Ugh, no. Remember that commoners tend to only have 1-4 hit points. So a commoner cut down can eat a chicken leg and be just fine? Yeah, no, And the comment about managing the food bars of six characters made me go "Oh, no, the Sims!" (or Sims2, same difference, really). I am primarily against it because it just becomes another thing to micromanage and takes away from what is, to me, the main focus of the game: fighting monsters and evil and being a kickass character. Besides, if you travel with a ranger or druid in your party, your party should be able to feed itself off the land anyhow. There are tons of squirrels and if you are on the coast, fish. You can probably even eat bear steaks if you are waylaid by a bear and must defend yourself. Not to mention deer and other small animals that live in the wilderness. No cooking or crafting food, either. There are other games for that, if that's what you want.
okies, those who dislike the food ideas - please wipe them from your memories. And those that do like them...too bad! Not a whole lot of talk concerning the lore or steal ideas or preferably something new anyone would care to share? Then again there are over 900 Feature Request discussions...
The idea of eating apples and other items to regain health of course is in a lot of games. Off the top of my head it was in Nox which was around the time that the BG series came out.
@Kason Goodberries are great. They are a foundational means of support for adventurers looking for a natural source of health. No more industrial created potions for me, its all about what is natural
Reminds me of Final Fantasy XI. An unnecessary complication. Just RP your characters having a nice lunch in the tavern or in the center of a grass glade and be done with it.
ranger tracking; footprints of all kinds of forest animals run in all directions, you can see that few people disturb this area with any regularity. On the breeze however, you catch the scent of goblin trousers. You also make a mental note of some delicious looking bee hives and an extremely fat squirrel.
ranger tracking; footprints of all kinds of forest animals run in all directions, you can see that few people disturb this area with any regularity. On the breeze however, you catch the scent of goblin trousers. You also make a mental note of some delicious looking bee hives and an extremely fat squirrel.
Whoever said ranger tracking was a useless ability
The food idea just doesn't seem necessary to me. As has been said, BG isn't about depicting real life on the screen. As for lore, it would be an incongruous method of gaining lore. How does the History of the North and the Tale of the Dead Three, or the tome of the Fateful Coin make it any easier to discern a Long Sword +1, or a scroll of Protection From Acid?
While adding food is needless realism, I do think that food could have a place in BG. In particular, rations could be used to eliminate rest spamming and to encourage more cautious dungeon exploration. The cost of the food may not prove significant, but the lost inventory space could.
What do you two think? Obviously this adds another layer to the already cumbersome micromanagement, but it's strategically interesting. I don't mean to single you two out, but I wanted to draw the attention of more skeptical eyes.
I'm not sure. The only game I know of that uses food in a Turn-based RPG- like manner that also has clerical healing (and not just potions) was the Exile/Avernum games. There were five or six different kinds of meat/food your party could find, along with bandages. There were things like bread, strange meat, steaks, and the like, and each healed a set number of hit points, within a range. Bandages healed 8-10, for example. Whereas healing potions healed 30, and the more powerful healing potions healed 100. Which meant that food was only necessary in the early game- later on, as your hit points went up by large numbers, it was kind of useless to drag it around merely for healing. And as the Avernum games started, it was reduced to a mere number. To prevent starvation, you had to have 1 piece of food per party member per day (or so) to prevent starvation and stop you from taking starvation damage). At that point there was no eatable food in the game, though you could collect bags of meal to give the starving refugees in one of the cities so that they could cook it and make their own food. You could also sell it to the guard captain in the same city for money, if you wanted to be a putz. There was no alignment penalty for doing so.
Well, here's another option: food isn't necessary, it doesn't heal, it just helps stave off fatigue and mayhaps boost morale a smidge. You can buy it cheap in town and occasional monsters drop it. You may also find "containers" out of berry bushes or the like.
The good berries spell is special; they're supposed to give you a full day's worth of nourishment each. With this system, they would remove all fatigue, making them more worthy of a 2nd level spell slot.
This is a way that food could be implemented without any real significant change to the game and still make for a worthwhile addition.
Don't see the devs doing this though. If you wanted this, you might have to conscript a modder.
I do see the benefit of it. It was kind of addressed with 'Iron Rations' in IWD2. Even so, I don't think we need a banquet of different kinds of food, all of which heal a character to a lesser or greater degree. I can see why it may be suggested, but I feel it is a rather trivial issue that wouldn't really help immersion as much as one might think it would. Perhaps, as you say, it is just scepticism on my part, but I see BG as the most wonderful and immersive game ever, and I don't think a lack of dietary options has ever been a crutch for the BG fanbase in attaching itself to the game.
I sure hope they make a similar Heart of Fury mode with BG:EE. I know there's plenty of mods for it out there but I would rather have it bundled with the orginal game than to find and download it myself (yes...I'm lazy!)
Comments
An unnecessary complication.
Just RP your characters having a nice lunch in the tavern or in the center of a grass glade and be done with it.
As for lore, it would be an incongruous method of gaining lore. How does the History of the North and the Tale of the Dead Three, or the tome of the Fateful Coin make it any easier to discern a Long Sword +1, or a scroll of Protection From Acid?
@recklessheart
@LadyRhian
What do you two think? Obviously this adds another layer to the already cumbersome micromanagement, but it's strategically interesting. I don't mean to single you two out, but I wanted to draw the attention of more skeptical eyes.
"Urrrrrrrrr!!!"
"Pepto for Everyone!" - Minsc
The good berries spell is special; they're supposed to give you a full day's worth of nourishment each. With this system, they would remove all fatigue, making them more worthy of a 2nd level spell slot.
This is a way that food could be implemented without any real significant change to the game and still make for a worthwhile addition.
Don't see the devs doing this though. If you wanted this, you might have to conscript a modder.
Even so, I don't think we need a banquet of different kinds of food, all of which heal a character to a lesser or greater degree. I can see why it may be suggested, but I feel it is a rather trivial issue that wouldn't really help immersion as much as one might think it would. Perhaps, as you say, it is just scepticism on my part, but I see BG as the most wonderful and immersive game ever, and I don't think a lack of dietary options has ever been a crutch for the BG fanbase in attaching itself to the game.