Rebalancing The Game For Fewer Encounters Per Day

[Strill]

One of the game's biggest problems is that it's designed around an adventuring day of 6 to 8 medium to hard encounters per day. That's bad because most people don't use this many encounters. This creates problems when, for example, a Paladin one-shots a boss because the DM only gave the party one encounter per day. Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.

My general idea is that short-rest abilities would not need to be changed at all. You would still get one short rest every 1 to 2 encounters, just as things are now. All you would need to focus on are long-rest abilities. The most obvious issue is Spells, so we would need to create a spell slot progression whose budget uses half as many spell points. That's slightly annoying because casters get around 3 spell slots per level, but I think it's workable.

[Rysto]

One option would be to drop spell slots entirely and use the Spell Point system from the DMG, but only give half as many points.

[Malifice]

Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.

Use the gritty realism rest variant in the DMG.

Its balanced around 1-3 encounters per day, and around 3-4 such adventuring days before needing a weeks rest.

[Laserlight]

Or make the encounters harder. I typically give them 2-3 encounters from Deadly to 2xDeadly.

[MaxWilson]

One of the game's biggest problems is that it's designed around an adventuring day of 6 to 8 medium to hard encounters per day. That's bad because most people don't use this many encounters. This creates problems when, for example, a Paladin one-shots a boss because the DM only gave the party one encounter per day. Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.

Alternately, you could just follow the DMG guidelines. The adventuring day budget typically works out to three or sometimes fewer Deadly encounters per day, or three to four Hard encounters.

You're aware I presume that what were called Hard encounters when the game first came out are now called Medium? Boundaries used to be ceilings, but now they're floors. Those "6 to 8 medium to hard encounters" with exactly the same monsters would now clock in as "6 to 8 easy to medium encounters". Same monsters, same stats, new difficulty labels. This happened around Basic Release 0.2 IIRC, after the PHB came out but before the release of the DMG.

[Strill]

Alternately, you could just follow the DMG guidelines. The adventuring day budget typically works out to three or sometimes fewer Deadly encounters per day, or three to four Hard encounters.

You're aware I presume that what were called Hard encounters when the game first came out are now called Medium? Boundaries used to be ceilings, but now they're floors. Those "6 to 8 medium to hard encounters" with exactly the same monsters would now clock in as "6 to 8 easy to medium encounters". Same monsters, same stats, new difficulty labels. This happened around Basic Release 0.2 IIRC, after the PHB came out but before the release of the DMG.

If this change happened before the DMG came out, then it's irrelevant to me, because I got all my information from the DMG in the first place. So any past versions of the adventuring day budget never factored into my reasoning.


Or make the encounters harder. I typically give them 2-3 encounters from Deadly to 2xDeadly.

The problem I see here is that even if you're casting spells out the wazoo here, you're still not going to have enough time per fight to use all your spell slots up. That somewhat defeats the point of having a resource-based difficulty system doesn't it?

For example, what do you do when a caster casts one of their encounter-crippling spells, like Hypnotic Pattern, or Wall of Force? They've used up a small fraction of their spell slots for the day, but cut your encounter in half - or more. Even if a caster uses up two or three spell slots per fight, they'll still have plenty left over to keep on going. You also have the issue of Counterspell. Since you're not using up all the casters' spell slots, you'll basically never be able to include spellcasters because the Wizard will just counterspell them all with impunity. Ideally, the system should be such that casters will be almost out of spell slots by the end of the "adventuring day".


Use the gritty realism rest variant in the DMG.

Its balanced around 1-3 encounters per day, and around 3-4 such adventuring days before needing a weeks rest.
While that is true, I find that being obligated to offer the players a week's rest on a regular basis is rather limiting from a storytelling perspective. For example, what happens if the players have used up all their resources, and are forced to retreat? Depending on the threat they're trying to resolve, delaying for a day could be acceptable, but delaying for a week often stretches disbelief.


One option would be to drop spell slots entirely and use the Spell Point system from the DMG, but only give half as many points.
That's an option, but it gives casters extra flexibility that I don't think is warranted. Personally, I let Sorcerers use spell points as a buff to the class specifically.

[MaxWilson]

If this change happened before the DMG came out, then it's irrelevant to me, because I got all my information from the DMG in the first place. So any past versions of the adventuring day budget never factored into my reasoning.

Then it's kind of weird that you're trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The DMG math recommends only a handful of Hard or Deadly encounters per day.

[Strill]

Then it's kind of weird that you're trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The DMG math recommends only a handful of Hard or Deadly encounters per day.

The DMG math recommends 5 hard, or 3.2 deadly encounters.

As I said in previous posts, I think it's important that players run out of resources. Otherwise you get things like Counterspell trumping all enemy spellcasters because the Wizards never runs out of spell slots. Three fights is physically not enough to strain their resources, because you simply can't cast enough spells within that span of time to even run out.

[Gastronomie]

Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.Sorry to completely ignore your original goal, but let me talk a bit about an alternative take to this problem.

At our table, we actually have it that the adventurers engage in about 2 to 4 "hard to deadly" encounters per day. Instead of toning down both the enemies and the adventurers, I feel that this way they can feel heroic and the fights more compelling.

Apart from that, telling the players that they will get weaker than it originally says in the Player's Handbook is... honestly, if I were a player, I wouldn't like it.

The truth is that "medium" encounters aren't dangerous. Okay, so yes, right, it's perfectly fine with the encounters not being dangerous, but it certainly does become a problem when the players can really see that the fight is nothing to fear, when they realize this is just an obstacle in their path that will steamroll over with no difficulty - with the thrill of battle dampened and gone, the encounter becomes nothing but a boring "task". With "medium" encounters, depending on the outcome, sometimes whole characters will end up not taking a single point of damage... but that's just honestly monotone.

I'd prefer to have a small number of tougher encounters than vice versa, and I think this is the most "entertaining" solution to this problem of "how to fix power balance when there are less encounters than originally designed".

[MaxWilson]

The DMG math recommends 5 hard, or 3.2 deadly encounters.

At level 1, the average Hard encounter will be worth 87.5 XP, so the DMG recommends about 300/87.5 = 3.42 Hard encounters.

At level 5, the average Hard encounter will be worth 925 XP, so the DMG recommends about 3500/925 = 3.78 Hard encounters.

At level 11, the average Hard encounter will be worth 3000 XP, so the DMg recommends about 10,500/3000 = 3.5 Hard encounters.

At level 17, the average Hard encounter will be worth 7350 XP, so the DMG recommends about 25,000/7350 = 3.4 Hard encounters.

At level 20, the average Hard encounter will be worth 10,600 XP, so the DMG recommends about 40,000/10,600 = 3.77 Hard encounters.


As I said in previous posts, I think it's important that players run out of resources. Otherwise you get things like Counterspell trumping all enemy spellcasters because the Wizards never runs out of spell slots. Three fights is physically not enough to strain their resources, because you simply can't cast enough spells within that span of time to even run out.

The DMG math disagrees with you, unless you're making those three fights Medium or Easy.*

Frederick Lanchester might have something to say about the subject, too.

* The DMG math goes really, really easy on the party, but if your party is handling multiple Deadly fights with minimal resource expenditure then they will probably through nigh-unlimited numbers of Medium fights too.

[Strill]

Sorry to completely ignore your original goal, but let me talk a bit about an alternative take to this problem.

At our table, we actually have it that the adventurers engage in about 2 to 4 "hard to deadly" encounters per day. Instead of toning down both the enemies and the adventurers, I feel that this way they can feel heroic and the fights more compelling.
If you're looking to match the DMG's encounters per day quota, this should be 3 to 5 encounters, not 2 to 4. Either 3 Deadly, 5 Hard, or 2 Deadly + 2 Hard. You can't reach 2 encounters per day without introducing even higher difficulty categories.


Apart from that, telling the players that they will get weaker than it originally says in the Player's Handbook is... honestly, if I were a player, I wouldn't like it.

The truth is that "medium" encounters aren't dangerous. Okay, so yes, right, it's perfectly fine with the encounters not being dangerous, but it certainly does become a problem when the players can really see that the fight is nothing to fear, when they realize this is just an obstacle in their path that will steamroll over with no difficulty - with the thrill of battle dampened and gone, the encounter becomes nothing but a boring "task". With "medium" encounters, depending on the outcome, sometimes whole characters will end up not taking a single point of damage... but that's just honestly monotone.

I'd prefer to have a small number of tougher encounters than vice versa, and I think this is the most "entertaining" solution to this problem of "how to fix power balance when there are less encounters than originally designed".I can understand that being weaker than the PHB says may be disappointing, and that fights consisting of a few difficult encounters have appeal, but one of my main goals with this change is to emphasize resource management. After all, that's supposed to be a key facet of difficulty. The game gives casters spells that can cripple encounters, with the expectation that some encounters will be trounced as a result. The game's difficulty is derived from the fact that your resources are limited, and you must be conservative with how many of these spells you use.

With so few encounters, you physically don't have enough time in combat to use up your resources, and that throws things out of whack. As I mentioned before, Counterspell renders spellcasting enemies obsolete under this system, because the player's resources are not being taxed, so they have no reason to hold back their counterspells.


At level 1, the average Hard encounter will be worth 87.5 XP, so the DMG recommends about 300/87.5 = 3.42 Hard encounters.

At level 5, the average Hard encounter will be worth 925 XP, so the DMG recommends about 3500/925 = 3.78 Hard encounters.

At level 11, the average Hard encounter will be worth 3000 XP, so the DMg recommends about 10,500/3000 = 3.5 Hard encounters.

At level 17, the average Hard encounter will be worth 7350 XP, so the DMG recommends about 25,000/7350 = 3.4 Hard encounters.

At level 20, the average Hard encounter will be worth 10,600 XP, so the DMG recommends about 40,000/10,600 = 3.77 Hard encounters.So you're defining a "hard" encounter as the average of the hard and deadly thresholds. What is an "average" deadly encounter then?

[ad_hoc]

While that is true, I find that being obligated to offer the players a week's rest on a regular basis is rather limiting from a storytelling perspective. For example, what happens if the players have used up all their resources, and are forced to retreat? Depending on the threat they're trying to resolve, delaying for a day could be acceptable, but delaying for a week often stretches disbelief.

You mean if the characters run out of resources and need to retreat they might fail their mission?

We certainly can't allow for any chance of that.

Pacing is essential to every story and is the DM's most important job. Changing the rules won't solve the need for it.

The party should be allowed to fail as well.



The truth is that "medium" encounters aren't dangerous. Okay, so yes, right, it's perfectly fine with the encounters not being dangerous, but it certainly does become a problem when the players can really see that the fight is nothing to fear, when they realize this is just an obstacle in their path that will steamroll over with no difficulty - with the thrill of battle dampened and gone, the encounter becomes nothing but a boring "task". With "medium" encounters, depending on the outcome, sometimes whole characters will end up not taking a single point of damage... but that's just honestly monotone.

It isn't the first zombie that is terrifying. It isn't even the 100th. It is knowing that there will be 101, and then 102, and so on.

[Strill]

You mean if the characters run out of resources and need to retreat they might fail their mission?

We certainly can't allow for any chance of that.

Pacing is essential to every story and is the DM's most important job. Changing the rules won't solve the need for it.

The party should be allowed to fail as well.I WANT the party to be allowed to run out of resources and fail. My problem is, "where are they getting these week-long respites?". You have to build all your threats and encounters around the assumption that a week's worth of rest is not too far away. That heavily constricts the sorts of stories you can tell.

[Malifice]

Or make the encounters harder. I typically give them 2-3 encounters from Deadly to 2xDeadly.

I advocate against this. It really punishes short rest dependent classes like the Warlock, Monk and Fighter, and lets Barbarians, Paladins and Casters nova like mad.

Sometimes 1-2 super deadly encounters in a single adventuring day is OK. But I would avoid doing it as campaign default. Every now and then, bracketed by frequent longer (6-8) adventuring days and the rarer even longer ones.



While that is true, I find that being obligated to offer the players a week's rest on a regular basis is rather limiting from a storytelling perspective.

Handwave it if it fits the story to do so (or you as the DM feel that the party deserves a long rest).

Dont feel constrained by the rules if they run contrary to the story needs. Macguffins often dont confrom to RAW (its a soul gem that can end the world!), so neither should the story be dictated to by resting RAW either.

If there is an appropriate break in the story, and the party have dealt with half a dozen or so encounters (and havent brouoght their own resource depletion on themselves by novaing, just 'ping' them a long rest after an overnight rest or other apprpriate break in the story, and get on with the game.

[Gastronomie]

Well, since I first opened this thread about one hour before the first reply, left the computer, came back on, and just typed in the above reply, I didn't see that other people had already suggested the same solution. And also that the TC has already given his opinion why it wouldn't work.

At our table, encounters involve lots and lots of enemies, and at times, a single encounter may actually be longer than two "medium" encounters. Or might actually be like two encounters in a row, except the monsters come sporadically, not at once. Anyhow, it takes quite a lot of turns, so actually, the casters end up using up a lot of their slots.

Also, the enemies use Counterspell on the party caster’s Counterspells.

It works.


It isn't the first zombie that is terrifying. It isn't even the 100th. It is knowing that there will be 101, and then 102, and so on.This is probably a matter of preference. I get what you mean, and that's certainly one form of terror, but I actally like it better when there's the powerful necromancer riding on a zombie manticore, hurling spells like Cloudkill or Stinking Cloud from the sky, while a Grave Titan (not the MTG card, but a Monster-A-Day Compedium homebrew monster modeled after it) roams the battlefield, spewing out zombies from his stomach.


One especially difficult and long encounter took place when the players (level 8, 5 players) were fighting drow. The final fight of the mini-dungeon worked out wonderful.
There was a drow elite warrior, a drow mage (these two bosses being brother and sister - later found out that the mage's spell list was tweaked around, and she was also given much higher HP than the original entry in the MM), several drow with low class levels or special traits (some of them with better spellcasting abilities than normal, such as Fly, Web, or Eldritch Blast), and a pet Basilisk that the players excessively, and I mean excessively, feared. There were spiderwebs hanging from the cavern ceiling, as well as blocking the path between several stalagmites. There were also several orbs of Darkness created by the drow here and there, which they utilized as "safe zones" - for instance, a drow archer may step out, shoot, and slink back in (the players eventually adapted to this by using the Ready action, but these sorts of small tweaks can help the encounter get more interesting). The number of Darkness orbs slowly decreased as the fight went on, due to their creators being slain one by one, some of which revealed safe paths to other areas.

Doubling the XP of the enemies in accordance to the guidelines in the DMG, this amounts to 10000 XP, and with all the extra spellcasting traits and stuff, it should be higher. Even with 10000 XP, divided by 5 that's 2000 XP per character, making this a "deadly" encounter for 8 level adventurers.

There was a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Several of the drow were originally hiding, slinking back in spiderweb "cocoons" hanging from the ceiling above the entrance of the cave, and during the first round of combat, they jumped down near the backrow casters, making sure that "everybody gets hit". The drow mage had already activated Evard's Black Tentacles before the adventurers had come into the cave, and the ground beneath the only seemingly safe route to the end of the cave where the drow mage was standing (the other paths were shrouded in spiderwebs) erupted into tentacles as the paladin rushed into its range. To make stuff worse, one of the drow (an apprentice mage) casts Eldritch Blast, and sends the party rogue into the tentacle area as well. The party caster casts Dispel Magic in a hurry... to which the drow mage casts Counterspell... to which the party caster also casts Counterspell, and the tentacles are finally dispelled. But by that time, the Rogue had already failed one save for the Basilisk's gaze, becoming restrained... and he also fails his second saving throw... at which moment he remembers the Lucky feat he obtained, uses it, rolls natural success, and saves himself from certain demise.

The fight goes on. The paladin smites as much as he could on the Basilisk, and together with the Rogue, as well as the archer Fighter, kills it before it can do any more harm. A well-placed Fireball reveals that several Giant Spiders were lurking within certain webs in the area, preparing for an ambush in case enemies approach (but this failed, with half of the spiders being burned to a crisp with the damage. Lucky for the drow, the wizard now loses all her level 3 slots, together with the fight before this one). The drow mage spends a turn whispering under her breath, seemingly doing nothing... which turns out to be a grave misunderstanding when the characters are ambushed by a Shadow Demon that rose out of their shadows. The dark cavern is an ideal hunting ground for the Shadow Demon, capable of slinking back into the darkness every turn. With add-on monsters, the encounter difficulty now exceeds "deadly".

The shadow demon seems a terrible opponent on first glance, but the party cleric decides to use Banishment on it, to which the drow mage reacts by a Counterspell (her check succeeding). It's eventually Divine Smited by the Paladin, but not before putting his HP to one digit and nearly extinguishing his spell slots. When the front-liners finally engage in melee and stuff start to get dangerous for the bosses, the drow mage uses Greater Invisibility on both herself and her brother using a 5th-level slot, attacking from who-knows-where with spells like Vitriolic Sphere (this knocking out two characters at once), and an unlucky roll on the poison-arrow CON save makes the caster faint... while the other characters are too far away from her to wake her up during that round.

Eventually, after the caster is shaken back to consciousness, an AoE save-damage spell, guranteed to send some damage to the mage, makes the drow mage lose concentration on her spell (with 10 CON she isn't exactly good at maintaining concentration). The bosses try to flee using Fly - upgraded moving speed for the win - and since it's cast with a level 4 spell for two targets, Counterspell requires a check, which the Caster fails by 1.

If the two get away, this fight will be more of a failure than a success (the main mission was to get information about an conspiracy from them anyways). The fighter shoots with his bow, with disadvantage due to the range, but hits anyway due to the War Cleric using up his last +10-to-hit ability. The mage loses her last HP, and the elite warrior falls... not to death, but into a spiderweb, unconscious. The party retrieves him from the web, puts cuffs on him, and sends him to the human city to be asked questions later. And that's the end of the encounter that lasted... how many rounds I forgot, I just remember it was really, really, long. And fun.

During the fight, the Paladin was knocked to 0 HP twice, the Rogue once, and the other characters (Cleric, Wizard, ranged Fighter) were also down to one-digit HP, or very close to that, when everything was finally over. Together with the fights before this, the casters had used up almost all their spell slots. A true fight to the death, with the constant fear of really "being killed" - these sorts of fights are what makes me love this game.

[Strill]

I advocate against this. It really punishes short rest dependent classes like the Warlock, Monk and Fighter, and lets Barbarians, Paladins and Casters nova like mad.

Sometimes 1-2 super deadly encounters in a single adventuring day is OK. But I would avoid doing it as campaign default. Every now and then, bracketed by frequent longer (6-8) adventuring days and the rarer even longer ones.How does it punish them? Are you suggesting that Short Rests be removed or something?


Handwave it if it fits the story to do so (or you as the DM feel that the party deserves a long rest).

Dont feel constrained by the rules if they run contrary to the story needs. Macguffins often dont confrom to RAW (its a soul gem that can end the world!), so neither should the story be dictated to by resting RAW either.

If there is an appropriate break in the story, and the party have dealt with half a dozen or so encounters (and havent brouoght their own resource depletion on themselves by novaing, just 'ping' them a long rest after an overnight rest or other apprpriate break in the story, and get on with the game.
We were talking about the viability of the "gritty realism" variant where a long rest is one week. Sure it's easy to have a long rest overnight, but I'm saying that giving the players a week off at the drop of a hat like that is very very difficult to justify.

[ad_hoc]

I WANT the party to be allowed to run out of resources and fail. My problem is, "where are they getting these week-long respites?". You have to build all your threats and encounters around the assumption that a week's worth of rest is not too far away. That heavily constricts the sorts of stories you can tell.

I don't find that it does.

It also doesn't have to be exactly 7 days. It's not like the party rests for 6 days and 23 hours and that doesn't count.

I use 2-4 hours/24 hours for short and long rests.

Long rests usually occur between game sessions.

The specific times that you use will depend on the themes of your game.

It might be easier to think of it in narrative/story terms instead of just game mechanic terms. Just think of most action movies. At what times do the protagonists take rests? What does that look like? What happens to the tension in the story when they do? Terminator 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road to pick 2 great action movies to look at are great examples. Really, almost any decent action movie will do though.

[Strill]

I don't find that it does.

It also doesn't have to be exactly 7 days. It's not like the party rests for 6 days and 23 hours and that doesn't count.It actually doesn't count. That IS literally exactly what the rules say.

PHB p. 186."If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity, the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it"


I use 2-4 hours/24 hours for short and long rests.

Long rests usually occur between game sessions.

The specific times that you use will depend on the themes of your game.

It might be easier to think of it in narrative/story terms instead of just game mechanic terms. Just think of most action movies. At what times do the protagonists take rests? What does that look like? What happens to the tension in the story when they do? Terminator 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road to pick 2 great action movies to look at are great examples. Really, almost any decent action movie will do though.

So with a 24 hour long rest, how many encounters do you have per day, and how many days per long rest?

[ad_hoc]

It actually doesn't count. That IS literally exactly what the rules say.



This is my point. You are getting bogged down in minutiae.

Just because the alternative rule in the DMG says 24 hours/7days doesn't mean that is the only alternative you are allowed to use and that you must apply it exactly as written.

Fun anecdote: I had a player join our game and after the first session he sent me a long rant about how awful of a person I was because I didn't tell him before he came that we were using the rule. He went on at length about how he plays D&D just to have a relaxing time and he doesn't want to play a "gritty" game and doesn't care about "realism".

He literally was upset just because of the name of the rule. He seemed to have a good time in the session and appears to only be upset once he looked up the name of the rule at home. I explained to him that it is just an easy way to be able to narratively explain having a few encounters between short rests and that the game is functionally the same as any other standard D&D game. We were even playing a published adventure. (I also explained that I didn't want him back as I didn't want to associate with someone who had called me all the names that he did but that is another matter).

The point is, don't get bogged down in minutiae. Yes, it is called 'gritty realism' and yes it says 24 hours/7 days. But it can be whatever you want it to be.

[Gastronomie]

I explained to him that it is just an easy way to be able to narratively explain having a few encounters between short rests and that the game is functionally the same as any other standard D&D game. We were even playing a published adventure. I guess Out of the Abyss?

They definitely should have specified in the original adventure something like "use a toned-down gritty realism or something similar for the rests".

In my OOTA game, I'm thinking something like:
-Short rests are 8 hours, but requires you be really safe, cozy, and snuck in bed... which is very difficult unless you are certain that there is no harm, especially given you're travelling in the Underdark. Every now and then, half of the party takes a short rest. The resting half is those who slept deeply as much as they want, while the other half is the guys who were on guard.
-Long rests are 24 hours, and requires the party find a place specifically suited for resting, such as the example given in the original campaign, a cave that is easy to protect from intruders.

[ad_hoc]

I guess Out of the Abyss?

They definitely should have specified in the original adventure something like "use a toned-down gritty realism or something similar for the rests".

In my OOTA game, I'm thinking something like:
-Short rests are 8 hours, but requires you be really safe, cozy, and snuck in bed... which is very difficult unless you are certain that there is no harm, especially given you're travelling in the Underdark. Every now and then, half of the party takes a short rest. The resting half is those who slept deeply as much as they want, while the other half is the guys who were on guard.
-Long rests are 24 hours, and requires the party find a place specifically suited for resting, such as the example given in the original campaign, a cave that is easy to protect from intruders.

This was a while ago, Hoard of the Dragon Queen (which I liked much more than most it seems). Each chapter had about 6-8 encounters. So in reality the long rest basically happened between each chapter. My major complaint for it is that characters were assumed to level too quickly.

And yeah that sounds like a good idea for OotA. We basically did exactly that for it as we continue to play this way.

I figure a short rest is prepare and eat a meal and have a nap. So I'm fine with 4-6 hours or whatever. When you're in the wilderness you are in danger so it makes sense that you are going to push yourself. A long rest is for actual rest though. You need to feel safe enough to take it easy for a time.

[Shaofoo]

I would like to add that an encounter isn't just a skirmish between two parties, an encounter need not even involve fighting at all.

Trying to diplomatically convince someone to do something can be an encounter.

A room might be filled with traps instead of monsters, navigating through that is an encounter.

A pair of goblins give you the slip during the near end of an encounter, chase them down so they don't sound the alarm and now you have two encounters.

I think that a lot of people get hung up that encounters mean a fight between enemies.

[Gastronomie]

I would like to add that an encounter isn't just a skirmish between two parties, an encounter need not even involve fighting at all.

Trying to diplomatically convince someone to do something can be an encounter.

A room might be filled with traps instead of monsters, navigating through that is an encounter.

A pair of goblins give you the slip during the near end of an encounter, chase them down so they don't sound the alarm and now you have two encounters.

I think that a lot of people get hung up that encounters mean a fight between enemies.I think they're ignoring non-combat encounters because most non-combat encounters don't use up a lot of resources.

[MaxWilson]

So you're defining a "hard" encounter as the average of the hard and deadly thresholds. What is an "average" deadly encounter then?

Congratulations, you just figured out why I made no reference to an "average" Deadly encounter. The term isn't well-defined.

For me personally, the average Deadly fight is probably somewhere around triple-Deadly, but that will obviously vary per-DM, unlike the average Hard fight.

[N810]

You could use a few Non-Combat encounters that drain the party's resources (difficult navigation, deadly puzzles, NPC interaction).

[TentacleSurpris]

Ugh, this is what's turning me off this edition. Don't get me wrong, I love encounters and math. But when does 3-5 hard or deadly encounters per day leave time for actual ROLEPLAYING?

A group of 4-5 friends sitting down at a table to play DND will take an entire evening to get through 4 hard or deadly encounters. That's it, each deadly encounter taking 45 minutes with set-up and exploration, when do you have time to roleplay? And if a single adventuring day is stretching over weeks or months of real-life time to fit the encounters into the math, then the story advancement comes to a grinding halt.

"We've been playing this campaign for 6 months but only 4 days has passed in-game and we've gained 5 levels." Not uncommon.

The game needs to be balanced around what a group of friends playing DND can reasonably get done in an evening. And there needs to be some actual written guidelines for roleplaying experience.

Last night, my group spent half the night arguing over whether to kill the werewolves in Curse of Strahd or find a peaceful solution. Finally my elf monk decided htat he would become a werewolf and challenge the Alpha for leadership of the pack so he could lead the werewolves in a new direction, hunting beasts and turning only the willing into warriors instead of making children fight to the death. This was accepted by the wolves because turning warriors gives more strength to the pack than turning children, and he traded his strength to set the children free. of course he became a chaotic evil NPC and left the party, agreeing to help them against Strahd because the Count has kidnapped one of the werewolves. Amazing session. But what does the RAW suggest giving in terms of XP? 700 xp divided by 5 PCs for killing the alpha in single combat, so 180ish XP for level 5 characters. That's it. (we didn't get XP for "overcoming" the wolf pack because the players left it open that they might come destroy them later, and that would be double-dipping). My character sacrificed himself and became something evil to try to do some good. Amazing gothic ravenloft story IMO, but the DND rules, after 5 editions, still aren't built to reward that.

Bioware games figured this out more than a decade ago; give an xp pile for completion of each quest, whether it gets done by sword or by word. I guess Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls just want us to hack and slash through everything because that's what is rewarded. "Three pillars of the game are combat, exploration, and roleplaying" but the modules only reward experience for one of them. The others can sometimes feel like a waste of time.

[ad_hoc]

The game needs to be balanced around what a group of friends playing DND can reasonably get done in an evening. And there needs to be some actual written guidelines for roleplaying experience.


My group does it no problem.



Last night, my group spent half the night arguing over whether to kill the werewolves in Curse of Strahd or find a peaceful solution.


Maybe this is part of the problem. I'm certainly not going to spend 2 hours arguing with my friends over what course of action to take in our RPG. That sounds like a 5 minute conversation to me. Analysis Paralysis is a thing, but it is something that you should work on or games are going to continue to take you a long time to finish.

[Shaofoo]

I think they're ignoring non-combat encounters because most non-combat encounters don't use up a lot of resources.

They can use up as many resources as you want it to make them waste, especially traps. Or rather make these non combat encounters actually matter so that they want to waste potential resources.

If they are ignoring it then they are basically ignoring something that can actually be extremely beneficial.

[TentacleSurpris]

Non combat encounters don't take up resources, but faced with the choice of taking an hour of gameplay to just rollplay kill the dudes or an hour to roleplay the situation out, which one does the DMG incentivize with xp? The most valuable resource is gaming time. I only have about 3.5 hours per week of gaming time. I could care less about how many times I say "I rest" because it takes 1 second.

If Jeremy and Mike really cared about both roleplaying and rollplaying, they would have made a game that incentivized both roleplaying and rollplaying.

[ad_hoc]

Non combat encounters don't take up resources, but faced with the choice of taking an hour of gameplay to just rollplay kill the dudes or an hour to roleplay the situation out, which one does the DMG incentivize with xp? The most valuable resource is gaming time. I only have about 3.5 hours per week of gaming time. I could care less about how many times I say "I rest" because it takes 1 second.

If Jeremy and Mike really cared about both roleplaying and rollplaying, they would have made a game that incentivized both roleplaying and rollplaying.

The game is designed to only have combat 1/3 of the time.

If you want even less combat then D&D might not be for you.

[Vogonjeltz]

One of the game's biggest problems is that it's designed around an adventuring day of 6 to 8 medium to hard encounters per day. That's bad because most people don't use this many encounters. This creates problems when, for example, a Paladin one-shots a boss because the DM only gave the party one encounter per day. Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.

My general idea is that short-rest abilities would not need to be changed at all. You would still get one short rest every 1 to 2 encounters, just as things are now. All you would need to focus on are long-rest abilities. The most obvious issue is Spells, so we would need to create a spell slot progression whose budget uses half as many spell points. That's slightly annoying because casters get around 3 spell slots per level, but I think it's workable.

If a single encounter takes less than 10 rounds to resolve, then to put this into perspective, 8 encounters is a mere 8 minutes of combat in a 24 hour period.

8 minutes.

To put this further into perspective, the Start adventure has 6 encounters in less than an hour, the first module has dozens and dozens of encounters over the course of a single night (so less than 12 hours even).

Example of 8 encounters that can easily take place in under 24 hours:

Characters need to Reach the island of San Bernard where a special flower grows which is required for the cure to a magical illness of an important friend.

1) Wharf gang waylays the group for a "toll".
2) Bad weather must be navigated or encounter with some sea-monster or pirates
3) Landing, party encounters small party of possibly hostile Lizardmen natives (maybe there's a miscommunication)
4) Party journeys into the jungle-swamp, encounters dangerous beasts
5) Quick sand trap
6) Will o whisps try to mislead the party to their dooooom
7) Flowers only grow in the lair of a Swamp Hag/Small Black Dragon or whatever
8) Chase sequence by angry Lizardmen who have found the party after the probable slaughter of the earlier scouting party. The party reaches the landing boats and takes off to save their friend.
9) Weather encounter, sea monster, pirates, or slavers.

[Gastronomie]

Ugh, this is what's turning me off this edition. Don't get me wrong, I love encounters and math. But when does 3-5 hard or deadly encounters per day leave time for actual ROLEPLAYING? Whoever said that each adventuring day needs to be played in a single session? Most of the time, our each "adventuring day" takes several sessions at our table.

Also, as others mentioned, your table probably takes a lot more time arguing about certain matters compared to other tables.

[Strill]

If a single encounter takes less than 10 rounds to resolve, then to put this into perspective, 8 encounters is a mere 8 minutes of combat in a 24 hour period.

8 minutes.

I don't understand how this is relevant. Why does the amount of time the characters in-game spend fighting matter?

[Safety Sword]

Just to point out what seems to be less than obvious to a lot of DMs:

The rules are based around the 6 - 8 encounter paradigm but that doesn't stop you from having those encounters over several days if that needs to happen in your campaign.

The only thing you have to is not allow a Long Rest in the period. If you're in an enemy castle, you shouldn't be allowed to rest unless you find a secluded area that is unknown to the defenders, or you're free to pop out and in at will.

Random (or less than random) encounters are your friends. Don't allow a 5 minute day and then a rest.

Invent ways to make the 6 - 8 encounter paradigm happen. Your players will thank you because the campaign will feel dangerous.

Edit: As pointed out previously, classes with short rest mechanics are balanced around those too. If your long rest PCs are getting frequent rests it devalues short rest mechanics.

[Shaofoo]

Non combat encounters don't take up resources, but faced with the choice of taking an hour of gameplay to just rollplay kill the dudes or an hour to roleplay the situation out, which one does the DMG incentivize with xp?

A good DM would have both be rewarded with XP, and depending on the circumstances one might be better rewarded than another due to the circumstances (It is easy to fight a hostile group, much harder to negotiate a truce).


The most valuable resource is gaming time. I only have about 3.5 hours per week of gaming time. I could care less about how many times I say "I rest" because it takes 1 second.

A good DM will also make a world that actually reacts to your actions. It takes a second of real time but it takes 4-8 hours of in game time where anything can happen, enemies will find reinforcements, objects will move around and a lot can change if you decide to nap in the middle of an important event. Your second long nap might kill your character if you choose to treat this as a video game. So a second to rest followed by half an hour of rerolling while you are benched if the DM will even let you join up since I doubt a sudden replacement will just materialize to replace Mr.Sleepypants.

Also real time is not a game resource, it is like saying I can give the DM a couple of bucks so my character can find the best magic items. In game time is totally a resource and squandering it on rests can kill you.


If Jeremy and Mike really cared about both roleplaying and rollplaying, they would have made a game that incentivized both roleplaying and rollplaying.

Jeremy and Mike are not DMs, they made a system where you can incentivize roll and role playing or rather let the DM adjucate as much as they want, in fact I dare say that 5e is the most roleplay rewarding because the game says to let you do stuff and not treat every single action with a dice roll.

You want a system that is less dice reliant and more player reliant then check out some other systems, D&D isn't an universal tabletop system by any means.

[Vogonjeltz]

I don't understand how this is relevant. Why does the amount of time the characters in-game spend fighting matter?

You made it sound as if the 8 encounter day was unreasonable, when the reality is that the minute amount of time being expended makes it more than a little absurd to have even as few as 8 encounters. There could plausibly over 400 encounters in a single day and still have time for 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of travel.

Basically I'm pointing out that having only a single encounter in an adventuring day doesn't make any sense at all. That's not an adventure anymore, it's just an errand.

The amount of time expended fighting is relevant to the idea of having only a few encounters.

Analogy: Having a single boss encounter would be like posting a single comment (one every 60 seconds) and then calling it a day and thinking that was a full day of commenting on a forum.


Your second long nap might kill your character if you choose to treat this as a video game.

Maybe if we're talking about taking a rest in the middle of a chase. I don't think that's anything close to the norm, however.

Short rests are basically a lunch or snack break. And neither they nor long rests require that characters sleep at all. It's just a breather.

[Shaofoo]

Maybe if we're talking about taking a rest in the middle of a chase. I don't think that's anything close to the norm, however.

Short rests are basically a lunch or snack break. And neither they nor long rests require that characters sleep at all. It's just a breather.

Just dropping whatever you are doing to take a break can kill you just by potential ambushes or even if you won't get killed you might fail the mission by wasting time. If you are being on high alert always I won't count that as a rest of any means since you aren't really resting.

Basically you can't just set up camp and sleep as you will. Even if you are 100% safe where you are the world still goes on without you and things will change, even a single hour on a time critical mission can be all that is needed to fail the mission.

[Strill]

You made it sound as if the 8 encounter day was unreasonable, when the reality is that the minute amount of time being expended makes it more than a little absurd to have even as few as 8 encounters. There could plausibly over 400 encounters in a single day and still have time for 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of travel.Eight encounters is unreasonable because of playstyle concerns, not because of in-character time constraints. Some people don't want to structure their games around constant combat.


Basically I'm pointing out that having only a single encounter in an adventuring day doesn't make any sense at all. That's not an adventure anymore, it's just an errand.Or you're doing a story arc centered around political intrigue, or you're encountering dangerous creatures in the wilderness during a long journey, or you're planning a heist, or any number of other things that don't involve every party member killing twenty other things in a single day.

[Sigreid]

For me the key has typically been just mystery. If the party knows how many encounters/day they can ration their resources appropriately. If they don't know, they're always worried about spending those resources too early. Everyone gets to keep their power. No one is comfortable going full nuke and they typically try to use the minimum resources necessary.

[MaxWilson]

Or you're doing a story arc centered around political intrigue, or you're encountering dangerous creatures in the wilderness during a long journey, or you're planning a heist, or any number of other things that don't involve every party member killing twenty other things in a single day.

Or you encounter a band of orcs or merchants and sit down and have a talk, or anything else that can take hours to resolve instead of seconds.

Murderhobo games are soul-deadening.

[Cybren]

Or you encounter a band of orcs or merchants and sit down and have a talk, or anything else that can take hours to resolve instead of seconds.

Murderhobo games are soul-deadening.

Fixed-encounter paradigms also preclude the parties ability to bypass encounters with clever play, else you throw off all sorts of math. It will especislly make DMs hate spells like pass without trace or anything that makes illusions. The parties desire to bypass encounters can lead some inexperienced DMs into antagonism

[Shaofoo]

Fixed-encounter paradigms also preclude the parties ability to bypass encounters with clever play, else you throw off all sorts of math. It will especislly make DMs hate spells like pass without trace or anything that makes illusions. The parties desire to bypass encounters can lead some inexperienced DMs into antagonism


Then make it so that bypassing enemies doesn't come without drawbacks. They will definitely not be getting as much XP (I would still give them XP because they are using something to pass the encounter but they will maybe get the XP of a single enemy split accordingly). They will get zero loot and will not be compensated for it. Those enemies will also still exist since they weren't dealt with, depending on the circumstances you could be dealing with 3-4 encounters worth of enemies at once, with any potential loot mabe even used against them.

Of course sometimes the stealth approach is the best if the point is to get from point A to point B and it would be good if the games didn't devolve into murder fests but I doubt that trying to stealth past everything is so bad.

It kinda reminds me how when I started out playing FTL people said that they kept getting killed in the earlier sectors so I thought of just escaping everything and blasting through to the end, actually got to the end on my second try. And then they told me that I had to beat the big boss with my starter weapons and no other systems so I was basically dead on arrival there.

[Cybren]

"you didn't murder anyone so you get less XP" is exactly the kind of antagonism is was referring to

[Shaofoo]

"you didn't murder anyone so you get less XP" is exactly the kind of antagonism is was referring to

It makes perfect sense. XP is supposed to be proportional to the struggle that you faced. If you were to face the hostile group and try to come to a peaceful truce then you would receive as much XP as you would if you were to kill them all. Casting a spell to bypass an encounter should not have the same rewards since you didn't face any risk or wasted that much resources. This isn't being antagonistic, this is how the rules of the game is. Feel free to sneak through everything but don't expect the bad guys to puff away just because you sneaked past them or get as much rewards.

[MaxWilson]

A more natural downside to sneaking past enemies is that if you at some point reveal yourself or get detected, you are now surrounded.

Having gamed out a fair number of sneaky 5E scenarios in the past, my observation is that if you can, you still want to take out (kill or knock unconscious) enough enemies on the way in to secure your own escape route out.

Also, some chokepoints are impossible to sneak through without being seen. Especially ones involving closed doors and alert guards, tripwires, or guard dogs/war bears with a good sense of smell.

[Vogonjeltz]

Just dropping whatever you are doing to take a break can kill you just by potential ambushes or even if you won't get killed you might fail the mission by wasting time. If you are being on high alert always I won't count that as a rest of any means since you aren't really resting.

By the rules a character can stand watch for up to 2 hours with no repercussions on a long rest, ergo all characters are entirely alert on a short rest (i.e. A pit stop).


Basically you can't just set up camp and sleep as you will. Even if you are 100% safe where you are the world still goes on without you and things will change, even a single hour on a time critical mission can be all that is needed to fail the mission.

Of course you can. If it's time critical, there's no reason to assume characters wouldn't press on, but time critical quests are few and far between.


Eight encounters is unreasonable because of playstyle concerns, not because of in-character time constraints. Some people don't want to structure their games around constant combat.

Or you're doing a story arc centered around political intrigue, or you're encountering dangerous creatures in the wilderness during a long journey, or you're planning a heist, or any number of other things that don't involve every party member killing twenty other things in a single day.

As was mentioned, encounters need not be violent.

You could easily structure the following:

Goal: to get the king to send a cohort of guardsmen to investigate the maguffin of the week.

Encounter 1: Guards outside the palace.
Encounter 2: Palace servants. (Can provide information about the palace authority structure)
Encounter 3: Positions of authority who can influence the Kings decision (maybe there are conflicting uses of guards/money)
Encounters 4-5: more influence working. Learn clues about possible opposition to player goals.
Encounters 6-7: someone in opposition to the characters goals tries to change the outcome, players have a chance to foil them.
Encounter 8: Audience with the King

Plenty of room, might only take a few hours of the play day, entails virtually no combat.


It makes perfect sense. XP is supposed to be proportional to the struggle that you faced. If you were to face the hostile group and try to come to a peaceful truce then you would receive as much XP as you would if you were to kill them all. Casting a spell to bypass an encounter should not have the same rewards since you didn't face any risk or wasted that much resources. This isn't being antagonistic, this is how the rules of the game is. Feel free to sneak through everything but don't expect the bad guys to puff away just because you sneaked past them or get as much rewards.

Success is success. How is irrelevent, though it's an incredibly rare situation where a single spell casting would end an encounter outright.

[Shaofoo]

By the rules a character can stand watch for up to 2 hours with no repercussions on a long rest, ergo all characters are entirely alert on a short rest (i.e. A pit stop).


Yes but any more and no long rest for you. You can't be on high alert for 8 hours and call that a rest.



Of course you can. If it's time critical, there's no reason to assume characters wouldn't press on, but time critical quests are few and far between.

Or they can be all the time, you can't talk for everyone how often is something time critical. Even if time critical isn't a matter of sucess or failure things can still happen (reinforcements arrive, info you have gained is now obsolete. Even if this doesn't mean that you failed the mission it can make your life that much more difficult.)



Success is success. How is irrelevent, though it's an incredibly rare situation where a single spell casting would end an encounter outright.

In this context you didn't end the encounter, you bypassed it. The group still exists and they are still hostile you just moved in such a way that they stop being an obstacle for the moment but they can still present an obstacle down the line.

You aren't going to gain the full xp if you were to sneak past the group than if you were to confront them because the effort to do so is less, of course it could be in your best interest to sneak past the group. So if the point was to go around the group then huge success (maybe some bonus XP but lets not talk about that lest some people get emotional), if the point was to confront the group: you have failed the mission.

Having a specific spell is no different than having a specific item or skill needed as well. Magic isn't the only thing that can bypass encounters.

[Tanarii]

Non combat encounters don't take up resources, but faced with the choice of taking an hour of gameplay to just rollplay kill the dudes or an hour to roleplay the situation out, which one does the DMG incentivize with xp?

A good DM would have both be rewarded with XP, and depending on the circumstances one might be better rewarded than another due to the circumstances (It is easy to fight a hostile group, much harder to negotiate a truce).Wait, what? A good DM rewards XP for non-combat encounters that didn't use up any character resources? That's way outside anything the DMG recommends.

I mean, I can see rewarding plot advancement if you're playing a game of cooperative narrative storytelling, and adapting the D&D rules to that game. Instead of playing D&D, ie dungeon and wilderness adventures. But that doesn't mean what you're recommending has anything to do with being a good DM. It means you're making up your own rule for something the game you're using the D&D rules for. That's fine and dandy, but slapping "good DM" on it is insulting to everyone that uses the rules as recommend.

Edit: added nested quote for clarity

[Shaofoo]

Wait, what? A good DM rewards XP for non-combat encounters that didn't use up any character resources? That's way outside anything the DMG recommends.

I mean, I can see rewarding plot advancement if you're playing a game of cooperative narrative storytelling, and adapting the D&D rules to that game. Instead of playing D&D, ie dungeon and wilderness adventures. But that doesn't mean what you're recommending has anything to do with being a good DM. It means you're making up your own rule for something the game you're using the D&D rules for. That's fine and dandy, but slapping "good DM" on it is insulting to everyone that uses the rules as recommend.

Edit: added nested quote for clarity

Example: A Rogue needs to get from point A to point B and there is a group in the way. By your logic if he wants to sneak past everything using his skills (ie something that is in the rules) then he gets rewarded with nothing because skills don't use up any "resources".

I consider it a good DM to be able to reward players for trying to get by problems through a variety of ways, it doesn't have to be the same but being able to recognize effort is a hallmark of a good DM.

So explain to me how is it insulting for me to say that a good DM can notice effort or ,if I were to strawman it, how is it insulting that a good DM dare to reward players that don't resort to kill everything on sight?

[Tanarii]

So explain to me how is it insulting for me to say that a good DM can notice effort or ,if I were to strawman it, how is it insulting that a good DM dare to reward players that don't resort to kill everything on sight?
Ooooh, that's a good strawman. I'm impressed. :smallbiggrin:

But even your Rogue sneaking past using skills is somewhat of a strawman (or whatever). First because the Rogue isn't the party. And second if in bypassing the encounter, she has effectively defeated it, she's due the xp reward for defeating the encounter. That's well within the DMG suggestions.

Don't think I don't get what you're saying. I award XP for treasure to achieve similar results. Just in a more direct way that encourages a very specific D&D like behavior that I want to encourage: go get lots of treasure. How doesn't matter, getting it does. I also reward effectively defeating encounters, just smaller rewards so that the total rate of XP is (roughly) the same.

And it's insulting because you're suggesting that if you don't step outside the DMG recommendation, which are for a very classic, as well as totally normal, way to play D&D ... then you're not a good DM. Which is why I'm calling you out for it. You can do that if you want to and you think it's an improvement. But don't imply that people that don't do it aren't good DMs.

[Safety Sword]

Ooooh, that's a good strawman. I'm impressed. :smallbiggrin:

But even your Rogue sneaking past using skills is somewhat of a strawman (or whatever). First because the Rogue isn't the party. And second if in bypassing the encounter, she has effectively defeated it, she's due the xp reward for defeating the encounter. That's well within the DMG suggestions.

Don't think I don't get what you're saying. I award XP for treasure to achieve similar results. Just in a more direct way that encourages a very specific D&D like behavior that I want to encourage: go get lots of treasure. How doesn't matter, getting it does. I also reward effectively defeating encounters, just smaller rewards so that the total rate of XP is (roughly) the same.

.

I don't want to get involved in your little argument, but I do like your point about awarding experience for behaviours you want to encourage. That makes a lot of sense.

You just have to make sure that your players agree that that's the kind of game they want to play too.

[Shaofoo]

Ooooh, that's a good strawman. I'm impressed. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah I know better.


But even your Rogue sneaking past using skills is somewhat of a strawman (or whatever). First because the Rogue isn't the party. And second if in bypassing the encounter, she has effectively defeated it, she's due the xp reward for defeating the encounter. That's well within the DMG suggestions.

First for the purpose of the example the Rogue is the party, nothing says that there has to be a certain number of people for there to be considered a party. The solo Rogue can be considered.

But secondly just because you bypassed the encounter doesn't mean that the encounter ceases to exist in the world, just because you sneaked around that doesn't mean the group ceases to exist. Depending on the circumstances it might as well be or maybe you'll have some extra reinforcements when something does go wrong. Defeat means the encounter stops being a threat for good.



And it's insulting because you're suggesting that if you don't step outside the DMG recommendation, which are for a very classic, as well as totally normal, way to play D&D ... then you're not a good DM. Which is why I'm calling you out for it. You can do that if you want to and you think it's an improvement. But don't imply that people that don't do it aren't good DMs.

NO offense but you are speaking gibberish right here. There is no such thing as a DMG recommendation the way you present it. The DMG is just suggestions and guidelines, it is chock full of optional rules and systems and even whole entire sections on how to do your own thing. The DMG isn't a metric to follow, it is an inspiration to jump off to do your own thing. You can totally play the game without any input from the DMG. it is like saying that I am not following the recipe for the salad bar.

Note that you seem to be confused cause you think that not a good DM == bad DM which might shock you but it isn't true. You can do whatever you want including making XP equal your body count and nothing else but saying that because I am saying that people who don't follow the DMG, a book about doing your own thing, means that you are a bad DM I almost think that you were reaching for the point to just be offended at this point.

[Strill]

NO offense but you are speaking gibberish right here. There is no such thing as a DMG recommendation the way you present it. The DMG is just suggestions and guidelines, it is chock full of optional rules and systems and even whole entire sections on how to do your own thing. The DMG isn't a metric to follow, it is an inspiration to jump off to do your own thing. You can totally play the game without any input from the DMG. it is like saying that I am not following the recipe for the salad bar.

That's not true. The DMG's exp quota is not optional whatsoever. It's a critically important aspect of game balance, that's more important than any feat or class feature.

[Tanarii]

Note that you seem to be confused cause you think that not a good DM == bad DM which might shock you but it isn't true. okay that's fair enough. I'm thoroughly tired of seeing people in posts reach for the "Bad DM" label when they disagree with someone about something. It's a purile & close-minded route to go. So I'm hyper-sensitive of anything that smacks of it. My bad. Black and white aren't the only two options. :smallredface:

[Shaofoo]

That's not true. The DMG's exp quota is not optional whatsoever. It's a critically important aspect of game balance, that's more important than any feat or class feature.

You mean the same quota that is found in the PHB as well?

[Kane0]

If you normally have 6-8 mediumish encounters per day and want to halve that, try 3-4 hardish encounters per day with some throw-in challenges that suck up resources but aren't actually a fight (and thus don't take up precious table time).

My favourite setup is 3 encounters (2x hard, 1x deadly as a minimum) plus 1-2 noncombat trials that take some resources to resolve (chases, traps, puzzles, etc). Saves us a lot of time.

[Zalabim]

On the subject of Experience, the DMG has a short but useful section starting on page 260. For Noncombat Challenges, it ends by saying to award experience only if there was a meaningful risk of failure. Otherwise, it's worth as much as a combat encounter of whatever difficulty you decide.

It also talks about how to award XP by milestones, or just skip the XP and award levels by session or story progress, depending on your campaign needs.

[Tanarii]

On the subject of Experience, the DMG has a short but useful section starting on page 260. For Noncombat Challenges, it ends by saying to award experience only if there was a meaningful risk of failure. Otherwise, it's worth as much as a combat encounter of whatever difficulty you decide.Sort of. What it says on difficulty is: as a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 3 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge.

In other words, refer to the descriptions of the use of resources for each difficulty, for determining the difficulty. (That falls under whatever you decide, just making it clear what it's saying.)


It also talks about how to award XP by milestones, or just skip the XP and award levels by session or story progress, depending on your campaign needs.I've noticed that milestone awards are inevitably a shortcut for advancing characters far faster than they would have if they actually played by XP rules. IMX it's usually around 3-4 times as fast. (/anecdotal /grainofsalt etc etc)

Edit: that said, if you're going to go fewer combat encounters per session, and you aren't going to use resource draining non-combat encounters either, then milestones are a very good idea for exactly that reason. Either that start rewarding XP for non-combat things other than resource draining things with a chance of failure. (Although personally I'd probably want to switch games to a system designed more for that style of play, in that case.)

[Vogonjeltz]

Yes but any more and no long rest for you. You can't be on high alert for 8 hours and call that a rest.

I know, I was saying in light of that a short rest in no way prevents the party from being fully alert.

And a party of 4 could rotate watch over 8 hours so there's always someone paying attention while the others engage in their light activity.


Or they can be all the time, you can't talk for everyone how often is something time critical. Even if time critical isn't a matter of sucess or failure things can still happen (reinforcements arrive, info you have gained is now obsolete. Even if this doesn't mean that you failed the mission it can make your life that much more difficult.)

I can peruse the modules as a case study for how often things are time critical. Short answer: Almost never.

If you're playing a DM generated campaign where all the tasks are time sensitive, that's the outlier. The norm is that timing doesn't really matter.


In this context you didn't end the encounter, you bypassed it. The group still exists and they are still hostile you just moved in such a way that they stop being an obstacle for the moment but they can still present an obstacle down the line.

You aren't going to gain the full xp if you were to sneak past the group than if you were to confront them because the effort to do so is less, of course it could be in your best interest to sneak past the group. So if the point was to go around the group then huge success (maybe some bonus XP but lets not talk about that lest some people get emotional), if the point was to confront the group: you have failed the mission.

Having a specific spell is no different than having a specific item or skill needed as well. Magic isn't the only thing that can bypass encounters.

Amend to add in: It's incredibly rare to have an encounter that is bypassed by a single spell. And even if it so happens that a spell does bypass an entire encounter, good on the players for thinking laterally, they earned that xp.

[Shaofoo]

I can peruse the modules as a case study for how often things are time critical. Short answer: Almost never.

If you're playing a DM generated campaign where all the tasks are time sensitive, that's the outlier. The norm is that timing doesn't really matter.



Unless you can prove that the modules are how a majority of how people play the game then your statement is meaningless to reality. Unless you can present a population there is no outlier.

But also not all tasks are time sensitive, I am not saying that every single task ever needs a time. But on the other hand do the modules only progress when the players move? Is it like a video game that nothing really happens unless the players activate a cutscene? I know in a module there is a big ritual to summon a god, does this ritual get put on pause whenever the players aren't looking at it?

I don't think the game was made to have the world be completely static when the players aren't looking. Is it like those long running animes where time is meaningless because even though the group went through tons of adventurers that should've taken years they haven't aged one year at all (time jumps not withstanding, that is just cheating).

[Tanarii]

But also not all tasks are time sensitive, I am not saying that every single task ever needs a time. But on the other hand do the modules only progress when the players move? Is it like a video game that nothing really happens unless the players activate a cutscene? I know in a module there is a big ritual to summon a god, does this ritual get put on pause whenever the players aren't looking at it?

I don't think the game was made to have the world be completely static when the players aren't looking. Is it like those long running animes where time is meaningless because even though the group went through tons of adventurers that should've taken years they haven't aged one year at all (time jumps not withstanding, that is just cheating).

More often than not, yes, that's exactly how modules / adventures are written. The scenes 'activate' and come to life when the PCs encounter them. They are sitting there, frozen in an instant, until that happens. Sometimes, several alternate scenes are presented for different circumstances (time of day, results of resolution of prior scenes, etc).

IMX that's also how many DMs write their own encounters / scenes. The scene doesn't start until the PCs are involved.

Edit: I'm not saying that's a good thing. Just that it's very common for pre-planned scenes / encounters.

[ad_hoc]

I can peruse the modules as a case study for how often things are time critical. Short answer: Almost never.


I have played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Out of the Abyss, and now Curse of Strahd, and time critical adventures are the norm. It is rare to have a session where time isn't critical in these adventures.

Out of the Abyss has a ticking clock mechanic for quite a while (vague to avoid spoilers).

Curse of Strahd is the one that comes closest to not having time pressure. Even there, there are timed events all over and if you miss them because you took too long then too bad.

[Tanarii]

NO offense but you are speaking gibberish right here.Had to come back and revisit this, because while I disagree with your view of the DMG's guidelines, it turns out I was completely wrong anyway. So I owe you an apology. Sorry.

DMG straight out recommends XP for Milestones, or just eliminating XP completely and doing session-based or story-based level advancement. Not as an explicit 'variant' rule like they sometimes call out either, just part of the general section about XP in under 'Running the Game'. DMG p261.

[Malifice]

I can peruse the modules as a case study for how often things are time critical. Short answer: Almost never.

Wut? ToD starts with an overnight seige (time critical) moves onto a raid/infiltrating a bandit camp (time critical) and has the party opposed by dragon cultists who (time critical) summon Tiamat and (time critical) use a mobile flying castle.

The underdark one has them captured by Drow and escaping (time critical) before being pursued by said drow (time critical) while demons are (time critical) about to be released.

The Strahd one has a BBEG literally watching their every move. Its as time critical as the DM (and Strahd) wants it to be.


If you're playing a DM generated campaign where all the tasks are time sensitive, that's the outlier. The norm is that timing doesn't really matter.

No mate, the norm is what the DM says it is. If he wants to run a boring campaign where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want, thats up to him. If he wants to impose time constraints for success/ failure thats also up to him.

If you're off to save the princess/ stop the BBEG/ recover the macguffin/ end the menace to the town/ uncover the murderer/ find a cure to the plague/ peg the macguffin in Mt Doom/ stop the invading army/ locate and defeat the bandits/ escape the clutches of the Drow/ end the seige on the town/ negotiate a truce between warring factions etc etc, there should always be a time constraint on what youre doing, and when you need to do it by. Heck you should be racing against the clock far more often than not (just like real life, and in every movie, novel and action story ever).

The issue is, many DMs simply dont turn their minds to the question, or they do and find it all too hard.

They create static encounter locations where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want (sandboxes are notorious for doing this). This is boring. Its also incredibly unrealistic and flies in the face of movies, novels and action stories (where the heroes are always racing against a clock to do something).

Not a diss on sandboxes by the way. They're awesome. Its just dont forget to time limit your sandbox encounters. Have the plague the PCs trigger at Hex B7 spread at ther rate of 1 hex per week. Have the Bandits at Hex D5 relocate their camp 24 hours after the party find them. Have the BBEG gain 1 level of experience and attract a patrol of 12 more Orcs every in game fortnight. Have events that trigger or effect other events, and make time as much of a factor in the game as space. Have the PCs in a living breathing world, where time matters.

[Tanarii]

They create static encounter locations where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want (sandboxes are notorious for doing this). This is boring. Its also incredibly unrealistic and flies in the face of movies, novels and action stories (where the heroes are always racing against a clock to do something).

Not a diss on sandboxes by the way. They're awesome. Its just dont forget to time limit your sandbox encounters. Have the plague the PCs trigger at Hex B7 spread at ther rate of 1 hex per week. Have the Bandits at Hex D5 relocate their camp 24 hours after the party find them. Have the BBEG gain 1 level of experience and attract a patrol of 12 more Orcs every in game fortnight. Have events that trigger or effect other events, and make time as much of a factor in the game as space. Have the PCs in a living breathing world, where time matters.
B2 Caved of Chaos was notorious for how good a DM was at this. The basic setup outlined number of creatures in each area, But then tells the DM to have creatures out at different times of day/night, and even relocate wholesale if they were defeated. Yet some DMs would still run it as a series of static scenes waiting for the PCs to raid them, and leave it that. But I've played with others that would even have the humanoids that were away during a PC raid gather allies from other caves and track down the PCs on the way back to the keep. How much the caves turned out to be a 'living breathing world' was a function of the DM willing to turning the basic sandbox of the adventure into one.

[MaxWilson]

Have the BBEG gain 1 level of experience and attract a patrol of 12 more Orcs every in game fortnight. Have events that trigger or effect other events, and make time as much of a factor in the game as space. Have the PCs in a living breathing world, where time matters.

12 more orcs per fortnight is a laughable threat. A level 50 BBEG after two years would be quite something to see though; maybe something I'd be tempted to trigger as a player.

[Malifice]

12 more orcs per fortnight is a laughable threat.

How far we've come when we were once complaining that a few score commoners or skeletons with bows could take down a CR 24 Dragon

[LordVonDerp]

No mate, the norm is what the DM says it is. If he wants to run a boring campaign where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want, thats up to him. If he wants to impose time constraints for success/ failure thats also up to him.

If you're off to save the princess/ stop the BBEG/ recover the macguffin/ end the menace to the town/ uncover the murderer/ find a cure to the plague/ peg the macguffin in Mt Doom/ stop the invading army/ locate and defeat the bandits/ escape the clutches of the Drow/ end the seige on the town/ negotiate a truce between warring factions etc etc, there should always be a time constraint on what youre doing, and when you need to do it by. Heck you should be racing against the clock far more often than not (just like real life, and in every movie, novel and action story ever).



Most of your examples have time constraints on the scale of weeks or months, and thus have no real effect on the number of encounters per day.

[Malifice]

Most of your examples have time constraints on the scale of weeks or months, and thus have no real effect on the number of encounters per day.

They do indeed. Give me an example from those you quoted.

Im midway through running the Age of Worms Adeventure Path (for 3.5). Despite not being designed for the 6-8 adventuring day paradigm, Its working a charm, and most days have featured time limits and 6-8 encounters.

[BW022]

...
Therefore, I'd like to start a discussion on what changes would be required to rebalance the game around 3 to 4 medium to hard encounters per day - half as many as the game is designed for.


I routinely only have one encounter per day in 5E and have never found it a problem.

1. It isn't necessary that all encounters are hard or even medium. It is fine for the character to cake-walk the occasional encounters -- especially wandering monsters during travel or those which don't advance plot. Such combats are great because overwhelming character force usually means they are short -- so more table time for roleplaying or meaningful encounters. It also makes big plot combats both meaningful and memorable. IMO, I would rather that some encounters are too easy than too hard. My goal is not to kill the party. If it is way too hard... players get killed and the campaign can end. If it is too easy... they quickly defeat it, forget about it, and we can get on with more interesting encounters.

2. If you keep the encounters varied, or heighten tension... many players will purposely not use all their abilities even if it is the only combat. If they are fighting a dire wolf and they merely hear more howls in the distance or were told there are werewolves along the roadway... most parties will save spells and abilities as they will be expecting another fight. Enough 'fear' and players will horde ability even when not necessary.

3. Sometimes you can limit their ability to rest. Force matches, timelines (must get the idol before dark), fear that enemies will escape a complex, lesser creatures attacking at night, etc. can all make future minor encounters a lot more important. Further, do this occasional and it really affects #2. Even limited short rests can be an issue.

4. Most players will refuse to rest in dungeons, certain wilderness areas, etc. if they aren't safe. Having enemies flee, having enemies move around a dungeon, etc. all typically make players not rest.

5. You can always increase the difficulty of encounters and put in less. You don't need a rule change for that. Even if you are using store modules... just have some creatures in one room go and investigate the combat in another room.

6. Adjust your party size. Try only 3 or 4 players.

7. Have more non-combat encounters. Diplomatic, terrain, research, puzzles, traps, tricks, etc. These don't typically depend upon rest abilities.

etc.

Lots of options other than changing the resting rules. I'd recommend using some of these and seeing the results before making rules changes. I've never had any issues with the rest system in 5E in terms of who games actually play. I'm not a fan of getting all your hit points back on a long rest, but... game play is pretty much like 3.5E. I've run lots of my 3.5E material updated for 5E and rest points and pace are remarkably similar. Most parties consider practical "in-game" issues over mechanics and simply don't rest unless it would otherwise be appropriate.

[MaxWilson]

How far we've come when we were once complaining that a few score commoners or skeletons with bows could take down a CR 24 Dragon

You must be confused. I've never complained about that fact. In fact I think it's awesome.


6. Adjust your party size. Try only 3 or 4 players.

Three players is an excellent size for 5E. You have enough people for interesting group dynamics, but everyone gets plenty of autonomy and spotlight.

From a party optimization standpoint it's a bit too small (4-5 is ideal for covering all the bases), but even that can be viewed as a plus: if the party has some weaknesses and holes in it, working around those weaknesses makes the game more challenging/interesting.

[LordVonDerp]

They do indeed. Give me an example from those you quoted.

Im midway through running the Age of Worms Adeventure Path (for 3.5). Despite not being designed for the 6-8 adventuring day paradigm, Its working a charm, and most days have featured time limits and 6-8 encounters.
You'll need to give specifics on whatever "Age of Worms" is, and how you managed to have non-contrived daily time constraints.

As for the examples you gave:
Sieges usually took at least a month, the exact time would be based on food stockpiles and the length of time the attackers could maintain a siege depended on their ability to forage, which in turn depended on how thorough the defenders were in stripping the local lands bare.

As for invading armies, they move slowly and have to stop for weeks at a time to lay siege to cities.

As for defeating a group of bandits, that's two or three encounters, so that doesn't meet the encounter guidelines.


I'll respond with more later.

[Malifice]

You'll need to give specifics on whatever "Age of Worms" is, and how you managed to have non-contrived daily time constraints.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Worms

Summary of the campaign so far:

[Pcs started with D0, Hollows last hope module, for Pathfinder - but run in 5E]

The PCs arrive in falcons hollow and find out that a terrible plague is afflicting the city. They are hired by Laurel the local herbalist to locate the cure from the nearby woods and ruined dwarven monastery. She calculates the entire trip will take two days, but warns the PCs that every minute is precious. If they cant return to her the remedy by the end of the third day, over half the townsfolk will be dead (and they wont get paid for the more mercanary PCs).

(PCs have 3 adventuing days. 2 x 1 encounter each (and a chance to long rest after each) but the encounters are CR 2-3 (pushing deadly) and 1 adventuring day of 7 x encounters (with opportunity for 2-3 short rests)

"The Whispering Cairn"

Once back in town, the PCs lock horns with a rival band of (much more experienced) NPC adventurers. The PCs also lock horns with the local lubler consortium and their evil henchman. Finding out about some ruined cairns nearby, the PCs overhear the adventurers planning on looting them for themselves. They embark on a race against time to locate the tomb, and loot it of its treasure before the local adventurerers return to loot it in two days time!

(2 days to complete the with the dugeon level containing around 6-8 encounters (but plentiful chances to short rest), and there is a side quest to kill a necromancer whose lair contains another half a dozen encounters, and a seperate very hard Owlbear encounter).

"The Three Faces of Evil"

Locating a secret cult underground, the PCs infiltrate it. Once they kill the first guards, they discover the cult is a deadly murder cult that kills any who find out about its existence. The cult is notified, and the PCs must either push on and eradicate the menace to the town, or risk the cult relocating with its secrets and spreading word of the PCs involvement and sending assasins to silence ethem permanently.

(3 seperate sub lairs, each with around 3-4 encounters in them. Chance to short rest after each one)

"Encounter at Blackwall Keep"

Arriving at a nearby castle, the PCs stumble into a seige by lizard folk. Attempting to come to the aid of the castle, they are forced to repell several attacks throughout the night.

(The PCs have to face 3 'hard' encounters, with the chance for one short rest)

After a long rest the following day, the party is woken by the 2IC of the castle - the Lizardfolk have captured the Sorceress and captain of the tower, Marzeena! He implores the PCs to rescue her before the Lizardfolk eat her, likely on the full moon 24 hours hence.

(Cue the PCs storming through a swamp to locate the lizard folk lair and doing no fewer than 10 encounters with around 3 spare hours for short rests).

[Here I inserted Lost Island of Castanamir, an AD+D adventure]

The PCs complete the long over land journey to Andoran and spend some downtime catching up with old masters, social stuff, and admin replenishing healing potions, then board a ship for the Free City.

Along the long sea journey, the ship is attacked by a chimera! They defeat it but the ship is damaged. The beast came from a mysterious island that the captain says is on no known map. He asks them to check it out while the repairs are done. He warns them not to take too long, as if they havent returned by the time the repairs are carried out in three days time, he'll be forced to leave without them. The island itself is quite small, and the PCs are hungry for loot so they take a small boat ashore and check it out.

They find a cave with a strage portal. Curiousity takes the better of them, and they enter it... to find themselves trapped in a nefarious teleportation maze of the crazed archmage Castanamir. Now they must navigate the maze and locate a way out of the dungeon before they wind up marooned on the island in three days time.

(around 18 encounters, plus random encounters and including a bunch of trapped halfling thieves stalking the PCs, and three days to locate the exit and escape. The PCs uses short rests VERY sparingly as I ticked off an hour for each one, and it took them 3 sessions just to figure out the teleportation sequence for the maze).

"The Hall of Harsh Reflections"

The PCs arrive in the Free City, and sell a lot of hard earned loot, and purchase some new nifty magic items. Before they know what happened, they find themselves framed for a murder (and one of their number is secretly replaced with a doppleganger; the Player in question is in on the ruse) and imprisoned in the bad guys lair. Unable to escape to the free city above, they face a race against time to locate evidence that theyve been framed, in a hive of dopplegangers and little chance to rest.

(8 encounters, 3 short rests, no chance for a long rest at all)

Locating the evidence they need (and weeding out the doppleganger PC) the party doesnt know who to trust. As they warily stare at each other, a shimmering happens in the air, and a Mind flayer (who had been scrying on them the whole time) appears to finish them off.

Badly wounded and not knowing who to trust, they manage to beat him back (GM fiat) and take refuge in the sewers, where they long rest. After a reminder from the DM that the Illithid can scry + fry, and once he's recovered will likely be back, the PCs race to find his lair and slay him before he can do so.

(8 more encounters, 2 short rests)

"The Champion's Belt"

Enlisting in the local gladiator games, the PCs are to fight 3 battles each day for 3 days in a row. They will be given 1 hour in between each battle to prepare (and during the night will pursue a secret agenda to sneak away to explore the sinister arena bosses hidden underground dungeon beneath the arena)

3 x very hard/ deadly arena fights (short rests between each one, and not to the death) followed by 2 nights of adventuring totalling around 6-8 more encounters in a connected dungeon (and a long rest before the final arena fight).

White Plume Mountain (another AD+D adventure)

Returning to falcons hollow, the Parties swashbuckler is contacted by his master (captain of the grey falcons, the secretive order of the Eagle knights). Three precious artifacts (weapons of great power) have been stolen by the mad archmage Keraptis and take to his hollowed out volcano lair of Droskars crag. The PCs must act with haste to recover them; the archmage is out of his lair at present but will return at sunup the following day. If the PCs leave now, they should have all of 5 hours to recover as many of the weapons as possible. As a bonus, they can keep whatever weapons they recover!

(the module is split between 3 arms of a single dungeon, with each arm having around 3-5 encounters to be overcome) Within that paradigm, the PCs have 1-2 hours to complete the 9-12 encounters, and 3-4 short rests in the middle. They can stretch themseleves as far or as thin as they like.)

(For the record they recovered blackrazor and whelm before being too exhausted to go on; they thought about it though, but had some bad luck and were all out of healing potions and used the extra hour to short rest again)


As for the examples you gave:
Sieges usually took at least a month, the exact time would be based on food stockpiles and the length of time the attackers could maintain a siege depended on their ability to forage, which in turn depended on how thorough the defenders were in stripping the local lands bare.

The Seige in the published 5E adventure (Dragon themed one) has the adventurers running around doing half a dozen things in the one night.


As for invading armies, they move slowly and have to stop for weeks at a time to lay siege to cities.

Think of an action movie where the heroes are fighting an army, several small battles at a time, in order to achieve a larger objective.


As for defeating a group of bandits, that's two or three encounters, so that doesn't meet the encounter guidelines.

The PCs are hired to rescue (xyz) from the bandits before the sell (xyz) into slavery. The PCs contact has gotten wind that (the people they are selling them to) will be arriving tomorrow at sundown.

The PCs have just enough time to hightail it there (excluding travel time, they'll have 5 hours total adventuring time). They get one 'random' encounter on the way (with a nearby cave the monster lairs in with another encounter in it) a chance to short rest and carry on, reaching the bandit camp in time to scout it out. The bandits lair in an old barrow they have barricaded. After defeating the bandits outside and then the bandits inside the camp (blundering in blindly triggers both these encounters at once) the party finds that the critters that lair deep in the the barrow (wights) have captured (xyz) from the bandits. With no time to spare to save (xyz) the party must decend into the tomb and take down the wights.

Thats 5 encounters, 1 short rest, and enough of a hook for an entire sessions play.

[Vogonjeltz]

Wut? ToD starts with an overnight seige (time critical) moves onto a raid/infiltrating a bandit camp (time critical) and has the party opposed by dragon cultists who (time critical) summon Tiamat and (time critical) use a mobile flying castle.

The underdark one has them captured by Drow and escaping (time critical) before being pursued by said drow (time critical) while demons are (time critical) about to be released.

The Strahd one has a BBEG literally watching their every move. Its as time critical as the DM (and Strahd) wants it to be.

An entire night wherein the players can basically rest for an hour anytime they feel like it. Heck, there's time for an entire long rest!

OotA has set pieces the players are being "pursued" but they don't actually have to hurry, they have days of travel time, meaning they can rest as often as they like.

As you say, Strahd has no time limit at all.


No mate, the norm is what the DM says it is. If he wants to run a boring campaign where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want, thats up to him. If he wants to impose time constraints for success/ failure thats also up to him.

If you're off to save the princess/ stop the BBEG/ recover the macguffin/ end the menace to the town/ uncover the murderer/ find a cure to the plague/ peg the macguffin in Mt Doom/ stop the invading army/ locate and defeat the bandits/ escape the clutches of the Drow/ end the seige on the town/ negotiate a truce between warring factions etc etc, there should always be a time constraint on what youre doing, and when you need to do it by. Heck you should be racing against the clock far more often than not (just like real life, and in every movie, novel and action story ever).

The issue is, many DMs simply dont turn their minds to the question, or they do and find it all too hard.

They create static encounter locations where PCs have all the time in the world to do whatever they want (sandboxes are notorious for doing this). This is boring. Its also incredibly unrealistic and flies in the face of movies, novels and action stories (where the heroes are always racing against a clock to do something).

Not a diss on sandboxes by the way. They're awesome. Its just dont forget to time limit your sandbox encounters. Have the plague the PCs trigger at Hex B7 spread at ther rate of 1 hex per week. Have the Bandits at Hex D5 relocate their camp 24 hours after the party find them. Have the BBEG gain 1 level of experience and attract a patrol of 12 more Orcs every in game fortnight. Have events that trigger or effect other events, and make time as much of a factor in the game as space. Have the PCs in a living breathing world, where time matters.

I'm saying it's unusual as compared to the modules which don't have strict timelines preventing hour long or day long rests pretty much at will. The last time I had a time crunch in an RPG was...I think playing Baldur's Gate, there's technically a 100 day time limit, which is as good as no limit at all.


I have played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Out of the Abyss, and now Curse of Strahd, and time critical adventures are the norm. It is rare to have a session where time isn't critical in these adventures.

Out of the Abyss has a ticking clock mechanic for quite a while (vague to avoid spoilers).

Curse of Strahd is the one that comes closest to not having time pressure. Even there, there are timed events all over and if you miss them because you took too long then too bad.

There's an atmosphere of urgency, but there's no time limit worth mentioning for the most part. Even in the initial event of Hoard of the Dragon Queen there's more than enough time to rest at will.


Unless you can prove that the modules are how a majority of how people play the game then your statement is meaningless to reality. Unless you can present a population there is no outlier.

Modules are the only shared experience, and they carry no effective time limit while running the gamut of possible adventures.


But on the other hand do the modules only progress when the players move?

With extremely rare exceptions, yes, this is the case exactly.

Meta-game analysis for a moment: As it also necessarily follows with home-made campaigns because for the most part DMs have a story they want to tell. If events run past the characters, that story won't get told and the DMs will have wasted all their time putting that story together for nothing. Nobody likes that, so events will wait for the players to get around to them.

[Malifice]

An entire night wherein the players can basically rest for an hour anytime they feel like it. Heck, there's time for an entire long rest!.

The dragon attacks. The Dwarf wakes you for an important mission. And so on.

[Shaofoo]

Modules are the only shared experience, and they carry no effective time limit while running the gamut of possible adventures.



This says nothing to me and doesn't answer my inquiry at all. Especially since there is proof in this thread that says that there is a lot of timed elements in the modules.


With extremely rare exceptions, yes, this is the case exactly.

Meta-game analysis for a moment: As it also necessarily follows with home-made campaigns because for the most part DMs have a story they want to tell. If events run past the characters, that story won't get told and the DMs will have wasted all their time putting that story together for nothing. Nobody likes that, so events will wait for the players to get around to them.

You are basically saying that DMs want to railroad the players to tell the story that they want. You seem to forget that players should have their own agency, what if the player's will doesn't mesh up with the story? What if certain events don't unfold because on how the dice rolls (will you fudge to let the BBEG go?)?

You can tell a story but you shouldn't be telling a particular story with D&D. You shouldn't really be trying to force events to happen in a particular way. Honestly that kind of DM is just rife for abuse since he is afraid to move time along.

Seriously, you just told the perfect example why you need timed elements. Also that maybe you shouldn't force events to happen in a certain way.

[ad_hoc]

An entire night wherein the players can basically rest for an hour anytime they feel like it. Heck, there's time for an entire long rest!

OotA has set pieces the players are being "pursued" but they don't actually have to hurry, they have days of travel time, meaning they can rest as often as they like.

As you say, Strahd has no time limit at all.


Have you read or played these adventures at all?

My experience is completely different than yours. So much so that I believe we are talking about different adventures.

[LordVonDerp]

I'll address the massive wall of text in another post.



The Seige in the published 5E adventure (Dragon themed one) has the adventurers running around doing half a dozen things in the one night.
That doesn't sound like a siege. What happened during the days leading up to it? What about the days following it?
The whole point of a siege is to block off incoming supplies and then wait for a surrender.



Think of an action movie where the heroes are fighting an army, several small battles at a time, in order to achieve a larger objective.
I can think of plenty of movies like that. Unfortunately they all involve fairly modern armies that operate in loose squads rather than the tight formations of a medieval army.




The PCs are hired to rescue (xyz) from the bandits before the sell (xyz) into slavery. The PCs contact has gotten wind that (the people they are selling them to) will be arriving tomorrow at sundown.

The PCs have just enough time to hightail it there (excluding travel time, they'll have 5 hours total adventuring time). They get one 'random' encounter on the way (with a nearby cave the monster lairs in with another encounter in it) a chance to short rest and carry on, reaching the bandit camp in time to scout it out. The bandits lair in an old barrow they have barricaded. After defeating the bandits outside and then the bandits inside the camp (blundering in blindly triggers both these encounters at once) the party finds that the critters that lair deep in the the barrow (wights) have captured (xyz) from the bandits. With no time to spare to save (xyz) the party must decend into the tomb and take down the wights.

Thats 5 encounters, 1 short rest, and enough of a hook for an entire sessions play.

-a smart group would wait until the slaves have been sold and then ambush the slow moving slavers.

-the travel times you provided are far too precise for a pre-industrial world.

-why are there two monster caves and a bandit encampment along the same small stretch of road? That seems ridiculously contrived.
-why did the bandits camp in a monster infested cave without bothering to block off the part that leads deeper into the caves?

-if the prisoners were taken by wights then it's already too late.

[pwykersotz]

Like some others, I put as many or as few encounters a day into the game as I desire and I've never found it a problem. But the right ideas are being discussed here, this is really a question of "resources per timeframe". And as long as both those terms are inflexible, there's limited options.

Just to brainstorm (none of these ideas will work without effort, I'm sure):

Define your timeframe as 8 encounters. It doesn't matter how many days pass, until you beat 8 encounters, you aren't getting your spells back. Fluff it by having to siphon magical or spiritual energy from other creatures or things, or a reward from the gods for actively pursuing goals.

Tie resources to another metric instead of long rest. Technically, this is a variation of the last idea. Resource restoration happens only in a perfectly calm state of mind, impossible unless you are in a place you believe to be completely safe. So use your moves carefully, you can't restore them until you get back town!

Change what resources are expended. Enforce material components for spells, have weapons and armor wear down, etc. If that battlemaster can always take that shot but he goes through longbows like crazy, that changes the nature of needing to rest and forces more interaction with the environment to replenish.

I've got more ideas, but they're not something I can put into words quite yet. I'll work on that.

[Zalabim]

-a smart group would wait until the slaves have been sold and then ambush the slow moving slavers.
They're underdark slavers. That's why they're waiting until sundown. So if you wait for the sale, you'll just have to go through the bandit's barrow to reach the underdark anyway. If you still want to wait for the sale and follow them, I'll have to reference another book. (OotA, here we go.)


-why are there two monster caves and a bandit encampment along the same small stretch of road? That seems ridiculously contrived.
The bandit's encampment is one of the monster caves. The other, random encounter, monster cave is probably just a cave. Singular. Big enough for a bear to sleep in kind of thing.


-why did the bandits camp in a monster infested cave without bothering to block off the part that leads deeper into the caves?
"The bandits lair in an old barrow they have barricaded." Maybe someone with some architecture/investigation proficiency would notice that the barricades aren't all built to keep people out. This must be a temporary camp until the slave deal can be made. Too bad their construction wasn't up to code.


-if the prisoners were taken by wights then it's already too late.
Depends on which prisoner you need to rescue, but probably very true. Anyway, you'll feel really silly when you catch up to those slow-moving slavers in the underdark and find out that your rescuee had been eaten by wights yesterday.

[Vogonjeltz]

The dragon attacks. The Dwarf wakes you for an important mission. And so on.

There's no timing given for the two missions with the Dwarf. They could happen at any time. More importantly, the old tunnel has no urgency at all. And there's no time limit for either of the missions he gives. The dragon can also be completely ignored with no ill effect, he'll continue swooping around the wall until the pcs show up, at which point the encounter actually starts.

Events in that module happen when the pcs show up for them, basically regardless of when they choose to do so.

[Malifice]

There's no timing given for the two missions with the Dwarf.

They could happen at any time.

Exactly my point.

[Markoff Chainey]

My table has exactly the same problem.


because sometimes we have no combat for an entire evening, sometimes we have like 6 encounters without even a short rest... but we actually NEVER experienced an "ideal adventuring day".


A possible solution to bring the classes who are dependent on short rests on par:

Whenever someone uses an ability that recharges on a short rest (like casting a spell when it is a warlock), the character in question also throws a d6. On a 5-6, the ability is used up, otherwise it is still useable. That makes for an average number of uses of 3.24 per long rest (geometrical average).


Alternatively, if you do not want to risk the theoretical unlimited uses, a char has to throw a d4, note the number per ability. When an ability is used and the dice shows a number that came up on the same day already, the ability is used up (average 3.22) This alternative lacks behind IMO, because you need to keep track of numbers per ability.


"3" is the target number, because on an ideal day with 2 short rests, every ability can be used 3 times. - Also, the char in question would not really know if she will be able to rest 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 times with the original method of short rests... so making it a dice roll seems like a good equivalent to me.

To account for the 0.24 that is above the "3": any spell slot granted from a magical item does not allow to be rerolled, it is simply depleted.

This way, the short rest dependent chars are on par with the long rest dependent ones... The remaining problem is that this solution devalues "always on" abilities compared to the others, but that is minor IMO.

What do you think?

[Vogonjeltz]

Exactly my point.

No, your point (which was the opposite of my point) was that everything was "(time critical)".

This is literally non-time critical, the opposite of what you were saying the entire time.


Have you read or played these adventures at all?

My experience is completely different than yours. So much so that I believe we are talking about different adventures.

I opened the book and read the timing on the elements, so I'm talking about the published adventure by Wizards of the Coast, maybe you didn't play or run that.

[Ashdate]

There is very little time critical stuff in Out of the Abyss that I've noticed as a DM (into chapter 9 in-game, and nothing too critical from my skimming ahead).


Drow chases are tracked per day and noting that by the book the most encounters a group would get into is two.

The demon lords themselves move at a lethargic pace; there's even a year break recommended in the middle of the book!

There are scenarios where time could be critical (I.e. The oozing temple) but they are the exception rather than the rule.


I would, if I could do it over again, introduce the variant rest system (I.e. 8 hour short rest etc.) if I wasn't so far in. The random encounters in OoTS are not challenging by themselves for an adventuring day, and since travel is measured in weeks it would be a painful slog to follow the book recommendations.

[Malifice]

No, your point (which was the opposite of my point) was that everything was "(time critical)".

It is time critical. As time critical as the DM wants it to be. It lets the DM control the 5MWD.

If you want your players nova-ing, go for it. Have the Dwarf leave them alone. If you want to let them get a rest in, let them - have the Dragon not attack till dawn.



My table has exactly the same problem.

because sometimes we have no combat for an entire evening, sometimes we have like 6 encounters without even a short rest... but we actually NEVER experienced an "ideal adventuring day".

What do you think?

You're confusing 'adventuring day' with 'game session'.

They're not the same thing.

[ad_hoc]

I opened the book and read the timing on the elements, so I'm talking about the published adventure by Wizards of the Coast, maybe you didn't play or run that.

Oh I see.

I actually ran the adventures.

They definitely are time critical.

[Markoff Chainey]

You're confusing 'adventuring day' with 'game session'.

They're not the same thing.

On a typical game session, we cover many days and sometimes even weeks... while, if we would play an adventuring day according to the books, we would cover maybe 3/4 of an adventuring day, so it is even worse.

[gfishfunk]

In a typical session, my group will get through 1/3 to 1/2 of an adventuring day. My sessions are shorter in time duration though, about 2 hours 30 minutes and a good portion of that is just chatting and catching up. I'll have sessions that are nothing but role-play, decision making, and player interaction.

For balance sake: increase the short rest to 1 night sleep, and long rests to 3 days downtime.

This will necessarily change how a group interacts with a hard threat and retreats -- as well as it should. What is the arbitrary difference between re-hitting an encounter 8 hours later versus 72 hours later? Also, do your monsters immediately regenerate? Do they need long rests? Do they just set up shop again?

Alternatively, you can re-hit the encounter as if by a save-point: keep track of resources and HP at the beginning of the encounter and set up for the encounter again before.

[LordVonDerp]

They're underdark slavers. That's why they're waiting until sundown. So if you wait for the sale, you'll just have to go through the bandit's barrow to reach the underdark anyway. If you still want to wait for the sale and follow them, I'll have to reference another book. (OotA, here we go.).
If the slavers are coming at sundown then they must know when sundown is, which means they have to start above ground.
Also why does some random cave just happened. To have an entrance to the underdark?





The bandit's encampment is one of the monster caves. The other, random encounter, monster cave is probably just a cave. Singular. Big enough for a bear to sleep in kind of thing..
That doesn't solve the problem, that's still two dangerous caves within a day's travel along a road.



"The bandits lair in an old barrow they have barricaded." Maybe someone with some architecture/investigation proficiency would notice that the barricades aren't all built to keep people out. This must be a temporary camp until the slave deal can be made. Too bad their construction wasn't up to code.
.
If they've barricaded it at all there shouldn't be any monsters getting through undetected. Doubly so if they're expecting company from deeper in the cave



Depends on which prisoner you need to rescue, but probably very true. Anyway, you'll feel really silly when you catch up to those slow-moving slavers in the underdark and find out that your rescuee had been eaten by wights yesterday.

Only a huge amount of contrived nonsense.

[Tanarii]

On a typical game session, we cover many days and sometimes even weeks... while, if we would play an adventuring day according to the books, we would cover maybe 3/4 of an adventuring day, so it is even worse.D&D 5e generally assumes that things that you'll only deal with adventuring scenes (combat or non-combat encounter), and those adventuring scenes will come in succession to keep tension up. It's not really designed to either play out many non-adventuring scenes (non-combat non-encounters, ie things that don't deplete resources) as opposed to hand-wave past them rapidly. Nor to have many opportunities to restore resources between them.

I'm probably just being pedantic and you're already aware of that and that's the problem, but it's important to be clear this is intentional system design, because it's a game designed to play dungeon and wilderness and urban adventuring. (Edit: Aka many encounters in quick succession.)

If you often have a bunch of in-game time between encounters, which are by definition things designed to potentially expend character resources, then if you want the system to sorta-kinda work as intended, then you need to look at the variant rest rules it provides to handle that. Like the 8-hr Short Rest, and week Long Rest. Or cobble up your own version. Or just make 'rest' a DM meta-game concept that happens when you as the DM designate it, either in conjunction with in game resting of your choice, or potentially even completely independent from in-game resting.

[Vogonjeltz]

It is time critical. As time critical as the DM wants it to be. It lets the DM control the 5MWD.

If you want your players nova-ing, go for it. Have the Dwarf leave them alone. If you want to let them get a rest in, let them - have the Dragon not attack till dawn.

No, time critical would be: The Dwarf specifically goes to the players at 11:00, the mission he assigns must be completed by 11:45 else Failure. The dwarf waking the players at any time the DM assigns is time unrelated. The mission being able to be completed at any time that night is effectively time unrelated.

[ad_hoc]

On a typical game session, we cover many days and sometimes even weeks... while, if we would play an adventuring day according to the books, we would cover maybe 3/4 of an adventuring day, so it is even worse.

We cover about 1 adventuring day per session. This results in rising action throughout the session which results in a climax and resolution.

Sometimes days or weeks pass by as down time of course.