Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Proposed Solution For Unlimited Rests

Seen these two issues mentioned a few times;

1. The fact that players have no limits on long rests.
2. The fact that the camp position is immersion breaking and goofy.

I'm sure Larian is working on some sort of fix for this, or at the least has considered working on one. I have an idea I think might work. But it could definitely use some fine tuning and inputs from people much smarter than I am.

1. Give the camp a fixed position.

2. Make the camp discoverable to hostile NPCs. Reasons may need to be scripted i.e. goblins / beasts / bandits searching for victims.

3. After a set amount of 'peaceful' long rests have an encounter trigger when returning to camp.

4. The encounter starts with the players noticing the approach of hostile NPCs. The players then make a decision between fight and flight.

5. The camp is inaccessible until a choice is made.

Details:

-Players could be allotted 2 'peaceful' long rests between level ups.
(Meaning that as long as you level up every two long rests you never have to worry about having your camp discovered / inaccessible)

-Long rests could rollover if unused so that resting less at lower levels means you have more rests available at higher levels.

- If characters choose to fight, they must win in order to maintain the secrecy of the camp and have access to rest.

-If characters choose flight they nominate 1 member to draw the NPCs attention and lead them away from camp.
(This player would need to draw the hostile NPCs 'far enough' away before circling back, which coincidentally would mean they are removed as playable characters for 2 level ups before returning)

Outcome:

Delaying rests until absolutely necessary means a guaranteed recovery. Waiting too long between rests means players might be too weakened to survive another fight and have to temporarily sacrifice the presence of a party member. Considering party size is limited to 4 and there are currently at least 6 playable characters to choose from there's some wiggle room. Which is good. I think it means it's not too severe a penalty to introduce. Just enough to dissuade people from camping after every fight. It adds a sense of scarcity, strategy, and immersion that the camp currently lacks.

Random encounters... I like them especially for camp/resting.

Ressources management is even more important and resting become a part of the party management instead of a "full life + companions interractions" button...

Yes. When you are beat down and used up all your spells, the exact thing you need is a tough battle suddenly hitting you before you can rest. Nothing makes a game playable like assured death.

Random encounters belong in the overall world, not at camp which you don't access until you absolutely need it.

Between level ups? Just don't play a wizard past level 5 when level ups become way slower and continue to become way slower.

I like this idea, but I don't think it should be tied to levels.
As you level up, each level takes longer to hit than the last.

If it is properly implemented, I think it could be a good solution, but if it isn't done well, it would detract from the average player's experience.

I myself would prefer cool downs on spells and skills rather than unrealistically pitching a tent in the next room where hostiles are. Assuming you didn't Paladin your way into the Goblin Camp, maybe if they offer you lodging for being an Absolute, it would be more realistic.

I could imagine a long rest in the abandoned outpost in the Underdark if you get there past the ogre. So long resting during the attack on the goblins seems realistic to me if you have that, though the camp would have to be updated.

I've suggested a few times that the most "realistic" solution to the camping issues might be to add the ability to have a long rest mid-travel on site, in addition to keeping the base camp for crafting, social activities, etc.

This new camping ability would fall between short rests, would require setting a campfire and carrying sleeping gear, and have the risk of an "encounter" depending on where you camped. Near the goblin camp might see goblins, in the UD it might be much more dangerous.

You could have the option of setting a "guard"- a character who foregoes the full rest benefits and gets only the short rest. With a guard, there would be no "surprise" attacks.

Then, the constant visiting of the base camp could be scaled back some and could be allowed less often. It would do away with all the unrealistic popping around the map from camp to Underdark, that sort of thing.

I do like the growing base camp with it's options for visitors and camp followers a lot- it's the traveling at will which I find quite un-immersive.

You should definitely not have access to any kind of camp when you are in the middle of adventuring or in a dungeon. Thats just ridiculous that you can fast travel to camp while indoors. What is this, skyrim?

I've never been fond of random encounters. It's a really annoying dynamic to run into when you've just made it through a tough fight. "Great! I finally killed the bullette, out of spells and healing, guess it's time to crawl back to camp. Ah! I just got killed by some gnoll randos while traveling, time to reload . . ."

Instead, give camp a Netherese portal but make it one that requires an expendable resource to activate it. The camp portal only opens when the sigil is traced with the dust of bloodstone and ash or somesuch. Would have the same effect as the PoE camping supplies but keep the camp dynamics Larian has setup.


(and while we are at it explain why the party is the only ones capable of using the portals)

I wished they went for a Pathfinder-like implementation. Have you 'home base' (which can be an inn, a more fortified campsite, a castle,...) where you have your social activities, non-active party npc are waiting and crafting, unlimited save resting (basically the camp from BG3); while on the road you have your on the spot camps. Supplies are required for resting (can be foraged by the party if they don't have it, but it will take additional time, though not possible while in dungons, there you need your supplies).

Short rests simply consum (some food and) hours (probably limiting them to 2 per long rest makes sense, but most will take long rests anyhow for spell/abilities) though no random encounters.

There are 4 roles during each long rest that party members can do:
1. Foraging - based on survival (instead of using own supplies, depending on the success you either get them within the lenght of your rest or you need to spend more hours)
2. Camuflage - based on stealth (success means you have a significantly lower chance of a random encounter)
3. Cooking - based on something (give a sime +1 bonus to some stats until the next rest)
4. Gaurd - based on perception (on a success you notice the random encounter before they surprise you).


Naturally PF: Kingmaker had a timer (though by far not as punitive as it may sound, at least from my experience with the EE) so wasting time could make quest harder or have them fail - an urgency that BG3 doesn't have - for better or worse (some like it others don't, but that's a problem in pretty much every RPG I've played as narrative coherence gets challenged by user experience). Also their simple bedroll or more elaborate campsite made it feel even better.

BG3 sadly took a mechanic from DAO put it into a D&D ruleset and achieved a immersion breaking and balance effecting situation - in DAO you had no reasons to go back to camp in the middle of a dungon and even if there was no short cut for it. At least nobody forces us to abuse the resting mechanic. I barely used it in my playthrough and most of the times just because I was trying to figure out if there are more companion interactions. The current state doesn't bother me, but I think its gameplaywise a very boring and unimmersive solution.



As for the argument pro or against random encounters:
I think Pathfinder had a good solution. I had only a handful of attacks at camp through over 100h of gameplay. Yeah, there might have been 1-2 situation where i simply reloaded because I didn't want to bother with a fight, but before you say that there should be none because you don't enjoy it, keep in mind that for many resource management in D&D is part of the fun and if you have full control of when you fight and you can get there always rested the game becomes trivial and boring. So random encounters should at least be something difficulty level turn on or off and might even effect the rate of occurance. If the mechanic isn't introduced by Larian than you will probably not be able to even mod it in, while turning them off is probably a very simple change.

This is brilliant!
You really should write it to feedback on BG3 launcher so it dont get lost in this topic. :-/

Yes. It was from the moment they have shown it. What is the camp now, some other dimension patch of plane field? Even if you are in the area with unique environment, camp will look the same. Inappropriate.

Rest should be possible only in special places. Inn, maybe some special caves, maybe some portal to your base camp (look at POE) or pocket dimension item found later in-game. But not at any place any time. Short rest is ok. I hope Larian will not go pleasing game-journalists with more and more casual features.

The way many modules are written for D&D, exploration spaces and dungeon-crawl spaces are built with the idea of defensible positions in mind; the most common examples are small rooms with only one entrance that, in raw mechanical design terms, serve no actual purpose beyond being a location that the party could in theory use to bed down and get rest they need, in a pinch. It's not usually safe, but it's easier to disguise your presence and set a quiet watch and buy the eight hours you need.

In video game translations, this is like having small zones within your dungeon-crawl space or exploration terrain that are demarcated as being 'rest possible'; the players are notified about it when discovering such defensible locations.

This works quite well for limiting long resting, without actually restricting it, because most players will choose to push on through their resources until they feel they need to, and seek out or back track to one of these resting points only when they feel it's worthwhile to do so. What counts as worthwhile will be different for each player, or course - an ideal system leaves that determination up to the players.

Such a space isn't necessarily safe; just safer, and easier to respond to if danger finds you. The potential for random encounters can exist here, as they happen upon your camp; most random encounters of this sort would be balanced to be only moderately challenging to a party operating on minimal resources, have a chance of happening when you begin to rest, be limited to one per rest, and after dealing with one your rest completes and you get your refresh of everything, as though no encounter had occurred.

The worry about being attacked while at your weakest is legitimate, sure, but it also has an easy solution; most player will not push until they are falling over dead before resting, if their only option for rest bears a risk of danger thanks to their location. It's a system that self regulates, to a certain extent, without actually restricting players because the ones who still do want to long rest after each encounter still can, if they don't mind seeking out one of these safe spots between every encounter on their crawl - and even if they are interrupted, they can happily burn everything to nuke the interruption, because they know they'll get a full refresh after it's done. A watch character (or characters) could give the party the opportunity to have the upper hand (or not, and to be caught off guard) - and upon noticing the danger, the opportunity to strike first, threaten off, or try to avoid detection, etc.,

Having the main camp act as a larger scale home base - or rather, that is, having a larger, fixed home base location that is a world-anchored location, per act of the game - can work in tandem with this, as the space where major interpersonal events and other important occurrences can happen, while temporary camps in dangerous spaces can be a place for snippets of banter and dialogue that fleshes out characters and gives them more presence, without being necessary or important to their story.

I'm fairly sure everything I've said here has been suggested by others in other threads already, but I just wanted to add my opinion on the solution - I wouldn't agree with limiting the number of rests that will be uneventful by level; that would get impractical quickly, and would lose its meaning before long... but I would support there being some kind of under-the-hood mercy flag that increases your odds of an uninterrupted rest whenever your rest is interrupted.

I really like Niara's suggestion. I would also throw in a few Pathfinder elements, as suggested by biomag. I would love to have the chance to post a guard or use camouflage. Those things would really improve immersion.


I love your solution overall and would never say no to additional banter, but this bit looks problematic to me. Maybe it's just me, but I already feel that there are more "camp" events than I have the chance to experience without long resting even when I don't really need to. If long rests along the way didn't trigger such events or allow me to interact with companions (e.g. talking to Wyll about his past) I would probably backtrack to home base anyway, just not to miss content. Dreams should definitely trigger anywhere you long rest and the same goes for Astarion's nightly visit or Shadowheart's "something's wrong" cutscene. If I am not mistaken, the last two already only trigger if said companions are in the party, something that makes very little sense when you're in camp with all your companions, as it is the case right now.

That's a good point.

I think one problem with the camp events right now is that you can miss them. That's on Larian to fix. Things that are triggered should 'wait' for you and play the next time you rest, even if you trigger multiple flags between rest, and simply queue up to play one after another, one per rest. It is an inherent problem in the game design right now that the story elements are dependent on you resting almost constantly just to see them bit by bit, and risk missing out if you don't rest enough... while also telling you that time is of the essence, and background encouraging you not to let too many days pass. They are shooting themselves in the foot and fighting their own game design with this set up, and they need to fix it before we can get a truly satisfying rest system.

I still believe that some kind of "energy bar" is best solution for this problem. :-/

It should be deplenishing by small amount while walking and talking, and by moderate amount while fighing.
It should be replenished by a little bigger than small, but also not as big as moderate, amount with short rests.

It limits use of long rest, since you cant rest until your party "get tired" ...
It forces us to use long rest, since you should be uneffective in fight when "tired" ...

Thanks! Will do.

Speaking of other mechanics to impose a time constraint and therefore limited rests. The game Desktop Dungeons uses fog of war as a healing mechanic. As the character explores the map, they regain hitpoints. Such that the timing of exploration vs combat becomes strategic and integral to success.

How about using fog of war and filling in the blank areas on the map as a way to simulate the passing of day into night. And allow characters to rest peacefully once night time has fallen. If the party is desperate for rest, they can carefully explore while avoiding combat until they trigger a rest.

Would prob have to combine this mechanic with others mentioned to account for when the entire available map has been explored.

That's exactly what "ressources management" is about.

Will you fight the next goblins group in that dungeon or will you go back at camp right now because roads can also be dangerous ?