I’ve never played D&D and I’m getting into BG3. I must be marathoning my characters cause I’m usually out of spells when I run into fights. My useful exploration spells also cost spell slots so I’m usually proceeding with cantrips for my adventures until I decide I really need to recharge.
How often is everyone else going through a long rest? I know there’s a trade off of consuming camp supplies and so maybe I’m just the guy who saves all the items for end game and never ends up using them.
Camp supplies are easy to come by. Rest often - unlike in actual D&D, resting every encounter doesn’t piss the DM off and get tigers sent after you.
Thanks. I will start resting more often.
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Some quests are actually time sensitive so be careful. Some of them progress after a long rest
I started selling them for extra cash early on when I was low since I had like 2k supplies.
I don’t pick them all up anymore there’s so many
It’s been said already in this thread, but I’ll echo my experience too.
At first I was leaning into the sense of urgency and tried to play immersively. I was managing my resources, planning ahead, limiting short rests and conserving spell slots, often taking on fights with my whole team already bloodied.
Mechanically, this was very enjoyable to me, both the sense of pressing on through straining circumstances and the added challenge and resource management.
As others have said, though, BG3 anchors an absolute TON of story and companion events to Long Rests, and I consequently missed out on an incredible amount of content, some of which seem to have permanently locked me out of progressing certain companion relationships, as well as missing out on the owlbear cub joining the camp and probably a lot more too.
I really wish there was a day/night cycle that would naturally force you to set up camp frequently in a more natural fashion, but as it is I recommend to basically take Long Rests as often as possible, especially in Act 1.
Yeah, I don’t know why they didn’t bring the Day/Night cycle and Fatigue mechanics from the previous games, it made resting feel much more natural. You even had inns that gave you more healing depending on the quality of room you choose. I know that the companions say they are exhausted, but they like to do so while I barely done anything and still have most of my resources available. In BG1/2 when I heard my companions complain, you bet I’m looking for a safe spot to rest, Fatigue debuffs were no joke!
Companions say they are exhausted when you’re out of short rests and they’re damaged, low on spells, encumbered, or (this one I’m less sure of) debuffed with certain debuffs.
Any one of the above + lack of short rests available will prompt the line, from what I’ve found
I don’t think that is accurate, as my companions OFTEN say they are “just so tired” when I still have BOTH short rests available… I swear sometimes they say it when everyone is full health, plenty of spells and barely have started the day. I also don’t remember them basically ever saying it during act 1 and most of act 2, but that was around the time Patch 1 came out… I’m wondering if they added triggers for those lines to subtly convince people to spend more time in camp to progress some of the story - something to combat the fact that a lot of people seem to be missing lots of story by resting infrequently.
I just got it in A1 after the owlbear fight, and used basically no resources
Looks like I was wrong or tts bugged or both.
That’s a bummer. I like to use the entire buffalo of the long rest, and completed the goblin/druid conflict in 4 days. Part of me is tempted to go back and load an earlier save, but I’ll probably just have to keep this in mind and try to rest more on my next playthrough.
I look at it like this, if I do miss something with one char, I’ll see something new the next time. It’s probably pretty much impossible to see everything in one run, anyway. The game usually tells you when there’s urgency and waiting too long would have consequences, so that might be comforting to know.
I was doing the same thing initially. My natural instinct was to horde supplies because I’ll definitely need then later, and just barely make it through a few fights before finally resting. I was also avoiding expending spell slots on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, so I could last longer before needing to rest. Then I noticed I was having issues with my carrying capacity. What am I carrying around that’s so heavy? Ah, yes, the massive buffet I’m dragging around everywhere I go. That’s when I finally accepted that there is no food shortage in the area. The game is actually a lot more enjoyable now that I can just blast out all those spells. I also learned that you can just send all of that food to camp, and when you go to the campfire to rest it’ll just pull it out of the camp storage box. No need to drag any of it around with you.
You can!? Oh thanks, game changer!
The spells that require spell slots are definitely more fun and I will be resting more to have access to them.
Also you just revolutionized my thought process once you informed me I can store all my food at camp.
Not just food, but really anything. There’s really not much reason to keep much of your inventory on you, apart from gear you’re carrying and essentials. Anything else, just send back to camp and you can go back and forth anytime you want. You basically have infinite inventory.
I tried to play this game the way I play DnD at first, conserving resources and long resting only after multiple fights. I missed a lot of dialogue in Act 1 and had a hard time in combat.
The combat and camp events are balanced around using long rests frequently. There are a few quests that you can fail by resting (such as the inn burning down or the situation in Grymforge), but generally things are much less urgent than the game makes them sound. Don’t be afraid to dump all your resources into one or two fights and then rest.
It’s a failure to rest for the Grymforge situation? I saw it as a non-combat win.
If you don’t care about the lives of the slaves trapped in with him then sure, you can consider it a win.
Or the slaves being used to excavate him
You should be long resting all the time. There’s not really any penalty to it. Hell, if anything not resting runs the risk of missing out on important NPC conversations.
Camp supplies are never a problem. I end up selling a lot of them - particularly the heavier and more valuable ones (we only drink cheap alcohol at my camp lol).
There are certain timed events that will trigger if you long rest nearby, so make sure if you’re near a place that looks like it needs immediate attention, that you don’t long rest quite yet.
Yes, for example if you see a group in a fight, then go long rest, when you come back the fight will be over.
One thing I’ll add is that Find Familiar doesn’t seem to refresh on long rests (not for me, although I haven’t checked in the latest patch). So if you have any short rests left it might be an idea to use one of those then long rest.
Those guys at the INN burned to dust while I was long resting and getting hot with Shadowheart.
Damn hah I think I must’ve done the same.
Thanks. What you said makes sense. I’m going to start resting more and getting to know my companions a little more.
Rested like 3 times Act1 top side and 2 times underdark. Didn’t see a need to rest more, but the game is kinda small or one big ass dungeon where there are no clear breaks.
A lot of sense of urgency though.
There should be a system to help player rest more. It so easy to miss camp stuff. I had to power rest 4 times in row to get the owlbear cub yo show up, before leaving the area.
I only saw the cub one time, didn’t realize I needed to long rest more to get it, and I moved on to the next act which locked me out of getting it :(
You long rested 5 times total in act 1?! Jesus, I must suck at this game lmao
Long Rest every 3-4 encounters. Short Rest after every encounter.
I’ve found this to be the best balance between seeing camp content, completing timed quests, and managing Elixir supplies. Camp supplies are abundant but Elixirs/Alchemy supplies are somewhat limited.
I long rest every time I’m out of spells and am about to do something stupid. So probably like 8-9 times in Act 1. Just use your camp supplies they’re worthless if you don’t use them.
I try to make it pretty balanced. Dnd isn’t really balanced around constantly long resting, and I think resource management is part of the fun. Low level spells are pretty meaningless if you always have high level spells slots to blast through and such.
So my approach is this:
- Only long rest after my 2 short rests
- Short rest when reasonable, such as when the party has a good chunk of HP missing.
- Generally aim for 3-4 encounters per long rest (encounters don’t have be combat, can be anything you expend resources on, such as healing or charming an NPC)
So far it’s worked out pretty nicely. It makes the game more challenging and rewarding, imo.
I’m the same way wrt hoarding items until end game and never using them.
I try to do a short rest after fights only if I’m pretty hurt or out of spell slots, and then will do a long rest if i know a big fight is coming up.
I’m still in act 1 though, but I saw long resting too much can cause the story to advance and miss out on certain quests, so I’ve been trying to limit myself more.
My player hint is to NEVER use the long rest button if you want to long rest. Just go to camp and click the bags while there. I’ve clicked the long rest button and been told when I entered camp that something time sensitive would happen if I rested but then the game would not let me leave camp, I guess because I had committed to a long rest with the button.
