Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Resting system.

Tried a new resting system in patch 6 and not impressed. I'll say again, in my opinion the system should look like this;

- For a short rest you spend some food and make it anywhere, just out of combat.

- Long rest available only in certain places on map(like fast travel points now) and requires supplies. They must be like checkpoints(possibly even savepoint on ironman mode), so when you having passed some part of plot, there is an alert some sort that the "day is over" or "people are tired (as it was in the bg1\2)" next checkpoint unlocked and you can go to camp for resting, communicate with companions and the plot go forward(new dialog option unlocked etc).


If you want just restore spells and abilities, you can rest at the last open checkpoint\campplace or call it whatever you want.

This is a very bad idea.
I won't dwell long on the idea of saving only while resting in a game that is 90% rng based.
However, resting in a given location is pointless because there is a fast travel in the game from anywhere on the map. Changing it to specific places does not make any sense, at most the player will spend 30 seconds to get back to the place.
That way, it might as well stay as is.

Limiting rest to some stage in the story makes even less sense because the game is fully non-linear, which means that the developers are not able to predict in which order the player will fight.
Something like this is turning off the problems.

I am still waiting for a good solution to the "rest system". This undortunately isn't one of them.

Tying rest to specific place, will only mean that players have to backtrack to rest. Tying long rests to story progression (and that's what OP suggest from what I understand) means that either game will rely on metaknowledge for success (it is after all handcrafted game with no proceducal generation) or will offer resting places generously enough to make the whole system irrelevant in the first place. There is of course Dark Souls system, that works thanks to respawing all enemies between checkpoints - I could see it work for DnD system. Gaining metaknowledge and what spells to prepare would be part of gameplay loop. And while I might be interested in a game like that, I don't think it's a good fit for BG3.

For long rest to work, we would need a systemic risk/reward system - ambushes were a thing in BG1&2, as discussed before it is more of a flavour then actual mechanic. I think one could impliment it well in real rogue-like - with permadeath, ironman, and systemic consequences. In handcrafted, story driven adventure, resting will always be out of place - unless, of course, someone proves me wrong one day.

Other than short rests requiring supplies, these are all things that you can do on your own, if that's how you want to play it. I have missed out on plenty of comp dialog/comp story advancement because I don't "abuse" the long rest system. I am, again, more concerned about adding some kind of notification about those, than limiting what someone else can do.

I feel we will disagree on many things , but by principle, if a feature can be skipped or ignored and isn't designed to be a skippable minigame (like Gwent), then it's a bad feature that probably shouldn't be in the game.

I think you also pointed out an issue - someone who well manages resources and doesn't spam rests, can miss major story content because of that. So pacing your own rests isn't exactly trivial - you rest too often, and you might triviliaze encounter by spamming powerful spells that should be limited in use. Don't do that and you can miss story content. I am in the same camp. There is lots of companion and follower stuff I haven't seen, because I just don't rest often enough. That's not great.

In this case, however, I don't blame Larian. I think it is clever to include story content in camp - makes it feel more like part of the game. But it is awkward balancing act, otherwise one can ask, why resting or spells-per-rest are a thing to begin with. "Story content at camp" indicator might be some kind of a solution.

Did you miss the mention of the " for ironman mode only"?


This makes sense and is fully justified in the story driven rpg its gives a sense of time and progress of the plot that it is not felt right now. The game is not linear true, but it divided into zones and has important steps in plot, like example after the first visit to the Druids Grove(lets say after a dialogue with the Kanga) another camplace is unlocked. Another unlocked...lets suppose after the Hag den. So on.

This is just a reasons why I suggest campplace system. You have passed some stage in the plot, you receive an alert and need rest. Right now it is too messy.

And from the point of view of limitations and chalenge, I also see its as logical solution, you have a certain amount of resources(spells and skills) and you must use it carefully to pass some part of the game, before next chekpoint/rest will be unlocked.

I'd be all for making rest spots "contextual" to the map in the same way Solasta handle them (meaning: every now and then you'd come across to a specific location suited to be a camping spot).


An even better solution would be the Pathfinder Kingmaker system, but that would be a larger amount of work.

Hilariously enough, even both combined aren't going to be a FRACTION of the work required for the convoluted Larian's instanced system, while being vastly superior in terms of flexibility, coherence and immersion.

No D&D game yet has done a good job with rests. NWN 1 and 2 let you rest after every battle, and you were full health. Solasta works, but it's only because it is more linear. The old BG games were just annoying with random encounters or you had to painstakingly travel back to a rest area, sometimes through multiple area maps. You could still rest as much as you wanted, but the price was being annoyed.

I still think the best solution is tweak the current system. Forget the whole limiting short rest to only two. Instead, implement a camping supplies cost for short rest that is much more reduced than long rest requirements. It should be based on character level and number of party members that you have currently in your party. One camping supply per character level in your party. So, if you have a party of four level one characters, a short rest would only cost four camping supplies. If you have a party of four level four characters, a short rest would cost 16 camping supplies. Thus, the cost is minimal, but a short rest also does not provide all the benefits of a long rest. Wizards and clerics still don't recover full spell slots and you still don't recover to full health. You can short rest virtually anywhere as long as not in combat, symbolizing that you did find some rest area that was safe and you took an hour to bandage yourself, eat some food and drink, and recover your stamina.

Similarly, the long rest should be a bit more realistic in that you need to feed everyone at your camp. It wouldn't be just based on who you have in your party, but who you have at your camp. Since it would be the primary meal of the day, it should cost two camping supplies per character level at the camp. So, if you have six characters at your camp that are all level four, that would cost you 48 camping supplies (6x4=24 levels x2 per level). If you can't pay the total cost, like it is now, you only get partial benefits based on how many camping supplies you use. In this particular example, if I only had 36 camping supplies my party would only heal 3/4 it's health and spell slots, and if they only had 24 camping supplies, they would only recover half their health and spell slots. And so on and so forth.

This creates more of a strategy to the gameplay. How many camping supplies are you going to keep on you versus how many are you going to leave at camp? How many members of your team are you going to take with you at a time, knowing that the more you have with you the more it's going to cost just a short rest? How many are you going to keep with you at your camp versus telling someone to leave, knowing that the more people you have at your camp, the more it will cost just to Long rest? And, it causes players to think about how often they are really going to rest, knowing that every rest is going to deplete some of their camping supplies.

So rest as much as you want player. Just know that if you abuse the system too much, it's going to cost you more in the end, because you're going to have to go to the vendor to buy camping supplies in order to keep on resting as much as you do.

And while we're on the topic, I do agree with those individuals who think that there should be a literal area on the map for our camp. It does bug me that it is literally, as Raphael himself puts it, middle of nowhere. There are plenty of places that the mini camps could be designed to mirror instead of being mini camps that are some sort of nebulous room or chamber that exists somewhere that you can't really reach on the game map itself. Why make the mini camps and the main camp exist nowhere?

So, for example, if I long rest on the beach, why not have the mini camp look just like the beach near where the door is to the dank crypt? If we long rest in the dank crypt, why not make the mini camp look just like the room with the fireplace, the dining table, etc.? If you long Rest in The Grove, why not make it look like some private corner of the actual Grove? They could even make it so that you can't leave the certain area where the mini camp is, and make it so that there is no one around, but make it look like an actual location on the map that is recognizable to the player.

And finally, I still would love for them to implement some sort of semblance of time via time-based events. I know I've mentioned this before, but I still think it's a good idea. By time based events, I mean things that happen because you long rested a certain number of times. I don't mean that missions are locked out or that you failed them because you took too many long rests. I just mean that something happens when you long rest a certain number of times.

Long rest three times after you find out about the ritual? Rath steals the idol, disrupt the ritual, and it is forced to start all over again. He is then locked up in the prison area and he is no longer able to help you in any way, unless you break him out. This is just one example of what I mean. It would provide players with more complications if they take too long by using too many long rests, and it adds to immersion and helps to create some semblance of time.

I like the idea of your companions complaining about being tired to remind you to rest, ala BG 1&2. At present, I think the current rest system is better than what we had. Two short rests to replenish health, and a long rest for spell slots & abilities. I think this makes it necessary for us to not blow through all of our spells & abilities every single fight if we want to keep moving forward, rather than engage one set of enemies, long rest, engage the next set, long rest, etc etc.

With the PF system, some time happen when you storm the fortress, everyone shouts; Hurry up! You need to quickly get to the main hall and defeat that !name! bad boy. But you lie down in front of the door of his room and sleep like a baby. Such immersion...

I think Dheuster wrote a quite interesting suggestion in his feedback thread

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=795295#Post795295 (warning, a lot of text)

Basically he suggests that the camp resting is kept mainly for story progression and that hit points and spell slots gradually replenish over time instead
I would add some twists to it but overall I feel it's a nice compromise that gives benefits to both camps. You can burn through all your resources in every encounter but then you'll have to wait until the replenishing is done, or you can use your resources more sparingly and therefor get a smoother experience.

I have no idea of what you are even talking about.
The point of the PF system is that you can set camp anywhere there's enough ground space and if not in close proximity of enemies.
And then you can choose between a shorter resting time that just use up supplies or taking longer and hunting for food.

it's a system that works in synchrony with the fact that you often have limited time to achieve certain goals, so you can't be EXCEEEDINGLY wasteful with your rests.
The specific of when you rest exactly is irrelevant, not to mention mostly up to the player.

If anything, your frankly silly complaint about the possibility of resting just before an important fight applies to pretty much any other relevant title in the genre. PF is the one that disincentivized that behavior the most.

The system itself was rather disliked considering how it got castrated in WotR

Yeah, well, people who disliked it are incompetent fools and they can take a hike for all I care.
It's pretty much the best compromise between depth and flexibility I've seen in the genre... And I've been playing the genre since the Ultima V days in the late '80s.

I'm also absolutely not a big fan of how they botched it in WOTR for a more abstract, obtuse and slightly more punishing system with the corruption thing, but all things considered it didn't change TOO MUCH in practical terms.

Conceptually it makes LESS sense, but in practical terms it's still a system that discourages the player from taking too many unnecessary rests without being exceedingly punishing, which in the end is all you are supposed to ask from a competent rest system in a CRPG.

The system with WotR is in practice unlimited rest. The corruption system on paper is supposed to discourage people from resting. The problem is that the bar loads so slowly that you have to rest every short while to get the first level of corruption at all.
About 90% of the locations in the game are so small that you cannot physically rest more than 2-3 times (if you do it after each fight).
In every larger location there are items (more than one) that reduce it practically to zero, so you can rest as much as you want.
There are supposedly random fights in the game while resting, but I have to admit that I haven't seen a single one throughout the game.
What really keeps players from resting is that after each rest you have to spend 5 minutes buffing.
Unless you have the ability that your buffs last for 24 hours, then you can rest again and renew all your slots for free.

I don't mind disagreeing, forum conversations would be really boring if everyone just agreed all the time.

However, with some resource management, LRs can be skipped, by design, or, maybe the better term is (self) limited. But the primary argument for this kind of thing is the opposite, and having it be abused. Since I don't abuse it, I miss out on a lot of stuff I shouldn't be able to miss out on, comp/tadpole interactions being my primary examples. I've seen more of them on YouTube than I have in game. This is a double edged sword, however. I don't see the need to continually revamp the rest system because I simply don't abuse it, but I do miss out on things that are rather important for character development and driving the stories forward. Stories because it's companion and the actual game. In swtor, comps will get one of two "we need to talk" icons on their portraits, one for "in any tavern/SH" and another for "on the ship". Comps already get quest markers, they just need to expand that to "go to camp, so we can talk" some kind of way, even if it's just adding a quest marker to show they need to talk, and if you talk to them where ever you are, they can say "Can we do this in camp" or something. I do agree that camp should be important, they just need to add clues that I have to go there, especially if I'm not having issues managing my resources, or don't feel the need to abuse the LR system.

No, the system in WotR is brilliant and gets challenging as soon as you take Drezden. On harder difficulties it not easy by any means.

Well, I don't.
Nor I want to be able to.

In fact, being able to "rest after each fight" is exactly what any barely competent rest system should discourage.

In what way? I finished the game on core level. Rest was no problem at all.

My point is that you can't rest more than 2-3 times because there aren't that many fights in a given location.
More likely, however, is that you will not have to rest more than once at the very beginning (just to get rid of exhausted)