And what if a player is resting too much and have to find/buy food ? Is that better than walking in a safe area ? It is even worse in my opinion.
On top of that, it's absolutely impossible to balance the supplies with such a map design.
Being able to rest as much as we can (like in the old games as you said) is absolutely not the problem imo.
The problem is the complete absence of any need to manage its resources.
I cannot buy the argument that random encounters during rests are soooooooo annoying. It happens A LOT - way too much - when you travel in many games, which often annoy me a lot too...
But not when you rest, except if you're extremely unlucky and get 3 of them in a row (which happened a very few times during the 15+ full BG1/2 playthrough I did)
An average of 4 combats of 5 minutes for 20 hours of gameplay won't change anyone's appeal for the game.
But managing your ressources would matter a bit, the world would feel more alive, the decision to press the long rest buttons would be more meaningfull and it would add a bit more tension/unforeseen events to your adventure. Only pros.
That's how it worked in other games and that's how it works in actual games. The unforeseen events makes you manage your ressources.
Limitations on top of these events may at best improve the requirement to manage our ressources (Solasta but with very linear maps), but may also sometimes be boring has hell (PoE when you cannot find a camp supply).
More short rest / long rest would make the short rest based classes and features way more powerfull. 2 short rests / long rest in a very good balance in my opinion.
Hmmm. The Random Encounters interrupting my resting happened to me a LOT, especially in Icewind Dale. Sometimes, I remember triggering a random encounter 3-6 times before finally getting a chance to rest. Each time, I slaughtered them easily enough with very little issues. So what good did it do? Nothing but annoy me. "Another random encounter?" I'd ask myself, and then painstakingly fight through it.
That said, I do agree that if Random Encounters were done well, it would enhance the game and it could be used for Long Rest discouragement in certain locations like the Hag's Lair. However, I fear that it won't be done well. Then we'll be stuck with annoying mob fights that mean very little because people will still spam Long Rests.
Yes, more Short Rests make Fighters/Monks/Warlocks more powerful, but that's the thing that makes their classes more important. They can reset their abilities with a Short Rest while the OP Damage Wielding Mage has to wait for a Long Rest. Once Mages can cast Fireballs and other high damage spells, THAT'S when they shine. At these earlier, baby levels, they don't shine as much, but give them more spell slots and more powerful spells at level 5 and above, and suddenly you'll see that they WAY overpower Fighters/Monks/Warlocks etc. UNLESS those classes can reset their abilities with Short Rests more frequently.
Take a Level 6 Spellcaster. In Tabletop, I have Gale leveled up to 6. He has 2 Level 3 spell slots, 3 Level 2, and 4 Level 1. He can cast Fireball, Fly, Haste, Lightning Bolt, or Vampiric Touch up to 2 times per day. He can do Dragon's Breath, Blur, Gust of Wind or Mirror Image 3 times per day. He can Cast Find Familiar, Magic Missile, Ray of Sickness, Burning Hands, Detect Magic, Identify, Mage Armor, Silent Image, Thunderwave or Witchbolt 4 times per day. That's 9 powerful spells per day, and with Arcane Recovery, that could add 3 more spell slots, for a total of 12 powerful spells per day plus he has an unlimited number of Cantrip uses, knowing: Fire Bolt, Light, Poison Spray, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost and Toll the Dead (some of those he's able to do because of items he picked up.)
So 12 powerful spells a day and an unlimited number of Cantrips.
Now, let's see what Vexir, my Battlemaster has. 1 Action Surge and 1 Second Wind per Short Rest. With BG3 system, that's only 2 of each per day. Not a whole lot per day. She also has 4 Superiority Dice, so 4 per short rest, 8 per day. Done. That's it. Are these as powerful as a Fireball being cast twice per day, or a Lightning Bolt? They're powerful, but against a single enemy here and a single enemy there. It's nothing compared to the Mage's 12 spell slots casting Firebals, Magic Missiles, Burning Hands, Dragon's Breath...
The balance in the system is actually based on classes like Fighter and Monk and Warlock being able to use Short Rests a bunch of times per day.
Look at Wyll. At level 6, he gets a whopping 2 Spell Slots. That's it. TWO. He doesn't even get a 3rd spell slot until Level 11. If he can't short rest and regain those 2 spell slots more frequently than twice a day, Wyll can't do jack with magic. He's screwed compared to the other classes.
Same with Wynari, my druid. She doesn't get her spells reset unless you long rest. She gets 10 spell slots total at Level 6. She doesn't get Arcane Recovery. She doesn't get Channel Divinity that resets per short rest. She gets Wild Shape that resets every Short Rest. So, she's worse off than a mage because she only gets 10 Spell Slots and 2 Wild Shape Resets per day. Again, one of the best things about a Druid's Wild Shape ability is that it resets every Short Rest. So, Druid players should be able to spam Wild Shape if they want and take a short rest after to recover it. That's one of the wonderful things about that ability.
So, I absolutely think that they need to unlimit Short Rests in terms of how many you can do a day, and instead limit Short and Long via the Camping Supplies. The Camping Supplies are already in the game. All they'd have to do now is adjust the cost for Long Rests and give Short Rests a Supply Cost so that Long Rests cost way more - thus making Short Rests more beneficial to take on a more frequent basis.
