Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please return the ability to eat food

The first time I played Baldur's gate, we were allowed to consume the food that we had, if say we ran out of potions. Why is this no longer available? Instead we have to use the food in order to have a full rest. We have to scavenge for food in order to have a full rest, thereby also replenishing two short rests. I feel like being able to consume food if we run out of potions in a fight is helpful.

probably cause of all the complaints about eating food.

I think that food should fuel Short Rests.

Yeah, there was sadly too many people who was unable to resist that sweet option to consume whole raw pig head (including skin and bones) in the meantime between main hand and off hand attack ...

So Larian decided to abandon any healing by food entirely. :-/

Just bcs some (large enough, or loud enough ... strike out what does not apply i know wich i would bet) group of players was unable to resist doing something they despited with their whole heart.

Seems ridiculous?
Thats bcs it is.

Morning RagnarokCzD,

It's possible they were planning on changing it to begin with and left the previous method in cause it was easy to push out the door coming from DOS2.

who knows.

Drinking a potion during battle makes some sense since it's fast, but eating a meal doesn't since it can take a while.
Having food restore health over several turns might make more sense, but that wouldn't be very helpful.

Food could be use to create meal or something during rests. But I don't get why anyone would eat food to heal considering that there are a lot of potions, spells, scrolls.

Ragna forgot to say that food was better to heal than any potions, spells and scrolls. And that you were buffed when eating an apple with the appropriate item, which was ridiculous.

Food to heal outside combats doesn't add anything interresting to the game but the main issue that was raised was food during combats... Both because it was unbalanced and totally silly.

-1

Currently you don't actually have to scavenge for food because the game gives us so much. The ability to ~freely short rest, long rest, use potions, and use spells provides more than enough healing. Food shouldn't be as powerful as a potion or spell of healing, but it is reasonable for it to be required to take a rest (or else your character will starve = become weaker). At the very least, Larian should not return the ability to eat food during combat.

I am glad they removed it. It's hard enough to not end up with dozens of health potions as it is now, with food healing I never had to use a single one.

This is why I think difficulty settings should already be a part of EA. How are they balancing the game and taking in feedback when people like different types of challenges to begin with?

There are better ways to make fights easier than allowing eating pig's heads and cheese wheels for +10 hp between attacks. Mechanically eating is a part of Long and Short Rests, which already heal a lot. When players are asking for a specific feature like Magic Food, they might actually just be asking for less punishing combat. Carrying and managing heavy food items isn't fun gameplay after all.

We should have Normal and D&D Core Rules to choose from.

Eating an apple may be healthy, but it won't heal a stab in the gut. That's why I don't like it in the game. They can work on the balance of healing potions and difficulty levels, but nothing will change how silly it is to heal physical wounds with a glass of wine and a wedge of cheese.

Healing yourself with an apple you found on the floor is a concept I'd like to see games get past now that it's 2021.

*

That said, I'm not in love with the new way food is being used. Camping supplies. Yes, there's so much food right now that it might as well not matter, but that's not my major concern.

Right now, the game doesn't know if it wants to encourage full resting or discourage full resting.

1. You can't make it too hard for me to rest when all my story elements are tied to resting, and
2. You can't make it too easy for me to rest when the difficulty is tied to how fresh I am.

Which is it? I understand that Larian is probably going for a delicate balance, but that particular tightrope may be too thin to walk.

+1

I already expressed my opinion on the subject a week ago, but I'm glad to see there are other like-minded people.

I lost my arm in a freak accident during a drinking game, I ate a kerbab afterwards and it grew back, true story.

I read your post on the other thread and I 100% agree with everything you said. Especially about the inconvenience and hurdle that Larian seems to have put. Also, the issue with the short rest, I noticed that when playing. You are forced to used both rest if your health is very low.

Hello
some food still heals. stew from the druid camp. spoiled bog house pie and strange goblin meat
I agree that food shouldn't heal. Well, despite the fact that it is convenient. I absolutely do not like the rest system that we have now. with all the household supplies and empty nights in the camp for the sake of communication with comrades.

Food in of itself is a good option - but eating during combat was just not realistic…
It’s a fine balance it’s annoying sending tonnes of food to camp and with supplies you can literally never run out of full rests.
I like the idea maybe increase the amount of food needed from 40 to 100 so it feels like it’s more important.
I think there was some mention of as your camp & characters grow more food gets consumed- I like that idea too.

Are we really going to talk about what does or does not feels realistic in world where litteraly 10.000 gold coins weights 2 pounds? Where people can "create fire" by snaping their fingers, heal from almost dead state by "resting until morning", or leting their friends "read the magic scroll", jump from high that is 10 times taller than themselves (20 times if you are Halfling) and yet survive without single broken bone, or litteraly get strike on their head with two handed axe and be quite fine, where the result of consuming poison does not depend on power of that poison but on that if you will get good number on saving throw?

I mean i get it, its covenient excuse ...
But please, dont try to pretend its anything else than excuse. -_-

I honestly think we should be able to eat food anytime out of combat. During combat might seem a bit much for some, but even that has been done in some movies such as the 1973 Three Musketeers movie (Michael York, & Raquel Welch starred), where at the Bastille fight scene they used and ate baguettes, cheese, and drank wine in combat. It made for a very enjoyable and fun scene to watch. Not saying this would be common place though, but really it depends on the personality of the participants (i.e. ROLEPLAYING). So it would be nice to have more options. And for those that are stick in the mud rules lawyers... give them the option to restrict themselves without inflicting their opinions (and options) on players that want more freedom in playstyle.

Aristotle said works of fiction should favor probable impossibilities over improbable possibilities. Suspension of disbelief covers the big, crazy things like spiderman or aliens or wizards. But the audience still expects the mundane, background things to function according to intuition : just because superman can fly, doesn’t mean he drinks his coffee cold. That would be weird.

Video games aren’t like other works of fiction because they rely on abstract simulations. Hit points, or lives, have been around forever and never really made sense. Why does the last bullet you take kill you when all the others did basically nothing? The reason HP works in the player’s mind, I’d argue, is because it measures distance to failure intuitively. Take a hit, get closer to failing. Grab a medkit, buy yourself some breathing room.

I think that the abstraction of health points works only if it doesn’t stretch suspension of disbelief to improbable possibilities. Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Goodberry, sure! That’s what this world is all about. But no believable world has characters eating during intense exercise unless they’re looking for stomach cramps. It’s possible, but improbable.

It's not a matter of looking for realism. It's about finding verisimilitude.

I was going to go on a little bit more, but now I see the post above mine. Basically, what Flooter said.