Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Solving Rest with Time Sensitive Encounters

I've written about this in various threads, but haven't seen this addressed in its own thread, so I wanted to make one. Many people are trying to figure out how to make using a long rest feel more meaningful, but also don't want to have the game decide on their behalf when they are allowed to take one. I think the best answer would be for Larian to make a decent number of encounters time sensitive, so that the story options available to the character change if the player chooses to use a long rest in the middle of what should be considered an emergency.

Currently, the fact that players enter every encounter in the best possible condition reduces the need for strategy, and makes many encounters too easy. This change would provide incentive to sometimes push your characters past their comfort zone.

One example could be *spoilers* with Auntie Ethel. If you talk with Auntie Ethel and Mayrina in the cottage, but choose to take a long rest after you speak with them, Mayrina can no longer be rescued, as Auntie Ethel has already sent her away to one of the other Hags in her coven. Therefore, once the Auntie Ethel encounter has been triggered, you must defeat Auntie Ethel before taking a long rest, or you lose the ability to rescue Mayrina. The player must ration their resources through the different layers of Auntie Ethel's hideout, or they will suffer the story consequences that accompany their decision to take their sweet time while on a rescue mission. Perhaps dialogue would be added to the initial conversation with Auntie Ethel, so that first time players are given a hint that this is a time sensitive encounter.

This approach preserves player choice, where for example, players become too injured after fighting Auntie Ethel's servants, and therefore decide it would be better not to chance the Auntie Ethel fight without recovering first, even if it means they can't save Mayrina, at least at this point in time. It also increases the value players will place on their abilities, and increases the value of using strategy while in combat.

This Auntie Ethel idea is based on how I actually played it my first time running the campaign, because I thought it would be time sensitive. I fought the redcaps, mind controlled servants, and Auntie Ethel, all in one go at lvl 3, because I thought taking a rest would harm Mayrina, and I have to say it was both difficult and incredibly fulfilling. I was pretty disappointed when I found out on subsequent runs that I could have rested/ignored the situation with little consequence.

Currently, I often find myself indifferent to most consequences I suffer from fights, due to the knowledge that my characters will be completely restored as soon as the fight ends. As long as my characters have at least 1 health after each fight, it makes no difference how much damage they took, or how many abilities/spells they used, etc. But in a time sensitive encounter, I might need to go through more than one fight before resting, so I actually care not only about surviving the current fight, but that my characters stay relatively healthy by the end so that they aren't forced to rest after.

The introduction of more time sensitive encounters would make using a long rest a meaningful choice, without creating hard limitations on when players are allowed to rest.

And of course, there should also be many encounters that are not time sensitive, but a nice balance between the two would make the rest mechanics feel more fulfilling.

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Edit:

I am adding a bit of clarifying information to reduce some misunderstandings around my suggestion.

When I refer to "time sensitive encounters", I mean that the encounter's circumstances can be effected by the number of times you use a long rest after it is "triggered." Players decide how much time has passed, not the game. This means that players could spend 100+ hours of real time playing the game, without moving an encounter forward in time, so long as they don't have their characters take a long rest. Therefore, there is no rush created in real life by making an encounter time sensitive, and all players could still take as much time as they want fully exploring each encounter, including leaving the encounter and coming back without repercussion, provided long rests are not used.

I think time should only become a factor once players have "triggered" an encounter, in that players have made a choice that has either caused, or made them aware of, an imminent danger. For gameplay/story purposes, it makes more sense to assume that the events don't transpire until the players discover them. But once that discovery has been made, the event is in motion, and should be treated as such. If time stands still even when the player is encountering something that should be urgent, then the game loses the ability to ever create urgency, hurting both gameplay and story.

I am not advocating for the passage of time to progress storylines where the danger merely involves a future threat, even if time could be considered a factor for when that threat may arise.

For example, when the goblins are trying to find the grove, the amount of time it could take is highly variable, the danger is not imminent, and therefore the main quests would not progress on their own/be time sensitive. However, if you inform Minthara of the Druid Grove's location, the goblins should not be willing to wait more than, say, two long rests (2 nights) until they move to attack the grove. Your character's actions took a future threat, and caused it to become imminent.

This gives weight to player choice, without causing the world to move on without the player's involvement. Players would therefore still be free to choose their own order for which encounters they wish to experience first, because time does not impact the story without the player's input.