Your party has been through the ringer, and there’s another big fight right around the corner. Your buffs have worn off and your spell slots are all used up. What now?
Everyone needs a little rest and relaxation now and then – some sleep, some food, some conversation with companions. Baldur’s Gate 3 uses 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, which means you have two different ways to rest and restore your party’s hit points and abilities. We’ll take a look at both below.
Short Rests
A Short Rest is quicker than a Long Rest and doesn’t require using any supplies. When you take a Short Rest, the effect is instant and you don’t have to travel to your camp. Your party members will restore up to 50% of their hit points, and some spells and abilities will be reset so you can use them again.
You can take up to two Short Rests between each Long Rest. Bards get the Song of Rest ability at level 2, which can be used to take an extra Short Rest for a total of three.
Abilities that can be recharged on a Short Rest will say so in their tooltip. Warlocks are the only spell casters who can restore their spell slots during a Short Rest. Many classes have other abilities that recharge during a Short Rest, such as the cleric’s Channel Divinity ability.
How to Take a Short Rest
How you go about taking a Short Rest will depend on whether you’re using a keyboard or controller.
If you’re using a keyboard, look for the Camp and Resting Menu button on the right side of your action bars. Click to expand it. The top button in this menu is the Short Rest button. Click on it to take a Short Rest.
If you’re using a controller, tap the right trigger to open the Shortcut Menu. From here, you can use the right joystick to navigate between options. When you get to the Short Rest option, use your Interact button to activate it (/ )
KeyboardController
You won’t get a load screen or anything – Short Rests are instantaneous. You should see your party heal if they are missing hit points.
The blue circles below the Short Rest icon show how many Short Rests you have remaining. If they are both empty, you’ll need to take a Long Rest before you can take any more Short Rests.
Long Rests
A Long Rest is a little more involved than a Short Rest. It requires visiting your camp and using some camp supplies. It will also end the day in the game, meaning that any time-sensitive quests may be affected. Some quests actually require you to complete a Long Rest in order to progress.
There is no limit to how often you can take a Long Rest except that you will need to use camp supplies each time. On Explorer and Balanced difficulties, you’ll need 40 camp supplies for each Long Rest. On Tactician difficulty you’ll need 80. It’s possible to complete a Partial Rest without using any supplies, but you won’t get the full effect of the Long Rest. Supply Packs count as 40 camp supplies.
You can select the supplies you wish to use or let the game choose them automatically. There is an achievement called Bottoms Up that can be earned by using only alcohol.
How to Take a Long Rest
How you go about taking a Long Rest will depend on whether you’re using a keyboard or a controller.
If you’re using a keyboard, look for the Camp and Resting Menu button on the right side of your action bars. Click to expand it. The crescent moon button in this menu is the Long Rest button. Click on it to travel to your camp.
If you’re using a controller, tap the right trigger button to open the Shortcut Menu. From here, you can use the right joystick to navigate between options. When you get to the Long Rest option, use your Interact button to activate it (/ ). This will take you to your camp.
KeyboardController
Once you’re at your camp, you can take care of any business such as talking to your companions or checking your supplies. When you’re ready to complete your Long Rest, locate and activate a bedroll to Go to Bed. There are four bedrolls in a circle around the fire in the middle of the camp.
This will bring up the Camp Supplies window where you can choose the supplies you will use. The Auto-Select button will automatically select the amount of supplies you need, saving you the trouble of having to click on them. It seems to favor using loose supplies rather than a Supply Pack. You can also opt to pick your own supplies, such as if you’re going for the Buttoms Up achievement (which requires using only alcohol).
When you have enough supplies selected, the Partial Rest button will change to a Full Rest button, and you can click on it to complete your Long Rest. There is no advantage to using more supplies than are needed.
After your party has slept, you’ll be back in your camp but it will be daytime. All of your abilities and spell slots should be restored. You now have a chance to wrap up any business you have in the camp, and when you’re done you can activate the fire or a rolled-up bedroll to Leave Camp.
Share this article:
Luxrah
I love RPGs, sandboxes, survival, and sim games. Anything that lets me build and decorate or just has a really good story. I've spent hundreds of hours in Bethesda games and even more time modding them. I also play a lot of World of Warcraft.