Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Short Rest Poll

Cool downs? 😴

Boring. Pointless. Annoying. I could just go afk for a few minutes, get something to eat and drink, and rest as much as I need. What is the limit? Waiting painstakingly until the cool down is complete.

That's worse than BG1 and 2 and Icewind Dale 1 and 2 where I could rest as often as I wanted as long as I manually ran to the edge of the game map and returned to the inn. At least they had monsters respawn and/or chance random encounters as well to help increase the risk/annoyance factor which helped discourage rest spamming.

No thanks. I'm not asking for much. I want the rest mechanics - both of them - to have meaning and purpose. Right now, Short Rest has none except that it is a tad more convenient than Long Rest for a fraction of the benefits.

I'm just saying, the current mechanics make it so you can LR after every fight for full health and spell slot restoration. Therefore, SR is pointless. LR is encouraged presently and SR is discouraged because it's limited while LR is not.

Why SR when you can LR every time?

Imagine playing a D&D session where after every fight the DM let you LR so you recover fully. This is what it'd be like:

Your quest:. Wipe out the cult of the Dead Three.

You kill the cultists at the entrance. 6 rounds of combat. 36 seconds of time passed in the world of Farrun. Party heads to the inn and sleeps and returns the next night. Cultists never notice their guards at the front entrance were butchered. Party heads down into their lair. Encounter. 4 more cultists. 1 minute encounter. They're dead. Well. "That's enough for today," says Gale. "Let's get some rest. I'm tired.". Sleeps 24 hours. Returns. Still the cult haven't noticed they're guys' bodies lying around. Party continues. Another group. This is 2 bosses. 1 minute, 10 second fight. Shadowheart says, "Well. That's it for me. It's been a long day. Let's get some rest."

This is BG3 currently. Literally, this is what happens to me in the game. And what's more I have rested during playthroughs every time the characters say something just to make sure I don't miss out on dialogues.

I can't even imagine a DM allowing such an idiotic gameplay. No. Once you kill the guards at the entrance, you keep going until the cult is dead. If the PCs are really struggling to get to the end, you give them help via NPCs or you let them rest with some sort of ramifications - ie. The cult discovers the bodies and is on high alert. SOMETHING happens that makes sense.

BG3 is not alone in this. Kingmaker is just as bad, or worse, actually. I literally went into the Stag Lord's base, killed some guys, left, camped on the world map, returned to the Outpost, sold equipment and returned, camped some more on the world map, and then went back into his base. Nothing changed. No one was discovered and no alert. Nothing.

I get it's a video game, but it doesn't matter. If they want this game to be THE D&D game, they need to fix this. Stop making every encounter based on the idea that you'll be fully rested each fight, and encourage SR while discouraging LR. I have created untold numbers of campaigns and modules and so forth. You never build quests where players are able to, and even required to, LR frequently. The whole trick is to build them so that players can adventure as long as possible before a single LR.

You mean the option of having a game named 'Baldur's Gate 3' NOT be a D&D game?

I personally like the approach where the game assumes that you are rested before each fight.
This makes it easier to adjust the difficulty of the fights and be sure that the player will be able to handle it.
I don't understand why the game shouldn't be dnd if it doesn't limit rest. I cannot recall any dnd game that actually has any limitation in resting.
In the case of BG 1 and 2, most often you did not even have to return to another area to rest, it was usually enough to move a bit to be away from the enemies.

At least it's not as annoying as pathfinder games where the "design" of the fights is to put too powerful enemies too early and ridiculous stat boosts.
Whoever tried to fight shadow demon votary in drezen on some higher difficulty level (core or higher) probably knows it.

I think you're missing the point of cooldowns. They're only relevant during combat, and ~immediately are restored after combat ends, so there's no point or even ability to just wait them out. Cooldowns are essentially equivalent to balancing the game around fully resting after every fight - encounters are made more difficult and classes are balanced for single fights. Honestly, as the game is now (where you're encouraged to rest frequently to get camp cutscenes) cooldowns would be a better fit.

Sure, it's not exactly D&D rules. But I'd prefer a better, more balanced, more tactical game over the conflicting combination of D&D class design + unlimited/encouraged long resting we have now.

Ah. I misunderstood. You are right. I'd prefer what you said over this 5 minutes of adventure and 24 hours of rest nonsense they've made. At least with cool downs you'd keep adventuring rather than resting more than adventuring.

That said, I'd really really prefer that they do something that actually limits long rest spamming so it's more like 5e, and they make encounters built around characters surviving multiple fights without needing to long rest often.

I wonder. Does anyone actually rest all that often? The biggest problem I have is that I keep going and forgetting to rest because I don't need to or because I'd rather move on to the next encounter instead of camping.

Usually, the most compelling reason I have to camp is that I want the scenes and dreams to unfold. And even still, it's rare that I get around to resting.

People talk about how there's no limitation on resting, as if players are fighting then resting then fighting then resting. I don't think most people are playing that way. I suppose only Larian knows, but it seems to me that constantly going to camp instead of exploring the next area/room would be annoying.

The actual point for me isn't so much that I need the game to prevent me from long resting too much. It's that short rest is pointless in the game currently. I hardly ever use it and have to force myself to because I CAN long rest instead without an issue and the long rest benefits are better.

It's also that I can long rest and burning buildings don't burn out, tadpole changes never start, the ritual never ends, enemies never notice you killed the guards at the gate, etc.

It's also that long rest is promoted by characters even though I haven't hardly adventured. They're tired after 5 minutes of exploring.

It's also that food is meaningless and doesn't really limit anything. It's just pointless additional item management.

It's because it makes no sense from an immersion standpoint. HP is like stamina. It's how much you can endure before you pass out. Resting is about recovering that stamina and repairing armor and mending injuries. Short rest is slapping on patches and band aids.

If you are fully rested between every fight, you destroy the entire system. The whole logic behind the mechanics is thrown out the window. Instead of being a slowly learning and advancing hero who gradually gets to the place where you can face intellect devourers, you begin as Rambo wiping out cambions at level 1, and a lot of it has to do with full restoration between every fight.

It's also that you're explicitly encouraged to rest as often as possible to ensure you don't miss any (easily-missable) long rest cutscenes. Which is at odds with conserving resources over the D&D Adventuring Dayâ„¢

You know? Honestly, if they chose to do away with resting mechanics and did cool downs, the game still wouldn't work because they've designed the story around, "You are running out of time before you transform.". It all goes back to them setting it up as you are on borrowed time, but then they don't follow up with making time a reality. If cool downs were their solution, End Day would never happen. The whole EA would be 1 day with no Raphael or Dream Lover, etc.

This brings it all right back to why I think the best solution is story-based changes to the BG3 world after X number of long rests. The whole freaking story is set up already for this, but they haven't followed through.

After 1 long rest from the time you visit the inn, it should be burnt down.

After 3-6 (whatever they think fits best) long rests from when you arrive at the grove, the ritual should be complete or something else should happen to restart it again.

After 2-3 days of ignoring Lae'zel and not finding her Gith patrol, she should temporarily leave.

Same with Wyll and the goblin leaders.

After you trigger the hag/Mayrina side quest, every time you long rest, a redcap or some other minion should be generated and placed in your path before you get to her in her lair and she comments on how it took you SO long. She was growing bored and impatient.

After 3 days from the landing on the beach, you have your first Dream Lover dream, but you have it sooner if you actually used tadpole powers. After that, you have another in 6 days unless you use tadpole powers repeatedly. Then you have the second 1 day sooner per use of powers. After that, same as second dream.

These types of things make sense from a story perspective and would dramatically make the game more replayable and like a true RPG.

The engine is also set up to count passing days. It makes me think the time shaped hole in BG3 is a sign of ongoing construction rather than an oversight.

Its kinda fascinating how hard you stick to this (your own) headcannon, even tho you dismiss it as nonsense with the same breath. O_o

Interesting ideas ... +1 to all.

I would gladly accept a more linear and restricted approach to resting (one long, one short per area. Want more? add difficult random encounters or some kind of environmental restriction…)
This is a <tactical> turn base rpg by all accounts? Then make resting part of the tactic. Unlimited rests is like having unlimited spell slots. Its a cheat in my book. Should be turned off by default. Food/Supplies is just a gimmic at this point.

Hated this in BG2 (unlimited rests). There is a mod (SCS probably..)that apart from city/inns or safe areas you can only rest ONCE. Then you have mobs spawn (tied to that area) in you try to rest more. Changes the whole dinamic of the game. You now hold on to your potions/abilities like gold, careful with powerful spells…to be used at the right time…you need to make IMPORTANT TACTICAL decisions because you are not tied to a reset button.

Please no timed quests!

I actually don’t mind timed quests. That said, I remember that it was probably most hated part of Kingmaker so implementing this in BG3 would be a bad thing.

This is humorous to me.

First, let me say, that it is not headcannon, as you keep accusing. It is based on literal gameplay. I have played the game multiple times through, and I have literally rested, run through Moonhaven to Risen Road, and had one of my companions say, "It's been a long day. Let's get some rest," or something similar. This scenario has happened more times than I can count. The companions nag me to long rest when we haven't even done anything, or especially after a single battle. AND unless I actually DO long rest that often, I miss out on certain companion dialogues. Also, I HAVE played it this way on numerous playthroughs because I can and I want to make sure I'm not missing anything (like new companion dialogues). It is 100% fact that you CAN play it this way, and frankly you SHOULD play it this way if you want to not die when you first play through the game.

You see, long-term players like us who have been playing this game since it came out for EA know what to expect and can push the long rests out easily enough. No problem. But what about new players? What is their experience?

Here's a real example of a new player's experience - one of my family members:

Crash on the beach. Meet Shadowheart. Fight 3 intellect devourers. Doesn't know anything about them. Is playing a fighter. Rushes up to the nearest with her longsword and shield. Hits. Doesn't kill the first. Gets attacked and is taken out in one round. Uses Shadowheart to kill them. Barely survives. Long rest. Meets fishermen. Fights them. Bad RNG. Long rest because dang things went poorly. Reaches dank crypt and fights Gimble and company. Tough fight. Long rest. Fights Mari and Barton and company. Another near-death experience. Long rest. Fights skeleton mages. Nearly dies. Long rest. Reaches the grove at the gate and rushes into battle. Nearly dies. Long rest even before entering the grove at that very moment for fear that if she enters the grove she might trigger another fight that will finish her off.

This is BAD RPG'ing. It is why I keep constantly saying they need to revamp encounters. You are supposed to fight easy, baby monsters at levels 1 and 2 so that new players can learn the game well. Instead of fighting imps and intellect devourers at levels 1 and 2, we should be fighting baby thralls and lemures and manes and other easy enemies so that we can learn the game system without getting pummeled by monsters with resistance and special attacks and so forth. New players should be able to reach the grove on a single run without needing to long rest, or at the very least a single long rest. But instead, the encounters are designed to challenge experienced players right from the beginning even allowing players to attack cambions and mind flayers. (Now, mind you, I don't mind ALLOWING such things, but my point is that the design of encounters is way overpowered. If it wasn't they wouldn't have nerfed imps and intellect devourers.)

Anyway, the point is that it isn't headcannon. It's legit, and it has happened more than once to people I know. Also, I've seen others post the same sentiment. The game is designed for you to, and promotes you to, long rest after each fight. 5 minutes of adventure, and 24 hours of rest.

Now for the other part. I find it a bit humorous that you found it interesting and +1'd it when I've said pretty much the same thing numerous times before and you resisted it because I called it timed events. I changed it to "story-based changes" and suddenly you +1 it.

Still didn't trip up Icelyn though.

In regards to this, I can't tell you how stupid it is for me. I'm not picking on Larian with this. I recently played through the Stag Lord base in Pathfinder and found the same thing occurring. I'm going into the Stag Lord's base, kill a bunch of his guys, spend days returning to the outpost and resting and healing, and I return to find it just the way I left it. I thought to myself, "You've got me on timed quests to make sure I complete this mission in a set number of days, which makes sense and all, but then you let me kill a bunch of Stag Lord minions and spend days resting and return with NOTHING having changed? That makes no sense at all. THAT is what we mean by "video-gamey". If it was a real RPG with a DM, the DM would be like, "Fine. You can return to the outpost, rest and so forth, but I can guarantee to you that the entire place will be on alert the time you return. Guaranteed."

This is what I'm talking about with BG3. I'm not asking for, "You must rescue the grove in 3 days or the tieflings will be kicked out and the ritual will be complete," or, "You must go to the gith patrol by Day 2 after you meet Lae'zel or she leaves your party permanently." I'm just looking for things to make sense such as, "If you long rest after you arrive at Waukeen's Rest and see it burning, the fires are out and you don't rescue the counselor." Why? Because it makes sense that if you see a burning building and you do nothing, it'll burn down and you've missed your opportunity, ESPECIALLY if you decided to spend the rest of the day napping after you first saw it burning. You should not be able to return to it 3 days later and still see it burning and still be able to rescue the counselor. Nothing about that makes any sense.

I think i know ...
But lately it seems that im often wrong about people so ... can you tell us why?

Yes, agreed 110%!! Hate timed quests.

Im affraid it is ... since headcannon is defined as:
"Ideas held by fans of series that are not explicitly supported by sanctioned text or other media."

And there is nothing supporting the idea that the game presents its world literally.
If there is, please show me. And i gladly admit that i was wrong and i falsely acused you.

Yup ... literall, and that is the problem.
We have talked about this several times allready so i try to not repeat myself ...

I try to turn it around this time ...
Lets presume you are corect and the game space indeed presents its world literally ... if that is the case, things should make sense, corect?

Then let me ask:
Imagine a situation ... group traveled from Beach to Blighted Willage ... they killed some weak (possibly injured) intellect devourers, scared some raiders away, kill some others, raided a tomb fighted some skeletons, fighted some goblins later by Grove gates, and explored harper camp ...
During all those adventurers they rested 2 times ...
So the travel from Beach to Blighted Willage took them 3 days in total, yes?

Now the question is:
How the hells do they manage to spint all the way back in less than 5 minutes?

Obvious answer would be:
They dont ... the map isnt literall representation of the world and all that abstract walking it would require was cut out bcs it would be boring gameplay.

But im looking forward for yours.

What do you mean "havent even done anything" ?
You just said they traveled from Moonhaven to Risen Road ... that is whole 2 day long walking.

Some time ago (a year ago i believe) i posted for you this map ...
And i took under concideration that one of Tieflings tells you that they are 10 days of traveling far from Baldur's Gate ... so i cut the road to Baldur's Gate into 10 aproximately (i used exactly same line for measuring, but its hard to pick exact spot on that map, thats why aproximately) separate pieces ...

And do you remember what i have discovered?
Most landmarks are distanced 1 day walking from each other ...
Grove and Blighted WIllage? 1 day walking ...
Beach and Grove? 1 day ...
Blighted Willage and Tollhouse? 2 days ...
Tollhouse and Waukeen's Rest? 1 day ...

So you say your party "didnt do anything" ...
After you send them to travel without single rest distance that usualy takes two days.

Well ...
I dare to presume that would be the reason Larian invented partial Long rest, when you complete dialogues but dont refill all (or even any of ... not sure if you can "rest" without using any resources, or if at least 1 unit is required) your resources.

Now imagine timed events would be implemented for whole world ... (Since one is allready there)
Every time you would go to Long Rest you would need to squeeze maximum out of it ... and you would think twice (more likely thrice) before every rest if that is the corect time and place ...
What for would partial rest be?

As it is now, you can rest to just proc your conversations (for system limiation you cant talk just anywhere ... even tho im still quite sure it would be possible using my stage suggestion, but it would most likely require too much additional work this far in development) ...
Or you can rest to regain your resources ... so unless you want to be extremely picky about what exactly is happening on screen ... you can quite easily pretend that partial long rests was actualy no rest at all, just two person talking, nothing more.

Question: Why are you skipping prolog?
That is also part of the adventure you know! And if i can judge, that allone would be quite exhausting ... both physicaly, and most importantly mentally!

And just for the record, nobody knows how rested we were before we were kidnapped ... so unless we want to count that odd magical stasis Illithis put us into in their pods as rest ... that would be just another exhaustion to add.

But we ARE fighting easy, baby monsters ...
They just took form of imps and intellect devourers ...

That combat your relative had problem with would work exacly as bad if s/he would be fighting baby rats with exactly same statistics.

You are the the one who keeps complaining that Intellect devourers without special attacks, and imps without resistances are "not actualy Itellect devourers and imps" ...
So im quite confused now. O_o

Sadly ... it is.
1 min ingame =/= 1 min in reality ...

Anything you do in between two Long Rests (resting included) takes you 24h ... that much is true, by the rules.
So everything you did during that 5 real minutes combined you have to spread to remaining time.

Have you traveled somewhere?
Have you fighted someone?
Have you talked with someone?
Have you explored something?
Have you solved some puzzle?
Those are important questions for that ...

That means (for easy counting lets round up to whole hours):
Day starts with Long Rest ... if i remember rules corectly, it takes 8h ... So 16h left to spend ...
Exploring the beach + meeting and talking with Shadowheart ... 1h ... 15 left
Fight intellect devourers ... 1h ... 14 left
Short rest - by rules "at least 1h" ... you said they barely made it out alive, so lets count 2 ... 13 left
Fight with fisherman ... 1h ... 12h left
Short rest - by rules "at least 1h" ... you said they barely made it out alive, so lets count 2 ... 10 left
Gimblebog ... lets say they talked him out this time (you said your relative played Fighter, fithers can talk Gimblebog without rolling) ... 1h ... 9 left
Fight with looters inside the tomb ... 1h ... 8 left
(sadly we have no more short rests)
Exploring the tomb + solving puzzle (aka trap in the sarcophagus room) ... 2h ... 6 left
Fight with skelletons ... 1h ... 5h left ...
Traveling to the Grove ... 2h ... 3h left ...
Fight by the gates ... 2h (its a big one compared to others) ... 1h left ...
Finaly ... LONG REST ... and i bet after 16 hour of walking, climbing, fighting and being injured ( ) your party would litteraly fall to their beds.

So as you can see, with a little imagination, there is no problem to stretch up whole adventure from Beach to Emerald Grove into whole day ... and yet, if you would take it "literally" ... it would never took more than 2hours. O_o
THAT is reason why i keep telling you that this game is abstract ...

Of course you can see it as your group was actualy traveling to this whole during 2h ... and then they gathered in their camp and say "lets rest for 22h" ...
Its up to you, just ask youreself wich scenario seems more logical to you.

I would like to ask you for single example.
(I can save you some time, tho: There isnt any. )

Since as far as i know, i allways said that personaly i like and support the idea of timed events ... but i doubt Larian would implement them, bcs there is many other people who despite it.

Actualy i would like to apply timed events for whole map ... as i also several times expressed in the past ... i will purposefully repeat myself in this example, i wonder if it rings any bell:

I would like timed events to count with different part of the map ... take Blighted Willage as example ...
You can either go to North, find Goblin Camp, and their interrogated prisoner ...
Or you can go to West, find Swamp, and Ethel arguing with some farmers ...
Or you can go North/East, find Mountains, and two guys surrouned by Gnolls ...
> What i want to see is that:
If your party decide to go to North ... Ethell will kill those farmers ... and Gnolls will eat those Zhentarims ....
If your party decide to go to West ... prisoner will reveal position of the Grove, and raid starts without you have any chance to stop it (preemptively, you can still manage to get back and defend) ... and Gnolls will eat those Zhentarims ...
If your party decide to go to North/East ... prisoner will reveal position of the Grove, and raid starts without you have any chance to stop it (preemptively, you can still manage to get back and defend) ... and Ethell will kill those farmers ...

That i would really like, since every single playthrough i would have COMPLETELY different world to explore based purely on my choices.

I would say that really depend on DM.
But i gues you wanted to say something like "me as a DM would be like" and that is totally fine.

😜

I love doing all the quests and taking my time exploring and talking to people and animals! When I know a quest is timed, I feel pressured to rush and skip other quests. Even worse if I don’t know a timed quest is timed, and then it suddenly fails!