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To me, playing AD&D isn't about getting there quickly. In old school fantasy Paper and Pencil, resting is just as much about managing player resources which is necessary for game balance, as it is a narration tool. It serves verisimilitude by reminding players that their characters are people, not comic heroes and that one false step can ruin their camping holiday. New players often still have to learn the scope of the world they're playing in, especially when coming from modern settings to a fantasy map, like Forgotten Realms. It's a bit like sending them to scout camp. We're used to having information instantly available and having almost any place in the world in reach of maybe three days travelling in leisure clothes. Then, most players, including myself, tend to idealise and overestimate their characters. This tends to lead to player expectations that their characters can work a 24h-shift without exhaustion or mental issues, walk 40 miles in worn-out boots, just skip-a-dee-doo-daa over broad streams and mountain ranges and then arrive just in time to humiliate the villains in combat. That would have reduced the Lord of the Rings to a YouTube Short.

But if you happen to end up in my campaign world, you lose the first of your fresh character's precious few hit points to sores from bad footwear while checking out town libraries for the mysterious monster that attacked your village. Then you find out that you'll have to travel to the big city to talk to a sage which is over a week of travelling due to resting and difficult terrain, even though the city is just next to the town on the large map. No, you won't make it there tonight! With a dangerous stretch of forest in the way and assuming a classical medieval Europe-flavoured map, before you reach an area where anything with significant hit points wants to bite you, your enemies would be humidity, hypothermia, bringing or finding clean water, injuries from falling in difficult terrain and crossing rivers without drowning, losing equipment or getting sick in soaked clothes. Lack of sleep can kill under these conditions. Only when players have tasted that mud and learned not to overpace, to conserve arrows, make plans what to pack for a journey, as well as keeping vermin out of their campsites, their throats wet and their feet dry, they're ready for the next chapter.

But even when you've become Lord Badgerbane of Examplewood and returned from your first successful adventures with solid footwear and spells that keep your tents clean and safe, you still have to consider exhaustion. With wizards, it's clear that they have to memorise spells. But that doesn't mean a fighter won't run out of power. Muscles burn calories, micro traumas accumulate, lack of sleep wears down your reaction, focus and eventually determination and mental health. Yet, while you're cuddling up in your bedroll hoping your body will stop hurting, the undead you failed to destroy and only made angry are catching up and may reach you before your group reaches the temple where they have the thing that gets rid of angry undead. I mean, who would cast Sleep on a skeleton? Undead or other supernatural creatures not having to sleep only really comes to play when considering that it not only gives them a tactical but also a strategic advantage over yapping mortal meat sacks. Resting also automatically arranges for camp and tavern encounters and lots of other fun, at least if you're the DM. As a player, you want to avoid having to rest, of course.

After completing these low- to mid-level stages, my current group hit their Spinal Tap-stage. It was no longer "get away from my gate, scruffy!" after emerging from Examplewood, looking like a shrub and smelling like fish, skunk and bear. It was "Welcome to our humble town, Saer!" because they'd teleported in clean clothes. They'd finally beaten the system and got their Rings of Sustenance, Potions of Vitality, Girdles of Giant Strength, and suddenly all kinds of absurd things started happening just because they could, and because they'd become the rock stars of their world. The contrast to what they had learned before really came to play here. And, not resting became yet another source for DM atrocities because the potions were becoming a habit, but couldn't defeat all side-effects of not sleeping. Once off their juice, characters found they'd slept four days and developed all kinds of insanities while on it.

Of course, it depends on your style of play. If you're playing the same characters in the same world for a quarter of a century, keeping these things in mind avoids lame reboots or retcons. If you only have an evening for a story from start to finish or generally start at the dungeon entrance and just want an evening of fun chopping up monsters with your friends, then resting shouldn't come into conflict with having fun.

Thanks Salo. That's just what I needed.

I accidentally massacred everyone at Last Light Inn. (wrong choice in "welcome" dialogue with Jaheira) Then I had the chance to "talk to the dead" with Rolan. That was interesting. I recommend to do that, if he falls for some reason.

Starting fight against coffin skeletons outside mirror with Necromancy of Thay.

Hit 81%
critical miss, nope, awesome power of time reversal
Hit
Turn ends (level 4)
Ripost as someone runs up, hit
My turn, critical miss, again, nope, awesome power of time reversal
They cycle through their turns, still alive
Miss, nope, time reversal
One attacks me, critical miss
I ripost, critical miss
That's 4 critica misses in the first 13 attacks, 2 by me.
Next cycle round through them, one does two critical misses in a row.
Hit, miss
Next cycle round, 4 left, 2 of them do a critical miss
Me, critical miss, nope-ing time reversal
Hit
Go-round, a few hits and misses
Me, hit
Go-round, 3 left, 2 arrow hits, mitigated by the gloves, one critical miss
Me, miss (2)
Go-round, miss miss miss
Me, critical miss
Go-round, miss hit hit
Me, miss (4, I need a 5 to hit with my bonuses)
Go-round, critical miss, miss, miss
Go-round, hit, miss, miss
Me, hit (down to 2)
Go-round, miss, hit, one runs away, me critical miss on opportunity attack
Me, miss 3
Go-round, miss, hit
Me, miss 4 (need 5 now that oil of accuracy has worn off)
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, hit
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, critical miss
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, critical miss
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, critical miss
Go-round, miss, hit (gloves mitigate)
Me, miss, 2
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, critical miss
Go-round, miss, miss
Me, miss, 3
Go-round, miss, critical miss
Me, hit, down to 1
Go-round, hit
Me, hit
Go-round, miss
Me, hit, fight over


By my count, including reloads and their swings, that's 18 critical misses in 82 swings. The stats on this are disturbing.

Playing "Brutal" mod difficulty, both sides swing with disadvantage. Chance of a critical miss with disadvantage is 1 - chance of not a crit, which is 1 - (19/20 * 19/20) = 0.0975, or a little less than 10%.

I thought I'd try Google AI for the fun of it:

Chance of a 0.0975 event occuring 18 times in 82 tries

AI Overview The chance of an event with a 0.0975 probability occurring exactly 18 times in 82 tries is approximately 0.0522% (or 1 in 1,914). If you are looking for the probability of the event occurring 18 or more times, the chance is approximately 0.0806% (or 1 in 1,240).

"About 18" would be a little more likely still. Regardless, even that is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out of the realm of reasonable chance. Again, this is all the freaking time.


Any explanations? Or does the code have an Exciting-i-nator Engine?


What a pretty graph from AI!

At least for the pillar bug. This can be easily avoided by changing the camera angle. However, I often run into another problem with prone enemies where the attack goes through but doesn't deal any damage, and the enemy automatically dodges it.

Oh, I just wanted to do it for the nostalgia. Back then we used discs to play games and I guess wanted to relive that for a while :P

If you dismiss the character to camp, they should be kept in Wither's Wardrobe of Wayward Friends, freeing space in your party for other characters until they're taken out or if your friend ever re-joins.

I think it's pretty cool. You can still see the relative amount of health that's left, so you can make tactical decisions based on that. I don't think not knowing the exact amount increases difficulty that much. The only thing it really prevents is knowing whether you're likely to kill a character at full health in one round. Otherwise, you can estimate and plan based on the percentage of health left.

I want to third this. It really is quite terrible in my humble opinion to the point of nearly breaking the game for me. It's certainly hampering my enjoyment of it a great deal!

Why on earth has the trackpad scrolling problem not been addressed yet? I still can't believe there's no way to adjust this in-game. I've been trying everything I can think to including using LinearMouse to work around this problem, all to no avail. Is someone at Larian looking into this? Please? Someone?

Welcome, to this very dead part of the forum.


The latter, by far. The game has its way of surprising you with far too powerful creeps among a hundred pushovers. Also: No resetting skill or attribute points.
Its all about knowing which spells are viable and in which order to explore the overworld. Normal mode has the same problems, but is manageable.

Since it's been a month, I doubt you are still looking for an answer, anyways:

Generally, the enemy balancing is much better in BD, so no more sudden OHKOs.
Magic is awful early on and there are, again, lots of skills that are not worth your time. This time you can reset them in exchange for money though. Also charms are so OP and money is so abundant, that every build either becomes viable or can be switched out lategame.

If your DD playthrough taught you how to exploit every broken game mechanic you could go for hard mode. If not, that may involve lots of grinding, which is easily the worst part of BD, in which case I cannot recommend it.