Baldur's Gate 3 Resting: Short Rest, Long Rest, and using Camp to heal the party

If you want to stay alive throughout the adventures you'll undertake in Baldur's Gate 3, understanding the game's resting system is important. It breaks down into two categories: the short rest and the long rest. Each has a slightly different utility, which we'll break down, among other things, on this page.

Resting is important in Baldur's Gate 3 as it's a primary method of replenishing your HP - meaning both types of rest are vital for preparing yourself between combat and thus ultimately for staying alive. As BG3 enters early access, here's our primer on resting.

Short Rest in Baldur's Gate 3

In order to short rest, all you need to do is hit the eye-shaped icon on the menu around the mini-map. It's the fourth icon down on the far top-right of the screen, right next to the mini-map.

Pressing this will short rest, which causes 15 minutes of in-game time to pass - but in turn earning you a small HP Recovery. It'll also allow some spell slots and abilities to be rejuvenated, but this isn't univerally true of all spells and abilities - it depends more specifically on each one.

There are catches to Short Resting, to be clear. Naturally, you can't do it while actively engaged in combat, obviously, but you also can't do it while enemies are nearby - that wouldn't be very restful.

You can only initiative one short rest for each Long Rest you take. Once you've used your short rest, that eye icon will simply be greyed out until the next time you take a long rest. 

That limitation means you'll want to strongly consider when you take your rest; you should save itt until your party is quite injured, or until before a major battle encounter. 

Long Rest in Baldur's Gate 3

If you want to fully replenish your party's health and abilities, a Long Rest is the way forwards. The thing is, a Long Rest can't be done just anywhere: you have to do it at a camp. The Long Rest icon is directly above the Short Rest icon - it's got the image of a Bonfire on it.

The Long Rest lives up to its name - it's a whopping eight hours long. It's basically an overnight rest, which makes sense given that you trigger it by returning to camp and getting into your bed. The reward for such a huge passage of time is that you get a full party heal. 

Hitting the Bonfire Icon is a shortcut to this - it'll take you back to camp, where you can then Long Rest - which is why we think of it as a Long Rest button. Use it whenever your Short Rest has been used up, or just use it as preparation before heading out into a new dungeon or new area of the world.