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The rest button seems to have become permanently greyed out in my game. I can rest in inns, but not out in the world. I noticed that this has happened to other players in the past, is there a known solution?

Up until today everything has been fine, today while attempting the quest with the dragon spark (can't really recall the name right now), iv'e noticed that resting in or outside the cave does not remove fatigue, nor does it heal my party members. i tried loading the game again, moving to a different map and back and it still doesn't work dxdiag and savefile attached here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2b4quvg9ufnvjzu/AABABZlGvhKdfSLlG8pjy0q1a?dl=0

Simple as it sounds in the title: potions have expiration dates. This let's players rest whenever they want without giving them many plot/story penalties ("you're too late hero, we've killed everyone in town") but instead apply direct combat penalties. As an added bonus, I can only guess that players would be much less likely to hoard potions, something they can often ease into. If somebody wanted to get very creative, certain expired potions could become acids, poisons, alchemic ingredients, bombs, or even entirely different potions. Thoughts?

Perhaps it was lsot in the dozens of posts talking about health/stamina, but I haven't seen a topic dedicated about the resting/restoration system. I think that a system where you can rest everywhere like in BG makes it too easy at times. You jsut unleash -all- your spells and then take a quick nap in the middle of the dungeon, ready for your next encounter. Something I liked were the fire pyres in Dark Souls. Granted, that game is ahrdcore, but since PE is related a lot to souls, perhaps there are special places that help restore one's energy. Magic is also prettymunch linked to you own soul's energy, thus, these specific places could be used to recharge your soul. It could even be a place where you can communicate with souls of the deceased or some other ideas like that since such places would be closer to the spirit world. Like places over the world where the layer between these "planes" are thinner.

If some don't like Vanacian and many don't like cooldowns, what then? Here's an idea: Fatigue * EDIT: in case you havn't figured it out yet, red is health, green is morale * Lets say your mage starts the day with 100 fatigue (or 1000.. higher numbers might be better for balancing and nuances) He and the party go traveling. They've been on the road for 2 hours and the mages maximum fatigue has gone down, so now he's at 90/90. Max fatigue goes down as the day goes by and as you do physicly demanding things (long journesy, running, etc..). Even if you don't cast any spells, you will need sleep. So your group runs into some orcs. Battle starts. You launch a pretty powerfull spell that costs 15 fatigue. Roughly 10% of that costs is drawn from MAX fatigue. Your max fatigue has now dropped down to 88. However, your regular fatigue will regenerate by roughly 1 point per second. In 15 seconds the mage will be at 88/88. He can cast antoher spell immediately or wait. Had he/she cast a less pwoerfull spell, the max fatigue would have been reduced only by 1 point. Either way, as time passes and the battles go on, the MAX fatigue drops. At 25% the character (any character, fighter or mage) becomes tired. It's harder to focus, but not by much. At 0% the characte is dead tired. He cna still continue to fight and move, but the penalties become severe. Miscasting becomesalmost a certanty. The only way to recover MAX fatigue is by resting. Yes resting. Resting should be a part of any true RPG. It gives inns and villages a clear purpose. It is a safe haven to gather information, prepare, stock up, rest and heal. I'd propose even healing to be very difficult. A natural and slow process. Healign spells don't heal fully - they give back only a small amount of HP (and a character cannot be healed over 50% wihout rest), but increase natural regeneration. - Note it would still take hours for critical wounds to heal. Without healing magic it might take days. This even more gives a feelign of a real adventure and resource managment. Pulling back and regrouping becomes not onnly a valid tactic, but sometimes necessary (realistic, no?). Also, leaving a wounded companion in the inn to recouperate while you take another companion with you for a while becomes an enticing prospect. Personally, I'd rather have a few powerfull spells that I can't cast all of the time, and having to resort to a crossbow/staff/sword often enough, thanto have easily spammable low-level spells. That just sucks. More like Gandalf, less like Hawke.

Hi there, I've put my TLDR in the Cooldown 2.0 thread but i really want to expand a bit. Seeing as there is much discussion around this cooldown thing i would like to propose a mechanic that seems pretty good to me (or course it does, duh!, i'm proposing it lol). Ok, let's get to the point. 1. Basics Each ability or spell has two components: Proficiency and Efficiency. Proficiency is gained (points) through the use of abilities/spells or combos, and starts to decay naturally (percentage of the current number of points) after a fixed amount or time. It stops decaying once you use the ability/spell or a combo that uses that ability/spell. Efficiency is lost (percentage of the current number of points) through the use of abilities/spells or combos and starts to regenerate naturally (points) after a fixed amount of time. It stops regenerating once you use the ability/spell or a combo that uses that ability/spell. 1.a. - Proficiency is measuring how skilled is the PC in using that ability/spell. It goes up each time you use an ability/spell against and enemy that is not below a certain level compared to yours and scales with that level difference. For example if you use an ability on a target that is 3 level below you (or more), you will get no Proficiency points, if you use the ability/spell against a target that is the same level as you, you get 5 Proficiency points and if you use the ability/spell against a target that is 3 levels above you (or more), you get 10 Proficiency points. Of course, some other game mechanics (like the ability/spell is saved against or blocked completely) might be used when fighting against targets way above your level. Proficiency is used to advance your ability, either by directly applying a buff to the effects of that ability/spell, or by simply moving towards the next tier (so using Bash will slowly gain you Proficiency points towards Improved Bash). The latter would mean that the PC only learns the most basic spells/abilities from external sources, and the more improved abilities/spells he discovers by actually using the related lower tiered ones. Also, Proficiency slowly decays (at the same time as the Efficiency goes up) but it will never reach 0 (it decays by a fixed percentage of the total points that you have, so the more time passes the less it decays). 1.b - Efficiency is measuring how that ability/spell is performing, considering on how many times it has been used, successfully, over a certain period of time. The Efficiency is regenerating naturally (or through other means like drinking from a well, whatever), slowly, over the course of time. Each time you use an ability/spell however, it drops by a percentage (let's say 5%) so that if you use it 5 times in a row it will only be at 77% Efficiency. This translates into reduced effects (for the sake of simplicity only direct damage or damage over time, or direct protection/healing or protection/healing over time). So if a certain ability does, let's say, 10-20 damage, after it's first use it will drop to 9-18 damage, after the second use it will again drop to 8-17 damage (rounded up) and so on. As you can see, it's not going to be a liniar drop so you don't get to use it only 20 times before reaching 0. You will actually never reach 0 as it will always go down by 5% (of the total Efficiency points). The first time you use it it will drop by 5 points, the second time again by 5 points, by the time you reach 80 points (out of 100) it will only drop by 4 points. All numbers are rounded up, so if it drops by 4.6 it actually drops by 5 points, as opposed to 4.2 that would translate into 4 points. There might be game mechanics or skills/perks that either reduce this decay per usage or rise your maximum Efficiency to more than 100 points. It's really open to any kind of tweaking, just like the Proficiency. EDIT: I forgot. Just like Proficiency, the Efficiency percentage that decays with each use should be calculated using the same rules, related to the level difference between the attacker and the target. 2. Combo I know that this is not really related to the system, but it would work great with it. The system lets the PC combine any previously learned ability/spell. At first you will be able to only combine 2 of them, but maybe as you get better and better you might combine more than 2. The effects of the combo are the added effects of the basic constituent abilities/spells calculated at their current level of Proficiency and Efficiency. The Proficiency and Efficiency system works in the following way for combos: - Each time you use a combo you will gain some proficiency points just like using an individual spell/ability but those points are divided equally towards each basic constituent ability/spell. - Each time you use a combo you will lose 5% (again just as an example) from the Efficiency of each constituent ability/spell. 3. Conclusions Such a system, at least in my intention, would do away with resting and cooldowns, mana or stamina. Every PC will only have those two resources (when talking about abilities/spells or combos), the stats only adding the the effects of those. The complexity of it comes from the two diverging directions. PCs are free to use whatever ability/spell or even combo in their arsenal. The advantage is that the more you use an ability/spell or combo you will slowly advance towards better abilities/spells and of course combos, the drawback being that if you abuse the system you will soon find yourself with really weak abilities/spells and combos. Moreover, the PC must decide weather to use a "strong" combo (strong because it has the added effects of the base constituent abilities/spells) or a more basic ability/spell. You wouldn't want to get caught with your pants down (low Efficiency) when encountering a strong hostile NPC because in your last encounter you "wasted" your best combos on some low level critters. The system could be tweaked and tested, and those numbers that i threw here are definitely not the best, they are only used as an example. The beauty of this system is that it no longer requires a cooldown, no longer requires a rest (or maybe you could regain the Efficiency but lose Profficiency through rest). Such a system means that the player really needs to use an ability/spell in order to advance (so encourages him to abuse it) but also means that the more it abuses it the weaker that ability/spell it will get (for the moment). Such a system would mean that the PC will have overpowered combos, but it also means that the player will surely not want to "waste" those OP combos on critters and will always try to save them for when it matters. This would add so much complexity to any fight (imho) as you will always try to "balance" the rewards of killing the opponents as fast as you can with the risk of not having your best combo at top efficiency for the next encounter. Also, in longer fight this would mean that the PC must rely on a well rounded and diversified arsenal, because if he uses the same abilities/spells and well as combos that use those abilities/spells as basic constituents he will soon lose all of those due to them being weaker because of low Efficiency. On the other hand he is encouraged to use them as often as possible in order to make them better (gain Proficiency). I'm pretty sure this is not perfect, some of you might just think it's rubbish (and by the way it's somewhat inspired from Rage of Mages 2, the Proficiency part at least) but i like it (again duh!) and with some tweaking and/or refinement i really think it would work. There's at least one person here that would, in theory at least, be excited to see it implemented. 4. Expanded The game could play with such a system, by adding skills that lower your Efficiency decay but also lower the Proficiency gained (you get a PC or companion that is able to use the preferred abilities/spells more often while not being able to advance that fast), or by adding items that will tweak any of those components (or by adding Max. Efficiency points). You could get abilities (non PC, or even PC) that would temporarily raise your Efficiency (PC) or temporarily lower your Efficiency (hostile NPC). And probably much, much more than that. P.S. Oh darn... lvl 10 Fire Dragon... where's my Ice Shard + Stun combo? Oh sh!t, Ice shard is at 65 Efficiency... what do i do, what do i do. Why did i used Ice Shard on those lvl 7 Rogues?!?!

I propose the following system for the rest button: If you can rest where you are, you will rest there (simple enough). However, if you cannot, for whatever reason, the following occurs: 1. The game plays in fast forward, your party moving to the last safe resting area. 2. Upon reaching that safe resting area, it rests. 3. Upon waking, the game plays in fast forward until the party returns to the original positions you pressed the rest button in. If at any point the game encounters hostiles or a game pausing situation (like Elminster coming to talk to you), the game hands you control again. This way we have a rest button that does not waste player time unnecessarily with long walks, but also allows for random encounters to happen between getting to the rest area and returning to your current location. Resting is also limited to once every 8 hours minimum