Summary
The breakout success ofBaldur’s Gate 3will almost certainly have a huge influence onDungeons and Dragonsmoving forward. However, there’s one overlooked feature of the latter game that should really play a part in the 2024D&Drules update.
Late 2024 and early 2025 will see a major rules update toD&D 5e, with revised editions of the game’s core rulebooks releasing in that timeframe. The first of these,D&D’s all-importantPlayer’s Handbook, will meet players on September 17 of this year. This key volume will likely contain the bulk of the game’s rules, especially those that pertain to what players can do; character creation options, new spells, reworked actions, and more will be found in this book.
Dungeons and Dragons' Revision Should Handle Rests More Like Baldur’s Gate 3
Included among the rules that will be found inD&D’s upcomingPlayer’s Handbookwill be rules on resting. Long rests and short rests serve as breaks in gameplay where players can regain some resources. In 5e’s case, short rests allow for some hit dice healing and the recharge of specific resources (like a fighter’s action surge) while long rests bring a character back to full strength.
The rules around how these rests are handled are somewhat vague in official materials, especially when it comes to resting in the wild. Luckily,Baldur’s Gate 3has a system for rests that could easily be translated intoD&D’s new rules—a system that incentivizes survival gameplay and exploration.
How Resting Works In Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3makes some key resting changesto add a bit of spice to the mechanic’s proceedings. First, short rests are limited to 2 per long rest—unless the party has a bard of at least 2nd level, who can grant an additional short rest per day.
This already makes resting more of a decision, preventing the party from constantly short-resting between fights with protective spells like Tiny Hut or Rope Trick. It also makes the bard’s Song of Rest a more desirable feature—5e’s Song of Rest is so underused thatD&D’s 2024 revision is poised to rework it entirely.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s long restsare where things really get interesting, though. To have a long rest, a party will need 40 camping supplies or enough gold to book a room at an inn. The latter is fairly common inD&Dgames, but the former is unique. Rations often go overlooked in 5e, just as ammunition and other pieces of nebulous adventuring equipment do; class resources are the main thing that gets strictly tracked as opposed to finer, grittier details.
Despite this, camping supplies as a resource are a nice way to keep player power in check; locking the full benefits of a long rest behind a resource cost incentivizes careful and limited resting. Moreover, camping supplies are a workable resource for most tables. They can be adapted to the table as undefined units, so players only need to track supplies as a whole rather than the specifics. Skill challenges could be used to gather these resources, and players who gather them late into the night might be at risk of monster attacks. The amount of potential encounters that could be spun from this concept is yet more reasonforD&D’s rules update to add it in.
A Demand For Revised Survival Is There
In general,D&D 5e’s survival gameplay is lackluster and there’s great demand for some revised rules. Many players have complained about how spells like Goodberry ruin survival gameplay, andGameloft’s upcomingD&Dgamewill focus on this underserved aspect. Luckily, a camping supplies system would circumvent Goodberry, allowing it to really boost survival and the exploration pillar of play.
Dungeons and Dragons
Created by Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game in which players craft their own worlds and band together to take on adventures through mysterious realms outlined in companion materials. One of the best role-playing games ever made, it has been adapted into a variety of video games and other media.
