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

So I have a few things.
1: It might be good to allow access to all followers, even the ones not in your current party, whilst the player character is in the camp. I like to collect gear for all companions, not just my regular team, so it would make it much easier if one could access all companion's inventory whilst in camp, instead of having to kick some companions out of my party, ask others to join, give them the gear, ask them to leave, and then ask the others to join again. It's not a problem the first few times, but then it gets kind of annoying. It would also allow me to level them up then instead of later, which is a minor concern, but could be nice.

2: It's nice that you have implemented another short rest, but it also means that the player doesn't take long rests as often, which isn't bad, but the cutscenes related to the long rests need to be tweeked a bit because they now show up later in the game. I had Astarion spout all kinds of vampire related stuff in the party banter before my character was supposed to figure out that he was a vampire via the "bite-my-character-whilst-she-is-sleeping" cutscene.

3: Please allow the player to take all companions with them when the fast-travel away from camp. It's not an issue when taking a long rest most of the time, because you just wake up where you left off in the adventure, but when you pop back to get something or talk to someone the party splits up, and you have to manually make everyone in the party fast travel. Also if you switch someone in your party out, they cannot fast travel until you place down a save with them in the party, and then load that save file. It's very annoying when you do it a few times.

I like your first suggestion, it would make it easier to manage follower inventory/abilities and really doesn't have much of an impact on actual gameplay. The only thing this might impact is if you take a long rest in an unsafe area and the camp gets attacked, you would then have more followers under your control than normal, but I don't really think that's such a huge issue.

I've decided to follow through on what I've said elsewhere and start the discussion I really want to have.

Something I like about Baldur's Gate / D&D is the idea of getting fatigued and having to rest. I like the idea of waking up after a rest at full strength, and then trying your best to avoid getting worn down before your next opportunity to rest. For the basis of this discussion, I don't want to discuss whether of not resting should exist at all, but rather how we can make it the best it can possibly be.


How can skills slots be better?
I am taking it for granted that skill slots are a key part of D&D gameplay. You will need to rest in order to recharge at least some of your skills between battles.

I currently don't really have any substantial feedback on how the skill slots mechanic could be improved on, but feel free to jump in if you have any thoughts.

Let's try not to talk about completely throwing out the rulebook. Don't just say "everything should be cooldowns". lol.


Camping should be fun!
Larian should remove the implication that long rests / camping are in any way a bad thing.

Currently, in order to encourage you to ration your long rests, the game implies that the more you rest, the stronger the tadpole grows. This implication should be removed. I think it would be enough to just apply the geographical/resource limitations on camping.

I think that "long rests" can be limited geographically. You can only camp/long rest at designated camp sites, like a fast travel point for example.

Additionally, if you have a camping minigame (see below), it gives you the ability to start playing with other limitations like limited rations and start having a "time cost" that is expressed through the explicit cost of camping. In the Expeditions: Viking example below, you can actually ruin a campsite if you're not taking good care of it, and you can get in a bit of trouble if you run out of food.

The key distinction here is that camping is not something to be avoided, but it can cost you.


How should short rests be rationed?
I think it might be worthwhile keeping the "short rest" mechanic with no limit on short rests. In this case, I think it might be worthwhile exploring whether it might be possible to take advantage of the advantage of Baldur's Gate being a minigame to ensure there are substantial downsoides to short rests, and that short rests have a cooldown period, and get progressively less effective the more you use them until your next long rest.

By "short rest", I basically think it would be worthwhile allowing your party to do things like healing between battles, so you can focus your combat abilities (eg healing) on combat. But maybe after a while the short rest healing effect diminishes as your party gets more battle-fatigued.


Camping Minigame
One thing I feel that Baldur's Gate 3 is sorely missing at the moment is a camping minigame to flesh out the camping experience. Currently, Larian have implemented a free roam campsite that I'd say is modeled after Dragon Age: Origins.


It's nice having some quiet time to spend with your party, but there isn't really any gameplay in this. The only "gameplay" just ends up happening in dialogue cutscenes anyway. I think the idea of physically free roaming the campsite like it's just another level in the game might be a bit unnecessary.

What I'd prefer is if they take some inspiration from other games that have some good ideas for camping minigames. Some examples:

Expeditions: Viking
You have campsites dotted around the world map, where you assign characters jobs such as cooking, hunting etc. Really cool minigame.


Final Fantasy XV
You need to find a campsite to start the camping minigame. I really like the immersiveness of this, with characaters setting up the camp and interacting with each other. The cooking mechanic is also really pretty.


Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Here you can camp almost anywhere to start the minigame. Not my favourite example, but the game shares a lot in common with Baldur's Gate.


Are there any other examples or suggestions of rest mechanics that you think would be an even better model for BG3?

I'm definitely for implementing rations that you need in order to long rest. There must be some sort of cost tied to it or the player is just going to use it after every single fight and it would be completely meaningless and dull.

About short rests, I actually like how Solasta is doing it, because it's not simply a "quick-heal-button" that you press while out of combat, but a more tactical decision how you want to spend your limited resources on short rests before each and every long rest.

I haven't played Solasta, so can you explain what you mean in more detail?

I don't have any issues with camping/skill slots as they are now in BG3. My main issue is that I dislike a lot of the things that are being suggested to "fix" resting, especially timed quests, not being able to use waypoints and having to double back, and minigames. So, I hope if any of these things are added, they are optional (you could select what you want in the options menu).

As far as I am aware, short rests are pretty much handled as they are in 5E. You basically could do as many as you like but in order to heal your characters up, you would have to spend the available hit dice. And once spend you don't get those hit dice back until you do a long rest.
That way you have to make a decision whether you want to burn through all you hit dice to heal up big time or hold back on them a little bit so you could squeeze in maybe another short rest along the way before you have to long rest again.

"timed quests"
Stick around. I'll be looking for your support when we need to disagree with someone suggesting this.

"not being able to use waypoints and having to double back"
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this and I might need more detail. I feel like you don't like the idea of rests being limited to specific locations? Tell me more. Also, what do you feel is the best way to stop people from just camping everywhere all the time?

At the moment, Larian hasn't quite got worked out how to stop people from camping too much. They just try to make you feel bad about it.

"minigames"
Have you taken a look at the minigame examples I've provided? Do you have any particular criticisms? I'm keen to hear more about how you feel a minigame would detract from your experience.

Personally, I don't care if people camp anywhere they want, so I am not worried about stopping them from doing so. I think the original BG games let you do so, with only maybe the possibility of some trash mobs attacking? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about that.

I don't like hunting and crafting and such, and would rather spend my time doing quests.

I would like to be able to get all the companion scenes, though. I hope they fix that so I don't miss any.

In my opinion, just leave it as is relatively. Without a day and night cycle I doubt i'd be more immersed. In addition I doubt bg3 is a relaxing happy adventure. Storywise their is suppose to be pressure from the tadpole. I think those mini games may detract from the more serious tone of the narrative. Roleplaywise I wouldn't trust the cooking, for example. I think the pace storywise should remain relatively fast. Most of the things you want sound like fluff that will slow things down.

Personally I like fluff. I would have like the "adventuring" party. I just don't think bg3 is like that. At least in Act 1, I think the tone is very cut throat. I don't think you really get companions becoming more like friends till probably act 2. Like some things have to hit the fan first.

Mechanically I think wild sorcerers have a way to get a slot back actively in an extremely limited capacity in a specific way. I think if you play a class a certain way, then under a very strict circumstance you get a small resource back. The problem is it would restrict play style. Wild sorcerers combat this by being luck based. Then again more rng is always bad. If feels like trying to "fix" 5e rather than build on it is basically "pick your poison".

I don't like the idea of having to sacrifice combat advantage to get the proper benefit of short rests. I think it should explicitly be an opportunity to rest and recover with no real immediate downside.

The reason I like having some level of recovery after each battle is because it means that each battle can be a bit more challenging. It's more interesting when the challenge in each battle is to "get through the battle alive" rather than "get through the battle without a scratch".

But it's fine by me for there to be eventual downsides like "running out of short rests", or getting fatigued because it's been too long since you've had a long rest. Like it'd be neat if at the beginning of the game, maybe you take a short rest after every encounter, but by the late game after the difficulty ramps up a bit, you're deliberately having to get through several encounters without a short rest in order to conserve them.

You think it's fine to just take a long rest after every single battle? If so then okay. That's your opinion.

My method of reducing long rests having campsites at fast travel points, which would be spaced out appropriately. So you know, you'll be encouraged to save your skills so you can make it through several encounters without a long rest, but if you're struggling you can always go for a bit of a walk back to the camp site, and long rest. (And maybe some of the encounters respawn a bit?)

I also want to add -- I think long rests should automatically resurrect any dead party members. I've mentioned elsewhere, I think we should abandon the idea that party members in BG3 ever "die" in combat. As it is, resurrection scrolls are just handed out like candy and the idea that party members literally die every other battle is just immersion-breaking. It'd be better to just give them some kind of "unconscious" condition, stop handing out quite so many scrolls, and encourage the unfortunate party member to recover at camp.

I think you'd be comfortable with the examples I provided. There's no reason why you need to take those camping minigames super seriously. You can half-ass it pretty quickly, or you can take it really seriously and get some advantage out of it.

I would certainly play a mode with more survival type stuff in it. This should only be an option though since I doubt most people would like it.

The main thing I want to see is a day/night cycle and the ability to camp in different locations. Maybe something like the DA:I system. I just think it is really immersion breaking as it is right now with being forced to do things only in the day and to go from especially the Underdark back to the only campsite. Would be easier as well with a visual indicator (night/day) to know when to rest (long rest should be only once a day.)

If done right, these elements add a lot and wouldn't slow anything down, only add more realism. Having a lit fire giving away your location and trying to cook and eat is a rather tense experience if you expect to be killed at any moment. I think something like this should be added as optional DLC, would much prefer them to work on other things first. I agree with you about the cooking, pretty sure everyone would be making their own food and glaring at each other around the fire. :P

It's meant to be a tactical decision. You could also have the cleric use healing spells. But that costs resources. That's what D&D is essentially. Managing limited resources. Do you max out HP but use up spell slots? Do you cast a fireball now and hope you don't need it in the next encounter?

In old school, you rarely were at full strength. As a party, you had to decide whether to face the monsters head on or perhaps just sneak by. Or even negotiate. There was no true benefit to kill every encounter. But such nuance is hard to program into a game. It's best left to a DM. But I do find more satisfaction of defeating an encounter with less than stellar resources. It makes the victory that much more sweeter.

We should start talking about this before early access gets too far along.


The challenge is that HP bloat (HP bloat is referring to lowering AC and raising HP to compensate) has increased the incentive to spam spells. The current game meta involves taking down enemies by always putting your best spell forward. which requires a follow up rest. A lot of folks have advocated to be more true to DnD 5e. At this point I think it'd be good to bounce ideas on how Larian could add fun homebrew to the game.

Possible Changes

• Revert some of the HP bloat
• Increase spell slots for spell-dependent classes
• Add items that restore spell slots?
• Limit short and long rests to safe zones
• remove the high amount of spell scrolls everywhere
• add in expendable material components for spells (let us at least test out with Find Familiar Larian, please)

I'm again using Fire Emblem as a measuring stick, spells have finite uses that replenish outside of combat. Casters get a lot more uses per battle and I think players (videogamers) may prefer to keep some elements of a spell happy meta.

These changes can add in levers so that the game can have rests moved to exclusive safe zones.

I think adding expendable material components is one of the best ways to balance the future game meta. It'll keep uses of strong spells, like Fireball, in check while allowing the character to more freely use other spells.



I think it'd be good to suggest the tried and true fishing mini-games that are popular in RPGs. I'm leaning towards a system where the player could fish/hunt/gather (so that if the player wants to roleplay as a vegan they can) and the dishes have to be prepared at camp for the next leg of the journey (similar to FFXV, but hopefully shorter animations like Breath of the Wild). The cooked dishes could only be eaten during a short rest, and that would explain how the party restores health or spell slots. (Whichever is better for the game). So if the player forgets to maintain a supply of food, short rest won't heal anything. (Or even have the number of short rests limited by food supply).

I call on my allies for support!
Aishaddai wants the main quest to be timed. Help me!

So why camp at all then? If you're fighting side-by-side with someone and sleeping beside someone, I'd have to imagine there's some bare minimum level of trust there. If you can't expect you to cook your food (while you watch them) then how can you expect them to have your back when it matters?

You don't need to be friends to have a good time.


Clearly you've never played D&D with a munchkin. Old school D&D had plenty of loopholes that could be abused, and resting was one of them. See Icelyn's comment below:

It was (and still is) up to GMs to manage this if the players start trying to exploit this mechanic. It is now Larian's burden to ensure that the mechanics of the game encourage players to play the game in a way that promotes immersion.

First, to clarify: I will use the terms tactics to refer to "in battle", and strategy as "outside battle".

I don't like the idea of having to get through battle "without a scratch". I like the tactical stakes being a bit higher. Party Wipe should be an ongoing threat.

The big problem for me with expecting too much strategic planning and encouraging me to min/max in the metagame is that this is essentially encouraging me to embrace my inner munchkin. When that happens, I break games. I will find loopholes, and every one of them will be thoroughly exploited, immersion and roleplaying be damned. BG3 doesn't have any GM who can stop me.

The only hope BG3 has is if they limit my munchkin-ness to the tactical level, and allow me to try roleplaying the strategic level without obsessing about the details. Then they might be able to balance things properly enough that it won't be easy to break the tactics in BG3.

(DOS2 has plenty of other exploits, but these are just the ones that are ridiculously absurd.)

I think Aishaddai agreed with me previously about hating timed quests?


Punching Solas?

Agree with this. It creates story problems when other npcs die if you are so easily able to bring people back. For example, if the child gets killed, why not bring her back?

1) The first thing according to me is that resting should be a moment in which you have things to do.

D&D include all this, there's no need to create tons of things even if some could be a great addition (cooking, ...)

Short rest :
- Hit dice rolling (manual)
- Feature/spell slot recovery (automatic)
- Use features or other (manual, i.e arcane recovery)

Longr rest :
- Spellslot recovery (automatic)
- Use features/spell ritual (manual)
- Level up (manual)
- Spell preparation (manual)
- Other activity

2) the second thing is that we shouldn't be able to click rest everywhere. Resting shouldn't just be a button.

Short rest : Only on specific spot designed on the map.
Long rest : Fast travel to camp needed (only possible from the outside, not from cave or dungeons)

3) the third is that resting should have consequences.
It should really be a part of how action economy works in D&D... Meaning that you have to choose wisely when and how to rest/use your features and spell slot.

The only solution about this is to add random encounters, at least for long rest.

Maybe a camp activity should be "watching" (don't know the right word in EN). Something that would decrease the risk of random encounter.
See how it work in Kingmaker to understand how "non-D&D activities" could be implemented.

=> I think that those things would totally solve the rest mechanic issues and the action economy of the game.
=> On the other hand if you have to rest to lvl up, players won't ever miss the "story rests"

Some things could be easily enabled/disabled as options if needed.

+1 to Maximuuus, this is a great d&d system

I believe i read somewhere on this forum interesting idea about how handle long rests ...
Its autor was talking about ading some resource material for teleportation by Waystones ... adding a Waystone to your camp ... and finaly disabling fast travel from anywhere and restrict it for waystones only.

I still love the idea, it limits long rests a bit, but also not so hard so people are completely screwed ...
It takes away the problem with existence of portals, that no one uses for some reason ...
It solves problem with your camp location (Think about it, everyone is telling you that you are in hurry ... yet every day you return to same place and start exploring over and over from the same spot.) ...
And it certainly dont allow you to rest "in middle of the spider-nest". :-/

Well, it might seem as a too easy solution, a kind of "Deus Ex Machina" to solve developers problems instead of favoring rpg tabletop/BG experience.