Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Resting system - The Final Solution

I prefer what Dheuster wrote as a quite interesting suggestion in his feedback thread

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=795295#Post795295 (warning, a lot of text)

Basically he suggests that the camp resting is kept mainly for story progression and that hit points and spell slots gradually replenish over time instead
I would add some twists to it but overall I feel it's a nice compromise that gives benefits to both camps. You can burn through all your resources in every encounter but then you'll have to wait until the replenishing is done, or you can use your resources more sparingly and therefor get a smoother experience.

I kinda like the idea, it's interresting to put something new in our discussions.

But.


This is absolutely true. And I don't think a coherent resting system will ever be possible if they don't change their mind with companions story.
Doing this, Larian has already decided how many times we have to rest...

And


This would be easier with the same result.
Am I wrong ?

Still thinking that a day and night cycle with as much short rest you want + 1 long rest / day would be the best (and a mechanic to "wait" if necessary, turned on/off depending your difficulty level)

That was clearly hyperbole, but there are in fact exactly 3 threads just on this topic on the first page right now.


Stop putting things in my mouth, and perhaps look up the meaning of words such as "strawman" in the dictionary before you start throwing them around. I said I was perfectly happy with no pressure to rest -and- with people missing storylines.
But if you want to make sure people don't miss out on those rests - it's not that complicated. There are only a handful of dream sequences + Astarion biting scene. Players will definitely take those handful of rests before finishing the goblin camp anyway. You don't really have to pressure them at all, just make triggering of the scenes less conditional and more consistent on those rests. You also have the option of encouraging the long rest through penalties I mentioned, in which case, of course, you make sure that all the combats and non-combat adventuring that the character has to do in order to get to a place where his rest is "required", earn them enough points to do so.

But crucially here, I actually missed no dream sequences due to infrequent resting, because they are so few, and most of the content I got "locked out" of was companion-related cut-scenes and relationship development. This is also the part that's bugging me the most with your whole bullshit rant - you just persistently keep ignoring my proposition that none of the other companion interactions have to be camp interactions. They should not be tied to resting in any way, shape, or form. There, your "problem" solved.


Yeah, shows how much your opinion on the matter should be taken seriously.

A valid point, but I answered it to someone else, the companion cut-scenes and relationship development shouldn't be bound to a camp. A short rest would be a perfect opportunity to trigger Gale's looking at the mirror image cut-scene, for example.

And

Sort of. Functionally similar without the benefit of preventing supply hoarding, using the rest system for difficulty scaling, and less roleplay-y. But yes.

I've seen it and I appreciate the amount of effort he put into it, but I really dislike the approach. I think it should work exactly the other way around. Taking rests should strategically matter, and the story (or, mostly what people think when they say story - companion progression) shouldn't be tied to sleeping.

The fact that so many cutscenes are tied to long resting shouldn't be used to argue against (or for) a proposed resting system. There are a total of what, 4 cutscenes that actually require a long rest? The dream sequence(s?), Astarion, Lae'zel trying to kill you, and the post-grove-raid party. All others could be changed to: "next time you visit camp" or "next time you talk with a character" or even "next time you short rest."

We're proposing change here, so unless you actively like so many cutscenes being tied only to long resting, it shouldn't really weigh into discussions because the "cutscene upon rest" mechanic can also be changed.

I like the idea of there being restrictions to long resting, especially
A simpler (and more obvious that it's rest-related) solution would be levels of exhaustion. Change it to every 15-25 points over 100 because the levels of exhaustion are so much more punishing than a -1 penalty (1st level = disadvantage on all ability checks).

However, your system is a bit strict. It might be better to allow resting at <100 points (but above 50), but then your impatient companions would yell at you and maybe give slight disapproval. This allows people to rest frequently if they want and are willing to accept Lae'zel's unhappiness, but encourages them to push on.

I had also thought of this approach. It's kind of like the Inspiration system. You do a certain number of things and you earn some sort of Rest Points.

However, it does present serious issues, which is why it doesn't work. For one, if I REALLY did bad in a certain battle, and I absolutely need to long rest or I won't be able to continue the game, I'm doomed if I haven't earned enough points.

DM's have to be lenient when it comes to resting. They are supposed to be careful not to overtax their players too much. If the players have a really bad dice rolling day, and they get their butts handed to them, it is up to the DM to come up with a logical reasoning as to why it's suddenly okay to let them long rest.

Here's an example (I also posted this on a different thread also) that is completely outside of BG3 using typical Tabletop D&D:

Diadell and her companions learn that there will be a meeting between a lacky of a crime boss and a dwarf who is looking to pick up his money from a job he did. The meeting is to take place that evening, at midnight. In between, Diadell and her companions ran into a few fights, and they don't want to go to that meeting with next to no HP and spells. So, they decide to long rest. "Screw it," says Diadell. "If we miss the meeting, we miss the meeting. I'm not risking it."

So, not wanting the players to miss out on that opportunity, I, the DM, have an NPC friend of theirs arrive at the inn the next morning. "You aren't going to believe this," the NPC says. "I was in the slums at the meeting site where that lacky of the crime boss was supposed to meet with that dwarf who did that one job. There was a rival gang fight, and the whole thing was botched. Looks like the meeting is rescheduled for tonight. Thought you might like to know."

Suddenly, though they did something that should have messed them over so they couldn't complete the side quest, I, the DM, made it so that something happened to explain why that certain thing didn't fall through and so that they know they could still complete the quest. However, because of the rival gang fight, as a consequence for not going, I make it so that there are more gang members at the spot because they are expecting that there could be more rival gang trouble. Whereas initially, the encounter might have been easy, I make it slightly - SLIGHTLY mind you - harder to compensate for the fact that they decided to long rest. I originally built the encounter expecting that they would be weaker, so it wouldn't have been as tough. Now, however, because I know they are going to be tougher since they long rested, I increase the difficulty of the fight to make the battle more fun and rewarding.

Right now, the issue is that long rests in the game without consequences like this make every fight easier. That's not how good DMing works especially when the story says, "Quick! Never long rest because you'll turn into a monster if you do" or "Quick! Stop the druids from their ritual before they kick everyone out" or "Hurry, before the goblins attack and wipe out everyone in the grove." If the players are going to long rest frequently, then there needs to be some sort of complications and such that make up for the fact that they decided to reset all their HP and spells and such.

So, either create story side quests, like you have to save Rath because he stopped the ritual to buy you more time but now he's locked up by Kagha for his insolence, or you need to provide some sort of increase to enemy encounters or something to make them more challenging because the enemies were able to prepare more, or something like what I described above.

The entire trick to being a good DM is to create encounters that are challenging to players but aren't so nasty that the players get frustrated. The DM's job is NOT to try to kill the players. It is to create that exciting encounter where they have to strategically overcome the enemy and feel like heroes. However, if they allow players to just long rest all the time, and the encounters aren't tougher as a result, then the game is boring because the players just wipe out all the enemies.

I guess this is my point: If you are going to allow long resting all the time, that's fine as long as the encounters are all set to be challenging based on the assumption that the players are going to long rest after every battle, AND as long as the story isn't rushing you along to try to push yourself to NOT long rest, AND as long as you don't miss out on good story elements whether you long rest a lot or a little.

You see, I didn't have a problem with Neverwinter Nights allowing you to rest after every battle because there was no rush. If it took you a month to find out what was happening with the Wailing Death, big deal. No one was hounding you saying you were going to turn into a mind flayer soon if you didn't get your butt moving. If it took you a month to find out what was happening, that's just how long it took. No biggie.

The problem I have with BG3's resting system is that you are told by many, many characters, "What are you doing? Why are you long resting? Get your butt moving. We have a tadpole in our heads. We shouldn't be long resting. Oh, and by the way, if you don't hurry, the goblins are going to attack the grove and kill everyone and the tieflings are going to get kicked out because the ritual will be complete and the githyanki will probably go away and not be on the road where Zorru saw them, and so on and so forth. So whatever you do, don't long rest." Then, you ignore them and long rest and they're like, "Okay. Gith stayed where they were 6 days ago, ritual still isn't completed after a week - dang long ritual - goblins still haven't attacked, the lazy bums - and so on and so forth."

So, naturally, the player is urged to long rest very infrequently by everyone. And then, to top it all off, if you do long rest infrequently, you miss out on key story elements. You don't get as much character interaction and dialogue, Raphael may not appear to you until you are WAY close to the end of EA (happened to me before), dialogues get all jacked up because suddenly Astarion is a vampire spawn even though you never triggered the Astarion trying to bite you scene, and the whole thing winds up being a mess all because you thought you weren't supposed to long rest.

It's just a mess, and that's why it bugs the crap out of me. The camping supplies, though they seemed like maybe a good thing, and they stopped using food as healing items, which was good, is not the solution unless camping supplies are depleted more quickly and during short rests too. BUT... the issues still remain with camping supplies that you are encouraged to rest as little as possible, but character dialogues are then skipped entirely, some very important ones, if you don't rest frequently.

So, again, I think the only real solution is that they have to either change the story so you aren't so rushed, or they need to make it so dialogues are triggered outside of the camp AND they provide some sort of events that are triggered by taking too many long rests that at the very least explain why you have been given more time to keep going. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense, and nothing really works.

I like the idea ...
Mostly bcs its exactly the same as i suggested aproximately 3/4 year ago, when i was thinking about some energy bar that would be deplenishing by ingame activity ... same princip, just turned around.

Problem here is that people would be pissed off ...
Since everyone wish to rest in exactly that situation, when THEY see fit ... and that is impossible with litteraly any other system. :-/

So far food for resting seems like best compromise, especialy if part of difficiulty settings would be amount of food needed for Long Rest.

I'm not sure about that but I guess the "until next short rest" is not really possible considering that you can short rest everywhere. Same about "next time you talk with a character".
I may be wrong but I think that the models and the camera are fixed for every cutscenes in camp (or mini camp) to avoid wierd cinematics.

If I'm not wrong, "next time you visit camp" is the only possibility left. Which mean long resting way too much... Or short resting at camp too...

But does it actually need to be like this? This isn't true for the NPCs in the world: they walk around and then enter a cinematic dialogue mode from wherever you talk to them. Can Larian really not program Gale's mirror image scene or Wyll's post-Spike-dialogue scene to work in the main world?

And my suggestion for conversation during short rests would even allow Larian to set up a fixed background for these cutscenes, just changing a few things. Have one "short rest background scene" that is clear of obstacles for each area: Forest, swamp, village, temple, underdark, beach. Community Update #13 says Larian already added mini-camps to the game based on your current location for long resting - just tweak these already-existing assets/code right? I'm perfectly fine with short rest dialogues fading to black when you click short rest, then opening up on the appropriately clear scene for the cutscene/dialogue.

Most NPCs are completely frozen so they can probably handcraft the camera for most scenes. And I guess (it should be interresting to check) that moving NPCs only have simple custscenes with a fixed single camera angle and a very close-up view
I just checked a few scenes from my patch 6 playthrough and I really think that the important scenes (companions included) are handcrafted. The camera is moving, the light can change,...
I can easily imagine how wierd it would look like if Gale's mirror was half in a table or in a wall.

Anyway does it need to be like this ? Probably not.
This is definitely an issue to make long rest a trigger for companions scenes in a game that is based on limiting long rest... Another solution would probably be to allow more than one cutscene per long rest.
You Know, 2 or 3 companions with an awfull yellow ! upon their head that brings us back in 2004 when WoW was released (yellow ! that also appear when you're experiencing a cutscene...)

Short rest has it's own issues and I don't think a fade to black with an appropriate background "when a scene trigger" would solve the short rest "mechanic". Triggering cutscenes during short rests would be cool but something has to be done whatever our companions wants to talk or not.
What happen when we click the short rest button is just a shame. It was even better in the DnD rebalancing mod.

Anyway that's not really the thread... But I think we have to consider that some things are now set in stone. I hope I'm wrong but I guess companions scenes only at (mini) camp are something that's not going to change.
Still waiting a bit to see what others have to say to think about it because this thread is interresting.

It is with a clock.
With a clock the game could limit long rest according to DnD and allow you to spam long rest at the same time if you will or if you need to (with a "waiting" mechanic).

A challenge for one, a solution for another.

I am still mulling over the idea of not allowing rests unless your characters are at certain HP and Spell Slot levels; basically, you can't rest unless you meet certain requirements.

So, you can't short rest unless:

- Total character HP is below 3/4 combined Maximum HP: Characters have 8, 10, 8 and 6 HP for a max total of 32 HP. Short rest is not possible until they are 24 HP or lower. So if the one with 8 HP was reduced to 0 HP, a short rest is possible. Camping supplies are then required for a short rest (and camping supplies should include bandages... lol. They're supposed to apply bandages and such when resting)

Long rest has greater requirements:

- Total character HP is below 1/2 combined Maximum HP. (So, in the example above, 16 HP or less would be required)
- Total spell slot level are half maximum levels. So if Gale has 4 Level 1 slots and 2 Level 2, that's 6 total, and if Shadowheart has the same and so does the MC, then that's a total of 18 spell slots. you would need to have 9 or less spell slots to long rest.
- Both of these requirements would need to be met to Long Rest, thus symbolizing that the party is not willing to call it a day until they have actually been reduced to less than half of their abilities.
- Camping supplies are required for a long rest and it is more expensive than short rest.

To temper this, Larian could still make certain points in the game where Long Resting becomes available because they know something big is about to happen that will require the characters to be their best before continuing. So, for example, before heading into the Underdark, Halsin says, "You should really rest first. Get some sleep." And so, regardless of how good or bad you are at that point, Halsin calls for you to rest, and you are greatly encouraged to do so, unlocking your ability to do so.

The reason I like this idea is that I have a problem with characters allowing you to short or long rest when they are doing perfectly fine. You've run maybe for two minutes at the start of your day, and you fought some goblins and lost maybe 5 HP altogether. Well, time to long rest! No. That's dumb. The characters feel the pressure of what's going on around them. They should push themselves until they are at least at half their maximum strength.

No stupid rest restriction systems because they will end up doing more harm than good.
The proposed idea is not only complicated but also has a lot of fundamental problems.
What if the player is massacred by bad rng?
Then the only option is to load the game because it will not be able to continue the game. What if the player has only difficult fights that he cannot pass without rest?
The proposed system is very simple to soft lock.

It doesn't change anything, it just makes the game more annoying. You will still be able to rest wherever you want, but first you will have to throw yourself off the rock.



A clock would be a good option as long as the game was linear like Solasta. The problem is when you can go wherever you want and you can end up with only boss fights left.
Another quite significant problem is what to do if the player is unlucky and is massacred by bad rng.
A fairly simple example, you come to an abandoned village and get surprised by goblins. The fight can end very quickly, or if you are unlucky, you can be practically massacred (it happened to me more than once).
And here's where the problem is, the player recently used rest but by rng he was left with minimal resources. However, he cannot rest.
What is the player doing? Either he tries to tire himself further or he minimizes the game and goes to watch youtube.

The easy fix to this problem is to implement rest disincentives instead of rest limits. You are allowed to rest before X, but if you do your companions lose Y approval (possibly negated through a persuasion check) and/or a limited # of explicitly-noted-as-time-sensitive quests advance. Not auto-fail. Advance to a different state. E.g, if you've already activated the grove raid (a decision made by you), long resting means you arrive just as the goblins break through the gate, with some tiefling wall-defenders already killed.

This is why many people argue for random encounters, because they disincentivize but don't prevent long resting. "Sure you can go long rest, but you might have a random encounter which will be more tedious than anything, so why not push on for a bit longer?" But as noted, random encounters can add tediousness to the game, so other solutions (loss of companion approval) might be better.

Edit: I seriously debated adding the lines about quest timers because I know people will focus on that. But please read and respond to the spirit of my argument, not a single specific detail which is just one of multiple examples and of course is flexible.

Well, I like that you've given it thought, and I honestly think it's a pretty decent idea! Certainly better than the one currently in the game at least.

Losing approval is perhaps one of the worst ways to do this.
Why should players be penalized for playing the way they like?
It's not that frequent rest affects anyone other than the player himself.
I would say that strong restrictions have a greater negative impact on the game than if the game did not have them at all.
I am not buying the argument that it breaks the balance. No DnD game had practically any rest limits and it was never an important part of the games.

Because it's an rpg and rpgs are defined by choices. In the same way that killing random NPCs will make all other nearby NPCs hostile, it's reasonable that frequent long-resting (when companions explicitly tell you to rush to Point A) will result in disapproval of said companions. You don't get to just do anything you want to in a game, because the developers have to code for all possibilities and it's good for games to be relatively immersive and responsive to character decisions.

How is companion disapproval a strong restriction on resting? It's a fairly minor penalty, as approval is relatively easy to get. A more extreme consqeuence would be Lae'zel just leaving your party entirely (possibly for re-recruitment later).

As an extreme aside to this topic...

I just want to say... there is a part of me that has gotten a real smirk and a lot of minor enjoyment out of picking food for resting. I imagine the nights where we all sit down to dinner, and it's like:

"Okay, folks... here's dinner for tonight!" And everyone is just handed two bottles of wine each. "Drink up!"

Or the nights where each person was given a whole wheel of cheese, and nothing else, and what they do with that cheese is their own business.

These are the 'little silliness' features that I giggle at to myself, and appreciate, in a more serious game setting.

This is not to cast comment on the system itself and the issues with it - I'm not wading into that at the moment... but I did just want to mention that this little thing, small as it is, is making me smirk.