The least complicated rest system would have been to have a day/night system. Long rest would be once in a 24 hour cycle and short rests would be whatever, maybe more or less depending on difficulty setting.
They need to separate companion conversations from resting. No matter what system they use for it, we are pretty much forced to be lazy bums to progress these conversations.
Currently, the way that this "earning" of rest is implemented is through camp supplies. I shan't waste too many words deriding that system, I think we're all aware of its many inadequacies. A much better way of implementing this "earning" of rest would be by collecting Rest Points (TM).
I feel this would be yet another way to needlessly complicate things but that is not your fault, that is Larian's for expecting everyone to cheese things and "balancing" around that.
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.
I don't like this, sorry. It penalizes different playstyles. My all ranged party is barely going to take any damage but there is a really good chance that all my spell slots are going to be used in order to prevent the damage. In order to rest you are pretty much forcing me to use one or two characters as bait so they take damage, leading to using more spell slots for damage and less for crowd control and more potions being used to keep the bait alive. Now the bait may as well be a fighter since they have a better chance at survival and if I don't want to use all my potions then now I am stuck bringing a cleric who has to be careful to barely heal the bait. I suppose if I want to play my original party I can have some of them walk into a blade barrier or something so we can rest, but that is immersion breaking.
