Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Possible encounter when returning to camp

One of the coolest things I remember in DA:O, was when you teleported to camp, you had an chance of dropping into a random encounter. Sometimes it really was challenging, and a great surprise when you are low on potions or whatever, and you get hit with a random encounter. It added a nice anxiety whenever traveling to camp. This would be something I think would greatly benefit the game, rather than just porting with no risk to recover your points etc.

"A nice anxiety" ... what exactly is that? :-/

Also i have experienced two encounters while traveling to camp ... not sure if they even can be concidered to be random, but it still counts. :P

100% supporting this Idea.
It would also solve a bit of the resting systems issues.

Hmm... This is a legitimately interesting idea. Assuming that you are able to keep all party members with you throughout the game for whatever reason, this could give you an incentive to keep reviewing all of their stats and gear. It would be assumed that any ambushes at the camp would result in all party members joining the fray at once, instead of being merely limited to the standard four.

This could also result in a sort of base defense mechanic where you'd move different people to different parts of the camp based on their tactical strengths (or how fast they can dash over to surprised party members to wake them up if they are caught sleeping).

Certain party members could put countermeasures in place around the camp against ambushes, like Astarion setting up traps, Shadowheart warding sections of the camp against specific enemy types while providing the party bonuses, an assumed Halsin party member encouraging the nearby trees to sprout larger vines to generate tighter choke points and close off certain entrances, and so on. Your lead character could confer other bonuses based on the class they started out as (and I word it this way due to an assumed ability to multiclass later). You could even give the dog some armor and train him to bark in order to alert the nearest party members at the first sign of trouble (and a Druid or Ranger MC could probably find some way to make the dog combat-ready as one of their unique class features too).

And if you want to control RNG on this, you can probably have Laz’el try to trigger it once out of every 3 long rests by loudly banging on stuff to draw attention towards the camp (which also starts the battle with all party members awake), or have Gale cast an illusion spell to conceal the camp, reducing the frequency to once per 8 long rests. Otherwise it’s once every 5 long rests.

We should use the Alarm spell for camp defense. Would be great to have camp ambushes with everyone involved.

Oh I'd love big battles at the camp using every party member, I love being able to recruit in games and having a large group of competent adventurers seems like a good way to reward us for navigating their issues and keeping them from killing each other and getting to see the full group in action is satisfying. I liked being able to use the Iron Flask in camp even though he targets Scratch first... So random encounters would be more fun.

Or prehaps not implemented yet? O_o
I really hope so ... its kinda weird this way that one of them is clearly WAAAAAAAAAAAY more important than the others. -_-

Said this in other threads and I'll say it again: random encounters are a waste of players time.

If they are truly random here are a few issues:

* The player can reload a save before going to camp and roll again to not get encounter/get better random encounter.
* The encounter can wipe the party if it is low, and the party will steamroll them if they are full on resources. So this actually encourages to rest more often and with more resources.
* If these encounters give xp then they can be farmable and completely break progression. If they do not give XP then they are unrewarding
* They are unlikely to add any story elements.

Sure, adjusting the randomness could be a thing - for example as a DM I don't throw a random encounter at a party that is low on resources. But then again, I do refrain from throwing random encounters anyway as they don't really further the plot of my campaigns.

Seriously who the hell is farming random encounters in such games... And why should we care about those farming or save scumming ?

Every encounter can wipe the party if it's low, that's why combats are engaging. Having to rest more often would suit Larian's will to add interactions during rests and it would add the feeling you're in a living and dangerous world.

Of course it wouldn't solve the "unlimited rests", but it would solve the "resting is nothing more than TP to heal".

"Random" encounters? No. Scripted encounters occuring at camp, sure. I agree with Eugerome, more specifically

Any encounter occuring at your camp should be related to the story or more specifically, the characters. For example, vampire hunters coming for Astarion after you let him drain a townsperson, someone who's heard of Wyll as the 'Blade of Frontiers' showing up as a fan, or rival, another Shar worshipper with a mission somehow connected to Shadowhearts arriving and requesting assistance, or someone she's acted against and 'forgotten'.

Having a singular 'encounter' as you locate a new campsite in the next acts, or even in this one (where exactly... IS camp?), and story encounters to defend them after either heinous actions, or attracting attention of local baddies, would be fine. Even in Dragon Age: Origins, the best 'random encounters' (which are debatably random) are the ones with direct story tie ins, or that introduce important story hooks, for example, Wynne and the 'Vessel of the Spirit', or Zevran.

I don't personally find much value in 'random' encounters, loot is already plentiful enough they are not needed for that purpose, there are enough combat encounters, and I don't think they would help to fix the rest issue. I believe people who rest often would just rest even sooner to avoid being low when they DO get a random encounter. I prefer not to rest much anyways, typically only using short rests once all of my short rest abilities in my party are used, using consumables sparingly, and rarely using long rest spells. Typically I can get to level 4 without long resting at all, but it is definitely easier to do so with a rest, and may be necessary if the Harpy fight goes wrong.

A "nice anxiety" (sorry it was late only word I could think of) is when you travel to camp after raiding a dungeon or whatever, making it by the skin of your teeth. When you hit that transport button you are hoping not get get a random encounter to spawn before reaching camp to rest.

What you described is sort of a random encounter, basically what would happen in DA:O was when you clicked to teleport to your camp, you would get a roll check, if you lost you could either be jumped by bandits or something, than once you killed them you would then walk down the road and continue to camp. Actually it was a mechanic for ALL quick travel. Which really it should be, when you travel you always have a chance at an encounter.

Although I love your idea about a base defense mechanic for camp, I think that is taking my recommendation to the next level, which is a good thing actually. I didn't even think of the base defense angle. I was just thinking of the roll for encounter on the road to camp, which would affect the party. But actually having both ideas would be freaking awesome.

More scripted events would be a good addition to a game. As long as the encounter makes me feel the world is alive, as opposed to: "oh great, got to massacre some more goblins/wolves/etc" because I wanted to use a core game mechanic.

I think there should be a few cases of "trash mobs" but they should have story reasons or a good reason to be at the camp, like the wolves only come because you got Scratch and they are hungry. And you could just kill them or you could animal speech convince them or animal handling or intimidation.

I just realized you can get various other NPCs in the camp throughout the game too. They could also join in any battles at camp if they are present, like mysterious skeleton guy.

(That said, he could probably have an option to ward off random ambushes entirely, for people who really don’t like that kind of stuff.)