources (spells, potions, equipment, hitpoints, use per day abilitys).

The question was in WHAT shape you arive at the various encounters. The limitation of resting is an INTEGRAL Part of the DnD difficulty.
Larian doesnt understand this. Instead they try to make every encounter Challenging fight for life. And to compensate the REsting system is basicaly non-existant and used to push on character storys.

The exictement to find a save resting place is INTENSE in a REAL DnD adventure. It also emphasizes ALOT of different class abilitys.

Examples:

- Druids Goodberry spell is legendary because of getting fed and abit healed when there is NO option to camp
- Certain Character lore help indentify a save rest place (Cleric recognizes a smal Lathander shrine in an UD crypt, Ranger finds a hidden cave to savely rest.)
- Bards with their songs can dracticaly reduce the Resource need of other specialised classes and reduce the need for camping.

the list can go on endless. But Larian doesnt understand it. They dont see that camping is an important part of the Difficulty and not just a story element.

THis game should have never gone to Larian to be honest.

Good points. I would also like to add that the ability to magically teleport back to camp pretty much at will and no matter where you are really breaks immersion for me. As I said once before in these forums, it's like the Fellowship of the Ring zipping back to Rivendell every night to rest.

I'm not too sold on the notion of a pocket dimension camp though, it feels 'wrong' somehow for a low level party? I would rather have to find a safe place to rest, as with the previous games, and the risks that entailed.

Also the mechanism whereby all party interactions are locked to the camp is not great game design; it's been noted several times how players have missed out on dialogue because they weren't aware that that is the only place interactions can happen. I assume this is due to the cinematics; it would seem the tradeoff for having fancy cinematics is that others factors get left by the wayside.

It all just feels so restrictive, I thought cRPGs were about (the illusion) of freedom of choice but with BG3 I find myself being railroaded by their dubious design decisions.

I hear you. I would prefer a camp that reflected the changing environment (and a day/night cycle). But seems like Larian is set against it. Teleportation to a pocket dimension/specific place is the only thing I could think of that could explain a static camp system. Pocket dimensions for camping is a D&D staple, from Rope Trick to Magnificent Mansion, and Dimension Door style teleport would be a nice homage to the original BG (something the game really needs more of if it is to live up to the namesake).

Even a scripted camp system would be better than the current system in my mind. This would work and be immersive given the linear nature of the game. Add slow regeneration to passive tadpole powers to overcome the need to rest just for full health (scrap Larian cheesy food items) prior to hard encounters. Expandable magic assets would be enough to carry the party through to victory even when low on spells (good thing with cantrips being so strong in 5e).


I agree completely. There is something artificial in forcing all major conversations in the camp. The original games could surprise you with these moments wherever and this made it flow more organically. Larian is perhaps trying a little too hard to make their static camp useful beyond the mechanical effects.

I think the rest system in today's game market probably does need to be different from 20 years ago to be honest. Modern culture has moved into a very impatient meta where instant gratification and short attention span are the default. That doesn't mean you have to let everyone do everything RIGHT NOW though. I think they have the framework of a decent system that with a little cosmetic work could address the story and immersion issues without necessarily going down the full day/night route they are unlikely to pick up at this point.

What I'd go with would be along these lines:

Where Gale jumps out the glyph cliff, have a moderately tough fight. During the fight have him emerge and help. Once combat is over, add dialogue to the effect that his "expert wizard skills" have unlocked a magical glyph that allows transport to a secure location. In camp, have standing stones with glyphs for all the travel points for that map location, which you can unlock 2-way travel for by finding their counterpart in the map.

Then, ONLY have fast travel work via the camp location; and ONLY allow short rests at the camp location as well. Finally, give short rests a 30min cooldown, and only allow a long rest once they have both been used; but don't have a separate cooldown on a long rest so you can transition straight from 2nd short rest into a long rest if you want. You can justify this in the world by making a short rest the equivalent of preparing a meal which also explains the HP regen, and makes it perfectly reasonable to eat dinner and then go to bed.

That gives an effective 1hr cooldown on a long rest which makes resting more tactical and resource economy more involved; and means that if you want to go from, say, the Goblin camp to the Druid Grove you need to fast travel via the campsite which can trigger companion updates and dialogue options. Same goes for if you want a short rest: you don't just bust it out, you travel to the nearest glyph and port to the campsite, again giving companion arcs a chance to trigger.

That's an interesting point about the pocket dimension, I hadn't realised it's a staple art of the lore. I guess I am a little (over) fond of the idea of adventurers resting where they travel, battling the elements, etc. It makes finding an inn in a settlement that much sweeter.



That's very insightful re: modern culture and instant gratification. I would loved to have seen the response in feedback if a more traditional BG resting system had been implemented from the outset, just to see what newcomers would have made of it.

I entirely condone a fast travel system, it just feels more immersive to me when it implies going on foot (or other forms of travel), rather than zipping around everywhere through magical portals that apparently nobody else in the game world has noticed or uses, especially when the party is at such low levels.

There are ways of making going to camp more challenging, but to try and peralize the players for going to camp is not the way to go. Limiting the amount you can go to camp will just set casual players off. It may be the bee's knees to you guys to make it tougher to recoup after battles, but most will look at it as punishing them (because that is ALWAYS the way they see it).

Personally, I would like if they implement a roll on random encounters on the way to the camp. But that is just my personal choice, as is your posts, your personal idea of what will work for you, not really what would work to make the game popular to a broad base of players. Considering how many times you have to short rest, and the only way to recharge your groups short rest is to camp overnight, trying to limit a 1 hr cooldown would not be looked positively by the general player. If they were to make it for a 1hr cooldown, they would have to increase the number of short rests provided.

What if a player spends his gold and cannot buy potions? That player does a particular fight in a deep dungeon and uses his 2 short rests quickly, whelp guess they are screwed since they have 45 minutes to wait before they go back to camp. Or do you think they should have to backtrack through the entire dungeon, run across the world map to their camp? After traversing the entire world map, how many times do you think they should be forced to run across it before they are allowed to utilize easier fast travel? How does that even make sense? I mean you have to look at it in regards to what is enjoyable for the average player.

Now if you want to say have a hardcore mode, where there is camp limitations and such, I say that is a great idea to add additional challenge to seasoned players, but absolutely not for normal and under, hell even hard should have that limitation. You do not see it in Diablo, DOS2, or any other rpg fantasy game. Even ME didn't do it.

If traveling to camp "breaks" your immersion, challenge yourself not to over use it. But don't try to decide how others should use a mechanic in THEIR game.

Also, would like to mention, the camp is not a static day/night camp. The world is, but not the camp. You do have a day/night version of the camp. That is why when you click the "rest for night", it turns to night.

What I'd like to discuss here is what we should expect regarding rest, why the rules for resting are still not satisfying existing, and how Larian is communicating on this.

In particular, the purpose of this post is neither to make a suggestion about how rest should be handled, nor to explain why (or if) the current absence of any restriction on long rest is a problem.


There was this interesting Rock Paper Shotgun interview in July 2020 with Nick Pechenin, Lead System Designer.
- part 1,
- part 2 :

This interview is actually quite interesting and I thought about making a topic about "all of it" but that would completely go in all directions from the start. So this post is just about rest, which is discussed in the 2nd video, from 16:19 to 18:41 (see timestamps in the description).

One striking thing is that in the BG3 play footage running as a background, we can see the game saying "Cannot travel to camp right now. Do you want to take a short rest ?", presumably when the player asked for a long rest. Nick also said "short rest is a resource". He even says, "your decisions about your resources have a bit more weight" (than Divinity : Original Sin). So there's at least one person in Larian Studios who is, or was, thinking in terms of resource management. Finally, Nick said that some zones are "set up as danger zones, where you cannot just teleport out, and walk off all of your injuries".

So it appears that Larian clearly has a given some thinking to how rest should work. However, in the current EA build, we don't have any rule regarding long rest. What could explain that ?

• (a) The window in the video is the equivalent of "functionality not available yet". Larian still doesn't have the system in place, so they gave us direct access to camp, no restriction.
• (b) They had the system working with a previous build, but they have difficulty getting it to work again in the current version.
• (c) They wanted to experiment and see what the players would say if there's no rule restricting access to long rest.
• (d) They've changed their mind. They've decided that rules on long rest, like many other 5E rules, are boring.

I'm short of ideas. Anyone sees something else ?

I hope it's not (c). I'm absolutely fine with experiments, even or especially un-announced ones (I mean, you probably want not to announce it if you want certain data). But at this point, they've probably had more than enough "no rules for long rest is bad" feedback and "yay, free long rests" feedback. They could probably have made up their mind. By not communicating, I personally feel they're not really gaining much. (Yes, I know, at the end of the EA, it won't matter that much what EA players think of Larian's communication, only how enjoyable the game is. Still, I thought a developper doing an EA would want to reduce the noise in the feedback. Communicating your plans is a good way to cut short the pointless feedback.)

Now, in view of this, what do you think the full release rules for long rest will be ?

I'm not going to organise the bookmaking activity. The only prize for getting it right is bragging rights.

I won't be a wild gambler here : I would bet on a "no long rest zone" system, since that's what they described (of course, they can change their plan).

If implemented, that system raises a question : if an area has, say, 6 small encounters, and you backtrack to camp after 2 encounters, will there be encounter respawning, or will you be able to continue through the other 4 ? For the sake of the game, I'll bet on "no-respawn". Given how badly the passing of time is taken into account and the fact that so far every encounter is a hand-crafted puzzle, I'm not sure they would generate a random replacement encounter.



Note : I searched for the threads on rest to see if there was a main one I could continue, but I found 41 threads with rest/resting in the titles. @Vometia/Sadurian : I'm wondering if it would be worth opening a Mega-Thread for this topic. EDIT : also wondering if this is better in General or in S&F. Feel free to move if more appropriate in the other subforum.

I would love to see a lot more restrictions on resting... where you can do it, how often you can do it... even what times during the game day it can be done... It would make for a MUCH more engaging challenge in terms of resource management. Heck, I'd even like to have a fatigue system so that if you do too much between rests, or spend too much of your time walking around 1 pound short of fully encumbered, your combat effectiveness, movement speed, and ability to concentrate on spells falls off the edge of a dark cliff.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that any of that is going to make it into the game. I think that the current unfettered rest-as-you-please mechanics are going to be the place where this will all end up in the end. In short, I think that (d) was the correct answer there.

I have already started a topic on this post a few days ago, and this post really should be merged there.

I think we will get a multi-zone system in the end. Some areas there is no resting and some areas where you have to go to an inn to rest. Without an Inn system in place it is much harder to make resting restricted. They might also make areas where you might have an encounter when you rest as they already have a few non-random encounters in your camp, so a system to build these is probably already in place. If they do end up doing this I would hope they limit the experience on these encounters so they are not exploitable, but I doubt they will. It would be really neat if the encounters were with enemies that were on the overworld and found you and are no longer there after, but is probably unlikely to be a feature.

I think that the issue is exactly as you said... non-random. It is one thing to build in a system of triggers where "if this, then this" is the basis for determining what happens. A random encounter table might be infinitely harder to implement. Would you like to have your odds of being attacked in the middle of the night be the same s your odds of critically failing a roll currently are without the loaded dice option? Because I have a distinct feeling that that is what you'd get.

I would prefer that over not being able to rest in that area, it gives me the choice instead of being a restriction. Also this is what I think they will do not what I want them to do, which is the main goal of this thread. I very much believe a more complex resting system will be introduced when Inn's are.

There are certain areas in the game already where you can’t camp. In the hag’s lair, you have to exit to long rest.

I thought long resting would alter the outcome but sure enough after I stepped out and went back in, Mayrina was still in her cage.

Maybe in future patches if you don’t rescue her before a long rest, she will die.