Agree that traps in D&D are mainly meant to whittle away player resources so the players aren't at full strength for any encounter(s). This doesn't really work in BG3 because of the ease of long resting and the vast amount of healing potions we get. Assuming long resting mechanics and item abundance in BG3 won't change, the nature of traps in BG3 needs to.
Traps should have some notable consequence; if they just waste time then they should be removed from the game. Some examples of decent traps could be:
- Alarm traps, notifying some enemy of your presence.
- Environment affecting traps. E.g, blocking off a passage, forcing you to take a different, probably more dangerous, route. Or the opposite, where you need to disarm the trap in order to pass through (although I would probably classify this as a puzzle, not a trap).
- Traps that affect your gear/inventory. This would require very careful balance. Causing X camp supplies to rot could be okay; completely destroying worn armor is too much and would likely just result in players reloading.
- Traps that deal damage but also instantly start combat, so you don't have time to heal up.
