How Time Sensitive is this game?

[Neonivek]

With my friends abandoning me because I didn't play the game obsessively enough (look I cannot play the game for 20 hours in three days).[ One thing they always told me is that the game is actually on a tight time limit and that you want to long rest as little as possible with large scale disasters happening if you do so.

But the game practically throws food at you to the extent that you could literally long rest after every fight... So there being a tight time limit feels like the game is trying to trick you.

The game even starts with a time limit of 7 days (Which I doubt anything bad happens if you meet it for obvious reasons).

What is the real story here?

[Melalo]

Disasters may happen if you travel to another region or take a long rest, but your companions explicitly warn you about them: "we must hurry, X will die if we don't help him immediately", "we can rest after we take down Y".

[Bastila Shan]

I long rested whenever i wanted, which was alot, and i never felt any time pressure events. And yes as long as you are looting all food you see youre not going to run out. Im at baldurs gate now and i have a ton of food still

[Moriendor]

Originally posted by Bastila Shan:

Im at baldurs gate now and i have a ton of food still

Do you still have to camp when you reach Baldur's Gate or can you also rent a room in a tavern?

[Morgian]

There is no hard time limit. You get info later in the game why you and the others are not turning into mindflayers, too.

But time is measured in rests. If you come across a situation - lets say the two guys holding Lae'zel in a cage - and you take a long rest, the situation will change. In this example all three will be gone, although you can meet the githyanki much later again. If you go to sleep after learning of a bad guy is suffocating under rocks, he will die. You won't have to lift a finger for his loot, but you get no xp for the easy victory.
So sometimes things change when you rest. This is not always a bad thing, but different. I think that the original state of things is typically more rewarding and the other easier to manage.

But basically you can take your time, and explore to your heart's content. It won't break the game at least, and you can do it the other way round on a second playthrough to see what happens.

Edit: no, I tell a lie. There is one event when you must not rest, but you get warned about that. Just resurrect Gale ASAP, should he die and nothing bad will happen. Withers in your camp can aid you there, too.

[Bastila Shan]

Originally posted by Moriendor:

Originally posted by Bastila Shan:

Im at baldurs gate now and i have a ton of food still

Do you still have to camp when you reach Baldur's Gate or can you also rent a room in a tavern?

Yea you can rent a room in the elfsong tavern or whatever its called once you get into the main city by talking to barman and paying 200 gold. And you can buy supplies from inside the room so you will never run out as long as you got gold.

When you click camp button you go straight to your tavern room

[Myth Alric]

The game doesn't even keep track of time. If you leave in the middle of a dungeon to go do a long rest and come back, you arrive exactly where you left and no one has moved. There is only a couple of quests, and what not, that is like, you need to save bob who is in the next room, and if you leave for a long rest, then bob will die. Also if you completely leave the entire region behind, some stuff might advance.

For 95% of the game, time doesn't even exist.

[The One True Nobody!]

The fact that the game discourages you from Long Resting too often is a fun kind of answer to the classic BG1-2 problem of the Bhaalspawn being a narcoleptic napping monster (there were no "Short Rests" in 2e, so you'd be sleeping for eight hours every time you wanted to recharge spell slots). BG3 forces you to manage your resources more, but it also doesn't throw the kind of... waves and waves of fodder monsters at you that BG1 and BG2 did, so it's quite doable.

[Moriendor]

Originally posted by Bastila Shan:

Originally posted by Moriendor:

Do you still have to camp when you reach Baldur's Gate or can you also rent a room in a tavern?

Yea you can rent a room in the elfsong tavern or whatever its called once you get into the main city by talking to barman and paying 200 gold. And you can buy supplies from inside the room so you will never run out as long as you got gold.

When you click camp button you go straight to your tavern room

Thanks. Just to clarify: Is that 200 gold for a permanent rent or 200 gold for every long rest, i.e. 200 gold per night?

[Zaris]

There are some events which are self resolving if you leave the area but in the long run don't matter in any way like on the first map:
- Coming near Waukeens rest triggers the rescue quest, if you don't do it / go away / long rest they will free the persons themself and leave the area but the whole thing doesn't matter later on.
- Grimforge the same, entering the area gives you a "time limit" of one long rest, the next long rest let the event there auto resolve but it's just optional content anyway.
- leaving the first map auto resolves druid / goblin problem (read it only in a comment)

To keep it simple: Only long rest if you're sure you did everything in the current part of the map like a resolved fight / quest and you're safe most times. Running around and exploring the map in one go can trigger events you're not aware of and can auto resolve if you go away / long rest.

[lude]

Originally posted by The One True Nobody!:

The fact that the game discourages you from Long Resting too often is a fun kind of answer to the classic BG1-2 problem of the Bhaalspawn being a narcoleptic napping monster (there were no "Short Rests" in 2e, so you'd be sleeping for eight hours every time you wanted to recharge spell slots). BG3 forces you to manage your resources more, but it also doesn't throw the kind of... waves and waves of fodder monsters at you that BG1 and BG2 did, so it's quite doable.

It doesn't discourage you at all. I've probably rested 70 times by act 3. There is no time limit at all, except for moving acts, and for very specific quests that must be done before a dramatic change in the environment, e.g. you kill the quest giver or let them burn alive.

[Myth Alric]

I would say the game actually encourages you to long rest, since taking long rests seems to be what gets your companions to do stuff at camp. If you don't do long rests, they never talk to you and bring up their issues.

[Bastila Shan]

Originally posted by Moriendor:

Originally posted by Bastila Shan:

Yea you can rent a room in the elfsong tavern or whatever its called once you get into the main city by talking to barman and paying 200 gold. And you can buy supplies from inside the room so you will never run out as long as you got gold.

When you click camp button you go straight to your tavern room

Thanks. Just to clarify: Is that 200 gold for a permanent rent or 200 gold for every long rest, i.e. 200 gold per night?

Its a one off payment

[guppy]

The game does keep track of how many days has passed.See the dialog log, sort by date - it shows Faerûn dates.
It's not entirely clear though if that is the ingame date or just the real world date Faerûnified