Really BG3 has a system similar to Pillars of Eternity with limited individual inventory for immediate use an always accessibly unlimited stash, but it's just clumsily implemented.
I’ve never played that game. How accessible is the unlimited stash? Can you both send and recieve anything to and from it?
Obsidian erased inventory limit all together by design - Stash is always available and is not a physical location in the world:
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/USkmaym.jpg)
To compensate, you can't change equipment once combat starts. It's is not a perfect system, so I am not campaigning for anyone to copy it - mostly because not restricting what players can pick up results in you picking up everything to sell - that can make players glance over cool stuff. That worked better in PoE2 with reduced garbage loot, and more unique items worth keeping. Hilariously enough, in PoE1 camp supplies were a seperate abstract resource, that one could carry limited amount at one time and would have to manually treck back to town to buy more if you mismanage your rests. So that's a complete reversal of Larian system - Obsidain made all combat items available for players in between encounters, while using tedium to encourage certain pace to rests.
They simply understand that BG-3 will have 2 major groups of players ... DnD players, who loves all their rules and restrictions ... and DoS players, who loves all teir cheese and chaotic stuff ...
And so they develop the game for both groups ...
You want to care about encumberance? > You can.
You want to have infinite inventory? > You can.
Except they they didn't, because there is not ruleset that would limit access to stash. Imagenening the game does something is not the same as the game doing something. Self-imposed rules are just that.
That said one can encourage certain playstyle through tedium, rather then hard rules, and:
Still, I admit there’s more to encumbrance than what players can pick up. If Larian only care about limiting what’s available to players in combat, then the system works fine.
It just doesn't apply to food. There is no point to carrying food with you, and even having to retrieve it from stash, is still less tedium then micromanaging inventory when characters are getting overencoumbered. There just could be even less tedium, and that is always a goal worth pursuing. If food were automatically sent to stash, or were change to an abstract food counter, that would be even better. Granuality of systems is valuable only if it creates gameplay, and food as it is implemented doesn't.
Edit:
They simply understand that BG-3 will have 2 major groups of players ... DnD players, who loves all their rules and restrictions ... and DoS players, who loves all teir cheese and chaotic stuff ...
And so they develop the game for both groups ...
You want to care about encumberance? > You can.
You want to have infinite inventory? > You can.
I also have to point out that even by your logic this argument doesn't hold any water. Adding what OP suggests (long rest UI taking into account food in the stash) would not inflence self imposed limitations that you suggest. If someone doesn't want to use stash and limit themselves only to what they carry they could still do so, while those who would send food to stash as it is pointless to carry it around would have easier access to it. Nothing would change, except saving some players from having to run to the stash and back before they rest.
