Encounters per long rest question

[Pinjata]

The 5E DMG states that they expect 6-8 Medium or Hard combat encounters per day, with about two short rests.

This should mean, I can have party face(if ramped up to highest difficulty) 6 Hard encounters, get one short rest, another Hard encounter, short rest, last Hard encounter and Long rest.

Correct?

[Hail Tempus]

The 5E DMG states that they expect 6-8 Medium or Hard combat encounters per day, with about two short rests.

This should mean, I can have party face(if ramped up to highest difficulty) 6 Hard encounters, get one short rest, another Hard encounter, short rest, last Hard encounter and Long rest.

Correct? If you want to kill the party, sure. 8 hard encounters in a day would be really, really tough, even with 3 short rests. 6 hard encounters in a row without a short rest would almost certainly lead to a TPK.

I'd really recommend looking at the daily XP budget in the DMG. I've found that to be a much better guide as to what a party can handle in a day than CR or other measures.

[Lupine]

I think so, but bear in mind that encounters get progressively more difficult the more you have between rests.

After those first 5 hard encounters, the last one would likely be in the "deadly" category. You'd do better to space out 4, 2, 2 (or even 4,3,1)
Because that way they have their resources dwindled, and then replenished.

If you have a group that loves tactics and resource management, then go right ahead, but maybe warn (by which I mean, forshadow. "You know that you will have many hard fights ahead" type things) them that they will be going into 6 hard encounters, so they know to conserve.

[Lupine]

Also, another side to this that I just thought about: The easier encounters are crucial for the fun of the party. Tension is great, but occasionally, it is really fun to have an easier encounter.

I know at my table, an endless stream of hard encounters led directly to the 15 minute adventuring day, and once I started to mix up encounters, they stayed in the dungeon a lot longer.

[stoutstien]

After years of running 5e I can say for the most part trying to waste time getting encounter to fall into set difficulty ranges is a fool's errand.

Not only is an individual encounter out of context of the state of the party's resources (the same encounter at full power vs half vs no/near empty tanks.) The individual party's potential power is hard to ignore.(one party's deadly is another party's easy)

What I've been doing is plan encounters in blocks based on resource recharges. So one 'day' contains 5-12 encounters including combat, hazardous environments, social, and what ever else I want. The players need a reason to want to attempt all of the in the same block both mechanically and theatrically.

I try to never to prevent resting just because of encounter balance so I needed ways to let's them know that resting will make it easier but at a cost.
I use reduced XP, rewards, potential failure of goals, and other in game positive and negative reinforcements.

[Zhorn]

Telegraphing is very important if you plan on chaining exclusively Hard encounters. Especially such a large number without rests. If players don't know to pace themselves and conserve resources, this method will turn into a TPK very fast.

The key component to keep in mind about multiple encounters over a day isn't "every fight is a challenge", it's "every encounter imposes a cost", with the end of the adventuring day having everyone with little to nothing left in the tank. Not ever day will turn out this way. Some days will have some high level spots remaining, other can have all the low levels left over, but every now an then you'll have the players grateful for the long rest with nothing left to spend.
Easy encounters are just as good at imposing a cost as Hard encounters, just as Easy encounters can pose a serious danger to a tapped party, or a party that holds back when they should spend an AoE or nova to eliminate the risk.

Intellect Devourers are a good example of this, relatively weak and easy to kill, but will mess you up if not eliminated fast.

A swarm of Stirges can be a great pre-rest encounter, or a room clear leading to an otherwise straight forwards puzzle, fishing out some AoE spell slots so they won't be available in a later intended Hard encounter. Failure to nuke will still be a simple clear, but will soften the party up and will prompt some healing resources instead.

[Tanarii]

The 5E DMG states that they expect 6-8 Medium or Hard combat encounters per day, with about two short rests.
That sentence is a generalization. The details are in the table, and actually work out to 6 Medium encounters per adventuring day as a baseline at most levels. However, I find most parties can reasonably achieve 1/3-1/2 again or more than the baseline, if they play fairly smart.

Also you appear to have missed this at the bottom of page 84:
Short Rests
In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one- third and two-thirds of the way through the day.

[Man_Over_Game]

I did a lot of work comparing different class resources on the topic about a year ago.


I don't necessarily condone the 6-8 encounter philosophy; that just seems a bit too much for my tastes. The Devs can say whatever they want, their intent doesn't always reflect how things actually are.

I've done the research. Fighters are worse than Paladins with less than 2 Short Rests. Warlocks are worse than Wizards with less than two Short Rests. People can use that information or ignore it and I don't know if the Devs realized this or not or whether they have opinions on it.

These are the facts I know:

Tools for supporting Out of Combat:
Paladin > Fighter
Wizard => Warlock

Tools for supporting Combat:
If Short Rests < 2:
Paladin > Fighter
Wizard > Warlock

If Short Rests = 2:
Paladin = Fighter
Wizard = Warlock

If Short Rests > 2:
Paladin < Fighter
Wizard < Warlock

And I'm not talking about a 15% difference. A Paladin and a Fighter, both using a Sword and Shield at level 5 and after 7 rounds of combat with no Short Rests, the Paladin deals 168 damage vs. the Fighter's 120. That's a 40% difference.

It's not necessarily about the Fighter doing less damage than the Paladin, it's the fact that, in both Out-of-Combat and In-Combat, the Fighter is strictly worse when using less than 2 Short Rests.

Sources:
Warlock vs. Wizard: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23719377&postcount=9
Fighter vs. Paladin: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23719677&postcount=38



Although, I just recommend people be lazy and fit a Short Rest in the middle of boss fights. Solves the problem of fights becoming stale, poor balancing of boss fights, and makes Short Rest classes be good at 1-fight-per-day scenarios.

You basically just need to fit about 10 rounds' worth of stressful, resource-costing scenarios each day, separated by ~2 Short Rests. You can probably treat a trap that causes harm/risk to the entire team as a round or two worth of danger.

A good example of a decent trap is something that costs the team a full combat rounds' worth of resources (whether that's in HP or abilities): Team gets separated by a thick glass door that comes out of the floor. Another glass door comes up on the other side, trapping half of the group. Gas is being pumped into the trapped room, causing the Poisoned status and dealing a total of 24 poison damage over the course of 3 rounds (Team has an average of 40 HP). Barbarian attempts to Rage and bust down the door. He succeeds. Half the team lost 8 HP, and the Barbarian lost a use of Rage, which seems comparable to a single round of combat.

For reference, an average combat event lasts ~3-4 rounds.

[MaxWilson]

Also, another side to this that I just thought about: The easier encounters are crucial for the fun of the party. Tension is great, but occasionally, it is really fun to have an easier encounter.

I know at my table, an endless stream of hard encounters led directly to the 15 minute adventuring day, and once I started to mix up encounters, they stayed in the dungeon a lot longer.

There's a tension between what is fun for the player and what is fun for the PC. If a player is really into roleplaying, he or she may want to avoid risky behaviors because there's nothing at stake risking your life over--and this is true even if the player likes a challenge. I've recognized this behavior in myself sometimes, and the answer is not necessarily to make the game easier, it's to give the PC a motive that gives the player a good excuse for running risks.

If you ask players to roll up PCs and give each PC a reason why they are desperate for cash, then you can dangle gold and legendary lost treasures in front of them as a carrot, and threaten them with some rival NPC group getting the treasure instead in about 48 hours (it's a large organization and it takes time for them to gather up all their mercenaries), and now you've got an Indiana Jones movie excuse for a deadly dungeon crawl that the players can be proud of surviving, if they do.