Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Rest Mechanics/ Camping Supplies - Take 1 million

The Point: To create a resting mechanic that makes sense from a story perspective and is strategic; providing value for both long and short rest, as well as value in the use of items such as potions, scrolls, etc.

NOT the Point: Not trying to hard limit resting. In fact, quite the opposite. We don't want resting to be limited to X number of rests, and I personally want even short rest to be not hard limited.

The Suggestion:

- No hard limits to long or short rest. In other words, you don't just have X number of short rests per day, nor do you have X number of long rests per area, or anything similar. This is at the party level, meaning no hard limits for the party as a whole, like it is currently with 2 Short Rests per party per day.
- Short Rest Camp Supply Cost: 2 Camping Supplies per character in the party per Short Rest.
- Short Rest HP Recovery Limit: Similar to Hit Dice but simpler, each individual character has 1 use of HP Recovery per character level. So, you click on the Short Rest button and a small menu pops up. Each character has HP Recovery button. The number of remaining uses is shown on the button. Click the button once and the number goes down 1. That specific character alone is healed a number of HP equal to their average Hit Dice value + Constitution Bonus. Example: MC has Con +2 and their Hit Dice is 1d8. They are level 2.
They click the HP Recovery button once and heal 7 HP. They now have 1 use left. They click it again and heal another 7 HP. That character only is out of HP Recovery uses. The party can still short rest however much they want, and the entire party would still recover things like Action Surge, etc., but that particular character who has used up their HP Recovery uses, would no longer heal HP during any other short rests that day. As with Hit Dice mechanics, you only regain 1/2 your Short Rest HP Recovery uses back every time you long rest. This then discourages short rest spamming and actually encourages a long rest after a few short rests. It puts the power of healing during short rest into the hands of the player, managing it separately and strategically for each individual characer. If Lae'zel doesn't need healing during your first SR, save it for when she lost almost all her HP at level 4, and she needs to use 3 or 4 HP Recovery uses in order to even get back up to close to full health. (Note: Arcane Recovery for wizards would be another button on the Short Rest menu, making it so wizards don't have it as a skill in their typical Hot Bar. It would be something they can only use during short rest - thus promoting short rest more for wizards.)
- Long Rest Camp Supply cost: 10 Camping Supplies per character in the camp per Long Rest.
- Partial Long Rest (1/2 cost long rest): Relatively as is to current mechanics, if you don't have enough to fully long rest, you can spend half as much for half the benefits. So, if you have 6 characters at camp, the cost to do a full long rest is 60 camping supplies. Let's say you only want to spend 30 (1/2 the total cost). You can still long rest for 30 camping supplies, but you only get half your spell slots back and half your total HP back. If your max HP is 60, and you have 40 currently, you'd gain 30 HP back. Thus, you'd still be at full health. If you have a total of 4 level 1 spell slots, and you used 2, you'd gain 2 back and be at full. So, the benefits of a partial long rest is that you spend less camping supplies, and you could still regain full health and spell slots. Thus, there is more strategy involved in the mechanics. Partial Long Rest would only be at 1/2 cost with 1/2 benefits. Anything less could potentially make short rests less valuable and appealing.

The logic behind this is that long rest is taking the rest of the day off with everyone at your camp, not just a one hour break with those in your party. So, characters may actually eat and drink several times during a long rest, and the fact that you have more people at camp than in the party would naturally make sense that it would require more resources. The cost is 5 times as much as a short rest to promote short resting more while making the cost of long rest a bit more impactful. In other words, though you may still have lots of camping supplies to spend, and you COULD long rest more frequently, the simple fact that short rest costs 5 times less would encourage using it over using the long rest. It's psychological. It's not an actual limit. You COULD long rest, but the cost for a party of 6 at camp is 60 camping supplies. OR... for the low-low cost of 8 camping supplies, you could short rest and regain some of your HP and abilities. The benefits of that short rest aren't as great, but DANG it's a lot cheaper.

And yet, having short rest cost something psychologically plays with a person's mind. Even though you may have 300 camping supplies, the fact that a short rest even costs maybe 8 camping supplies makes it so that you won't want to just spam it as much as if it is totally free. So, you short rest maybe 4 times and suddenly find you only have 268 camping supplies, plus you ran out of HP Recovery uses for 2 of your characters. Suddenly, you feel like maybe a long rest would be better, even a partial one.

This also causes players to ask, "Do I really need all the characters at camp? I mean, I only take 4 with me to adventure, and I use the same 4 all the time. Maybe I should ask Wyll and Gale to leave the party since I only ever use Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Astarion. Later, Karlach wants to join. I like her, but I'm not crazy about Astarion. Maybe I'll kick him and tell him to go his own way." Thus, you lower the long rest cost to 40 per rest as opposed to 60 or 70 or whatever depending on how many people you let join the camp (Volo, Halsin and other non-adventuring party members excluded from this - Barcus too at present).

But what if you play multiplayer party of 4? Will I never have origin characters at camp? At present, you can't have them join your party anyway. So why bother having them sit around at your camp all the time? Boot 'em. And, if at a later time, Larian allows us to have party of 6, fine. How much is it worth it to you to keep those characters in the camp? Party of 4 multiplayer with 5 origin characters (maybe more later) is roughly 90 camping supplies per long rest. That's a lot. Maybe, just maybe, you'd then have to spend a little bit of money at vendors to buy camping supply packs, if it is really that meaningful to you to keep them.

And again, keep in mind that you get over 300 camping supplies just between the beach and the grove in the beginning if you search everything. Likewise, the game awards you with plenty as you travel about the EA. It's actually more than enough to sustain a camp of 9 or 10 party members if you really want to keep them around. And again, if nothing else, you can buy camping supplies from vendors at a relatively low price.

Add Create Food/Water spell and add more food value to Goodberry, and this would make it even easier to manage your food supplies with a larger group at camp.

The point, remember, is NOT to limit players so they can't keep all the characters with them and still long rest A LOT. We WANT players to utilize both short and long rests APPROPRIATELY - meaning not use one too much so that the other is meaningless, and in order to do that we need both to have strategic value. We don't want players feeling like they NEED to cut characters from their camp or party. However, by providing a cost based on per character in either camp or party, it creates more of a psychological state where players are forced to think about what they really want to do.

In other words, it creates meaningful choice. If I short rest, it costs less but I get less from it. If I do it too much, I might hurt myself later by not having as much for a long rest. If I long rest too much with this many people in my party, I'll eventually have to go to the vendor to buy more camping supplies. Do I get rid of some camp members? Do I just deal with it and buy more supplies and store them at camp? Do I short rest more to avoid the steeper long rest costs? Bah! I hate Astarion anyway. He's out of here.

AND, I almost forgot, the system I'm suggesting here allows players to switch out party members and do even more short rests per day. Has Astarion used up his HP Recovery uses? Switch him out for Wyll who still has all 4 of his. The adventuring day continues. More strategy. More thought as to whether you should long or short rest.

And again, more strategy in regards to who you keep at camp and how many. A larger party at camp means more expensive long rests, but it provides you with the ability to switch out during a single adventuring day and use more short rests. So, it's a bit of a potential trade-off, and again, provides you, the player, with more meaningful, strategic choices.

This kind of thing is the end goal I and others are looking for. Something that causes players to view resting from a strategic standpoint.

Finally, and lastly, keep in mind that this is still a work in progress. I'm just trying to help develop the overall concept based on what Larian seemed to be trying to do when they first implemented the camping supplies system several patches ago. Please don't knitpick the details. Maybe it's not 2 camp supplies per character in party. Maybe its 5. Maybe long rest is 8 instead of 10, or 15 instead of 10. Maybe HP Recovery is restored to full number of uses every long rest. Whatever. Please look at the overall suggestion and don't flood this thread with knitpicking the finer details.

Thanks