The resting mechanic
Kukaracha
Member Posts: 256
I have always found that the resting mechanic could easily be abused and provided the player with a cheap way to heal the party, which makes the end of the game very unchallenging as you can simply rest between each fight. I don't think I've ever been to a priest to heal my wounds, and I don't think I've used many taverns too.
Another thread here raised the necessity of a gold sink : at some point in the game, you're simply too rich. Gold coins flow, and the treasure hunting that constitutes a big part of an adventurer's life becomes meaningless. There's no challenge, and there's the weird fact that you can spend a week to complete a very simple task just because you're too lazy to use all your spells and carry potions around. No more magic missiles? I'll just hit that button, a piece of cake.
What I'm suggesting is making healing in cities more attractive, and resting in random locations more restrictive. It should also be more expensive (except at very low levels).
A few suggestions, consider this as food for thought :
- make potions more available
- stronger healing potions should be more expensive
- disable the "rest until healed" possibility (who spends two days playing cards in a random cave?)
Fancier suggestions :
- a maximum 16 hours of rest
- rest never heals you completely...
- ... unless it's in a tavern or done by a priest
- resting takes a very small percentage of your gold.
What do you think?
Another thread here raised the necessity of a gold sink : at some point in the game, you're simply too rich. Gold coins flow, and the treasure hunting that constitutes a big part of an adventurer's life becomes meaningless. There's no challenge, and there's the weird fact that you can spend a week to complete a very simple task just because you're too lazy to use all your spells and carry potions around. No more magic missiles? I'll just hit that button, a piece of cake.
What I'm suggesting is making healing in cities more attractive, and resting in random locations more restrictive. It should also be more expensive (except at very low levels).
A few suggestions, consider this as food for thought :
- make potions more available
- stronger healing potions should be more expensive
- disable the "rest until healed" possibility (who spends two days playing cards in a random cave?)
Fancier suggestions :
- a maximum 16 hours of rest
- rest never heals you completely...
- ... unless it's in a tavern or done by a priest
- resting takes a very small percentage of your gold.
What do you think?
3
Comments
I agree that it doesn't always make sense from a roleplaying perspective (I once woke up after 16 days!), but I feel like this is another one of those things that should be left up to the players to impose their own restrictions as they like. After all, "rest until healed" is optional.
I don't remember if the "rest until healed" option was present in BG1, but players can very well just hit that button repeatedly.
>
>- make potions more available
are they less available?
>- stronger healing potions should be more expensive
aren't they more expensive?
>Fancier suggestions :
>
>- a maximum 16 hours of rest
why?
>- rest never heals you completely...
???
>- resting takes a very small percentage of your gold.
why???
The second idea is to make stronger healing potions more expensive than their current price (they're obviously more expensive than minor counterparts).
About the fancy ideas :
- a maximum 16 hours of sleep to encourage the use of taverns, priests and potions;
- incomplete healing for the same reasons;
- a (very) small fee, for, again, the same reasons.
Everything here also addresses the RP perspective (who would sleep 16 days in the face of a dragon?) and the necessity of a gold sink (see this thread ), raising the difficulty by a little (but not too much) and giving once again a meaning to all that money you collect.
Random encounters when you rest in not so safe place in also very logical. You don't die of course but rest is interrupted and you have to start again spell memorization. :-p
I also disagree with removing the "Rest until healed" option -- all removing it does is add tedium (change your cleric's / druid's spells to all healing, rest 8 hours, cast all spells, rest, cast, and finally reset the spellbook back to what you want) without actually addressing the underlying issue.
I like the notion of having "rations" (that must be purchased) that are consumed when resting (unless resting outdoors with a Ranger in the party) combined with "No resting if their are hostile monster's on the map, not just in your immediate area" would be sufficient to address this issue.
Rations should be both expensive or bulky -- a days worth of generic food, after all, would be a pound or two / person / day, and with a standard party of 6, I don't see treating a "rest" (e.g. 8 hours) as a day and therefore stating that 10 pounds of food are consumed (available at a cost of 5 gold). On the other hand "magic" rations might weigh only 2 pounds, but cost 50 gold / "rest".
Note that the smallest rest interval usable with the "Rest until healed" option would be 3 rests (24 hours) -- one to memorize all healing spells, one to cast them, and one to restore the original spellbooks. This would give players a true dilemma: Give up 60 pounds of encumbrance (& 15 gold) to "Rest until healed" 3 times OR pay 50*9 = 450 gold (& an inventory slot), OR keep a ranger in the party and retreat to an outdoor area to rest.
Adding dilemma's is a good thing when it comes to game design...
While it seems highly unlikely that EE would add such a complex new concept to the game, I think this would be a fantastic idea for a mod -- someone with the skills should get on this! :P
Edit: forgot I was gonna mention Fallout 1 here: something I love about the first (two) Fallout game(s) is how sparse ammunition is -- especially for the more effective weapons. Not only does that really make sense in the Fallout setting, but it adds a very important strategic element of planning to the game (at least in the earlier parts). Requiring rations to rest could introduce a similar element to BG...
If I do get disturbed while sleeping, I've got everything set
I would like to see a choice for resting, so everyone is happy with their style
Also regarding rations, it is assumed that your party forages when they travel (shoot some rabbits, collect water,...), so they shouldn't be needed.
How about adding something like bandages to speed up healing when you rest?
1) The absolute minimum price is 1 gold for anything in BG -- engine limitations. Introducing silver / copper pieces simply for the purpose of allow more realistic ration pricing would be silly, to say the least.
2) The 5 gold cost is for enough rations for 6 people for 1 "rest" (~day, since rations are only consumed when you rest), not 1 person / day. Yes, this means that if you are playing with fewer than 6 people you are deliberately making the game harder, and I don't think you can legitimately complain. So the price per person day is less than 1 gold.
3) The BG (as with most computer RPGs) economy is fundamentally broken in any case. Random peasants give out 10+ gold rewards for completing trivial tasks all the time when that's more money than they should earn in a lifetime.
4) Due the previous, 5 gold is expensive enough (early on, at least) to make the player go "Do I really need this?".
In regards to hunting, agreed. Thus, the reason that rations aren't necessary if you are resting outdoors. I'm making the simplifying assumption, however, that food gathered "on the move" has to be consumed immediately or is lost, and you can't gather a lot of "extra" in any case. To do otherwise would end up making the mechanic far more complex than it needs to be.
For me, the restocking of spells is the biggest problem here, and it is usually just a side effect of needing to rest due to low health.
If something could be done about the first problem ,then the second would not be a problem.
Isnt it the same topic ? :O)
1) You can set it only once a day.
2) You can pick one party member as a guard, who's healing recovery would be halved or select few members for taking the shifts( each member's recovery would be decreased in "X" percentage as he is taking the shift ) "X" no. vary, depend of no of shifts. Possesing meat would slightly increase recovery.
3) Setting an area perimeter whithin You can set traps in order to alert the party about incoming threat.
4) Alerted party would suffer no penalty when attacked plus guarding member inflicts critical first hit.
5) Not having a guard nor traps set when been abushed gives your team a "cought by suprise" status for first 3 rounds, which dicrease their strenght and dexterity by 1.
Well thats really all i can think of, for now. What do you think of it?
P.S sorry for my english It's not my native language:)
I don't mind adding something in the game to spend money on- a house or something. But, food is not it. At least the house adds something- a place to go, where you can keep stuff you might need later but don't need right now. Food just adds unnecessary tedium to the entire game. Should the designers add pillaging/stealing food from kitchens so that you can steal food as well as loot? I think that dealing with food is adding something to the game it doesn't really need. And don't forget Druids- they could add to the party's store of food as well. So anyone traveling with the "standard" BG2 party with Jaheira and Minsc (Druid and Ranger) could live off the land and not have to worry about buying and carrying food, let's not forget.
So, you are only going to penalize some party builds (evil, mainly, since Rangers and Druids won't hang out with an evil party), and not others... No, I do not agree.