Newbie DM: Long Rests and Verisimilitude

[Grog Logs]

Long-time lurker, first time poster.

***ILLUMINARIUM CAMPAIGN STAY OUT***

Context: I hope to start my first campaign as a DM in 1-2 months. I have played D&D 5e with a handful of DM’s, but only completed one campaign. So my exposure to encounter building is mild. I have read the DMG and Monster Manual and understand Adjusted XP vs. Actual XP.

Problem 1: Long Rests (LR) in Dungeon Version. When I am a PC, my party often decides to take a LR in the middle of a dungeon. I go along with it in order to avoid being a wet sock and crippling the enjoyment of my spellcasting allies who are out of spell slots. However, this process hurts my verisimilitude. In my campaign, I do not want the Party to sleep in the dungeon (or just outside it) at the midway point without the enemies retaliating in mass force. But, I don't want to reduce dungeons to 2-3 hard to deadly encounters as that would be a very short dungeon. How can I solve this problem? So, I can break into the big bad’s castle, fight 4-5 rooms of monsters , spend the night within my enemy's home (oh but I secured the door, so it’s okay), and then fight 6-8 more rooms of monsters the next day before leaving. Even if the second day’s monsters did not break down the door (b/c I cast Leomund's Tiny Hut or a similar magic spell), wouldn’t all of them wait right outside the door and/or set up traps?!? :smallconfused:

Problem 2: LR during Map Travel. Similarly, how do I balance the number of encounters per day when traveling in the dangerous wilderness between cities? An adventuring day is 6-8 medium to hard encounters with 2 short rests during and one rest afterward. It would take 5-8 days to reach the next city. How do you create verisimilitude without letting the plot slow to a crawl? One solution that I considered would be to implement the Gritty Realism Variant (which I think would work very well), but wouldn't that exacerbate Problem 1? Another idea woudl be to create a rule that normal resting rules apply in cities and Gritty Variant applies in the wilderness (adopted from a poster on this forum), but then wouldn't the Party be completely exhausted in resources before reaching the miniboss and boss of the region? My third solution would be to play out the first of the 5-8 traveling days and then narrate that the remaining traveling days occur in a similar fashion (but no XP for the non-played fighting :smallfrown:)

Thank you!

[vehementi]

Problem 1:

Maybe make them trek outside the dungeon to rest? What you're saying makes sense... and they need to conserve their spells. That's part of the balance of D&D. There's no pointing playing a martial class if spellcasters get their super overpowered spells back every fight.

Problem 2:

That's a real Adventuring Day, like you're adventuring through a super dangerous swamp and stuff. If you're casually traveling you don't need to inject 5 fights/day. I mean that is such a horrifically dangerous road that the king would have an army there to straighten things out!

[mgshamster]

One of the better ways I've seen people handle this is to use the Gritty Realism Rest Variant when you're outside of a city, and normal rest rules when you're inside of a city (or any location designated as a safe space).

Some locations, such as temples to good deities (or deities the PCs worship or at least donate to) or other holy sites or magical sites, allow for the Heroic Rest Variant.

Gritty Realism Rest Variant: Short Rest is 8 hours, Long Rest is one week.

Heroic Rest Variant: Short Rest is 10 minutes, Long Rest is one hour.

Normal: Short Rest is 1 hour, Long Rest is 8 hours.

[Tanarii]

Combat as war / open table / multiple parties (west marches-ish)

Generally speaking my adventure sites & encounter tables don't care what level your party is. They're set for a level range. If you choose to do something that's a cakewalk, you will do it easily but not get much return on invested real world time. If it's too challenging you risk defeat or death.

Don't allow long rests uninterrupted in dangerous areas. Set encounter tables that check at least every hour, although traditional is every ten minutes. Use them, they're an important part of resource attrition. It's on the players to decide if they need to push on or retreat and rest. If players use magics to try and make themselves safe in Tier 2, I check encounters as usual and have creatures that find them react 'logically'. (I make up something depending on the enemies intelligence and level of caring.) There are many times the players have absolutely no chance of assaulting a dungeon / adventure site appropriate to their level in a single offense, and have to expect the inhabitants will be prepared for their second assault.

Encounters in dangerous wilderness are less frequent, but still happen often by most games standard. At a minimum it's a check once every four hours.

Wilderness encounters are Mid to high Tier 2. So be prepared to run a lot if you're lower levels tier 2. If you're Tier 1 ust stay out of the wilderness.

In frontier areas (technically civilized, somewhat dangerous) I stop rolling encounters after Tier 1. The encounter tables are only dangerous to characters of that level. Anything Tier 2 faces there is likely a new threat to the area they've heard rumors of and are intentionally going to encounter.

(I'm currently using the same approach for a brand new group, new single party, personal friends, plan is to use all adapted BECMI modules.)

-------------


(theory. My CaS experience was mostly 4e, and official play modules all ran like this):
who cares about verisimilitude? The players aren't living minute by minute, they're doing an adventure, jumping from scene to scene, so you just insert short rests and long rests as needed. 4-6 mixed medium/hard combat encounters per long rest, maybe less with 2 non-combat challenges for each combat removed. (None combat encounters are Easy at best unless they require resource expenditure). All per the DMG adventuring table. Provide 2 short rests about every 2 encounters.

Note: the DMG statement of 6-8 Medium or Hard encounters per adventuring day is not correct, per the table. It's 6 (at most levels) or 7-8 (a few levels out of 20) Medium only encounters that is 'balanced'. No Hard.

-----------

I've been using Angry DM's time pool recently with combat as war. The biggest issue I have with it is making it work with short rests to make odds of 'bad things' not basically automatic in every short rest or not happen at all, but I've been working on some tweaks. http://theangrygm.com/hacking-time-in-dnd/


One of the better ways I've seen people handle this is to use the Gritty Realism Rest Variant when you're outside of a city, and normal rest rules when you're inside of a city (or any location designated as a safe space).
I used Epic heroism in big dungeons and nearby dungeons, and normal in wilderness, for a while. But given the full heal on rests capabilities of 5e, I decided I was better off having the party fall back to Long Rest and let enemies respond to the attack logically. (Including abandoning the location until they can get reinforcements, if appropriate.) Mainly I didn't like having to remind players which it was all the time.

[Decstarr]

1) There are several ways around that.
- Put a time limit on the dungeons (kids being sacrificed in a ritual, an enemy on the verge of opening a portal, etcetc). Most players should be unwilling to rest if they are aware it will have severe and dangerous consequences.
- Just talk to them. D&D is more than anything a game of resource management and LR during dungeons makes it 10 times harder for the DM to provide interesting and dangerous encounters. Just ask them to refrain from doing that on your session and you should be fine - unless your players are d!cks :P
- If all fails, you can always homebrew it and once they enter a certain region tell them "beyond this point there will be no save, long rests possible".

2) What I like to do here is throw in one or two rather difficult aka deadly encounters. I feel like the guys enjoy that way more than fighting relatively easy encounters several times. If it fits your world setting, especially as long as the party is lower level, throw in a Troll under a bridge or an ogre in love or some other cliche enemy. My players enjoy that way more than small fights. Unless its kobolds. Boy, they HATE kobolds.

[Potato_Priest]

If the monsters wait right outside the Leomund's tiny hut, you'd best be prepared for the players to walk all over them, since the hut gives a huge defensive advantage in a fight. In fact if one player recasts the hut from the inside, the party can just attack and retreat to rest for the rest of the day as they please.

[Tanarii]

If the monsters wait right outside the Leomund's tiny hut, you'd best be prepared for the players to walk all over them, since the hut gives a huge defensive advantage in a fight. In fact if one player recasts the hut from the inside, the party can just attack and retreat to rest for the rest of the day as they please.
They have to come out and around the corner some time. And if the players want to face an entire group of enemies in the local adventuring laying in wait for them, instead of picking them apart piecemeal, that's on them.

OTOH, I still wish monsters had det-packs & claymores sometimes. :smallamused:

[Protato]

I personally say how many rests I plan to include in a session. For example, I say "On this mountain, after defeating the Perytons, you can take a rest to heal up and do other chores, but you can only take two rests in here total, and no long rest until you get back home". I allow long rests between sessions usually, but then again my players found an old shelter in a cave and moved in, and I wouldn't allow a long rest if a session ended mid-dungeon.

[EvilAnagram]

The first problem is a DM problem. There are 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day, and if your party is resting after three then the DM should counter it. Talk to your DM and the other players about this if you don't like the way you're playing it.

The second problem isn't really a problem. Travel encounters are their own little space. They are events entirely separate from actual encounter calculations because they necessarily happen on a day of their own. The exception to this is when you have a full adventure day en route, or you use the extended rest variant. Of course, extended rests make for short dungeons.

[Avonar]

I don't personally have an issue with long resting in dungeons, but there are ways to combat it other than just "monsters come alone". This is the situation in the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from Tales from the Yawning Portal (spoilers of course):

In the lower levels that take up most of the dungeon, there is a mild poisonous gas. Now, this gas only does 1d6 damage every 1 hour however this adds up. It is aimed at level 5 characters, and by the time they might have normally stopped for a long rest they did not have enough health to survive the 8d6 damage they would have taken before completing the rest. This made them press on further, by the time they found somewhere to rest, they had entirely run out of resources. No potions, no spell slots, nothing.

However, if you are planning to run them through a dungeon where they will be leveling up, long rests are important for this. However parties do not get a long rest more than once every 24 hours. In a dungeon, that equates to either 1 long rest or having to leave the dungeon to rest. How long they take can also change things, perhaps have them see some additional enemies entering the dungeon while they rest so that they know doing so has made things harder for them.

[Tanarii]

There a 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day,
I often see this stated, and that's hardly surprising since the DMG incorrectly states "6-8 Medium or Hard encounters" per adventuring day.

A more accurate statement would be "for the majority of levels 1-20, there are 6 Medium encounters per adventuring day, 4 if Hard, or 3 if Deadly."

[Grog Logs]

First, thank you everyone for your replies. Trying to highlight some of the main takeaways.


Problem 2:...If you're casually traveling you don't need to inject 5 fights/day. I mean that is such a horrifically dangerous road that the king would have an army there to straighten things out!

Hmm, that’s a good point. That gives me some interesting ideas. Either, I need to decrease the number of encounters per day of travel. Or, maybe each day of travel could be equivalent of a dungeon? Thus, clearing out the wilderness and making it safe for general passage. OR I could spread the 5-6 encounters over a week of travel using Gritty Realism.


… Gritty Realism Rest Variant…outside of a city, and normal rest rules… inside of a city (or…safe space)…temples…Heroic Rest Variant.

This is also good. Maybe there can be holy sites, or sites infused with magic/divinity throughout the wilderness. Given the nature of my campaign, there could be naturally occurring “hot springs” of magical restoration, which will sometimes have shrines built upon them. I like it.


Combat as war…Wilderness encounters are Mid to high Tier 2...If you're Tier 1 ust stay out of the wilderness…I've been using Angry DM's time pool recently with combat as war…

I like the idea of combat as war, but as it is my first foray into DM’ing, I’m going to start with combat as sport in order to avoid accidental TPK’s.

Yes, I am familiar with Angry DM and that specific article. Great stuff. My original plan was to incorporate aspects of it into my campaign. But, I decided to wait until I have more experiencing DM’ing under my belt. It’s a lot to keep track of. Maybe I’ll implement that after I have a few sessions into the campaign or maybe I’ll wait until my second campaign.


This is the situation in the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from Tales from the Yawning Portal (spoilers of course)...

This is great. Thank you. I may use something this in the future


…A more accurate statement would be "for the majority of levels 1-20, there are 6 Medium encounters per adventuring day, 4 if Hard, or 3 if Deadly.".

Perfect. Thank you. I did notice the Adjusted XP per Adventuring Day in the DMG. I am anticipating having 4 regular PCs in my campaign, sometimes 5-6. In assuming 4 for the first couple levels, my calculations of the Adjusted XP Adventuring Day as indicated in the below spoiler boxes. I noticed that the number of encounters was consistently lower than 6-8 encounters for adventuring day, but I had assumed that was because PCs have low HP at the first couple levels. I suppose not.

M = Medium, H = Hard, D = Deadly. Is there even a point to Easy encounters?

3M, 2H

1M, 2H, 1D

3M, 2H

1M, 2H, 1D

2M, 3H

Let me know if the above was too confusing. I can show my work if needed. :smalltongue:

[JellyPooga]

Most problems with long rests can be solved by the GM merely saying "you can't rest here, it's too dangerous/monsters are nearby/you don't have the facility". GMs should be permissive, but they don't have to bow to every request the players make. If the players want to abandon their delve to go find somewhere appropriate to rest, the GM is well within his perogative to repopulate, reprepare ot otherwise change the dungeon such that getting back to the same position is not merely a case of skipping back to the action.

[Hrugner]

If I'm understanding correctly, the problem is that you want your dungeon to be long enough that the players should need at least one long rest's worth of resources at some point in the dungeon. You don't want them sleeping in the dungeon though because that seems silly and there should be something preventing this. Is that about right?

Introduce a new magic item that lets people take a long rest when they are near it and place this item at the center of major cities and the like. Make it a huge immobile thing. When players are out in the world, they can occasionally find small one use versions of this item that allow them to gain the benefits of a long rest without spending time. You can place these items within dungeons in order to extend the dungeon without changing anything else. There should also be medium sized versions of these used as waypoints between major cities. This solution also prevents players from just long resting constantly out in the field, as well as giving the potential for finding the larger version of these items in their travels and destroying them to wipe out a city or creating colonies around them.

[Tanarii]

Is there even a point to Easy encounters?
Yes.

First of all, non-combat encounters that are a challenge are supposed to be rewarded as per encounter difficulty definitions. Since Easy encounters shouldn't use up more than a few hps, no significant resource usage, and the others difficulties expect some resource usage, I feel the vast majority are Easy encounters. At least, the ones I run and have seen run would be. Although I have played around with extended skill challenges that allow bypass of checks with utility spells & other expendable resources, and those I rate higher difficulties.

Second of all, for Easy combat encounters, they're useful for random encounters in dungeons & other close ranger adventure sites. My experience is they take about 5-10 minutes to resolve and don't require breaking out a battle mat. I originally did everything Theatre of the Mind, but after experimenting with a battle mat recently, I found it doesn't significantly slow down more difficult combats, especially Hard and Difficult, and it adds clarity. The downside is it can detract from tension of a battle erupting if you stop to set it up. Easy combats, and the occasional Medium, don't really require that, so they're perfect for a sudden eruption of violence in a dangerous area. They feel more dangerous than they are that way due to the sudden switch in pacing. and players stay on their toes knowing something can "jump" them out of nowhere.

[SiCK_Boy]

I am also struggling with this aspect of the game, and this is something for which I believe there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution.

My main issue is with the encounters per day, and the implication it has for wilderness travel.

Essentially, if you keep throwing up "full adventuring days" at the party over a 4-5 days of wilderness travel, they'll just be overleveled by the time they make it there and back.

Using the gritty rest variant while traveling at least allows a better control of the xp distribution by letting more time happen in game between encounters.

One other option is to stick to the regular rest rules, but having wilderness encounters not give xp (or not the full xp value) to the players. But that is not without its own set of problems: you will be spending a large portion of your time ta the table having the players go through "worthless" encounters. Some players may not appreciate. Also, depending on the way those encounters are built, there is only so much encounters you can throw at players that "relate" to your main story (if you are playing a module, or an adventure with a primary quest). Additional wilderness encounters can help in world-building, but 4 times a day? Wouldn't that become tedious? On the other hand, knowing the encounters are not worth XP, player behavior may adapt and they'll be more likely to try to sneak past encounters or run away or just avoid the encounters (since they won't fear they are "wasting" potential xp).

[Potato_Priest]

I personally favor a different variant of the long rest variant for wilderness travel, wherein the long rests are still 8 hours, but you can only do it once a week. This means the PCs can march 7 days to the dungeon and actually experience negative effects from wilderness encounters, then get a long rest and head in fresh.

It also means that you can space wilderness encounters out realistically (seriously, who encounters 4-6 dangerous animals on a walk through the woods) without making the players take stupidly long breaks on lewis-and-clark style wilderness excursions.

[LordEntrails]

I believe the Primal Thule setting simple takes the concept from the core books that 'to benefit from a rest you have to be resting in a safe location' and makes it obvious that resting in the middle of a forest in a make-shift camp is not a safe location. That resting in a dungeon is not a safe location.

Besides, your dungeon should never be stagnant. Creatures live in it, that means they move around. Does every creature spend the next 8 hours in their room and never leaves it? Come on now, the guys over in room 22 might just wander in to where the party is resting. Or more like they swing buy the guys in room 12 to trade and find them all dead. They are not just going to go back to their room and wait for whoever killed those other guys to come find them (and not even be ready for the danger).

When my party takes a long rest in the middle of the dungeon, I usually let them get the benefits of a long rest, if a couple of hours into their rest the every creature from the rest of the dungeon hasn't come looking for them. Do this once, have the entire rest of the dungeon come knocking on the party's door 5 hours into their long rest and your party won't be taking many long rests in unsafe areas again (assuming they live through it the first time).

[tkuremento]

Sorry I have nothing to add, just kept accidentally reading Verisimilitude as "Vermintide" and now I've got Warhammer Fantasy on the mind x.X

[Sjappo]

I struggle with the whole overland thing as well. Realistically, overland travel becomes less and less dangerous as the party progresses in level. Orcs and brigands aren't much of a problem for fireballing wizards. So, my solution is to ditch wilderness encounters for the most part. I do have them from time to time as an introduction encounter to a side adventure or as a hard to deadly+ encounter in very dangerous territory.

My players don't expect more than 1 or 2 encounters per travelling day so they nova hard and trivialise most encounters. So, as I said, after a few levels and we had our fun with overland travel. At that point I just narrate the travel and stick to the meat of the adventure.

Still, Angry has some thoughts on the mater (http://theangrygm.com/getting-there-is-half-the-fun/). As per usual.

[Tanarii]

(seriously, who encounters 4-6 dangerous animals on a walk through the woods)
Most classical D&D dangerous wilderness areas aren't anything like real world danger levels. You're not likely to encounter dragons, basilisks, wyverns, displaced beasts, bulettes, etc.

Of course, semi-civilized areas probably aren't that dangerous either. That's why I categorize those areas as 'frontier', encounter still dangerous to Low Tier 1 and commoners or small groups of militia, but by the time you're in Tier 2 pretty safe to travel.

Part of the problem is 5e Tier 1 is lightning fast, and healing is complete on a long rest. In AD&D or Classic, you were at low level (1-3) for a fairly long time. And 'wilderness' adventuring suitable for what is now Tier 2 included places like the Isle of Dread. Then on top of that resource depletion (hit points especially, but also spells) were slower to deplete recover.

If you're trying to challenge Tier 2 players with random encounters over several days of travel through somewhat safe areas (what your "woods" sounds like to me), you're gonna run into some cognitive dissonance pretty fast.

[mgshamster]

I use easy encounters to help give my players that "I'm a badass" feel.

[Moosoculars]

Problem 1

I like my fantasy to be realistic - so to speak.

So if pcs have a long rest in the manor house after attacking, the monsters will definitely be attacked at night and preparing traps. If the pcs are that stupid then frankly they have asked for it.

But different monsters act in different ways. If pcs long rest in the middle of a goblin cave system they may attack once but if that failed they would up and leave (with all their treasure) and come back a week later when the pcs had left (my poor gobos are used to moving on when a big bad comes to town)

Other enemies would prepare and counter attack in other ways. Some creatures would stay and protect their territory others would flee, a lot would bargain with the PCs I like to add the roleplaying in here and mix up the hack and slash. If the pcs are getting low on resources, but they need a rest to really continue then this is a great time for the bad guy to negotiate a deal.

As a DM I think that if you design an area which cannot be defeated in one adventuring day you should work out what will happen when the pcs do take a rest (or try - evil DM grin)

Problem 2

I deal with travel in different ways.

Primarily if the pcs can fight their way through a wilderness area once or twice then they can travel through it again later without all the combat.

Unless, I determine that things have changed, I feel like it, or if they are heading to or from an adventure point and the resources they use is important to note.

This keeps the story going. Once the pcs have traveled through the goblin plains of blarg three times going back through all of the fights is just not interesting For the pcs or the DM. Story and enjoyment should trump realism. So the travel is simply described.

[EvilAnagram]

I often see this stated, and that's hardly surprising since the DMG incorrectly states "6-8 Medium or Hard encounters" per adventuring day.

A more accurate statement would be "for the majority of levels 1-20, there are 6 Medium encounters per adventuring day, 4 if Hard, or 3 if Deadly."

I disagree with this sentiment, though I think it amounts to a matter of taste.

I usually have at least six encounters, three of which are hard or deadly, and no more than two of which are easy. I prefer to create an engaging challenge for my players with clear arcs of increased or reduced intensity. Six medium encounters just seems ridiculously easy to me.

[Tanarii]

I disagree with this sentiment, though I think it amounts to a matter of taste.Its not a sentiment, it's pointing out an error in the DMG text.

Whether or not you want to use the DMG encounter difficulty & adventuring day tables as written to plan your adventuring days, or find them not to present a difficult enough challenge, is a totally different matter. If that was the intent of your statement, awesome! It's your game. And please ignore my pointing out of the textual error. :smallwink:

[Pex]

Does the party want to long rest because they're being reckless with their resources or the DM makes encounters so hard they have to use their resources to survive? If the former teach them to conserve. Help the spellcasters learn just using cantrips in particular fights is fine. Save the big spells for the tough fights. If the latter the DM needs to relearn how to create encounters. Not every fight needs to be an epic battle. Challenging doesn't mean overwhelming odds. The DM should not be upset if a PC doesn't drop in a fight.

[Eric Diaz]

One of the better ways I've seen people handle this is to use the Gritty Realism Rest Variant when you're outside of a city, and normal rest rules when you're inside of a city (or any location designated as a safe space).

Some locations, such as temples to good deities (or deities the PCs worship or at least donate to) or other holy sites or magical sites, allow for the Heroic Rest Variant.

Gritty Realism Rest Variant: Short Rest is 8 hours, Long Rest is one week.

Heroic Rest Variant: Short Rest is 10 minutes, Long Rest is one hour.

Normal: Short Rest is 1 hour, Long Rest is 8 hours.

This is my favorite as well. it works wonderfully with BX too:

"Moldvay suggests one check per day as a standard, 3-4 checks as a maximum. I'll use three - not only because it works better for my example, but also because a "rule of three" seems to be the answer to many of my D&D problems. The chances are slightly higher than dungeon encounters (around 1-in-3 instead of 1-in-6).

Which means....

An average of 7 encounters per long rest!

[...]

And they can still take short rests as often as they want, but it costs them - leaving the dungeon or wasting one day of travel, for example. Fortunately, if they leave the dungeon for eight hours, that still triggers an wilderness encounter check if you're using 3/day.
"

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2017/06/fixing-rests-5e-quick-fix.html

[Grog Logs]

If I'm understanding correctly, the problem is that you want your dungeon to be long enough that the players should need at least one long rest's worth of resources at some point in the dungeon. You don't want them sleeping in the dungeon though because that seems silly and there should be something preventing this. Is that about right?

Not quite. Based on playing as a PC, it seems like most dungeons are 6-12 encounters. I do NOT want them sleeping in the dungeon, but I don't know how the party can survive without a LR. Maybe my impression that most dungeons/castles are that large (8-20 rooms, some without monsters is incorrect). Am I wrong? A four room dungeon (hard encounters) FEELS brief story wise.

While not as bad, the idea of a one hour rest (short rest) within a dungeon also seems weird. But, if I don't want a short rest, then nonmagical SR classes are severely limited.

I have considered giving the party a McGuffin for getting one LR and two SR before returning to the city, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. McGuffin is better than sleeping, though.

[Grog Logs]

Yes.

First of all, non-combat encounters that are a challenge are supposed to be rewarded as per encounter difficulty definitions. Since Easy encounters shouldn't use up more than a few hps, no significant resource usage, and the others difficulties expect some resource usage, I feel the vast majority are Easy encounters. At least, the ones I run and have seen run would be. Although I have played around with extended skill challenges that allow bypass of checks with utility spells & other expendable resources, and those I rate higher difficulties.

I do intend to give out XP for non-combats. I'm hoping to give XP for solving problems rather than being murder hobos. If you can defuse an ogre without combat (e.g. negotiate a treaty), you still get the same XP. Unsure if I can pull that off, but I would like to.

[EvilAnagram]

Its not a sentiment, it's pointing out an error in the DMG text.

Whether or not you want to use the DMG encounter difficulty & adventuring day tables as written to plan your adventuring days, or find them not to present a difficult enough challenge, is a totally different matter. If that was the intent of your statement, awesome! It's your game. And please ignore my pointing out of the textual error. :smallwink:

Is that an error? 6-8 hard encounters seems perfectly normal. I'm away from the PHB, but it seems in line with my memory of it.

[Tanarii]

Is that an error? 6-8 hard encounters seems perfectly normal. I'm away from the PHB, but it seems in line with my memory of it.
If you use the adventuring day tables and divide by medium encounters, for the vast majority of levels you get 6 medium encounters per adventuring day. For some few it's 7, and for like 1-2 it creeps up to 8.

Hard encounters it's typically 4.5 per adventuring day. (It's always 2/3 of whatever Medium is.)

So 6-8 Medium is accurate, even if it implies more than typical is the norm. 6-8 medium or hard, which is what the text says, isn't.

[Malifice]

Problem 1: Long Rests (LR) in Dungeon Version. When I am a PC, my party often decides to take a LR in the middle of a dungeon.

The answer is when you sit down and design your dungeons, place 6-8 encounters in them (sometimes more, sometimes less).

Then place a time limit on completion of the quest. Whatever reason the PCs are in the dungeon (stop the ritual, save the NPC, slay the BBEG, recover the macguffin etc), it needs to be completed within 24 hours or else (bad thing happens).

If you want longer dungeons (and plan on letting the PCs long rest) add another half a dozen encounters, and provide the PCs with a natural break point (and safe area) in order to long rest.


Problem 2: LR during Map Travel. Similarly, how do I balance the number of encounters per day when traveling in the dangerous wilderness between cities? An adventuring day is 6-8 medium to hard encounters with 2 short rests during and one rest afterward. It would take 5-8 days to reach the next city. How do you create verisimilitude without letting the plot slow to a crawl?

The short answer is 'there is no need'.

You dont need to push half a dozen encounters on the PC's every day, let alone every adventuring day.

The trick is to keep them guessing, so they marshall resources and self regulate resource usage.

Some days they'll have just the one encounter (and you can dial up the difficulty a little bit on such days, as the PCs will be able to safely nova) and that's fine.

Also; incorporate 'random' or travel encounters into your 6-8 dungeon encounters.

Here is an example (5th - 6th level party with a magic item each):

The Machinations of Bargle

Hook: PCs are approached by NPC in town. A former apprentice of his (named Bargle) has gone rogue and stolen a book of vile magic from the Magic college. He tells the PCs that Bargle plans on using the tome to summon a potent Demon at midnight on the night of the winter solstace... just 3 days hence!

He offers 1 custom uncommon magic item to each PC if they can track him down and stop him before the ritual is completed. He provides a map to the ruins where Bargle is based. Payment on return. He can supply 2 healing potions to each PC before they leave.

Day 1: Travel to the ruins. At night they get attacked by 2 Vrocks and 1 Cambion (dispatched by Bargle) who swoop down to attack them at night as they camp. The Cambion has the spellcasting trait of a Mage (and has pre-cast mirror image). He knows dispell magic, and uses it to bypass any Tiny Huts or Alarm spells or similar. His CR is 6. [Deadly] fight, but the PCs can nova, and long rest afterwards, recovering HP and slots.
Day 2: Travel to the ruins continues. Check for a random encounter. Preferably a non combat one, or an environmental encounter. For example, the PCs must cross a gorge, 30' across and 80' deep. The sides are slippery, and each side requires a DC 15 Strength [athletics] check to climb - failure by 5 or more and you fall at (1d8x10'). A rope bridge extends across it, but it looks unstable. A DC 15 Intellience [investigation] check by a PC inspecting it reveals as much, and more than 100lbs weight on the bridge causes it to collapse (a DC 15 Dexterity save lets a PC catch onto the bridge as it collapses and hold on for dear life on a random side of the gorge - its a DC 10 Str Athletics Check to climb the bridge, but a failure by 5 or more and you fall as noted above). There is no way around other than a long walk around, which results in the PCs not getting to the ruins till late tomorrow.. and the clock is ticking.
Day 3: Arrive at the ruins. If the PCs travelled around the gorge (taking the detour) they arrive just in time to leave them with time for 1 short rest before midnight. If they crossed the gorge, they have enough time for 2 short rests before midnight.

Ruins encounters. Now stat up 6 [medium-hard] encounters. Place one on the way to the ruins (Hunting alpha Wyvern with an extra 50 HP, and Str 20 (+8 to hit) +1 to Poison DC - looking for food. DC 10 Dexterity [Stealth] checks by the party escape its notice if they try and avoid). Pretend it's a random encounter) and one encounter at the entrance (8 x Orc minions guarding the entrance, with 2 x Orog leaders, and 1 x Orc War chief). Mercenaries paid off by Bargle.

Now place 3 more encounters (Demons and Orcs) each one [medium-hard] difficulty, a trap or environmental encounter, and then a 4th encounter (Bargle - the BBEG - a Fiend Warlock from Volos Guide, with 4 x Babau demons and a Glabrezu [deadly].

If the PCs fail in the quest, and Bargle succeeds, he summons a Goristro that ravages the town and surrounding countryside. They dont get paid, and the College of Wizards refuses to aid them again unless they find some way to deal with the menace.

Thats how it's done.

[Tetrasodium]

If I'm understanding correctly, the problem is that you want your dungeon to be long enough that the players should need at least one long rest's worth of resources at some point in the dungeon. You don't want them sleeping in the dungeon though because that seems silly and there should be something preventing this. Is that about right?

Introduce a new magic item that lets people take a long rest when they are near it and place this item at the center of major cities and the like. Make it a huge immobile thing. When players are out in the world, they can occasionally find small one use versions of this item that allow them to gain the benefits of a long rest without spending time. You can place these items within dungeons in order to extend the dungeon without changing anything else. There should also be medium sized versions of these used as waypoints between major cities. This solution also prevents players from just long resting constantly out in the field, as well as giving the potential for finding the larger version of these items in their travels and destroying them to wipe out a city or creating colonies around them.

I use this:



Gryphon's wings potion
Uncommon, iquestionable legality
Another dirty potion not containing any substance derived from its namesake. Often taken by young apprentices hoping to squeeze in a few hours of extra study instead of sleeping. Drinking this sweet smelling brew grants benefits of a long rest in the time normally needed for a short rest, but any saving throws are made at disadvantage until the next long rest. After the short rest is completed roll a d20, on a roll of 9-20 there are no further a side effects; however a roll of 1-8 will result in the die used for saving throws to drop one step each time (d20>2d8>d12>d8>d6>d4). This effect can be rolled back 1 step with a lesser restoration followed by a long rest. The smell is indeed sweet, but the taste is often compared to rotten carrion.
want to take a long rest?... sure, it might cost you badly, I'm not too terribly strict on short rests as long as they can find a reasonable out of the way spot & haven't done anything to kick over an intelligent hornet's nest yet. dealers are shady & haggling on price can have ill effects >:D