15 minute adventuring day [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Erloas

2019-01-02, 11:55 PM

For me the problem is the rest of the world keeps turning. This trope of the world sitting still and waiting for you to recharge seems to have come about from compter RPGs.

However in a more dynamic world
- the bad guys can bug out
- the bad guys can get reinforcements or improve their defences.
- the bad guys can attack you when you’re resting.
- other adventurers can beat you to the prize
- other threats manifest themselves forcing this quest to br abandoned.
- the employer can demand the adventurers keep pushing.
Actually I feel like CRPGs are exactly the opposite, at least in terms of story. It is really common in a CRPG to play day and night non-stop for weeks at a time, resting only when absolutely necessary (and that is usually for time of day related activities). Of course that is also with the knowledge that very few CRPGs make you stop or want you to stop so most "wait and rest" periods are very short, even in game time terms. They also don't have any per-day types of skills and almost any per-time based skills are short enough time that you're using it a couple times in any encounter worth noting.

The biggest issue is that outside of a very small area, say a single town or dungeon, most things will naturally take a fair amount of time even if the party is moving as quickly as they can. Pre-teleport it could take a couple days on a road to get from one town to another, and trying to figure out a logical thing for them to fight 10 times along that road for that 2 day trip is just... wasting everyone's time. In OOTS there is no obvious "breaks" most of the time, but it is also clear that days have passed between many of the important events.

It really does come down to the setting and what makes sense. And even if you have some days, like taking a fort/building, where you've got a dozen rooms to clear, there will be other days where that isn't the case.

Is it really? I have had a lot of times where the encounters were just too muchfor the players, and the opponents absolutely won, In fact in most games if the players don't approach the big enconter in a clever way they will absolutely lose.
Don't put too much effort into trying to see things in DU's point of view. Nothing wrong with his point of view, but it is a very unique point of view that virtually no one else shares and most attempts to figure it out make less sense than when you started.

Florian

2019-01-03, 12:28 AM

Is this a problem?

In a game system centered around resource management? Yes, very much so. Roughly speaking, when part of the intended "balance point" between more mundane and more caster-ish classes is centered around having a good solid number of encounters, traps and such between rest/refresh, at best an unknown number of possibly varying difficulty, it is easy to see why it is important.

Pauly

2019-01-03, 01:06 AM

Actually I feel like CRPGs are exactly the opposite, at least in terms of story. It is really common in a CRPG to play day and night non-stop for weeks at a time, resting only when absolutely necessary (and that is usually for time of day related activities). Of course that is also with the knowledge that very few CRPGs make you stop or want you to stop so most "wait and rest" periods are very short, even in game time terms. They also don't have any per-day types of skills and almost any per-time based skills are short enough time that you're using it a couple times in any encounter worth noting.

The biggest issue is that outside of a very small area, say a single town or dungeon, most things will naturally take a fair amount of time even if the party is moving as quickly as they can. Pre-teleport it could take a couple days on a road to get from one town to another, and trying to figure out a logical thing for them to fight 10 times along that road for that 2 day trip is just... wasting everyone's time. In OOTS there is no obvious "breaks" most of the time, but it is also clear that days have passed between many of the important events.

It really does come down to the setting and what makes sense. And even if you have some days, like taking a fort/building, where you've got a dozen rooms to clear, there will be other days where that isn't the case.
.

I was specifically referring to the table top derived computer RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or tbe early Ultima games. In those you can clear out half a dungeon, have a nap and know the rest of the Bad Guys will be quietly twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to finish.

The encounter can start with you clearing out most of the fort then retreating to a lockable room to recharge your abilities. The first time you do that and I’m the DM you’ll wake up to find the bodies buried and a clean set of footprints leading to parts unknown.

Part of the game, if you’re playing a system that has limited castings of magic, is holding back and not going supernova in every encounter. Being fully rested and recharged and bufed for every encounter is not how the game is designed to be played. You have to make your choices about what to cast and when. By making the bad guys stop and twiddle their thumbs while the party rests it robs the game of urgency and facing up to the consequences of having made suboptimal choices at some point.

Erloas

2019-01-03, 03:52 AM

Part of the game, if you’re playing a system that has limited castings of magic, is holding back and not going supernova in every encounter. Being fully rested and recharged and bufed for every encounter is not how the game is designed to be played. You have to make your choices about what to cast and when. By making the bad guys stop and twiddle their thumbs while the party rests it robs the game of urgency and facing up to the consequences of having made suboptimal choices at some point.
I completely understand the idea behind it. I'm just saying that there are a lot of cases where having a lot of fights in a given day doesn't make any sense for a story. There are others where stopping at 4-6 doesn't make any sense either. It is a poor mechanic to use to balance a story based game on when most coherent stories are going to vary a lot on a day-to-day basis.

Zhorn

2019-01-03, 03:56 AM

I'd say it all comes down to what those encounter are as to whether a 15-min adventuring day is an issue or not.
Single target on CR out of the books? Not really gonna work on the balance scale when everyone can just go nova and win in 1-2 rounds.
I'm setting up a few encounters that are going to be 1 per day (part of the travel sequences), but for those I instead break away from the the standard combat set up, and make them either gimmick or objective fights. Examples: Chase sequences through hostile territory where new enemies replace the old until the party gets to the other end, or king-of-the-hill style with zombies continually reanimating until a consecration ritual is completed. The party can lay waste to hoards of enemies all day, but the killing isn't the objective like in regular combat encounters.
Standard encounters: aim for 6 a day
One encounter days: make em non-standard

Kaptin Keen

2019-01-03, 04:24 AM

If that's really what you want, extend the duration of all buffs to 24 hours and be done with it.

Pelle

2019-01-03, 06:28 AM

Is this a problem?

As a player, most of the time is the best idea, since you can always start full of resources.
As a GM, I don't really have a problem with it, since it allows to create bigger and more spectacular fights.

If tracking resources (spell slots etc) becomes meaningless because you only have one encounter and can use everything you need, there is very little point in playing a game with resource managment. It's like bothering to track arrows and rations in an urban campaign, where easy replenishing of those is a given and can be handwaved. You would be better of playing a game with at-will abilities.

If the Warlock player don't care that the Paladin in the party solos every combat, it's not necessarily a problem either.

zinycor

2019-01-03, 07:49 AM

In a game system centered around resource management? Yes, very much so. Roughly speaking, when part of the intended "balance point" between more mundane and more caster-ish classes is centered around having a good solid number of encounters, traps and such between rest/refresh, at best an unknown number of possibly varying difficulty, it is easy to see why it is important.

Is the game centered around resource management? I can see that in the case of AD&D where you had to keep track of your spell components and such things. I hardly know of people doing the same for 5e or other editions, even on AD&D it was handwaved away.

I feel the game is more creating combat synergies, finding clever/unique ways to face problems/situations and making monty python references.

I was specifically referring to the table top derived computer RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or tbe early Ultima games. In those you can clear out half a dungeon, have a nap and know the rest of the Bad Guys will be quietly twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to finish.

The encounter can start with you clearing out most of the fort then retreating to a lockable room to recharge your abilities. The first time you do that and I’m the DM you’ll wake up to find the bodies buried and a clean set of footprints leading to parts unknown.

Part of the game, if you’re playing a system that has limited castings of magic, is holding back and not going supernova in every encounter. Being fully rested and recharged and bufed for every encounter is not how the game is designed to be played. You have to make your choices about what to cast and when. By making the bad guys stop and twiddle their thumbs while the party rests it robs the game of urgency and facing up to the consequences of having made suboptimal choices at some point.

Well, yah, When the plot is driven by the actions of a villain that makes sense, since the villain has a plan that would need to be done. But if the players are the ones driving the plot, then villains are the ones who react, And I don't see why they would have a better answer speed that the players.

If tracking resources (spell slots etc) becomes meaningless because you only have one encounter and can use everything you need, there is very little point in playing a game with resource managment. It's like bothering to track arrows and rations in an urban campaign, where easy replenishing of those is a given and can be handwaved. You would be better of playing a game with at-will abilities.

If the Warlock player don't care that the Paladin in the party solos every combat, it's not necessarily a problem either.

This I admit is where my experience falls, Players at my table have never been to excited about the warlock, I believe I am the only who has ever played one, so as this is the class that depends the most of short rests, I can see the 15 minute adventuring day being a problem.

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

BTW I can see everyone's point on the resource management, and whenever there is a dungeon and the like, spell management and several encounters a day do benefit the experience. But too often in forums I see 1 encounter a day seen as something terrible or unrealistic. When in fact they work perfectly ok and having fights where everyone can go balls to the walls can be just as rewarding as dungeon delving.

Kardwill

2019-01-03, 08:32 AM

Well, yah, When the plot is driven by the actions of a villain that makes sense, since the villain has a plan that would need to be done. But if the players are the ones driving the plot, then villains are the ones who react, And I don't see why they would have a better answer speed that the players.

Because the world reacts to the PCs actions, even when the heroes are the proactive ones.
If they are looting a tomb where the only dangers are traps and brainless undead, then yeah, they can take their sweet time. Although doing that without any sense of urgency, like a competing expedition, would be pretty dull for my players (and completely kill their immersion in the face of a static, "puzzle" world)

But if the "owner" of said tomb is a lich who just sensed a bunch of his low-level minions getting killed? If the next room was the lair of a pack of ghouls that go out at night to hunt for some fresh meat (or heard the ruckus when the skeletons got scattered)? If some of the neaby villagers are cultists who worship the dark energies of the site? Then, stuff will happen during those 8 hours (or 8 days, if the heroes really did the 1 room-1 rest routine) during which the heroes sat on their thumbs and let the other side take initiative.

Kill a bandit group, and the bandit leader will send his men to the nearby village to "investigate" his patrol's disappearance. Raid a cultist hideout in Somewherecity, and the news of the gruesome killings in the old town neighborhood will spread during the day. Interupt a ritual, and the evil boss-sorcerer will decide to take hostages, or find a safer haven to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I don't like the necessity to have multiple low-stakes fights, which is one of the many reason I don't play ressource management games like D&D anymore (Note : HP, heals and spells are ressource in this conversation), but even if it doesn't result in more fights, I find necessary to have the world and the bad guys react to stuff the players are doing
- It reinforces the world's verisimilitude (The world is not "videogame static", with NPCs just waiting for their planned interaction with the PCs)
- It creates cooler, more exciting stories
- Strangely, it reinforces the player's agency (because what happens isn't some scipted event, but the logical consequence of the player's decision. So when trouble happen, it's THEIR trouble. They are the movers and shakers, because they shaked the world and it put stuff into movement)

awa

2019-01-03, 08:42 AM

in regards to plausibility of few encounters in a dungeon many small fights can often be less realistic when talking about a bad guys reaction. There is a difference between a 15 minute work day because you decided to overkill a handful of weak enemies and one that is a 15 minute work day because that's how the adventure was designed.

In my first 5th edition game we were running a modal and sneaked into a relatively small base. So when we accidentally set off a very loud trap we expected every bad guy in the dungeon to come swarming out all at once. But they didn't they all stayed in their rooms because they were explicitly all doing loud things or whatever and couldn't hear the extremely loud trap.

Now in a more realistic world that fight should have been fought as single mega battle once we got caught with every couple rnds a new group rushes onto the battle field until were fighting the entire dungeon at once.

(Note) We were mislead about the difficulty of the individual combatants with a combination of odd descriptive choices and due to the previous fights being mostly ambushes curb stomps with a healthy dose of luck. This lead us to believe a mass fight was expected.

zinycor

2019-01-03, 09:09 AM

Because the world reacts to the PCs actions, even when the heroes are the proactive ones.
If they are looting a tomb where the only dangers are traps and brainless undead, then yeah, they can take their sweet time. Although doing that without any sense of urgency, like a competing expedition, would be pretty dull for my players (and completely kill their immersion in the face of a static, "puzzle" world)

But if the "owner" of said tomb is a lich who just sensed a bunch of his low-level minions getting killed? If the next room was the lair of a pack of ghouls that go out at night to hunt for some fresh meat (or heard the ruckus when the skeletons got scattered)? If some of the neaby villagers are cultists who worship the dark energies of the site? Then, stuff will happen during those 8 hours (or 8 days, if the heroes really did the 1 room-1 rest routine) during which the heroes sat on their thumbs and let the other side take initiative.

Kill a bandit group, and the bandit leader will send his men to the nearby village to "investigate" his patrol's disappearance. Raid a cultist hideout in Somewherecity, and the news of the gruesome killings in the old town neighborhood will spread during the day. Interupt a ritual, and the evil boss-sorcerer will decide to take hostages, or find a safer haven to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I don't like the necessity to have multiple low-stakes fights, which is one of the many reason I don't play ressource management games like D&D anymore (Note : HP, heals and spells are ressource in this conversation), but even if it doesn't result in more fights, I find necessary to have the world and the bad guys react to stuff the players are doing
- It reinforces the world's verisimilitude (The world is not "videogame static", with NPCs just waiting for their planned interaction with the PCs)
- It creates cooler, more exciting stories
- Strangely, it reinforces the player's agency (because what happens isn't some scipted event, but the logical consequence of the player's decision. So when trouble happen, it's THEIR trouble. They are the movers and shakers, because they shaked the world and it put stuff into movement)

I never stated that the world should have no consequences, my point is for less and bigger fights. As for verosimilitude, why would the plans or reactions of the bad guys have instant effect after 8 hours? in your example of the undead dungeon... Why would the lich "Sense" his troops being killed?or the cultist have perfect plans to answer the the fact the dungeons is under attack? More likely the lich or the cultist would need toget the news,plan accordingly, and get resources for their plan, which perfectly can take over 8 hours, over days depending on logistics.

I do think that a day is less time for evil to react tht most GMs tend to think. taking a few days to clean a dungeon seem perfectly fine in my opinion.

Of course, under these ideas, the encounter also need to be appropiately balanced, so every fight would be dangerous and rest worthy.

Zombimode

2019-01-03, 09:12 AM

In my 14+ years of playing and GMing AD&D and 3.5 the 15 Minute adventuring day has not been a problem.

Tackling every obstacle while being fully rested is the optimal thing to do. You need to have reasons for not doing it.
These reasons are plenty and come quite naturally.

Most of these reasons are variations of a) limited time, or b) the inability of the party to actually control the pace.

Pauly

2019-01-03, 10:04 AM

I never stated that the world should have no consequences, my point is for less and bigger fights. As for verosimilitude, why would the plans or reactions of the bad guys have instant effect after 8 hours? in your example of the undead dungeon... Why would the lich "Sense" his troops being killed?or the cultist have perfect plans to answer the the fact the dungeons is under attack? More likely the lich or the cultist would need toget the news,plan accordingly, and get resources for their plan, which perfectly can take over 8 hours, over days depending on logistics.

I do think that a day is less time for evil to react tht most GMs tend to think. taking a few days to clean a dungeon seem perfectly fine in my opinion.

Of course, under these ideas, the encounter also need to be appropiately balanced, so every fight would be dangerous and rest worthy.

Now if you are the leader of a bandit group that has just had half your members wiped out in a frenzied 15 minutes by a group of adventurers standing still and waiting 8 hours for the adventurers to rest and recuperate is the single worst option.

How the bad guys react depends on things like:
- the perceived threat level the adventurers
- their remaining resources
- their attachment to the location
- the portability of their stuff
- the availability of reinforcements/other things that boost their defences.
- their tactical ability
- their perceived chance of talking their way out

But the bad guys will react in some way if the adventurers supernova a bunch of the bad guys then pull back and give the remainder time to do something.

For the record I mostly play historically based RPGs now as I find the whole “you can do [X] only [Y] times a day” paradigm of magic systems illogical. I understand how and why it exists as a game mechanic, just that if I have to have magic I at will magic systems as being more immersive.

zinycor

2019-01-03, 10:13 AM

Now if you are the leader of a bandit group that has just had half your members wiped out in a frenzied 15 minutes by a group of adventurers standing still and waiting 8 hours for the adventurers to rest and recuperate is the single worst option.

How the bad guys react depends on things like:
- the perceived threat level the adventurers
- their remaining resources
- their attachment to the location
- the portability of their stuff
- the availability of reinforcements/other things that boost their defences.
- their tactical ability
- their perceived chance of talking their way out

But the bad guys will react in some way if the adventurers supernova a bunch of the bad guys then pull back and give the remainder time to do something.

For the record I mostly play historically based RPGs now as I find the whole “you can do [X] only [Y] times a day” paradigm of magic systems illogical. I understand how and why it exists as a game mechanic, just that if I have to have magic I at will magic systems as being more immersive.

Of course, and the party needs to take those into consideration, and maybe forcing the bandits to retreat for example would be to the advantage of the party.

I feel like we kinda are on the same boat here, I feel like the 6 to 8 encounters on a dungeon is kind of unplausible. after all, If me and my friends are under attack, the most logical thing would be turn 1 go get the rest of the dungeon to help me and my friends, isn't it?

Malifice

2019-01-03, 11:05 AM

Is this a problem?

Depending on the system, yes.

Some systems dont rely heavily on resource management as a mechanic. Skills, spells and special abilities are all 'at will' or 'per encounter'. For those games it's not really an issue.

Some systems are mechanically focused heavily on resource management (5E DnD). The entire game mechanics rely on the players managing resources that replenish mainly on a certain cycle (overnight, daily, per long rest etc).

5E takes this phenomenon and adds a different twist: Some classes are 'short rest' resource based (they get things back on a 1 hour short rest) while others are long rest based (they get their resources back on an 8 hour long rest). 'Long rest' abilities are more potent than short rest abilities and are expected to last you through multiple encounters between long rests. Short rest abilities are lesser in power, but the expectation is that you will get 2-3 short rests per long rest, so they refresh more often giving them more use.

Take the Paladin vs the Fighter. At 6th level, each class gets 2 attacks per round with the damage for each attack being the same. Hit points are also the same for both classes, and both are expected to have an AC of around 18-20 at this level for heavy armor +/- a shield.

The Paladin derives his main combat power from a long rest based resource (Divine Smite). At this level the Paladin has 6 x Divine smites per Long rest, with 4 x smites at +2d8 damage, and 2 x smites at +3d8 damage, or about +17d8 bonus damage. His main 'healing' option is Lay on Hands which heals 30 damage at this level per long rest as an action to anyone he touches.

Our Fighter gets his damage buff from Superiority dice, and Action surge. At this level he gains 4 x d8's per short rest from Superiority dice, and an extra Attack action (2 extra attacks) from Action surge per Short rest. Action surge is probably worth around an extra 2d8 damage per short rest at this level, give or take. For healing, he gets 1d10+6 HP of healing from Second Wind, useable as a bonus action 1/ short rest, but only on himself.

In an adventuring day with only a single encounter:

Paladin: +17d8 damage, can heal 30 HP
Fighter: +6d8 damage, can heal 11.5 HP

In an adventuring day with multiple encounters, and a single short rest in between somewhere:

Paladin: +17d8 damage, can heal 30 HP
Fighter: +12d8 damage, can heal 23 HP

In an adventuring day with multiple encounters, and two short rests in between somewhere:

Paladin: +17d8 damage, can heal 30 HP
Fighter: +18d8 damage, can heal 34.5 HP

Etc.

As you can see on a 'single ultra hard fight' adventuring day, the Paladin is much stronger than the Fighter, and is able to 'Nova' his healing and smites, creaming encounters. The more encounters the party have in an adventuring day (and in particular the more short rests the party get during the adventuring day) the Fighter starts to close with, match at around 2 such short rests, and eventually surpass the Paladin at 3 or more short rests, in terms of fighting power.

The same thing happens with Warlocks v Wizards (Warlocks gain spell slots back on Short rests but only gain a small number, cast at their highest level. Wizards gain many more Spell slots, but they dont refresh until a Long rest).

At 6th level the Wizard has 4/3/3 slots (plus he regains a slot on a short rest of up to 3rd level). The Warlock only has 2 slots (both of 3rd level) and regains them both on a short rest.

Single encounter adventuring day:

Wizard: 4/3/3 slots, cantrips [total spell levels: 19]
Warlock: 2 x 3rd level slots, cantrips, 'at will' invocations [total spell levels: 6]

Single short rest that day:

Wizard: 4/3/3+1 slots, cantrips [total spell levels: 22]
Warlock: 4 x 3rd level slots, cantrips, 'at will' invocations [total spell levels: 12]

Two short rest adventuring day:

Wizard: 4/3/3+1 slots, cantrips [total spell levels: 22]
Warlock: 6 x 3rd level slots, cantrips, 'at will' invocations [total spell levels: 18]

Three short rest adventuring day:

Wizard: 4/3/3+1 slots, cantrips [total spell levels: 22]
Warlock: 8 x 3rd level slots, cantrips, 'at will' invocations [total spell levels: 24]

Etc; with the more short rests gained = the Warlock pulling further in front.

However on your days where there is only a single encounter, the Warlock only has 2 x 3rd level slots to spend, while the Wizard can 'Nova' with 4 x 1sts, 3 x 2nds and 3 x 3rds.

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

The trick in 5E (and similar games) for a DM is to mix up his adventuring days, while aiming for a median of around [6 encounters and around 2 short rests] per long rest. The game itself recommends long rest resources are expected to last around 6-8 encounters, with around around 2-3 short rests granted per long rest.

On shorter adventuring days (few or 1 encounters and no short rests), classes like Paladins and Wizards shine, and on longer days (days with many encounters and 3 or more Short rests) Warlocks and Fighters shine.

Problems happen when the party hit an encounter, blow resources expected to last them an entire Long rest on a single encounter (Nova strike), creaming the encounter, and then fall back to long rest. If a DM passively allows this to happen (does nothing to counter it), it renders Fighters, Warlocks and other 'Short rest' based classes like Monks kind of obsolete.

Many 5E DMs make the texbook mistake of sinply ramping up encounter difficulty when this happens ('super deadly' single encounter adventuring days). This (of course) only makes the problem worse. The game becomes rocket tag, with players mashing long rest resource buttons on turn 1 of every encounter, Nova strikes are now mandatory (or a TPK follows) and the players are forced to use the 5 minute adventuring day as a tactic simply to survive. Fighters, Warlocks and Monks suck even worse, and no-one plays them any more.

On the positive side, it gives the DM a set of levers to move the spotlight from class to class (and player to player) by adding 'doom clocks' like 'rescue the princess by midnight or else x', thus giving different classes at the table different times to shine (adding in longer adventuring days from time to time, shorter ones here and there, harder encounters and easier ones, more short rests, and fewer etc).

In the hands of a good DM, the differing recharge rates are a fantastic tool. In the hands of a bad DM (or even worse; a Lazy DM) they can make a lot of players unhappy and create a lot of problems.

Man_Over_Game

2019-01-03, 11:22 AM

People give 4e a lot of shi*, but this is one thing that 4e did exceptionally well. Everyone had zero-short-long rest abilities in equal measure, built into the core rules. Some were a bit different (Psionics had a budget they could spend that refreshed a little bit per each fight, and you could bump up weaker spells into bigger versions), but it still followed the same expectations that someone would only be able to use their ULTIMATE ATTACK once per day, a few powerful attacks each combat, and have a few unique actions they could use the rest of the time.

3.5/PF mostly relies on characters using long-rest resources, which ends up making the resourceless classes feel empty in comparison.

5E tried to compromise, adding short/long rest resources for everyone, but then they screw up by making some classes (Cleric, Druid) entirely Long Rest dependent, others (Warlock) only are ever good when using lots of Short Rests, and resourceless classes (Fighters, Rogues) feel really boring. The heart was their, but they forgot to keep everyone on the same page (like with 4e).

If they had just kept to the 4e formula of giving everyone the same dependence on short rest and long rest resources, and just make those abilities have different effects per each class, I think it wouldn't have the balance issues it has now.

Looking forward to 6e, where I hope they figure that out.

@Malifice, great analysis. That's incredibly useful for pointing out the inherent flaws in short rests, and how low the Fighter is on the totem pole in the current state of things. You also draw a great point in regards to the difficulty concerns of 5e. "Deadly" doesn't mean it's going to kill the players, "Deadly" means that consistently having combat of this difficulty is going to quickly drain your player's resources and will lead to their doom if they have the recommended number of fights at this difficulty. It's not supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be hard if it's consistent. And we, as DMs, are failing to recognize that.

Malifice

2019-01-03, 12:33 PM

@Malifice, great analysis. That's incredibly useful for pointing out the inherent flaws in short rests, and how low the Fighter is on the totem pole in the current state of things.

Thanks mate.

Generally speaking a 'short rest' based class comes out around even with a 'long rest' based class at a ratio of around 2-3 short rests to every long rest.

More short rests favor the short rest classes (obvs) like the Monk, Warlock and the Fighter. Less short rests per long rest, and the Casters, Paladins and Barbarians are stronger.

Rogues are interesting in that they're the only class intentionally designed as being 'rest neutral'. All their abilities (cunning action, sneak attack, fast hands, assassinate, expertise, uncanny dodge, evasion etc) are all 'at will' and not dependent on rests. For mine (as DM) they're kind of the benchmark you can assess other classes around.

A 5E DM has to turn his thoughts to this question (how will I manage the adventuring day?). The DMG gives options to do it (the 'gritty realism' rest variant is there to turn adventuring 'days' into adventuring [arbitrary periods of time between taking an entire week off to rest] for example). You could also have 'milestone' resting/ resource recharge if you're lazy, or one of a number of options.

Personally when I DM the system, I use a lot of 'doom clocks' (stop the BBEG from completing the ritual by midnight or else a demon is released! kind of thing) to put the PCs on a clock. That lets me sit back and let them decide how much they want to push themselves before resting, and manage it within those set guidelines.

You need (when DMing 5E) to turn your mind to the question, and play around with the mechanic (providing longer adventuring days and frequent short rests often, the occasional shorter day, the occasional longer day etc).

Its handy because it gives the DM a lot of extra levers to work around with to move the spotlight to different PCs and to allow different classes and builds the chance to shine, and it avoids the feeling of 'sameness' that many didnt like about 4E.

Where it falls down is its a bit of a chore to constantly manage as DM (doom clocks can get a bit repetitive after a while) and it requires experience and skill for a DM to work those extra 'levers' deftly and well (and invisibly).

Willie the Duck

2019-01-03, 03:32 PM

So, is it something to avoid? if so, why?

So long as you're having fun, it's going okay.
HOWEVER! At least in 5E, it creates balance disparities that can impact people's fun.

JNA has the right of it. If there are not complaints, then who are we to say it is wrong. It just seems unlikely that there wouldn't be some issues. Particularly about inter-class power, but also...

The basic problem is that it breaks the game. The ''bigger and more spectacular fights", is just saying ''the players Auto Win".

that's nonsense
the number of the fights in a day is not indicative of their difficulty

Awa is obviously right here. You can just up the power of the challenge if all the fights have been cakewalks. However, just like you can always just up the encounter challenges after handing out too many magic items, keeping both sides at the same relative power level does not make the combats not play out differently. The swinginess can become a big deal, and that time when things fall against the PCs turn into absolute routes. Instead of someone getting an unexpected failed save, they get an unexpected failed save and attacked by three enemies instead of one (because you had to use 3x as many monsters to make the fight a challenge) and suddenly their down instead of hurt, or dead instead of down, or it is a TPK instead of a loss of one character. That's pretty much all my experiences with messing with the power levels -- people might initially enjoy things like having a gold bag full of holy avengers and vorpals and +12 hackmasters and whatnot, or the ability to face each fight with full loadout of expendable resources, etc., but each thing of power you tend to give the party (above whatever previous measurement threshold we're using as reference), if you keep the opposition roughly balanced, tends to increase the chances of TPKs.

If tracking resources (spell slots etc) becomes meaningless because you only have one encounter and can use everything you need, there is very little point in playing a game with resource managment. It's like bothering to track arrows and rations in an urban campaign, where easy replenishing of those is a given and can be handwaved. You would be better of playing a game with at-will abilities.

Certainly in the universe of potential TTRPGs out there, pretty much any D&D is not the optimal choice for such a situation (eve 4e is about depletion of daily powers and total hp plus healing surges). Something like Hero System would seem like a more natural fit, although as the big dog in any RPG discussion, there is a grand tradition of making D&D fit a gaming style, rather than choosing a system which already fits it.

Erloas

2019-01-03, 07:00 PM

A 5E DM has to turn his thoughts to this question (how will I manage the adventuring day?). The DMG gives options to do it (the 'gritty realism' rest variant is there to turn adventuring 'days' into adventuring [arbitrary periods of time between taking an entire week off to rest] for example). You could also have 'milestone' resting/ resource recharge if you're lazy, or one of a number of options.

Personally when I DM the system, I use a lot of 'doom clocks' (stop the BBEG from completing the ritual by midnight or else a demon is released! kind of thing) to put the PCs on a clock. That lets me sit back and let them decide how much they want to push themselves before resting, and manage it within those set guidelines.

You need (when DMing 5E) to turn your mind to the question, and play around with the mechanic (providing longer adventuring days and frequent short rests often, the occasional shorter day, the occasional longer day etc). Yeah, I think a game mechanic that dictates how a story has to unfold is a bad mechanic.
Having a doom clock is great for some stories/arcs but there are plenty of others were it doesn't make sense. Always having them feels just as unnatural as never having them.

I also think the long rest being more "DM defined" is probably a much better option than it being a straight 24hrs (or 18 hours or 36 hours if you want a non-standard earth day, but still a fixed relatively* short duration)

*relative of course being relative, 24 hours of push-ups would be insane but 24 hours for an army to move isn't that long.

Not that I think it is good idea or bad, but what if you had X uses of spell/ability for each level? If they've already defined a level as about 16 encounters and want 4 encounters per "period" (yeah, that isn't the exact recommendations but it makes the numbers work easier to demonstrate the concept). So something you're only supposed to use "once a day" you would get 4 uses of, something you can use "4 times a day" you would get 16 uses of. And of course if you had easier or harder fights your relative XP gained would go up or down accordingly.
Would that seem "more restrictive" even if it is effectively exactly the same? Would it work better or worse if instead of uses directly it was some sort of resource pool rather than strict "spell slots" sort of thing?
Does the end result actually feel any different to the players than simply having "milestone" rests? Do players or DMs think that the players or the DMs should have primary control over that? (I think this varies a lot based on the table)

And I know it has came up many times, but the whole "level pacing" design doesn't make a lot of sense. 4 encounters per day, 16 encounters to level = 4 days to level. Even as players progress that is still the "default design" so even though you need more XP per level you're getting more per fight. Given the default design you go from level 1 to level 20 in 80 days, just under 3 months. I don't think anyone thinks that is reasonable, but really anything else sort of kills the "resource refresh" method of balance currently being used and the only way to make that take longer without breaking the resource refresh is to inject days of "nothing" into the story where you're not using any resources so regaining them doesn't matter.

Does that simply mean that the only logical path forward is a complete rethink of resource management?

Darth Ultron

2019-01-03, 07:57 PM

Is it really? I have had a lot of times where the encounters were just too muchfor the players, and the opponents absolutely won, In fact in most games if the players don't approach the big enconter in a clever way they will absolutely lose.

Well, assuming a balanced game and all...it does come down to the individual people. Some players with a optimized hard core combat character can dominate the game....and some players just drop dice on the floor.

Just ask yourself if you ''must" have the characters ''well rested" all the time for every fight: Why stop there? If your going to do the powerful limited abilities in EVERY combat, why bother with the 15 minute day at all?

Why not just make all abilities At Will? And why not just make them Maximized too?

If your going to do it EVERY combat, why not just go ll that way? Have each character do like 100d1000 damage per attack?

zinycor

2019-01-03, 10:02 PM

Well, assuming a balanced game and all...it does come down to the individual people. Some players with a optimized hard core combat character can dominate the game....and some players just drop dice on the floor.

Just ask yourself if you ''must" have the characters ''well rested" all the time for every fight: Why stop there? If your going to do the powerful limited abilities in EVERY combat, why bother with the 15 minute day at all?

Why not just make all abilities At Will? And why not just make them Maximized too?

If your going to do it EVERY combat, why not just go ll that way? Have each character do like 100d1000 damage per attack?

because the game is not that easy... really not getting your point. I think I will be taking Erloas advice here.

Reversefigure4

2019-01-03, 10:58 PM

Once you train your players into it, it can be hard to train them out of it. Certain expectations get set, a certain playstyle is established, and it excludes doing a few things.

- Players will nova, spending their biggest spells and abilities immediately (no reason they shouldn't). This wildly throws off the balance of big-but-once-per-day abilities vs small-but-constant abilities, meaning if you are concerned with that balance, it's a problem. You don't have to be concerned with the balance, but a playstyle like this will likely lead to unhappy players of certain classes, or everyone gravitating towards nova classes over time. Be up front with your players that there will only be one encounter of any variety, and so limited per-day resources like spells are worth far more than skills and the like, and direct them to chose their classes accordingly.

- You can't have time-clock based plots anymore. "The enemy will sacrifice the princess soon" is OK if the player are happy with the vagueness, but you can't have "The enemy will sacrifice the princess at midnight tonight" if you have 2 encounters between them and the princess. (This isn't more of a problem needing to introduce time clocks to get people adventuring, but it means you can't switch between clock and non-clock problems).

- Dungeons need to either be justifiably static ("all the undead have been created to guard their room specifically, and won't leave no matter what happens"), or very small.

- You can't have any variability in this setup or uncertainty. Players now always know that stopping and resting is always an option, or that a plot won't include more than 1 fight a day. The fight is going to need to always be big. The world feels less real, since it can't react to your actions anymore.

It's not a bad way to play... as long as the GM's upfront about it and everyone's aware of how the world works.

Anonymouswizard

2019-01-04, 11:44 AM

I completely understand the idea behind it. I'm just saying that there are a lot of cases where having a lot of fights in a given day doesn't make any sense for a story. There are others where stopping at 4-6 doesn't make any sense either. It is a poor mechanic to use to balance a story based game on when most coherent stories are going to vary a lot on a day-to-day basis.

True, but story-based games tend to not have much in the way of resources. They'll generally have a small pool that represents luck or dramatic coincidences, and then have everything else either be at-will or some sort of once per session/chapter/job deal. D&D isn't a story based game, depending on edition it's either a game based around dungeon crawling (0e-2e), a game about tactical combat (4e), or whatever 3.X and 5e are supposed to be (spreadsheets? character design? mother may I? theoretical optimisation?).

I have to note, I found Adventures in Middle-Earth to be much better about the fifteen minute adventuring day problem than core 5e, simply because it didn't have any of the long rest classes apart from the Slayer/Barbarian. It takes the Barbarian, Rogue, and Fighter from the PhB and renames them, along with giving them new subclasses, and adds in the new classes of Scholar (a mixture of at-will and long rest abilities with a short-rest based healing pool), the Wanderer (a magicless ranger based around at-will and passive abilities), and the Warden (a magicless bard who has only one or two long rest abilities, depending on their subclass). Not entirely gone, as there's still the temptation to rest for an hour after evey battle, but a party with a Scholar and no Slayer can potentially go forever without taking a Long Rest.

Kapow

2019-01-04, 11:50 AM

I don't see a problem with the number of encounters per day being one or even zero...
As long as the characters (and players) can't ever be sure. So, if they go “nova“, they may very well have a problem later on (or not)
Personally, I go with as many encounters, as are logical, interesting or whatnot. Sometimes it is just doesn't feel right to cram four or more encounters into a single day, sometimes they won't be able to rest fully for days - depending on setting, location, behaviour and more.
As mentioned there can even be no encounters and not all of the encounters they ...well encounter, will be combat encounters.

To answer the question, nothing wrong with it, as long as everybody has fun.
Though there are many games better suited for this style than DnD

MoiMagnus

2019-01-04, 12:39 PM

Is this a problem?

As a player, most of the time is the best idea, since you can always start full of resources.
As a GM, I don't really have a problem with it, since it allows to create bigger and more spectacular fights.

So, is it something to avoid? if so, why?

I know in 5e the number of encounters per day should be around 6 per day or something like that, personally, I have never achieved it. Nor do I try to do it anymore, since small fights got pretty boring for my players.

Whenever I play, I don't feel like my character would have more than one 2 or 3 encounters before calling it a day.

Am I and my players just too lazy? xD Is that bad?

Nothing wrong with that, as long as you know you are off the standard balance, so you should try to compensate for it.

The standard aventuring day is "two short rest in between long rests".
So just multiply by 3 every short rest ressources to convert them into long rest ressources (or make sure you at least reach the 3 encounters per adventuring day).

My group use "adventuring weeks" when the pace of the campain is too slow to have more than one fight every two days, and it works well.

The only remaining problems are the few "ressource-less classes", where the solution has to be tailored to the player. (Either a cool artefact specially created for him, either just some cool actions sequences, ...)

Malifice

2019-01-04, 03:52 PM

I don't see a problem with the number of encounters per day being one or even zero...

A day without encounters is not an 'adventuring day'.

Also, an adventuring 'day' doesnt have to be an actual day. Its just the amount of time between two 8 hour rests, featuring 1 or more encounters between those rests.

The 5E DMG provides for alternative rest periods from 1 hour long rests (turning an adventuring day into an arbitrary period of time between taking a 1 hour break) and another which turns a long rest into an entire week off (which turns an adventuring 'day' into an arbitrary amount of time between taking an entire week off adventuring to put your feet up, and the next week you do so).

Under the final variant, you could (after finishing a week of rest in town) have an adventuring 'day' comprising of:

1) Spend a week travelling to a dungeon.
2) Have an encounter on day 3
3) Enter the dungeon, taking a few days to clear it, having several encounters
4) Spend 4 days traveling to an elven outpost
5) Rest in the outpost for 2 days
6) Travel back to the dungeon for 4 days, having 2 random encounters on the way
7) Take some macguffin into the dungeon, dealing with 2 more encounters
8) Spend a week travelling back from the dungeon, having 3 random encounters on the way back
9) Rest in town for a week, completing your adventuring 'day'.

awa

2019-01-04, 03:57 PM

you can have adventures that dont actually include a combat, for instance in a heist type adventure where the party manages to not get into any fight.

You might still be spending resources avoiding traps, guards and other obstacles, but you wouldn't call a climb check up a wall or knocking a tree down to bridge a river an encounter but they might still cost resources particularly if you fail.

Man_Over_Game

2019-01-04, 04:04 PM

A day without encounters is not an 'adventuring day'.

Also, an adventuring 'day' doesnt have to be an actual day. Its just the amount of time between two 8 hour rests, featuring 1 or more encounters between those rests.

I think an easier way of describing it is that an "Adventuring Day" is as long as it takes to drain your resources to 0, rest and start the next "Adventuring Day" with all of your resources/HP/Spell slots back.

For some, the "Adventuring Day" covers a single encounter, because the DM doesn't put more than one fight per 24 hour in-game time period. For other tables, an Adventuring Day can take a week, only regenerating your HP and other resources at the end of a long week of adventuring.

5E recommends 6 encounters in an Adventuring Day, with 2-3 breaks in between (where you regain minor resources back). So if you only have one encounter per in-game 24 hours, it should take your players about 6 in-game days before your players get a Long Rest.

you can have adventures that dont actually include a combat, for instance in a heist type adventure where the party manages to not get into any fight.

You might still be spending resources avoiding traps, guards and other obstacles, but you wouldn't call a climb check up a wall or knocking a tree down to bridge a river an encounter but they might still cost resources particularly if you fail.

That's true, but skills and other things don't really reduce resources. Using a Survival check to gather food doesn't cost anything, where casting Goodberries does. A lot of these non-combat encounters end up just showing off martial classes rather than requiring the party to dip into hit-die or spell slots. They're still a good thing, but the point of marking down something as an "encounter" is that it costs your players some kind of resource.

Game-wise, the goal here is to make players decide whether to advance to gain an advantage, or retreat to lick their wounds, and often these side encounters don't do much but just flesh out a forest/dungeon, without actually inhibiting the players.

------

Alternatively, which sounds more exhausting to your players: 5 more fights, or 5 more traps?

awa

2019-01-04, 04:19 PM

it depends if no one can climb or think to chop that tree down they might spend a fly spell instead.

If they fail the climb check and take damage falling hp is a resource to. Traps can be boring depending on their nature but if they are more like a puzzle they can still be interesting.

Likewise monsters can be puzzles bypassed by a clever plan or the right spell. For instance a group of zombies might be lured away by throwing raw meat into a pit or by using a spell to trick them in.

Malifice

2019-01-04, 04:39 PM

I think an easier way of describing it is that an "Adventuring Day" is as long as it takes to drain your resources to 0, rest and start the next "Adventuring Day" with all of your resources/HP/Spell slots back.

In the context of 5E and similar games, I disagree.

An adventuring day is the [arbitrary period of time] between long rests, featuring at least 1 encounter during that time.

It's one cycle of resources.

A year of downtime between adventures is zero adventuring days. Three days of travel montage on the way to the dungeon is zero adventuring days.

A week with each day packed with encounters, but featuring no long rests (8 uninterrupted hours of rest usually) due to environment until the end of the week, is one adventuring day.

PhoenixPhyre

2019-01-04, 05:18 PM

In the context of 5E and similar games, I disagree.

An adventuring day is the [arbitrary period of time] between long rests, featuring at least 1 encounter during that time.

It's one cycle of resources.

I think an easier way of describing it is that an "Adventuring Day" is as long as it takes to drain your resources to 0, rest and start the next "Adventuring Day" with all of your resources/HP/Spell slots back.

Malifice, I think you and MOG are saying the same things in different words. Note the "drain resources to 0" part of his quote. That implies some kind of resource-draining "encounter".

And for everyone, note that the "6 encounter" thing is IF AND ONLY IF you're running strictly medium encounters. The key thing is not the raw number of encounters. It's that

a) you have at least a couple short rests between each long rest
b) AND on average more than one encounter that can drain resources between each rest of any kind.

So you might have (E = easy, M = medium, H = hard, D = deadly, / = short rest, each line is a long rest)

MM/MM/MM
MM/HE/MM
H/HH/H
D/MM/D
ME/D/H
...

If all you run are borderline easy, you end up with about 8 encounters at most levels. If all you run are borderline deadly, you end up with about 4.

I tend to run ~3-4 hard encounters because of the format of my games. Long rest frequency is constrained by natural barriers--"If you sleep here, you'll get clobbered by the patrols" or "this place is seriously nasty psychically--sleeping here would be a bad idea for your sanity" or "if you retreat and come back later you might not be able to get back in". That, plus the notion that the world progresses while they sleep has kept them on track quite well over many groups.

Erloas

2019-01-04, 06:15 PM

In the context of 5E and similar games, I disagree.

An adventuring day is the [arbitrary period of time] between long rests, featuring at least 1 encounter during that time.

It's one cycle of resources.

A year of downtime between adventures is zero adventuring days. Three days of travel montage on the way to the dungeon is zero adventuring days.

A week with each day packed with encounters, but featuring no long rests (8 uninterrupted hours of rest usually) due to environment until the end of the week, is one adventuring day.

I think an easier way of describing it is that an "Adventuring Day" is as long as it takes to drain your resources to 0, rest and start the next "Adventuring Day" with all of your resources/HP/Spell slots back.

It is a find idea, but when it comes to verisimilitude it just doesn't feel right. It is a blatant game mechanic without even getting a lamp shade.
"That was the busiest day we've ever hard" and 8 hours of rest later they're all ready to go again.
"Four very slow months of not much work and looking for a job" and that spell/ability still can't be used again.

From a balance perspective it does work, from a believability perspective it doesn't. It really only works if the entire campaign has pretty much the same pace the whole way through.

Man_Over_Game

2019-01-04, 06:34 PM

It is a find idea, but when it comes to verisimilitude it just doesn't feel right. It is a blatant game mechanic without even getting a lamp shade.
"That was the busiest day we've ever hard" and 8 hours of rest later they're all ready to go again.
"Four very slow months of not much work and looking for a job" and that spell/ability still can't be used again.

From a balance perspective it does work, from a believability perspective it doesn't. It really only works if the entire campaign has pretty much the same pace the whole way through.

Most DMs don't change the ratio in the middle of a campaign. Usually, it comes down to just determining how many difficult encounters you plan on having per 24 hours, and working from there.

For example, say you expect 1 fight per 24 hours. The game is balanced around having 6 fights per recharge. So you set your campaign to have some sort of long-rest requirement that you don't expect to occur except once every 5 days or so.

In my campaign, this translates to an 8 hour rest being considered a "short rest", and a 24 hour rest (a full day off) being considered a "long rest". It allows me to keep my pacing of 1-2 fights per day while still forcing players to consider their remaining resources each day, and to plan around when to take a day off.

Alternatively, you could approximate 4 battles per day, keeping short rests to be about 1 hour and long rests to be 8, and just bump the difficulty of those 4 encounters to use as many resources as 6.

I don't necessarily agree with the Short Rest system of 5e, particularly because its hard for DMs to balance it properly, but it does have some merit at creating real differences between the classes and incentivizing parties and DMs to make the game more than a boss fight every day.

I'm not sure if this is what's natural for DMs (to smash all of the day's tension into a single, epic battle, because one encounter's easier to plan than 6 small ones), or if this is something built from habit (as 3.5 didn't really care if there was one fight per day).

geppetto

2019-01-04, 07:04 PM

Man_Over_Game

2019-01-04, 07:13 PM

I usually use a smaller number of harder encounters per day then whats recommended for a couple reasons.

Firstly I find that unless theres a realistic chance of the party losing or being seriously mangled the fight has no drama. Steamroll encounters for the purposes of expending resources just feel like a boring waste of game time for me as a player or a GM and most of the people i have gamed with agreed when we talked about it.

secondly the 6 encounter a day thing just feels unbelievable to me in most parts of a campaign world. If there were enough dangers out there to justify that it seems that PC's would be constantly tripping over bodies and regular people couldn't step foot outside of their homes without getting wasted by something.

Its never been that hard adjusting difficulty to compensate and since the players never actually know whether there will be 1 big encounter or 2-3 smaller but still challenging ones the whole nova problem just doesnt come up in actual play. If anything players are more likely to sit on their resources and not use them because they are saving up for the one big deadly fight that might or might not actually come that day.

Meanwhile in the 5e forum:

Overall, though, most DM's fail to balance the Encounter per Short Rest per Long Rest issues well enough to make the Fighter or Warlock shine, so classes that perform well in single-fight bursts (Paladins, Wizards) tend to outclass those that can fight all day (Monk, Fighter, Warlock).
I know how it is. I was in a year or two long campaign where after we got to like level 3 there was only ever one fight in a given day, ever. I was more annoyed as the warlock that I was playing up until that character died than as the monk that I was afterward. Honestly I wish that WotC would just come up with a way to patch out short rests altogether.

Warlocks are special casters in 5e that do not refresh their spells at the end of the day, but rather per each short rest. As a result, they can only cast 2 leveled spells between each rest. In a single combat day, that means that they're only casting two spells.

At level 11, this increases to 3 spells.

It is a pretty big concern for a lot of 5e players, so I think it's important for people on both sides of the screen to know what the issues are.

Unfortunately, that poor bastard went from Warlock to Monk, which is the same exact scenario, just as a non-magic class.

Anyway, having few fights per day is fine, as long as the DM really considers how they plan on making the classes that are balanced to be fighting all day to stand out.

Anonymouswizard

2019-01-04, 08:10 PM

Note that even though abilities in 5e are generally per-rest, there's nothing stopping them from just being per [in universe time period] or even [per session] if that's easier for your group.

My groups have generally tended to run each session as beginning after a long rest, the only group that didn't tended towards less resource intensive systems (when we played GURPS we had to track two resources, compared to the six for a 9th level 5e wizard [including Arcane Recovery]). From a gamist perspective having, for example, a short rest every hour of game-time and a long rest at the beginning of every session is simple and easy to track, although simulationism tends to struggle with it.

The problem really is more the different classes running on different rests. Compared to 4e, where you all regained your Powers at the same time in 5e some people don't care about Rests, some are fine with Short Rests until they run low on Hit Dice, and some classes only recharge on a long rest. If after four encounters the Wizard is down to three first level spell slots and no Arcane Recovery then they're likely to push for a Long Rest even if the rest of the party doesn't need one.

It's actually a shame, as otherwise varying Rest requirements is a fine way to change the tone of a game. Imagine a game with five minute short rests but two day long rests, suddenly it becomes a game of heroic action puncuated with periods of retreating to a safe location to nurse wounds. Or four hour Short Rests with the standard Eight Hour long rests, and suddenly the game encourages retreating to recover to full much more than the normal rules.

Pauly

2019-01-04, 11:03 PM

One needs to accept the “you can use [X] ability after [Y] [time period]” game mechanic like the “never feed a mowgli after midnight” rule from Gremlins.
It’s OK as long as you accept it as true for your enjoyment, but it falls apart under any serious logical examination. It leads to the “you should have [Z] encounters a day” or “click of doom” kind of in game solution to the problems created by the behaviours the rewards the game system creates.
This is why I prefer historical based games and “at will” magic systems.over D&D type systems.

However 5e creates a special problem by having long and short rests. In my view the solution to the problem is to keep the world moving while the players are resting. Keeping the world static while the adventurers rest, especially long rests, just reinforces for players the idea that the 15 minute game day is the best way to play the game.

Malifice

2019-01-04, 11:43 PM

Firstly I find that unless theres a realistic chance of the party losing or being seriously mangled the fight has no drama.

If every battle had just a 20 percent chance of loss for the PCs and victory for the monsters, your average DnD party is TPK'd before 3rd level, and 1 in a million parties survive to 5th level.

The drama comes from accomplishing the mission (saving the princess, stopping the ritual, rescuing/ destroying the macguffin, surviving the siege, slaying the BBEG) before the doom clock strikes midnight.

The individual encounters are hurdles on a racetrack. The challenge (and drama) comes from finishing the race itself (completing the quest for that Adventuring day).

Malifice

2019-01-04, 11:46 PM

I tend to run ~3-4 hard encounters because of the format of my games. Long rest frequency is constrained by natural barriers--"If you sleep here, you'll get clobbered by the patrols" or "this place is seriously nasty psychically--sleeping here would be a bad idea for your sanity" or "if you retreat and come back later you might not be able to get back in". That, plus the notion that the world progresses while they sleep has kept them on track quite well over many groups.

3-4 Hard encounters works, just ensure that a Short rest is easily available between them (I would suggest the common House rule of allowing Short rests to be taken in 5 minutes instead of an hour, or simply be handwaved, but no more than 2/ long rest are allowed).

That way you're ensuring class balance.

Also, 5 minute short rests (quick breather, swig of water, bind wounds, map check and you're off again) is far less jarring to me than 'we lock ourselves in a room in this dungeon for an hour'.

Erloas

2019-01-05, 12:14 AM

What if we borrowed resource mechanics from console/PC games? It seems almost heretical, but they've iterated on the concept and tuned their approach for fun and easy access and there are orders of magnitude more variations there simply from how many more of them there are.

"You regain X mana per second" could be per round instead. It is going to essentially mean you regen that resource fully between fights, so it isn't a matter of balancing something you can do every fight but how much you can do in a fight. Lets just say you have 10, and each spell level takes 1. So you can alpha with a level 9 spell, but you're going to have to find something else you can do if you want to cast more than a level 1 spell the next time. If you cast a level 3 spell first round, and second round, and 3rd round, you've used 9 points, but you've regained 3 in that time. So do you spam something smaller or alpha and wait?

You might have some abilities that drain a resource, but other weaker abilities that regen the same resource, so you switch between them. Maybe you have the option of forgoing damage one turn to regen even more than a normal damage regen.

Maybe you start out with 0 of the resource and each attack it builds up and you can do more the next round, you can never alpha, but if a fight lasts a little while you might be outdoing everyone else by the end.

Maybe there is a round refresh, so you can only cast 5th a 5th level spell every 5 rounds, or a 3rd level every 3 rounds, so you cast 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, etc. (or you know, pick a number system that isn't so obviously repeating, but that should keep the concept clear)

In all of the cases the number of fights between rests won't really matter but you're still limited in what you can do. Some classes can still alpha but others will shine in more prolonged fights (and without everyone being able to alpha more fights might last more than a couple rounds).

geppetto

2019-01-05, 04:45 AM

Meanwhile in the 5e forum:

Warlocks are special casters in 5e that do not refresh their spells at the end of the day, but rather per each short rest. As a result, they can only cast 2 leveled spells between each rest. In a single combat day, that means that they're only casting two spells.

At level 11, this increases to 3 spells.

It is a pretty big concern for a lot of 5e players, so I think it's important for people on both sides of the screen to know what the issues are.

Unfortunately, that poor bastard went from Warlock to Monk, which is the same exact scenario, just as a non-magic class.

Anyway, having few fights per day is fine, as long as the DM really considers how they plan on making the classes that are balanced to be fighting all day to stand out.

I dont particularly care for 5e and dont plan to use it again, so those concerns dont really well concern me.

geppetto

2019-01-05, 04:53 AM

If every battle had just a 20 percent chance of loss for the PCs and victory for the monsters, your average DnD party is TPK'd before 3rd level, and 1 in a million parties survive to 5th level.

The drama comes from accomplishing the mission (saving the princess, stopping the ritual, rescuing/ destroying the macguffin, surviving the siege, slaying the BBEG) before the doom clock strikes midnight.

The individual encounters are hurdles on a racetrack. The challenge (and drama) comes from finishing the race itself (completing the quest for that Adventuring day).

Yeah except that losing 1 character doesnt equal a TPK, nor does severely damaging several.

And I dont like that kind of game. Episodic missions are kinda meh and the whole superman clock of doom is just far too cliched and lazy storytelling for my taste.

And i dont want to spend my limited real life gaming time on some lame steam roll fight. If its just a matter of rolling the dice until you win you might as well just quickly narrate it, tax the players a % of resources and get on to something interesting. Life or death combat should actually be life or death, not the PC's roflstomping the equivalent of 3 legged puppies.

Pauly

2019-01-05, 05:50 AM

What if we borrowed resource mechanics from console/PC games? It seems almost heretical, but they've iterated on the concept and tuned their approach for fun and easy access and there are orders of magnitude more variations there simply from how many more of them there are.
.
You can do in computer games because you have a computer to do the math, and do it homestly.

It works better than the arbitrary restrictions of tabletop rpgs. You can do it in tabletop wargames because they have defined fixed length turns, which support a mechanical calculation. This was a big feature of early Battletech games where you did X actions which generated Y heat which would cause your heat levels to go up (bad) or down (good).

In tabletop RPGs though turn length and the time between events is often fudged and inconsistent.
How long does it take the party to go down a 100 foot corridor?
- how carefully are you checking for traps.
- are you taking time to sip a potion or use bandages?
- are you rushing because of the clock of doom
- how stealthy are you trying to be?
- are you expecting trouble or are you in a safe base?
In most games this gets treated as “we move down the hall doing actions A, B and C.” There is no track of time, which is what you need for a mana regeneration system. Which is why computers can use mana and tabletop RPGs use arbitrary limits.

War_lord

2019-01-05, 05:58 AM

Anonymouswizard

2019-01-05, 09:03 AM

In D&D, which is largely based around resource attrition, having one or two encounters per long rest will massively buff classes that are based around managing limited use abilities and probably make combat (which is most of what modern D&D is) a breeze in the process. That's just how the game is designed, even if people (and even the official adventures) often don't play it that way. If you're okay with that, it's fine.

Honestly D&D has suffered a lot from play≠design. It's not me either, I remember it in 3.X (where the designers overestimated the value of direct damage spells because that's what was mainly used in playtesting), I've heard the stories about it being used in earlier editions, I've witnessed a bit of it in 4e (from all the people who hadn't worked out that it was a new beast), and I see the same thing in 5e (I won't bother listing all the ways). This is partially because the only edition honest about it's design goals is 4e (I'm not sure what 5e's design goals were, apart from 'return all the sacred cows'*).

Honestly I have a list of gripes with 5e, mainly about how it even manages to annoy me when it uses the good bits of 4e. Healing Surges were great, they were simple in use, limited the party's ability to continue moving for the day, and were a key part of the system. Comparatively Hit Dice in 5e are more complex, have a random value when used, and are tacked on instead of being baked into how healing works (not helped by you beginning with one instead of six or more).

* Half of which should be slaughtered.

Erloas

2019-01-05, 01:25 PM

You can do in computer games because you have a computer to do the math, and do it homestly.

It works better than the arbitrary restrictions of tabletop rpgs. You can do it in tabletop wargames because they have defined fixed length turns, which support a mechanical calculation. This was a big feature of early Battletech games where you did X actions which generated Y heat which would cause your heat levels to go up (bad) or down (good).

In tabletop RPGs though turn length and the time between events is often fudged and inconsistent.
How long does it take the party to go down a 100 foot corridor?
- how carefully are you checking for traps.
- are you taking time to sip a potion or use bandages?
- are you rushing because of the clock of doom
- how stealthy are you trying to be?
- are you expecting trouble or are you in a safe base?
In most games this gets treated as “we move down the hall doing actions A, B and C.” There is no track of time, which is what you need for a mana regeneration system. Which is why computers can use mana and tabletop RPGs use arbitrary limits.
Yes, clearly it would have to be simplified compared to what a computer could do, but I think it could be done very easily. Even taking the specific heat mechanics from Battletech (very easy to track on P&P) and adjusting that to "magic power" would be possible.

As for the latter part, I would make all resource refresh/build be measured in rounds, so it really only matters in combat and "soon" after combat it has refreshed completely. So unless you specifically run down the hall as fast as you can it would just assume to refresh. Essentially if you're working in a "round by round" point in the story then you track the resources as per combat, and if you've switched to "story mode" then they have all refreshed. It would also be one of those cases where maybe a build-up class would want to rush to the next room while they still have power, but a fixed regen and use class might want to wait.

Granted that sort of system would require, not only a whole rework of classes and combat, but it would also have to have some other thing for controlling out of combat spells. That shouldn't be too hard though, as most skills already have ways of limiting retries.

The end goal is to balance all classes on an individual encounter level rather than trying to balance over X arbitrary encounters/periods of time. Granted that is still going to give any class with alpha potential an advantage in any short fights. That begs the question of what an "ideal" length of combat a "typical" party would like to see. Should they be over in 2 rounds? 6? 10? 20?

Cluedrew

2019-01-05, 01:49 PM

That begs the question of what an "ideal" length of combat a "typical" party would like to see. Should they be over in 2 rounds? 6? 10? 20?Three. With variation of one or two at most outside of very unusual situations.

... I actually did some work reviewing tension, decision points and by the best model I was able to create, I figured the idea length of a typical combat should be three rounds. This is of course dependent on a lot of subjective trade-offs and assumptions about what type of game you are playing. But given that: Three.

Erloas

2019-01-05, 03:17 PM

Three. With variation of one or two at most outside of very unusual situations.

... I actually did some work reviewing tension, decision points and by the best model I was able to create, I figured the idea length of a typical combat should be three rounds. This is of course dependent on a lot of subjective trade-offs and assumptions about what type of game you are playing. But given that: Three.

That is interesting. Was it mostly due to a feeling of choice versus outcome? lethality? time to resolve?

I know most wargames go with the assumption that a game ends after 6 rounds, although most are decided by about 3-4. Of course most of those also feel shallow and seems that there really are only a couple choices and most of them happen in deployment.
Gaslands, being a new entry, has 6 "rounds" but each round is broken up into up to 6 parts, so that is essentially 36 rounds, even if most games seem to end around 12 turns (3-4 rounds of 3-4 gear phases) and the choices there for the most part seem a lot more meaningful and engaging. Of course that makes for a long game, and one combat against a group of goblins in an RPG and an entire play session of a wargame aren't really comparable.
There is also the "turns" that are broken up into you-go-I-go so that while there might only be 4 turns, each person gets a lot more actions, even if each individual unit only gets a few moves a game.

Not that wargames is our target, but it is an area where expected turns is a "given" built into the system.

I'll have to pay more attention to some turn based computer RPGs and see what it feels like there.

Florian

2019-01-05, 03:43 PM

Is the game centered around resource management? I can see that in the case of AD&D where you had to keep track of your spell components and such things. I hardly know of people doing the same for 5e or other editions, even on AD&D it was handwaved away.

The exact detail level is more or less irrelevant. Really, it doesn't matter if you have enough bat guano to cast 20 fireballs, when you have only 3 slots per day to cast that fireball.

Cluedrew

2019-01-05, 06:19 PM

That is interesting. Was it mostly due to a feeling of choice versus outcome? lethality? time to resolve?Decision points mostly, which I guess would be choice versus outcome. Ever heard the "don't roll unless something has changed" rule? I was thinking about that and realized that the combat loop had a lot of repeated decisions, where the situation hasn't really changed since the last time you made a decision. In fact many rounds of combat are wasted decision points because you are still generally in the same situation as before. HP and other resources might be a bit lower, but unless there has been some shift in the proportions, that doesn't really matter. So I figured out what are the decisions in a fight are and I got 3.

1) The initial start of a fight, weapons are drawn, shots fired, distance closed. This decision point is based off of all/only pre-combat information and has two main parts: commitment to the fight (I'm assuming the fight is breaking out, but one side might still rather run) and how do you engage. 2) Reacting to the results of earlier in the fight, after the initial fight how does that change the situation? Who has the advantage? What can you do from here to decide the fight? 3) Fight has either been decided, who is going to win is pretty clear. How do you press your advantage or cut your losses (or aim for a desperate turn around). Sometimes ignored, but if the fight is part of a continuous game, it is important.

Those are the three "unique" decisions that will come up in a fight so I think a fight should usually hit all three. It might not, turn arounds usually mean we repeat one of the decisions with roles switched, and a particularly decisive outcome in any of them can skip us ahead or one side might surrender or flee early on cutting the whole thing off.

I've actually been trying to tune the system I'm working on for that. It may not work but I'm still working on it.

Not that wargames is our target, but it is an area where expected turns is a "given" built into the system.My favourite game in that regard was War MaHordes (War Machine/Hordes, released as two separate games but really it is more two groups of factions in the same game). Haven't played it in a long time, but it had a great feel here. Generally the entire game was decided in a single round, except that round was a few turns in, after deployment and a few turns of maneuvering the deciding point would come when the main bodies of the two armies collided, feats were popped (feats were once per game abilities, I'm not sure why activating them was often called popping) and the first round of major casualties would decide the game, if assassination (games over when your hero unit dies) didn't actually end it then.

Although apparently that happened more when I was playing, so maybe it was a play style thing. Ah the memories.

Erloas

2019-01-05, 08:47 PM

Generally the entire game was decided in a single round, except that round was a few turns in, after deployment and a few turns of maneuvering the deciding point would come when the main bodies of the two armies collided, feats were popped (feats were once per game abilities, I'm not sure why activating them was often called popping)
Popping off an ability always felt like it came from shooting, like popping off a shot. Of course that might have more to do with where I grew up. And thinking about it now, maybe something like popping the cap off a beer or pop, "getting started" sort of thing.

At any rate...
I didn't play WarMaHorde but that was also what WHFB and WH40k felt like, although WHFB at least could have some variety depending how well you really estimated things and of course the dice. It was one of the things that I really didn't like about 40k, that pretty much every fight was a foregone conclusion going in. Short of having two rocks hit each other, pretty much any other combination of rock/paper/scissors was already known. (even two scissors or paper would just come to who went first). As such the game always felt really tactically flat. There were obvious tactical advantages to take but they were so obvious and so encoded that taking them was a given, so that wasn't engaging. (of course I was always amazing at the number of other players that didn't see that...)

So I guess I would say my preference would be for more tactically engaging options (more than simply flank/not flank or remove from combat via spell) which would require more rounds to play out. I'll grant that I don't think that is a practical option in any game that looks much like D&D5/4/3.5/PF. It would take wide scale changes across large sections of the mechanics as well as mental change in expectation on the parts of players.

Cluedrew

2019-01-05, 09:31 PM

Popping off an ability always felt like it came from shooting, like popping off a shot. Of course that might have more to do with where I grew up. And thinking about it now, maybe something like popping the cap off a beer or pop, "getting started" sort of thing.I always wondered if it was because it was things that pop generally can't be put back together. And these are one use.

On War Games: I go to war games for a completely different reasons than I like role-playing games (part of the reason my rounds are so small). But War Machine and Hordes are my favourite games of that gene. The one who introduced me to the system stopped playing War Hammer for the predictability and enjoyed War MaHordes. So I think it addresses those problems. Of course this was years ago when it was still pretty new, maybe people have figured it out now.

Tanarii

2019-01-05, 10:17 PM

I've only ever played a handful of D&D sessions where as few as three potential fights were on the table. And that's super light and only happened in 4e official play, where there was nothing potential about the 3-4 fights per session, which (given the pace of 4e combat) could easily fill a 4-5 hour session.

More commonly (and in all other editions) in a 3-4 hour session, I'd expect maybe 6-12 encounters, at least half of which might turn into combats.

The few exceptions would have been spelljammer-based adventures, and a short campaign playing musketeers in one of those 2e green historical splats, where zero encounters vs one huge battle were more often the norm.

Popping off an ability always felt like it came from shooting, like popping off a shot.
Agreed. You pop off a one-use ability. You don't pop it. :smallconfused:

paddyfool

2019-01-06, 01:41 PM

So I figured out what are the decisions in a fight are and I got 3.

1) The initial start of a fight, weapons are drawn, shots fired, distance closed. This decision point is based off of all/only pre-combat information and has two main parts: commitment to the fight (I'm assuming the fight is breaking out, but one side might still rather run) and how do you engage. 2) Reacting to the results of earlier in the fight, after the initial fight how does that change the situation? Who has the advantage? What can you do from here to decide the fight? 3) Fight has either been decided, who is going to win is pretty clear. How do you press your advantage or cut your losses (or aim for a desperate turn around). Sometimes ignored, but if the fight is part of a continuous game, it is important.

From the PoV of a group of adventurers, I would add a decision 0: You have reason to suspect a fight is impending. How do you prepare for this? Do you intend to seek more information about the threat or do you know enough? Do you intend to avoid combat, and if so do you intend to hide/run/bluff/intimidate/negotiate etc? Or do you instead intend to either ready a pre-emptive attack, fortify your own position, reposition, summon minions etc?

Obviously, you don't always know in advance if a fight is impending. But when you do, how you prep can be pretty vital.