I like the way resting handled in Pillars of Eternity more than Infinity Engine games that inspired it.

In towns, paying for stay an inn while provide long-lasting bonuses. The type of bonus and duration will depend on the location being rested at.

Outside towns, the party can camp anywhere as long as they have camping supplies. There is no danger of enemy ambushes. Instead, there is a limit of camping supplies the party can carry at once. Characters who invested in survival skill can receive buffs upon rest.

Same tbh, regenerating your party's health and mana/spells should never be free, and the fact that camping supplies cost money and you can only carry like 4 of them or something (can't remember) discourages the player from resting after every fight like Infinity Engine.

My personal view is that in RPGs health and mana should be like ammunition. Though it makes sense that dungeons would have certain one-use things to regen health/mana like fountains. As for potions, they should be expensive and you should only be able to carry a fixed amount at any one time.

I'm of the opinion that things like that should respawn if you leave the dungeon entirely and rest in town. (Or, for example, "rest in a safe space", like how in Owlcat's games you remove the Death's Door condition.) This way, you're not punished long term for choosing to do only part of the dungeon on your first trip.

(Related, though not about RPGs: It's also why, in a game like Mega Man, health and weapon energy pick-ups should respawn on death; they do in MM1, but not in later games. In fact, allowing weapon energy to respawn in MM2 would partly solve a design issue that affects two stages of Wily's castle, where you can run out of weapon energy and be unable to continue; they would then just need to add some weapon energy pick-ups to those two stages so that the player isn't forced to intentionally lose all their lives to continue.)


I think it should be free (or at least cheap enough for the cost to be inconsequential) if you're in a safe place, like a town.

I think it depends on other factors such as how quick and easy it is to return to town and whether "Scroll of Town Portal" type spells exist. And of course if leaving a dungeon causes some level of respawn of monsters.

Hmmm i haven't really played Morrowind since 2010, so i forgot these details. Course i'd also do alternate methods of restoring health/MP, via alchemy and for 8 hours getting 80,000 healing on both... That was always fun.

Or my favorite method of summoning an Ancestral Ghost (or is it Ancestor Ghost? I don't think even the game is consistent about the spelling) cast a spell on me that I then absorb. Of course, this means being able to absorb spells, but fortunately, there's the Atronach birthsign.

To improve on this, I create a ring that can summon the ghost for me. The ring's charges regenerate over time, so I'm never stuck without being able to regain Magicka.

(By the way, in Morrowind resting actually restores the resources of every single NPC and creature in the world, not just the player.)