Why would they be? According to Dialogue log, I've only experienced a few hours of Day 1, I have good HP, and I still have spell slots. Gale hasn't even used Arcane Recovery yet.
Again. Story-wise, I am told many times up to this point that at any moment I might start to see tadpole symptoms that will turn me into a Mind Flayed. Not one dialogue yet has said otherwise. So I'm playing based on the idea that every moment counts because that's what the game has told me.
It's reasonable that the characters are absolutely exhausted at this point in the first day. You also have to consider that they were in mindflayer pods for an indeterminate period, injected with a tadpole (probably not an energy conserving process), and then had to frantically escape the ship. Plus, because there is no time in this game, it's equally likely that it's noon or midnight. We were kidnapped from the city during the daytime, so it's not unreasonable to suggest it's getting to be afternoon/evening around this time.
I'm in favor of Larian ~forcing a rest
this first day to ensure that players get that first night's cutscene. My suggestion is to, after encountering Lae'zel, give all characters a level or two of exhaustion and some dialogue saying that "it's been a long day and we need to rest." The player can continue, but maybe will get additional levels of exhaustion every ~10-20 minutes.
Alternatively/in addition, one of the characters could notice a hoard of too-strong-to-face goblins approaching requiring the party to search for a place to hide (the campsite) where they have no option but to rest and wait the goblins out. The game
could give you an option to actually fight them off, but I'd want them to be
actually too strong to face. Like 20+ goblins plus a few ogres. And hey, with the new Flee mechanic, you could even choose to face the goblins, see that they're too powerful, and then flee to camp upon which the first camp cutscene would play.
