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.
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.
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.
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.
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.