Here's what I'm getting at:
Played Solasta. Long rested and then fought big undead fight. Yay! I won. Used lots of spells. I'm thinking, "I'll just long rest again and be fine. I leave the area.
Random Encounter strikes while we're camping in the Badlands. Remorhaz Offspring. 2 of them.
My half-orc barbarian is keeping watch. He's the only one awake. The two creatures win initiative. Crap! They burrowed underground and came up under my half-elf sorcerer and dwarf paladin. Well, they're awake now, seriously hurt, but awake. Half-orc druid fails to wake up. She's sleeping through the fight.
Round 2. They strike again. Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! My sorcerer is almost dead. My paladin has 21 HP remaining. My barbarian goes into rage frenzy. Attacks one. Does some serious damage, but they're tough. Real tough. The paladin heals himself 45 HP with Lay on Hands. Sorcerer risks using her sorcerer points to get a spell slots. Casts Fly. Risks Opportunity Attack from one. Escapes safely into the air. She's safe, for now. Druid's still sleeping.
Round 3. Remorhaz attacks druid. She's awake now. Barbarian is also struck by the other. He fights back. Paladin joins him. Sorcerer casts Magic Missiles at higher spell slots. Shouldn't have used so many high level during that last fight. Dang!
Three rounds later. Barbarian is down and the paladin is trying hard to get him back up. Remorhaz 1 is dead. Druid's hurting. Sorcerer is still flying and raining spells down, but she's out of spell slots. She's just using fire bolt. Druid gets hit. She's down. Paladin gets barbarian up with a potion by moving next to him and spending an action.
Next round they manage to kill it. MAN! That was a close fight. Level 7 characters almost got taken out by random encounter because of an unexpected surprise and because I used a lot of high end spells earlier. I was thinking I could just dish out top spells all the time and I'd be just fine. Nope. Kept me on my toes. Now, I know better. You gotta be careful. Maybe short rest first after a big fight. Heal up a bit. Then risk making for a long rest spot. Don't just assume you can expend all your spells and heal up right away.
What an exciting encounter. I tell you. They know how to do it well.
The point? Though they still don't have strict long rest restrictions, they have some, and it makes the game more fun and interesting. Just when I was getting cocky and thinking, "Hah. This is just as unrestricted as BG3," they hit me with a tough random encounter that I was not prepared for. The game was starting to get boring, but the random encounter at camp shook me up good.
This is what BG3 needs. It needs potential unknowns to happen if you rest in places you shouldn't be resting. Just when you start to think you can rest after every fight, BAM! Random Encounter.
So, I'm back to this:
1. Long Rest Camps on the map. You can't rest until you find them.
2. Random Encounters chance when you short or long rest in dangerous places. The more dangerous, the greater the chance.
3. Random Encounters chance when you fast travel, even to camp. The further you fast travel, and the more dangerous the area, the greater the chance.
Chances wouldn't be high - like 1-10%, but it would keep players on their toes and make the world more alive. Also provide more chances of running into more variety of monsters.
