Percent Chance of Random Encounters Per Day?

[Dralnu]

I'm feeling crazy because I could swear that yesterday I was reading somewhere a guideline for how often random encounters should happen based on how dangerous an area is. I don't know if it was the PHB, MM, or the Basic pdf, or somewhere else. But it was for 5e, and it mentioned examples from Forgotten Realms, basically you're more likely to run into a random encounter in dangerous areas. Duh, I know. But I can't for the life of me find that passage anymore. For the sake of my sanity, anyone know what I'm talking about and where I can find it?

[Townopolis]

I know something like this existed during the playtest, but we'll probably have to wait for the DMG to get the finalized version.

IIRC, the playtest version involved rolling a d20 during every exploration round (5 minutes in a dungeon or other adventure locale, 1 hour during long travel) and compared it to the monster density of the area to see if your party got a random encounter.

In low density areas, random encounters only happen if you roll a 20
In moderate density areas, you get a random encounter on a roll of 18 or higher
In high density areas, you get an encounter on a roll of 15 or higher

[iskoaya]

in the starter set adventure after the town section, before the orcs and wyvern tor...

random encounter guidelines are given:

WILDERNESS ENCOUNTERS
Ask the players to tell you the party's marching order, so that you know which characters are in the lead and who's bringing up the rear. When the party camps, ask which characters are on watch. This information is important if the party encounters something dangerous.

The Triboar Trail is not safe. As the adventurers travel throughout this area, they might stumble across hungry beasts, greedy bandits, or vicious monsters. Check for encounters once during the day and once at night by rolling a d20. On a roll of 17-20, an encounter takes place. Roll a d12 and consult the Wilderness Encounters table to determine what the party meets.

When an encounter occurs, and the adventurers gain XP if they defeat the monsters. Each creature's stat block has the XP value for one monster of that sort. Multiply that value by the number of creatures encountered, then divide the total equally among the characters.

WILDERNESS ENCOUNTERS
Day Roll Result
1-2 Stirges (ld8 + 2)
3-4 Ogre (1)
5-6 Goblins (ld6 + 3)
7-8 Hobgoblins (ld4 + 2)
9-10 Orcs (ld4 + 2)
11 Wolves (ld4 + 2)
12 11-12 Owl bear (1)

Night Roll Result
1-3 Stirges (ld8 + 2)
4 Ghouls (ld4 + 1)
5 Goblins (ld6 + 3)
6 Hobgoblins (ld4 + 2)
7-8 Orcs (ld4 + 2)
9-10 Wolves (ld4 + 2)
11-12 Owl bear (1)



SOooo... roll 1d20 for each day and one for each night, and on a result of 17+ you have an encounter, the encounter list would be something more appropriate to your campaign or region of campaign

[Tenmujiin]

SOooo... roll 1d20 for each day and one for each night, and on a result of 17+ you have an encounter, the encounter list would be something more appropriate to your campaign or region of campaign

Later in LMoP the random dungeon encounters are the same but once every hour (I think). So it seems that random encounters are 20% chance every hour in a dungeon and every 1/2 day in the wilderness.

[rlc]

i believe the starter set also mentions that if the players are in the same place for too long in the final dungeon (i want to say ten minutes), there's a chance for a random encounter there, too.

[Slipperychicken]

SOooo... roll 1d20 for each day and one for each night, and on a result of 17+ you have an encounter, the encounter list would be something more appropriate to your campaign or region of campaign

That comes out to a 36% chance of having at least one encounter per 24 hour interval.

Lordsmoothe's figures would result in 51% for high-density, 36% for medium, and 9.75% for low-density.



No wonder adventurers are so paranoid. Even in low encounter-density environments, they can hardly do a week of travel without getting jumped.