Not a fan of having to camp all the time

[Mr. Self Destruct]

I'm not a D&D person, never played it and most likely never will, but I love rpg games, but it seems like incorporating D&D means a lot of tedium. Having to go back to camp and reset health and spell slots after every battle is really breaking up the fun the game could be.

I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this from the nerds and self-proclaimed hardcores, but I'd actually like a D&D lite option in difficulty settings at some point, where they take some of the monotony of the battle maintenance away.

Honestly a cleric is pretty useless if they can only use their spells once or twice and then have to rest.

Like, Shadowheart "hey, we need to hurry up and get these tadpoles out of our heads like super quick"
MC "Ok, but you have no more spell slots, so we have to take a break"
Shadowheart "Why are we taking a break?! We have work to do"
MC "....."

Maybe I'm just missing some feature of the game that doesn't require resting every ten minutes, if that's the case please someone for the love of god tell me.

[Hex]

Oprindeligt skrevet af pandariuskairos:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hex:

It's not a dumb system. Magic is so ridiculously strong that it needs to have limitations. If you could just spam Disintegrates, Phantasmal Killers and Power Word: Kill, what would be the point? Or with spells LOL. Like, Wish can literally do pretty much anything, you just have to word it right.

There are other ways of limiting spell use, games have been using these other systems for decades now.

Yes but spells in DnD have always been a tactical choice. Mainly, in dungeons where resting is dangerous or outright impossible. It's a thing so easier fights wouldn't be trivial because you have to save your strong spells in case something nasty appears.

If they suddenly switched to a mana pool kind of thing, it would also completely break the lore, because that's not how magic works in DnD.

[alanc9]

I'm not sure per-day spells work badly for a TB video game. Since combat takes longer, you don't need to have as many combats to reach acceptable game length. We certainly don't have as many trash fights in BG3 as we did in the Bio games.

Anyway, per-day worked fine in BG1 and 2. Although part of that was that the DM was pretty lenient about resting, most of the time.

And then there's ToEE which tried to get this stuff right, but botched Temple random encounters. Groups of bugbears would spawn in, but a 6th level party could handle them without much spell use, and some of the bugbears would drop healing potions. So you'd recharge whether the rest succeeded or failed.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hex:

Oprindeligt skrevet af pandariuskairos:

There are other ways of limiting spell use, games have been using these other systems for decades now.

Yes but spells in DnD have always been a tactical choice. Mainly, in dungeons where resting is dangerous or outright impossible. It's a thing so easier fights wouldn't be trivial because you have to save your strong spells in case something nasty appears.

If they suddenly switched to a mana pool kind of thing, it would also completely break the lore, because that's not how magic works in DnD.

Again that works due to the much slower nature of table top combat which limits the amount of encounters you can have. In a video game with much higher encounters a wizard would have to skimp on their spell use much more than in table top setting, which is why per rests system is outdated for video games and rest spamming is a bandaid.

While I prefer BG1 BG2 over Pillars of eternity imo POE2 was much better balanced for a video game with it's per encounter ability slots.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af alanc9:

I'm not sure per-day spells work badly for a TB video game. Since combat takes longer, you don't need to have as many combats to reach acceptable game length. We certainly don't have as many trash fights in BG3 as we did in the Bio games.

Anyway, per-day worked fine in BG1 and 2. Although part of that was that the DM was pretty lenient about resting, most of the time.

Compared to table top TB video game is still significantly faster with a potential for much higher encounter rate due to all checks and calculations being automated by a computer.

[alanc9]

But are we actually having a higher encounter rate in BG3? We get through the campaign faster than we would in PnP, but that isn't the same thing.

In NWN it was obvious that we were getting a higher encounter rate -- most modules awarded 10% of book combat XP, IIRC. Not sure about BG.

[Hex]

Oprindeligt skrevet af ToveriJuri:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hex:

Yes but spells in DnD have always been a tactical choice. Mainly, in dungeons where resting is dangerous or outright impossible. It's a thing so easier fights wouldn't be trivial because you have to save your strong spells in case something nasty appears.

If they suddenly switched to a mana pool kind of thing, it would also completely break the lore, because that's not how magic works in DnD.

Again that works due to the much slower nature of table top combat which limits the amount of encounters you can have. In a video game with much higher encounters a wizard would have to skimp on their spell use much more than in table top setting, which is why per rests system is outdated for video games and rest spamming is a bandaid.

While I prefer BG1 BG2 over Pillars of eternity imo POE2 was much better balanced for a video game with it's per encounter ability slots.

Yeah but they would have to change the lore of Forgotten Realms which would cause all sorts of problems, because it's a house of cards sort of thing. If they fiddled with that, a lot of other things wouldn't work anymore.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hex:

Oprindeligt skrevet af ToveriJuri:

Again that works due to the much slower nature of table top combat which limits the amount of encounters you can have. In a video game with much higher encounters a wizard would have to skimp on their spell use much more than in table top setting, which is why per rests system is outdated for video games and rest spamming is a bandaid.

While I prefer BG1 BG2 over Pillars of eternity imo POE2 was much better balanced for a video game with it's per encounter ability slots.

Yeah but they would have to change the lore of Forgotten Realms which would cause all sorts of problems, because it's a house of cards sort of thing. If they fiddled with that, a lot of other things wouldn't work anymore.

Which means there has to be some other compromise like allowing generous use of resting.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af alanc9:

But are we actually having a higher encounter rate in BG3? We get through the campaign faster than we would in PnP, but that isn't the same thing.

In NWN it was obvious that we were getting a higher encounter rate -- most modules awarded 10% of book combat XP, IIRC. Not sure about BG.

It would be silly for them not to include higher encounter rates considering the combat flows faster. Yes you still have full stop turns, but all of the in between time usage for checks calculations is saved in TB combat compared to table top combat where it has to be manually done.

Have you not played original BG? BG absolutely spams you with encounters in dungeons.

If table top had that many encounters you wouldn't have any time to role play at all because combat would take vast majority of your time. Campaigns would last hundreds of hours if they had BG encounter rates.

[MyLittleJohny]

LOL, you are missing the point. The rest works more than well... in 100 hours of gameplay, I had maybe 6 or 7 rests. The story explicitly tells you you are not supposed to go and sleep, cause the very next day, you might be a Mindflayer.

You also know that each rest puts you further in one branch of the main storyline connected to a hell of a deal.

You are not supposed to use all the spells. I understand that you feel the urge too, since the enemies can be really strong to your level but the point is to save your spells as much as possible and do the encounters without spells, using only cantrips and basic/reaction attacks.

As I said, the problem is probably here in the strenght of the enemy. When every minion is basically strong as your Caster character then for some players it can be difficult to win the fight without using spell slots - basically only with Firebolt. It is obviously easier to use casted heals than potions which take your damage turns away from a fight, where goblins have Bless and hit you 100% and you hit them 50%. The enemies and the need for the use of gimicks in each fight should be fixed. But the camping and spell slots are working more than great.

[Hex]

Oprindeligt skrevet af .Cute-Dei. Quake:

LOL, you are missing the point. The rest works more than well... in 100 hours of gameplay, I had maybe 6 or 7 rests. The story explicitly tells you you are not supposed to go and sleep, cause the very next day, you might be a Mindflayer.

You also know that each rest puts you further in one branch of the main storyline connected to a hell of a deal.

You are not supposed to use all the spells. I understand that you feel the urge too, since the enemies can be really strong to your level but the point is to save your spells as much as possible and do the encounters without spells, using only cantrips and basic/reaction attacks.

As I said, the problem is probably here in the strenght of the enemy. When every minion is basically strong as your Caster character then for some players it can be difficult to win the fight without using spell slots - basically only with Firebolt. It is obviously easier to use casted heals than potions which take your damage turns away from a fight, where goblins have Bless and hit you 100% and you hit them 50%. The enemies and the need for the use of gimicks in each fight should be fixed. But the camping and spell slots are working more than great.

I have no idea what people are doing. I have no trouble with hit chances being in the 80-95% range. Use light sources and manage your advantages.

[Qiox]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mr. Self Destruct:

I'm not a D&D person, never played it and most likely never will, but I love rpg games, but it seems like incorporating D&D means a lot of tedium. Having to go back to camp and reset health and spell slots after every battle is really breaking up the fun the game could be.

I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this from the nerds and self-proclaimed hardcores, but I'd actually like a D&D lite option in difficulty settings at some point, where they take some of the monotony of the battle maintenance away.

Honestly a cleric is pretty useless if they can only use their spells once or twice and then have to rest.

Like, Shadowheart "hey, we need to hurry up and get these tadpoles out of our heads like super quick"
MC "Ok, but you have no more spell slots, so we have to take a break"
Shadowheart "Why are we taking a break?! We have work to do"
MC "....."

Maybe I'm just missing some feature of the game that doesn't require resting every ten minutes, if that's the case please someone for the love of god tell me.

Spam cantrips. Use spells only when absolutely necessary.

It is downright silly to think you actually need to long rest after every fight. My first run through the game I used long rest exactly 3 times total for the whole game.

[Flafi]

People still notice you? That's a troll thread like about 70% here on Steam. They just want attention. Treads that are more constructive have fewer comments like troll posts. It's absurd.

And yes, I replied until I realized it was trolling.

[BW022]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mr. Self Destruct:

I'm not a D&D person, never played it and most likely never will, but I love rpg games, but it seems like incorporating D&D means a lot of tedium. Having to go back to camp and reset health and spell slots after every battle is really breaking up the fun the game could be.
...

Nothing to do with 5e D&D and everything to do with Larian's choice of encounters.

In pen-and-paper 5e D&D a normal encounter for a 3rd-level party would be 6 goblins. Each would have 7 hit points, and they wouldn't likely have insanely defensible position, be spread out, have ended alchemist's fire and acid, casters, etc. Nor does oil, alchemist's fire, or acid affect multiple creatures in 5e. In a normal encounter it is expected that the PCs use about 25% of resources (spells, abilities, hit points, etc.) and win 90% of the time. It is expected that a party can handle 4-5 of these per day (with some short rests).

5e D&D rules are fine. BG3 just makes the encounters all well beyond insane by 5e numbers. It then skews the difficulty of everything by having poor starting equipment, a wilderness start (i.e. no option to purchase better armor), types of combat (massive ranged), massive AoE grenade weapons and barrels, etc.

[Fistandilus]

I imagine if they added the encounter rolls to rests like PnP that would cause more rage with people when they get sucked into an encounter without having refreshed their spell slots.

Also changing the rest system (long rest) would totally break 5es balance. They should however make short rests more in line with 5e (which includes limiting the amount of HP restored )

I think apart of the issue is the fact they changed the enemies HP in order to reduce their AC from what it should be to avoid whiners complaining about missing to much

They made it easier to hit and increases HP and people are already set whining because they miss to much
And the truth is the majority of those misses are not misses. It rather 0 damage which should totally be fixed but they would notice this is they looked in their logs.

The rest are people who don’t understand mechanics and how to use advantage and avoid disadvantage.

But generally it’s because of the HP/AC change is the whole reason more people are feeling like that have to blow everything for each fight (which obviously you don’t)

[swell]

Inherently, the rest system in D&D is meant to force the player to think about resource management. I think this is a benefit to a RPG, to be honest. However, with its current implementation in BG3, I can certainly see how it is a problem.

The core problem is pacing. In D&D, you may only long rest once per 4-5 hour session. In BG3, you may feel like you need to rest once an hour or more. This is because in a typical D&D game you usually only fight a handful of times, there's a lot more RP, simply because it takes longer than just quick dialog between 2 characters like in a video game. Naturally, there are outlier games, where the DM and players agree its a combat-centric campaign, but I digress. In BG3, by comparison, there's an opportunity to fight every 3 feet. This starting zone is crazy-dense. So you end up fighting non-stop, and as such, the need for resource refresh are much higher.

The other problem is the false sense of urgency that the storytelling gives you. Every other time you go back to your camp someone is telling you about how the tadpole could eat your mushy delicious brain any second, HURRY! In truth, as far as I can tell, the pace in which you are doing things doesn't actually matter. You're still going to fail to get your worm out, you're going to go through the same companion beats of getting sick then feeling better and getting gift abilities. It just ends up making you feel like, if you go to sleep again you're just giving the tadpole another night to get comfy in your skull, in truth, its a lot more casual than it seems and you aren't actually getting punished as much for resting a lot as you might think; in fact I think it might be the opposite. You're getting less story and less companion narrative if you rest LESS. My first play-through I thought long resting was actually attached to the story, I thought maybe the druids might actually get their ritual off if I rested too much, so I rested like... twice the entire time. All I got for it was never seeing any of the interesting companion stuff because I never went back to camp.

At it's core it needs a lot of work, but unfortunately because so much of the storytelling is tied to the camp, and I presume later when you get to towns, to some sort of inn-room, it's nearly impossible for them to remove it now. All they can really do is make it easy to accomplish, which is why i think it's so easy to just magically teleport to it and get back right where you left off, because they realized that early on.

There's a lot of good suggestions in this thread about how to optimize your gameplay to use fewer spell slots, though some of them are a bit pretentiously worded. In short, cantrips are your bread and butter and for the cleric, since you can't go higher than level 4, it doesn't give your classes time to ramp up, so simple physical damage classes like fighter, rogue, ranger are going to be a lot more effective early since htey don't rely on anything but stabby and smashy to kill, so try to lean your cleric in that direction too, make them into a battle cleric, make them tanky or a melee DPS and then just use their physical attacks as their damage so you end up saving their slots for heals and buffs when they are absolutely necessary. Eat food to heal as a bonus action, its often just as strong as some of the level 1 healing option.

That's about it. I hope you can find the joy in the game despite this flaw! Some of the classes fill out better as they level up more, so hopefully cleric will feel better for you when the level cap is raised in future patches!