Should casters slack behind martials in levels?

[Pinjata]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?

[Arkhios]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?

Switch the Resting rules to Gritty Realism. Instead of the normal 1 hour short rest and 8 hour long rest, it takes 8 hours to gain the benefits of a short rest and 7 days to gain the benefits of a long rest.

You can find more specific details on this variant rule in Dungeon Master's Guide (Ch. 9: Dungeon Master's Workshop > Adventuring Options > Rest Variants > Gritty Realism).

With Gritty Realism, all classes with expendable resources have to be more considerate of them, but in general this has less effect on martials than it has on casters. Honestly, I think this might do the trick to put the casters on tighter reins. Do note that you should still keep the time table normal, so the players can't just wait for 7 days before next encounter.

[LentilNinja]

Being 2 levels down could either bring them to a level you find reasonable, or bring them down too much. I feel it would also discourage players from playing a caster & either asking to swap or wanting to multiclass to get around your restriction.

Just give them less long rests. You don't need to throw a ton of encounters a session, just write story reasons as to why they can't sleep yet. Or worse, let them think they're getting a long rest then wake them up mid-ways. False sense of security.

[Trandir]

So the problem is that casters are going nova without ripercussions since you are creating shorter adventuring days. Yes I can see the problem.
Switch to gritty realism. Have 3 encounters per session and then the new long rest gives them the advantages of a short rest.

[Yunru]

I would answer your question but I appear to have lost my vision after being assault by garish and overly large cyan text.

Just don't allow a long rest after every session.

[Pinjata]

Amazing solutions, guys. Love them soo much. I had a real problem with this.

[Pinjata]

I would answer your question but I appear to have lost my vision after being assault by garish and overly large cyan text.

Just don't allow a long rest after every session.

Sorry :smalleek: it's just that people always go SHOVE THOSE 5 - 7 ENCOUNTERS IN! and I really want to avoid this. Solutions are great, though.

[Yunru]

If you switch the regular spellcaster to Spell Points you can somewhat easily convert them to short rest classes too (by dividing the SP they get by 3 and making it come back on a short rest).

[Anymage]

If you want to give short rest classes more goodies (important distinction: Paladins are melee, but get a ton of mileage out of long rest smites. Warlocks are casters, but are very dependent on short rests), one quick n' dirty rule I've seen is to triple all short rest resources. The party will still be novaing through encounters, but at least the fighters will feel on more even footing if they're action surging three times per day.

Or like everybody else is saying, gritty realism. It does require more between session bookkeeping, but it lets you have resource management actually matter without having to pack your days.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Just don't end the session in a long rest, have one day be 2-3 sessions.

[MoiMagnus]

Another solution that works reasonably well is to remove short rest, and change every "per short rest" into "3 times per day" [And adapt similarly other capacities].

This makes melee characters able to "nova" and spend all their resource into a single fight, in the same way as casters.

The question here is: Do your table prefer the "standard" D&D balance where you have to be mindful of how many resources you spend per combat (then the Gritty Realism rule for rest is the path to go), or do your table prefer the "nova" style where peoples go all-in at each fight (then you have to find ways for melee to also go all-in, and my suggestion help to this)?

[Sigreid]

I find what works best is to have random encounters sometimes when the party rests. Not all the time, but enough that the casters start holding something in reserve.

[Zhorn]

Sorry :smalleek: it's just that people always go SHOVE THOSE 5 - 7 ENCOUNTERS IN! and I really want to avoid this. Solutions are great, though.

It's less about shoving more encounters into a session, but rather taking regular rests out. Like others have covered in the other thread, just not having a long rest in every session can be a big game changer without needing to restructure all the encounters you had planned. Flip the perspective of "each session is three adventuring days" into "each adventuring day is two sessions".
As for doing that, it can be as simple as saying "this area is hostile and you cannot find a safe place to rest", or declaring the flow of time as being less fast-forwardy "you've taken care of two encounters, and the time is about 11am, there's still a lot of the day left to adventure in"

The other side of it is encounters needn't be combats. Any challenge that will call for resource expenditure will serve the same purpose. Puzzles, obstacles, traps, hazards, skill challenges. If it consumes one or two spell slots or limited use abilities, mission accomplished. If it chews up some HP along the way, that's a bonus. The goal is to make it so the spell casters are not in nova mode for every encounter so the martials are given a chance to shine.

It can be very tempting to just throw buffs/boosts at the under-performers to get that nova potential level across all players, but you'll find as the party levels up higher that nova potential will become an arms race that can easily spiral out of control and give you a headache to manage.

[Hytheter]

If you switch the regular spellcaster to Spell Points you can somewhat easily convert them to short rest classes too (by dividing the SP they get by 3 and making it come back on a short rest).

For anyone who prefers to use spell slots: I think you can also get a rough approximation with spell slots by giving casters 1 slot of each level they can cast (so a 5th level wizard has one 1st one 2nd 1 3rd) with 5th and under recovering on a short rest but 6th and over being long rest (spell points already has 6th and up be once per day). I think it works out to be a slightly better conversion rate than spell points/3 but with less flexibility.

At least until 10th, might need extra low spell slots after that since with spell points the high level spell slots are still included in your short rest point total even if you've already used a high level spell. Then again they would have a bit more nova power with slots I think?

[Aimeryan]

This is the result of long rest rules not considering time since last long rest as something the players will just skip over. The way I look at it is that resources are meant to be recovered over time, however, the Vancian spellcasting system does not accommodate granularity easily; you can not easily figure out a way of recovering spell slots of various amount of various levels at smaller units of time than a day - note that 5e's ideology is simplicity (or laziness, depending on your point of view). So, the solution was to couple it to a long rest; you long rest and you get everything back - simple (lazy).

The problem is that they forgot that by the rules there is nothing per say stopping a party from having a long rest after every encounter by just sitting around for a day. Having the DM make up more and more contrived reasons to stop this is not a good solution.

The solution is bring back in the actual time element as something the players must deal with. Now, if you have only had a coupler of encounters, well how far through the day is that (or more so, how long since you last took a long rest)? If you are in a town and it was an assassination group then sure; it may be that there is going to be no more combat encounters that day and the party wiles away the evening gathering information and enjoying the town [some sort of morale mechanic would have been nice 5e!], then long rest for the night. If you are in a dungeon then what are they doing for the rest of the day? Take a long rest if they like, but it wont do anything.

Put a burden on the players to provide for what their characters do in that time and they'll often opt to just carry on with the adventuring.


Edited: Less ambiguous.

[TheUser]

Start using smart enemies who have no qualms with grappling them and cupping a hand over their mouth or employing garrote strings or plunging their head under water.

Magic Resistant monsters with elemental resistance is a real caster annoyance too (devils and demons)

[Aimeryan]

Magic Resistant monsters with elemental resistance is a real caster annoyance too (devils and demons)

Only for (elemental) blasters, debuffers, and crowd controllers. Non-elemental blasters, buffers, healers, battlefield changers, and summoners don't really suffer from that.

[JackPhoenix]

The problem is that they forgot that by the rules there is nothing per say stopping a party from having a long rest after every encounter. Having the DM make up more and more contrived reasons is not a good solution.

Except the fact you can only gain benefit of long rest once per 24 hours. And there's nothing contrived to NOT have that kind of time after every encounter during traveling or in an encounter-dense location like dungeon or enemy camp.

[Hytheter]

This is the result of long rest rules not considering time since last long rest.

...

The problem is that they forgot that by the rules there is nothing per say stopping a party from having a long rest after every encounter. Having the DM make up more and more contrived reasons is not a good solution.

My solution is bring back in the actual time element - it takes roughly a day for your resources to recover since they last did so, and the process of doing so once that has occurred is to finish a long rest.

The rules do consider the time since the last rest: you can't benefit from a long rest more than once within 24 hours. The "solution" you're proposing is basically how it works already.

[Aimeryan]

Except the fact you can only gain benefit of long rest once per 24 hours. And there's nothing contrived to NOT have that kind of time after every encounter during traveling or in an encounter-dense location like dungeon or enemy camp.


The rules do consider the time since the last rest: you can't benefit from a long rest more than once within 24 hours. The "solution" you're proposing is basically how it works already.

Read back over my post and I see how you are reading it - my bad. I've edited to reflect what I was trying to say less ambiguously.

I was putting forth that the players need to actually deal with the 24-hour cyclic period rather than just say they rest for ~20 hours. Having the DM always have a doom clock in play of some contrived reason is a bad solution; having the players want to adventure rather than describe what their characters are doing for the 20 hours is much better - worse case scenario they make up their own form of entertainment which just adds to the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

Sorry :smalleek: it's just that people always go SHOVE THOSE 5 - 7 ENCOUNTERS IN! and I really want to avoid this. Solutions are great, though. Don't mess with caster Xp and level progression. That's a downer.

1. Backwards budget the XP. Take the whole day of XP and break it up into three encounters (hard to deadly level)
2. Don't make each session equal an adventure day. There is Zero Requirement To Do That. You can have 7 encounters spread over two sessions equal to one adventure day. After the first one, you get the old "When we pick up again, you are (here) and it's just after lunch time ...'

3. For item 1 make the encounters harder. Just make fewer of them.

But Korvin, what do you mean, backwards budget XP?
From Basic Rules p 165 (And in the DMG)

Adventuring Day XP
Level / Adjusted XP per Day per Character
1st /300
2nd /600
3rd /1,200
4th /1,700
5th /3,500
6th /4,000
7th /5,000
8th /6,000
9th /7,500
10th /9,000

Exmaple: for a party fo 4 5th level characters, you put together 14,000 ish adjusted XP per adventure day.

If you toss two umber hulks (CR 5) at them for the first encounter, what do you get for the first encounter?

1800 X 2 X 1.5 = 5400. You are just over a third of the way there. That one's pretty tough.

If you toss two CR 4 Ettins at them for the next encounter.
1100, X 2 X 1.5 = 3300

Not as tough of a fight, probably

That's 8700 XP adjusted so far.

You only need 5300 ish for your last encounter.
Try 3 or 4 minotaurs
3 x 700 X 2 = 4200
4 x 700 X 2 = 5600

There ya go. Between 12, 900 and 14,300 adjusted XP. Three encounters, one adventure day, plenty of challenge.

(And you can put a short rest between each encounter, pacing wise, if that fits the rhythm of the game ...)

Our group does this a lot. Both DMs have real lives and would rather prepare few encounters.

[stoutstien]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?

I had to quote to read the invisible text lol.
I don't think causing casters to level slower than martials is a good idea and I don't think it well do what you are wishing at the same time. Without huge changes like enemies using cover and not all being visible/clumping up will lessen the impact of sleep/ SR.
Sleep loses steam very quickly and if the NPCs are spread out it is a delay combat vs a encounter ender.


Goblins are a favorite of mine and most DMs i see have them all pop out at once vs stagger them and moving from place to place. Sure they don't do as much damage but it will make casters think twice dropping a big spell on that area or the one behind them.

[Slipperychicken]

Seconding gritty-realism variant (i.e. short rest = 8 hours, long rest = 1 week) or a similar thing.

If you can't pack more fights into a single adventuring day, just increase the timescale for long rests. The math will work out the same; more encounters per long rest. Of course you may need to calibrate your campaign a little differently to account for it.

[Dork_Forge]

How far into the module are you? I can think of some areas where it would be extremely difficult to nova through the entire dungeon, are you letting them long rest inside the dungeon?

[MrStabby]

This can be a problem if you are doing a pre-built adventure and are not developing the world.

On the other hand, I prefer to change the world a little rather than the PCs to keep characters balanced.

Have the party be hunted so rests are harder
Have enemies use a lot of illusions - yeah, you disintegrated a phantasm
Use enemies with more HP and lower AC - takes same number of sword swings but more fireballs to take down
Use homebrew monsters - less of "yeah, I read the monster manual and know that dragons have a poor int save"
More time pressure, but not just quests but also the environment - there is a curse on the dungeon, take a cha save every minute or take D4 points of damage will make taking rests really painful
Use an even distribution of saves rather than 60%of saves being wis/con- lets have more strength saves against things other than being restrained. Create homebrew spells but make sure to give access to the PCs as well
Use low HP enemies in support - give every black knight a squire easily dispatched by a single attack, which is all most casters can do. Use the squire to grapple of trip less strong enemies
Have more use of invisibility and hiding - a lot of spells can only be cast on an enemy you can see
Regenerating enemies are also fun - mummy lords, flame skulls, liches... once you "kill" them you are on the clock.

Rather than changing the rules to penalise casters just tweak the campaign setting... if you can.



So for your campaign you might want to consider the wizard to be more of an illusionist, who has crafted a few rings of major image which various NPCs have.
Add a couple more goblins to encounters to sneak attack from the rear of the party.
A few scrolls of summoning of lesser fire elementals for the NPCs could be good, or maybe darkness. Drow are good for darkness
Give out more and better loot for fighters - it sounds like you are at low level if sleep is still good so maybe you just dont have these yet. A sword or an axe with charges in it added to the loot is good for letting fighters do cool stuff.

[Willie the Duck]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?


Sorry :smalleek: it's just that people always go shove those 5 - 7 encounters in! and I really want to avoid this. Solutions are great, though.
Note: all incredibly annoying attempts at highlight key words replaced with simple underline and italics, because then people will actually read the things.

I don't really know what else you would expect. People are going to say 5-7 encounters because the game, particularly the inter-class balance, is predicated on vaguely this many resource-draining challenges between chances at recharging those challenges.

Sure, giving non-casters a level boost would provide a handicap to those classes, but it would be an incredibly simplistic tool to a very complex problem -- 1. caster benefit for lower encounters per recharge varies over level, 2. some martials (like rogues and champion fighters) suffer more from too many recharges per encounter than others (like paladin). The way that will move all the class-balances together (at least within the overall variance of all the other variability in the game) most readily (and with a reasonable amount of accuracy) would be to get the encounters per recharge to line back up. If you don't want more encounters per day, then it makes sense to alter the number of days per recharge. For hat reason, I also suggest gritty rest rules, or a group-specific fine-tuning thereof.

[Keravath]

Sorry :smalleek: it's just that people always go SHOVE THOSE 5 - 7 ENCOUNTERS IN! and I really want to avoid this. Solutions are great, though.

You don't need 5-7, all you need is the possibility of that many AND try for 3-4.

In LMoP, a level 3 character will have 2 second level slots and 4 first. How many are they typically using in a combat?

If they are using up 3 slots/combat then aim to have at least 3 combats in a day. Don't let the characters say, "Ooops, used up all my spell slots, I am heading to the inn to take it easy for the rest of the day". Have consequences for this behavior. "Awww ... wizard is too tired ... results in death of the hostages they were supposed to rescue." Maybe it allows the defenders to be more fortified and the next encounter is harder.

A caster using up their last spell slot for the day SHOULD be a hard decision.

I was playing a 1cleric/6 wizard in Dungeon of the Mad Mage and by the end of the adventuring day I was down to a couple of first level spell slots I held in reserve for shield. Every fight was a difficult decision, do I use a spell slot for fireball, hypnotic pattern, shatter? Keep slots in reserve for counterspell or shield? I actually used a fireball on the first encounter of the day and regretted it later since we ran into tougher situations as the day progressed. There was no convenient place to take a long rest until we more or less cleared the level.

I could have trivialized the first encounter with two fireballs but if I had done that the odds of a TPK during the big fight clearing a Xanathar camp later in the level would have gone way up. These are lessons that your players need to learn. They have lots of fun spells to use but they run out if they use them all up and long rests can not be guaranteed. Some days they will have spell slots left over, maybe even most days, but having slots left over is much more desirable than running out when you need a critical spell.

Anyway, you could use gritty realism and then limit encounter to 1 or 2/day if that works better for your group. However, it is mostly a mechanism to change the time scale of the game without changing the mechanics. More clock time passes between encounters but it doesn't change the actual game play except the natural progression of day and night now helps short rest classes to get the representation they need. Players somehow sense that taking a week off for a long rest is going to have consequences in a way which taking an extra night to rest (in the usual system) does not.

So you can either use the alternate rest system or educate your players that taking the time for long rests has consequences.

The other thing to watch out for is that the one week long rest for gritty realism can really interfere with your narrative pacing unless your entire adventure is designed that way. With 1-2 encounters/day, characters will run out of resources in anywhere from 3-6 days and then need a week off. This kind of means that you need to design your adventure in such a way that it can be resolved with just 3-6 short rests before everything stops for a week for the group to take a long rest.

An alternative is the idea of work week/weekend where short rests are an overnight sleep and a long rest would be a weekend off.

[Aimeryan]

If you don't want more encounters per day, then it makes sense to alter the number of days per recharge. For that reason, I also suggest gritty rest rules, or a group-specific fine-tuning thereof.

The underlined is a good suggestion. The problem from the OP seems to be thus:


Only a few combat encounters of middling or less difficultly are fit into a session.
Multiple sessions within the game-day do not have combat encounters.
A new game-day comes about allowing a long rest to recover resources.
Thus, long rest classes are overly advantaged.

There are several solutions:


More numerous and/or more difficult combat encounters per session.
More sessions within the game-day have combat encounters.
Do not allow a long rest to recover resources before the appropriate number of encounters has occurred, regardless of days or sessions.

For the OP the first two may not appropriate*, which leaves the last one. Gritty realism would help, although I would change it from affecting the long rest duration (who rests for a full week in the manner required for a long rest?!) and instead just have it be the time before a long rest recovers resources - and as Willie the Duck mentioned, it need not be a full week. Also, note that it unbalances spells in relation to each other when concerning durations; a Hex or Holy Weapon spell that is meant to cover a vast amount of encounters is instead only going to cover the same amount as a Hold Person or Shadow Blade spell.

*It is difficult to just fit in more combat encounters into a session, and making them more difficult can only be done to an extent and may also not be to the player's liking. Also, you can't necessarily fit more combat-orientated sessions into a game-day with social stuff sandwiched between if the dungeon/dangerous area is located some distance from the social area, at least without some fast travel method...

[Yunru]

As an aside to what everyone else is saying:
Classes are balanced around 6 to 8 encounters in an (in-game) day. Fewer favours classes dependant on long rests, while more favours classes dependent on long rests.
And this is a good thing.
Don't feel forced to stick to exactly 6-8 encounters, only that on average there is 6-8 encounters.
When there's less, your long rest players will feel powerful, and when there's more your short rest players will feel powerful. As long as there is variance this is a feature, not a design flaw.

[MoiMagnus]

As an aside to what everyone else is saying:
Classes are balanced around 6 to 8 encounters in an (in-game) day. Fewer favours classes dependant on long rests, while more favours classes dependent on long rests.
And this is a good thing.
Don't feel forced to stick to exactly 6-8 encounters, only that on average there is 6-8 encounters.
When there's less, your long rest players will feel powerful, and when there's more your short rest players will feel powerful. As long as there is variance this is a feature, not a design flaw.

Maybe I've over-interpreted what OP was saying, but I think his problem was that the average was far lower than 6-8.
I mean, a non-negligible amount of tables play with 3 encounter per day, 4 in big days. Because that's what happen if you only want to play "significant encounters", and none of the random encounters, no intermediary fights, ...

[Aimeryan]

Maybe I've over-interpreted what OP was saying, but I think his problem was that the average was far lower than 6-8.
I mean, a non-negligible amount of tables play with 3 encounter per day, 4 in big days. Because that's what happen if you only want to play "significant encounters", and none of the random encounters, no intermediary fights, ...

Indeed, and it may also be that they don't have time or desire to play more encounters in a session - if they then want the next session to be social/exploration/something-not-combat based then there is your adventuring day for combat if they can just long rest.

[Yunru]

I also said this in another thread, but you can thread together encounters.

A horde of Goblins receiving reinforcements as the last ones fall is effectively two encounters, but feels like 1, and doesn't require much narrative work.

[J-H]

I fit 8 combat encounters + minor exploration into a 4.5 hour session with 7 level 3 characters. If 5-7 encounters takes 3 sessions, you either have really short sessions, or you have problems with your encounter flow.

[cZak]

Would shifting to the Gritty Reality rule solve the problem, or would the party nova then rest for a week?

I know the OP said 'more encounters is not the solution' but with no consequences for resource management, the Boom characters are going to direct the show

[Spore]

Scale up your encounters and create (not necessarily random) encounters for the places they use to rest at.

[Jerrykhor]

I can understand Sleep, but how does Scorching Ray end encounters??

[Zhorn]

I can understand Sleep, but how does Scorching Ray end encounters??

the party is low level and so the foes they've been up against would be presumable be light on hp. 2d6 per ray is pretty good for taking out three 7 hp goblins per spell.

[stoutstien]

the party is low level and so the foes they've been up against would be presumable be light on hp. 2d6 per ray is pretty good for taking out three 7 hp goblins per spell.

Assuming +3 to hit for the caster i would say that over half the rays would Miss. That's not even factoring in cover which goblins should using as much as possible.

[ad_hoc]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?

It might just be a matter of the table learning the game (and their characters).

Combat encounters in 5e can go by very quickly if everyone has a handle on the mechanics.

15 minutes for a combat should be standard. Maybe 30 minutes for a particularly long one.

5-7 encounters taking 3 sessions (how long are your sessions?) if they are 3 hours long is over an hour per encounter.

At our table we only have 3 hour sessions and we do a lot of non-combat stuff so we usually end up with a long rest every 2 sessions and we are quite happy with that.

[Arkhios]

Would shifting to the Gritty Reality rule solve the problem, or would the party nova then rest for a week?

I know the OP said 'more encounters is not the solution' but with no consequences for resource management, the Boom characters are going to direct the show

If a DM lets the PC's rest for a week between every 1-2 minute encounters, then a DM has basically renounced their right to complain about it.

[Slipperychicken]

Would shifting to the Gritty Reality rule solve the problem, or would the party nova then rest for a week?

I know the OP said 'more encounters is not the solution' but with no consequences for resource management, the Boom characters are going to direct the show

Easy: time limits. If the party takes too long, the quest objective is moved, destroyed, or otherwise expires.


"Pursue the mcguffin, but do not tarry long: In a few weeks the bandits will have surely hawked the stolen wares and wasted the profits on wenches and drink. There will be no recovering them if you delay like this"

"Resting for a week? Have you gone insane?! The werewolf custom is to eat their captive on the full moon! If you carry on like this the mayor's daughter will be leftovers by the time you find her!"

"You must pursue the necromancer Xnaxanaxanax presently while he prepares the grand ritual, for once it is complete his minions will surely invade and bring much death to our village"

"There is no time! With each word that escapes our lips, the orc warlord rides away and labors to rally and rebuild his army. If you don't take him down within a fortnight, our enemy will be refreshed and all our sacrifices will be for naught"
"The mcguffin doesn't exactly have legs, but it took us a long time to track it to this temple. If you take too long, the thieving monster will panic and surely flee, and it will take months if not years to find it again"


A GM could even express OOC how many long-rests the party has to complete a given mission

[OzDragon]

Currently I'm running Phandelver and casters are nuking the day. No, I'm not running 5-7 encounters per day, because I'd have 3 sessions of just combat then. Given this is an axiom in my game, I must work around this (or along this) and I'm wondering - should I give melee classes say, permanent 2 level advantage over casters? Sleep and Scorching ray end entire encounters and I'm thinking its not really fair to guys who have Action surge and similar stuff at their disposal, along with 2d6+3 damage per round.

What do you guys think?

I'm sorry to say that this is a DM issue.

As others have said the 5-7 encounters a day is so everyone can shine. You are practically letting casters nuke the day with your encounter numbers. You can easily make it to where sleep and scorching ray are less effective. For sleep spread them out, for scorching ray give some of them cover.

Arbitrarily making casters level slower is NOT FUN for those that pick casters, IMHO if you implement this you will never see another caster at your table.

There are many things you as a DM can do to fix this issue. The issue is not with casters they are fine.

If you are new to DMing that's great these are things that will come with time and experience.

[Squark]

How far are you through the module? Some of the early parts of LMoP do lend themselves to nova-ing, but I don't think you can afford a long rest when storming Cragmaw Castle or the Redbrand Hideout. If they retreat to a safe distance to take a long rest, the enemies are going to find evidence of their attack, and adjust their plans accordingly. The Redbrands would probably evacuate if they lost more than half their numbers, forcing the players to track them down, and probably costing them some resources along the way, not to mention getting the captives killed. Cragmaw on the other hand is likely to fortify itself; recall patrols to replace losses, add traps, and in general go on high alert.

I'd talk to the players and point out that they're not playing Skyrim or Metal Gear Solid; If they leave and return, enemies are going to alter their plans and make things harder for the players.

[Hytheter]

Assuming +3 to hit for the caster i would say that over half the rays would Miss. That's not even factoring in cover which goblins should using as much as possible.

Why would you assume only +3? Starting casters probably have +5 spell attack bonus (+3 for ability, +2 for proficiency).

[stoutstien]

Why would you assume only +3? Starting casters probably have +5 spell attack bonus (+3 for ability, +2 for proficiency). worse case scenario. I should have said 3-5. Still unlikely that all three beams are hitting the 14 AC of goblins. Compared to shatter or flame sphere it not steam rolling encounters.
If the target was lower AC like an ogre it works in the favor of SR.