Intelligence based Warlock

[MustaKrakish]

One of my players asked me if her Warlock could use Intelligence rather then Charisma as their main attribute. And I must say that I am not versed enough in the rules to understand if it will break anything. RP-wise I can't see any problem with it. But I just don't want it to bite us in the behind later on, because of some unforeseen interactions with the rules or something like that.

What do you guys say?

[MrStabby]

It's basically fine.

The interactions that you have to watch are kind of in the exploration pillar where the PC becomes awesome at interacting with ancient writings, magical glyphs etc. With the right invocations.

More a feature than a bug and kind of makes sense for the class, but really the only thing you need to be aware of as so much capability in one character can shut others others out of one part of the game.

[Arkhios]

One of my players asked me if her Warlock could use Intelligence rather then Charisma as their main attribute. And I must say that I am not versed enough in the rules to understand if it will break anything. RP-wise I can't see any problem with it. But I just don't want it to bite us in the behind later on, because of some unforeseen interactions with the rules or something like that.

What do you guys say?

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/810215324784193536

Jeremy Crawford (and the Design Team) would have preferred Intelligence, but the community demanded they carried over Charisma from previous editions; if anyone, we can blame our peers during D&D Next period.

Even though this isn't a concrete rule, there is very little balance and mechanical issues (if at all) in houseruling it.

[LudicSavant]

One of my players asked me if her Warlock could use Intelligence rather then Charisma as their main attribute. And I must say that I am not versed enough in the rules to understand if it will break anything. RP-wise I can't see any problem with it. But I just don't want it to bite us in the behind later on, because of some unforeseen interactions with the rules or something like that.

What do you guys say?

The main effect on balance will be that they'll multiclass better with Wizard (but not that much better, because they'd still need 13 Cha to multiclass).

That's about it. You should be fine.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

IIRC the playtest Warlock was Int based and more set around the idea of researching the Occult and learning forbidden knowledge to gain a pact.

I really like Intlocks from 4e.

As an old man trying to seduce a young man once said "dew it".

[Kane0]

As above, yeah its fine.

As an aside, ‘dew it’ actually made me laugh in public. Good job.

[Errata]

Intelligence doesn't have a lot of mechanical benefits in 5e. It should be totally fine balance wise, and thematically it works too. Wisdom based could have balance implications, but it's hard to see any with Intelligence.


The main effect on balance will be that they'll multiclass better with Wizard (but not that much better, because they'd still need 13 Cha to multiclass).

I'd assume that a homebrew modification to make Warlock int based would include things like multiclassing requirement, save proficiencies, and other minor tweaks. I don't see that as breaking anything, since they'd be worse at multiclassing with Sorcerers, which is probably the better option compared to Wizard.

[Galithar]

Int-locks actually shut down one of the most whined about class combos (Sorlock).

There is some synergy with Wizard, but if you are using the new Eberron material watch out for synergy with the Artificer. It's a pretty powerful class and I would have to do some serious thinking and theory crafting to see if it can be broken. If you aren't allowing the Artificer class then there should be no issue.

As an aside in response to someone above, if you let the class key off if Int it makes sense to have multiclass key off of Int as well unless you're trying to punish any attempts to multiclass out/in to Int-locks.

[MustaKrakish]

Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

Edit: We are not playing with multiclass, so I am not worried about this.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

As above, yeah its fine.

As an aside, ‘dew it’ actually made me laugh in public. Good job.


I aim to please.

Sometimes at least.


Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

Edit: We are not playing with multiclass, so I am not worried about this.

Honestly, I would give them Con saves if you're changing up the Warlock.

4e Warlocks could cast from Con, Int, or Cha so it would be a nice callback. Con and Wis are about equal.

[Galithar]

Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

Edit: We are not playing with multiclass, so I am not worried about this.

Personally I would. But I don't think it's required. The "strong" save that Warlocks get is the Wisdom as it is far more common. It would be interesting to go with a narrative that their intelligence helps them control the power their patron gives them, but it's not how the patron protects them.

It would basically end up with them having 3 average saves (Int from main attribute, Wisdom and Cha from Prof) and three weaker ones. Opposed to the more standard one very strong save, a moderate save, and 4 average to weak saves.

[LudicSavant]

Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

Edit: We are not playing with multiclass, so I am not worried about this.

You can switch out Cha and Int for most purposes without much effect on balance beyond multiclassing compatibility. Cha and Int saves are rather similar in that they're both rather uncommon, but tend to really suck when you do fail them (things like Banish or Illithid stuns).

Wisdom is a bit of a different story.

[Galithar]

I aim to please.

Sometimes at least.



Honestly, I would give them Con saves if you're changing up the Warlock.

4e Warlocks could cast from Con, Int, or Cha so it would be a nice callback. Con and Wis are about equal.

When it comes to a caster Con and Wis are not equal. Con is FAR better for casters then Non-Casters- due to concentration. Especially for Warlocks who have few spell slots and really need to maintain any concentration they use.

I would definitely recommend against giving them inherent Con save proficiency.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

When it comes to a caster Con and Wis are not equal. Con is FAR better for casters then Non-Casters- due to concentration. Especially for Warlocks who have few spell slots and really need to maintain any concentration they use.

I would definitely recommend against giving them inherent Con save proficiency.

Warlocks will typically have a high Con, generally higher than wis, and it saves a feat tax at worst. Though a lot of Warlocks are damage builds and not "save or suck" types so losing out on concentration isn't usually an issue. The most popular concentration spell is darkness and hitting them will be hard.

Besides, concentration checks are pretty pathetic in 5e past low levels.

Edit: No wis prof is scarier for a Warlock as there's plenty of nasty effects that could mess with them. This change would get Warlocks to put points in Wis.

[Spore]

Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

I wouldn't but it depends on your DM. Remember: Int saves are more the purely mental attacks, usually pseudo-psionic. Cha saves are for possession and forced behaviour and teleportation (offensive plane shift). I just feel dealing with outsiders and cosmic forces Cha is a much more fitting save.

But if you have a fringe scenario like you're an agent of the Dreaming Dark (psionic nightmare entity in the Eberron setting) or a Dimir agent on Ravnica (spy network dealing with psionic vampires) Int saves are better.

I always see saves as a representation of training. But at anything but high level play, a simple +2 or +3 isn't gonna make or break the fluff.

[Man_Over_Game]

I made a series of options for stuff exactly like this, with justification as to how each change is balanced when given strict restrictions to gain that attribute change.


When it comes to Warlock, the easiest way of allowing someone to change their primary attribute is basically just to say "Yes, but no more than half of your class levels can be in another class". This cuts down on Shield-spam shenanigans from a martial dipping into Warlock, and it prevents the Option from enabling casters that already have a lot of versatility from dipping into Warlock for more power at little cost.

That is, if someone wants Intelligence-based Warlock levels, 3 of their levels HAVE to be in Warlock, and the other 2 can be whatever they want.




If you're interested in this kind of stuff, as well as a thorough analysis on what each Option does (and what problems the restrictions prevent), you can read up on the Prestige Options link in my signature.

I've got some really weird stuff in there, like Strength-based Monk, Dexterity-based Barbarian, Wisdom-based Sorcerer, and Intelligence-based Paladin. You might find something you like.

[Teaguethebean]

Really all you have to look out for is a Hexblade singer but if that doesn't happen they are more nerfing there character Mechanically.

[ChildofLuthic]

Personally, I let any of my players swap their casting stat if they don't plan on multiclassing. Since there's no multiclassing, you don't have to worry about that.

Also, as a general rule of thumb, unless knowing lore is actually important in your game, intelligence as an attribute is kind of useless compared to charisma (which lets you be social) or wisdom (for those beautiful perception checks, as well as insight checks). In most games I've played in, all a knowledge check will get you is some backstory the DM wants to tell you anyway.

Overall, should be fine.

[DarknessEternal]

When it comes to Warlock, the easiest way of allowing someone to change their primary attribute is basically just to say "Yes, but no more than half of your class levels can be in another class". This cuts down on Shield-spam shenanigans from a martial dipping into Warlock, and it prevents the Option from enabling casters that already have a lot of versatility from dipping into Warlock for more power at little cost.


You really find 2 castings of Shield per short rest that offensive?

[Man_Over_Game]

You really find 2 castings of Shield per short rest that offensive?

Plus Eldritch Blast (Scales without any additional levels into Warlock, 120 feet, 1d10 damage, least resisted damage typing).

Plus the level 1 Warlock feature (often suited for melee combatants).

Plus the Invocations (which is probably greatest source of the most powerful At-Will benefits in the game).


But also consider the fact that the average length of a combat scenario is 3 rounds. Most tables don't have more than 1 combat per Short Rest. Shield grants you +5 AC for an entire round (assuming the triggering attack was enough to hit in the first place). That means that a single level into Warlock can grant a melee combatant +5 AC for 66% of the game. That's assuming that you even were at risk of a hit. All it takes is to not need to cast Shield in a single round (and you're likely an armored combatant, so that's not too hard), and that's roughly 100% uptime of your +5 AC. Additionally, Shield blocks Magic Missile, which stops a normally valid tactic against high-AC targets (of which you'd be).



This is all with 2 levels into Warlock. So...yeah. It can be a big deal.

[Lavaeolus]

Edit: We are not playing with multiclass, so I am not worried about this.

As the thread has made apparent, the main concern with changing one casting stat to another here really is how it'd interact with other classes. The Warlock as-is does not have any features relying on Int that I know of, the feats that boost Intelligence are pretty situational, and neither Charisma nor Intelligence have much role in combat in contrast to, say, Dexterity or Constitution. Which means the trade-off, single-classed, is essentially skills and a modifier to saving throws.

So, the skills trade-off:
CHA: Charisma would raise Deception, Intimidation, Performance and Persuasion.
INT: Intelligence would raise Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature and Religion.

I don't believe this to be a big deal, but it would depend on campaign. Intelligence technically covers an extra skill, but it's also harder to make active use of the Knowledge skills. Investigation may be the most useful, if put to proper use. Meanwhile, there are a lot of situations where Persuasion could come into play even without the DM trying to provide opportunities for it. Your mileage may vary depending on how social your campaign is, whether you already have a face, but I don't consider this to be a deal-breaker and the Intelligence skills are largely in theme.


Same goes for the saving throws? to change it from Wis and Cha to Wis and Int?

So this is the bigger question, I feel. The good news: there are three pretty common saving throws (Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom), and three uncommon saving throws (Strength, Intelligence and Charisma). Every class has one common save and one uncommon save. If we'd swapped between them we'd have horribly broken something, but hey, we didn't.

That said, I believe Charisma saving throws are more common than Intelligence. This is another thing where depending on campaign and enemies the difference might be negligible, but I think it is overall a nerf. That means there's not much problem with allowing it, but I might give the player the option, when building their character, to either switch saving throws to Intelligence or leave them as-is.

[Luccan]

One of my players asked me if her Warlock could use Intelligence rather then Charisma as their main attribute. And I must say that I am not versed enough in the rules to understand if it will break anything. RP-wise I can't see any problem with it. But I just don't want it to bite us in the behind later on, because of some unforeseen interactions with the rules or something like that.

What do you guys say?

So, ignoring Coffeelock no longer being as feasible (which is arguably good, but also a DM should ban it outright anyway if they aren't prepared to deal with it), it shouldn't have any major impact. AT/EK/Wizard multiclassing will be less stat intensive, but I see no reason it should cause issues. Do you know why she wants her Warlock to use Int rather than Cha? Is it just for RP reasons?

[DarknessEternal]

But also consider the fact that the average length of a combat scenario is 3 rounds. Most tables don't have more than 1 combat per Short Rest.

Maybe your issue then is you aren't playing D&D the way it is intended: 6-8 encounters per day with 1-2 short rests.

Many things in the game don't work when you have one encounter per day, eg basically everything.

Your idea that combat lasts 3 rounds is entirely because you're only have one per day.

[Man_Over_Game]

Maybe your issue then is you aren't playing D&D the way it is intended: 6-8 encounters per day with 1-2 short rests.

Many things in the game don't work when you have one encounter per day, eg basically everything.



Believe me, man. Nobody can preach on the logistics of the adventuring day like I can. I'm pretty sure the Playground is sick-and-tired of my soapbox operas on the topic.

The issue is that the recommendation on 6-8 encounters isn't really...realistic. Most people aren't playing DnD as a dungeon crawler with multiple encounters in a castle, as much as that's how the game was balanced towards. Realistically, they'll have 1-2 fights between Long Rests. Even if a party has two encounters in the same day, it's unlikely that those two encounters are back-to-back, and the party will be able to get their Short Rest.



On Shield (and most Warlock powers), Warlocks do not get those benefits per Encounter or per Day - they get them per Short Rest. That means that you could even have your 6-8 encounters per day, and the Warlock could still get those benefits, assuming he was able to take a Short Rest between each Encounter. That's the part that I think you may have missed. Regardless of how many encounters a team has in a day, they almost always have a Rest between each fight. This means that a Warlock enters nearly every encounter, nearly regardless of how many he's already been through that day, at their full potential.

The only times that a Warlock-Martial spamming Shield would be a bad investment would be if:

The Party has more than one fight in a row without a Short or Long Rest (which mostly never happens)
The Party has more than 2 Rounds of intense combat.


On that second bullet, assuming a gameplay session lasts 4 hours, you want 30% (72 minutes) of your gameplay to be combat/encounters, you have 7 encounters (10 minutes each) and have 3 rounds, you're looking at 3 minutes of real-time per combat rounds. Which is possible, but not likely. From my experience, a Round typically lasts about 10 minutes. Do you towards more Rounds (and fewer Encounters), do you have more Encounters (and fewer Rounds), or do you start chopping away from your non-combat time for the sake of balance?

This isn't that big of a deal for a full-casting Warlock, since they're going to blow their spell slots on their biggest spells as their primary form of contribution and be unable to use something like Shield as consistently. Rather, this is a bigger deal for martial combatants, as their primary form of contribution doesn't use the same resources. Rather, they are both a Martial combatant AND casting Shield indefinitely, and that's a problem because those two things synergize extremely well.


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


Your idea that combat lasts 3 rounds is entirely because you're only have one per day.

I gauged my estimates off of specific terms in the DMG that imply the average number of rounds for a combat is to be 3.

As this answer (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/93185/45619), to the question "How many rounds does the average combat encounter last?", on RPG Stack Exchange puts it best:


The DMG seems to implicitly estimate a combat to last about 3 rounds.

DMG p.278, Overall Damage Output:


To determine a monster's overall damage output, take the average damage it deals with each of its attacks in a round and add them together. [...] If a monster's damage output varies from round to round, calculate its damage output each round for the first three rounds of combat, and take the average.

Similarly, DMG p.281, Monster Features section on estimating the effect of Regeneration on CR calculations:


Increase the monster's effective hit points by 3 x the number of hit points the monster regenerates each round.

To me, the two of these indicate the expected length of an encounter is approximately 3 rounds... or at least, the expected duration of any given creature's effect on it is 3 rounds.

There's a distinction there, but in personal experience, 3 rounds matches up with an average combat duration for fights that aren't extremely difficult, extremely easy, and/or don't have an extreme amount of outnumbering on one side (I play on Roll20, and my DM has an initiative script/plugin that keeps track of the passing of rounds, so I can reliably see how long a combat has lasted at the end).

It can take longer if there's a decent amount of hide-and-seek going on (maneuvering around obstacles, etc.), but those tend to just cause more rounds of movement rather than more rounds of combat.

[DarknessEternal]

On Shield (and most Warlock powers), Warlocks do not get those benefits per Encounter or per Day - they get them per Short Rest. That means that you could even have your 6-8 encounters per day, and the Warlock could still get those benefits, assuming he was able to take a Short Rest between each Encounter. That's the part that I think you may have missed.

I didn't miss anything. The part you missed was the DMG saying 1-2 short rests per 6-8 encounters.

It does not say 6-8 short rests per 6-8 encounters.

If you want to play D&D in a way that it's not designed, that's your prerogative, but you don't get to start being salty over things that are fine in the system it's designed for.

[Galithar]

I didn't miss anything. The part you missed was the DMG saying 1-2 short rests per 6-8 encounters.

It does not say 6-8 short rests per 6-8 encounters.

If you want to play D&D in a way that it's not designed, that's your prerogative, but you don't get to start being salty over things that are fine in the system it's designed for.

He didn't miss that. What he said it's that it's not how the game is played 90+% of the time. He'll look at any published adventure and try to honestly tell me that they are written to support the adventuring day that is outlined in the DMG. They aren't, and people don't often follow that outline. So when you're making adjustments to things you have to realize that you can't use that outline as the 'perfect model' you have to actually look at what happens at the table.
For some tables that means a short rest after every encounter. For some tables that means a LONG rest after every encounter. For VERY FEW tables does that mean 2-3 encounters between short rests and 1 or 2 such cycles between long rests. It's honestly not a reasonable adventuring pace for the vast majority of players.

The important thing when making adjustments is to know what happens at YOUR table. Like I said before without multiclassing there is no question that this would break nothing. With multiclassing you have to dig into the overlap with a lot of classes, especially if you're using the new less analyzed Artificer.

[LudicSavant]

Believe me, man. Nobody can preach on the logistics of the adventuring day like I can. I'm pretty sure the Playground is sick-and-tired of my soapbox operas on the topic. I think we're mostly just sick and tired of unsupported claims of what "most tables" do, TBH.

[Galithar]

I think we're mostly just sick and tired of unsupported claims of what "most tables" do, TBH.

Then give some support to the opposition. While I don't have concrete data I have anecdotal evidence for days, all you have to do is look around these forums. The exact same issues crop up time and time again from people feeling "underpowered" and the inevitable answer to them is "If you run an adventuring day based on the DMG guidelines the math actually works out to be perfectly balanced so your table just isn't playing right". Which is honestly about a million times more offensive then someone saying 'Most tables don't seem to follow that guideline because it makes an unreasonable adventuring day pace for most players'.

Both of those statements are equally true and defensible. One of them is accusatory though.

Be honest, how many tables do you know that consistently adhere to 6-8 encounters with 1-2 short rests per long rest? I personally have encountered exactly 0 tables in my (admittedly limited in comparison to some on these forums) experience. While I currently play at 2 and DM 1 that are consistently 2-3 encounters per day with a short rest between nearly every one except when under exceptional circumstances (DM forcing longer adventuring days with time constraints. Though it's not realistic to me to ALWAYS be under such constraints)

When hard evidence is not available anecdotal evidence is the lens through which we judge the world.

[LudicSavant]

When hard evidence is not available anecdotal evidence is the lens through which we judge the world.

Nothing wrong with anecdotal evidence, but that's not what's being provided here.

Providing anecdotal evidence would be "most tables I've seen do X" as opposed to "most tables do X." Important distinction.


Then give some support to the opposition What a concerning sentiment.

Saying that there's insufficient evidence to make a claim does not necessarily mean you support the opposite claim. If someone said "most people did 8 encounters a day" I would say that claim has insufficient evidence, too.

[Galithar]

Nothing wrong with anecdotal evidence, but that's not what's being provided here.

Providing anecdotal evidence would be "most tables I've seen do X" as opposed to "most tables do X." Important distinction.

What a concerning sentiment.

Saying that there's insufficient evidence to make a claim does not necessarily mean you support the opposite claim. If someone said "most people did 8 encounters a day" I would say that claim has insufficient evidence, too.

Your 'important distinction' is to me just an exercise in pedantry. We're on an online forum and as such I assume everything stated to be opinion and experiential. Unless someone specifies they believe something to be a hard fact (or provide evidence that indicates as much) my default observation is that it's their experience. Asking everyone to remember to put 'in my experience' or 'that I've seen" as a qualifier for every statement they make seems excessive and tedious.

It is not unreasonable to ask someone to provide contradictory evidence when they make an accusation of false or unsupported claims. But this also seems to be a continuation of the fact that I don't require someone to qualify a statement as anecdotal when it seems obvious to me that it is. So where you are expecting him to provide evidential facts, I was asking you to provide any evidence to contradict a pretty common position on these boards If you are going to say something is unsupported then you should be prepared to defend your accusation though. Otherwise I get the feeling that you're pointing fingers just to say someone is wrong without trying to contribute to a conversation.

[LudicSavant]

If you are going to say something is unsupported then you should be prepared to defend your accusation though.

I am entirely prepared to defend my statements. You however are emanding that I defend a position different position than the one I actually expressed.

"I don't think we have gathered the necessary evidence to convict this man and should not make claims we can't back up" is not the same claim as "I know this man is innocent."

All I have to do to demonstrate that statements like "90+% of players have 1 rest per day" are unsupported is to go "oh really? Where's your data for that?" The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

[Galithar]

I am entirely prepared to defend my statements. You however are demanding that I defend a position different than the one I actually expressed.

"I don't think we have gathered the necessary evidence to convict this man and should not make claims we can't back up" is not the same claim as "I know this man is innocent."

Then support it. You say that 'most people don't follow the DMG guidelines for encounter frequency' is not true. Support that position. That would be providing any evidence, hard facts or anecdotal, that the position of MOG and myself is unsupported. Or just drop it and don't jump down someone's throat for their position without having one of your own that you intend to oppose them with.

Also "Then give some support to the opposition" makes no claim of your position. Your position IS the opposition, whatever it is because you are the one calling out MOG saying his position is unsupported. It doesn't demand anything from you either.

Meanwhile I can support my position that most people don't follow them. My evidence is asking you to do a search on GitP (advanced search Title only) for "Adventuring Day"
You'll get a 20 pages of results of threads made to discuss the length of the adventuring day. Many specifically discussing how to get AWAY from the 5 minute adventuring day that so many tables fall prey to.

You haven't made any point here other then to complain about MOG and I personally find that kind of rude.

[LudicSavant]

If someone said "most people did 8 encounters a day" I would say that claim has insufficient evidence

You say that 'most people don't follow the DMG guidelines for encounter frequency' is not true. I absolutely did not say that, and I really don't appreciate you repeatedly falsely claiming that I did.


Support that position. Again, you are demanding that I support a position distinct from the one I actually expressed and support, which is really not cool.

[Galithar]

I absolutely did not say that, and I really don't appreciate you repeatedly falsely claiming that I did.

Again, you are demanding that I support a position distinct from the one I actually expressed and support, which is really not cool.

Have a nice day Ludic. You clearly won't engage beyond playing the victim card and I'm not going to just go in circles with you on this.

[Galithar]

Posting here again since your PM box is full and I can't reply there.

I say again that I'm not continuing this conversation. If you feel the need to ask a Mod to review the conversation I'm okay with that. They may not like my previous post too much, but I'm not going to try to hide it from them.

I genuinely hope you have a nice day, I just will not continue this conversation because it will not lead anywhere but bad.

[LudicSavant]

I will clarify one last time.


You say that 'most people don't follow the DMG guidelines for encounter frequency' is not true.

No, I don't say that. I say that we have insufficient evidence to support a claim either way on the matter, because we don't actually have data on what "most players" do.

What you're claiming I'm saying: "X is not true."
What I'm actually saying: "I don't think we have seen data that indicates whether X is true or not true."


Have a nice day Ludic.

Alrighty, you too. :smallconfused:

[Man_Over_Game]

No, I don't say that. I say that we have insufficient evidence to support a claim either way on the matter, because we don't actually have data on what "most players" do.

We do have anecdotal evidence, from multiple sources.

The DMG recommends an average of 7 encounters per day.

However:

From this question of "Encounter design and XP thresholds (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/150095/45619)":

The requester, Ragatokk, states his team has 1-4 encounters per day.
The respondent, NautArch, states his team has 1-3 encounters per day.

It's worth mentioning that NautArch was the #1 contributor for the entire RPG Stack Exchange Q&A forum for the year of 2019 based on user votes, and has contributed a total of 750 answers for DnD 5e alone. The guy's a legend, or as certifiable as one could be.



From this question of "How can I reduce the number of encounters per day without throwing off game balance? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/101304/45619)":

The respondent, SirTechSpec, states he averages about 2 encounters per day.


I have not found any examples of people stating they experience more than 7 encounters in an average day.


In the events that the encounter number concern comes up, the defense is never "1-2 encounters is excessive", but that "1-2 encounters is not balanced".


On that last note, it has often been a point of concern that 7 encounters is a day is excessive.

SirTechSpec: "The 5E DMG states that they expect 6-8 Medium or Hard combat encounters per day, with about two short rests. If I tried to do that, we'd never get anywhere [...]"


If 7 were the average, we'd see an equal level of extremes on either side. That is, if 1 encounter was the lower-value extreme (-6), then we should expect an equal number of concerns of tables trying to play at the opposite extreme (+6) of 13 encounters per day. I have never seen someone have concerns with trying to accommodate 10+ encounters in a day for a table. I've seen are people creating builds that are designed for that (Coffee-Lock, for instance), but I've never seen discussion on the topic for the sake of GM action.



Unless there's some bias that causes the players who have more encounters to not post about their games online, I don't really any evidence that players are experiencing ~7 encounters per day, yet there is evidence to the contrary.

If anything, it'd be better to assume players are having 2.5 encounters per day, until an equal amount of anecdotal evidence shows otherwise.

[LudicSavant]

We do have anecdotal evidence, from multiple sources.

A few posts isn't sufficient to support the sweeping claims you originally made, because the sample size is very small whereas you are making generalizations to the entire gaming population. It's a hasty generalization. (https://www.thoughtco.com/hasty-generalization-fallacy-1690919)


I have not found any examples of people stating they experience more than 7 encounters in an average day.

Well allow me to change that then. The last campaign I ran (which ran all the way from low to high levels) frequently had more than that. Going back and checking my notes, of the recent adventures had 9 in a day.

[Man_Over_Game]

Well allow me to change that then. The last campaign I ran frequently had more than that. One of the recent adventures had 9 in a day.

That's valid, and it's good to see an example, but I think you're the outlier.

In my quest to find a statistical consensus on the average number of encounters, I managed to find more people with the same problems:

Question: "Typically, how many combat encounters should a low-level party have before they are expected to take a long rest?", 19 Votes
Answer: "The DMG says six to eight, my experience is closer to 3" (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/94546/45619), 23 Votes

Question: "How does the 'five minute adventuring day' affect class balance?" (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/150724/45619), 27 Votes
Excerpt: "[...] In reality many home games, mine included, often don't have as many as six to eight encounters, covering a range of difficulties, between long rests. The 'five minute adventuring day' takes this to the extreme and describes a situation where PCs are allowed to long rest between pretty much every encounter [...]

Question: "Are there rules for shortening the adventuring day and reducing the number encounters without unbalancing them?" (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/149396/45619), 11 Votes
Excerpt from the requester's comment: "I want to limit the resources so that they only need do to say 3-4 encounters instead of 6-8 per day.", 1 Vote
Excerpt from that comment's respondent: "This topic comes up a lot [...]"


You definitely have your experiences, and nothing I can say can take that away. But it looks like there's more people who experienced something different.

[LudicSavant]

19 Votes
23 Votes
27 Votes
11 Votes
1 Vote.

Why are you quoting the number of upvotes on a question thread? It's not a number of poll respondents.

My advice is that you gotta be wary of confirmation bias. It's very easy to Google basically any opinion and find a bunch of threads with people sharing that opinion. This is not a valid methodology for getting representative demographic statistics.

For example, you could google "(insert any class) is overpowered" and find more 'votes' than that regardless of what class you typed in.

[kazaryu]

One of my players asked me if her Warlock could use Intelligence rather then Charisma as their main attribute. And I must say that I am not versed enough in the rules to understand if it will break anything. RP-wise I can't see any problem with it. But I just don't want it to bite us in the behind later on, because of some unforeseen interactions with the rules or something like that.

What do you guys say?

as others have said, there's not really a problem with it. and the same is realistically true for any of the casters. thematically it might get weird if your paladin is int based instead of cha, but mechanically it doesn't hurt anything.

[Man_Over_Game]

Why are you quoting the number of upvotes on a question thread? It's not a number of poll respondents.

You should be careful of confirmation bias. It's very easy to Google basically any opinion and find a bunch of threads with people sharing that opinion. This is not a valid methodology for getting representative demographic statistics.

RPG Stack Exchange uses its voting system as a form of moderation. Each vote implies value that imparts more moderation privileges to its recipient. In a way, you vote in your moderators. I included the votes as a means of proving reliability. RPG.SE downvotes any question or answer that's poorly formed, has questionable merits, is a duplicate (even in concept) or that is heavily opinionated. 30 votes doesn't mean "30 people agree with this concern", but that "30 people think this concern is valid and believe its requester deserves merit".

To find those questions, I just searched for "Encounters Per Day" on the RPG.SE site to see if anyone had generated a report on how people play. I didn't find a report, but I also didn't find anyone looking to solve the opposite problem of fitting more encounters in a day.

[LudicSavant]

RPG Stack Exchange uses its voting system as a form of moderation. Each vote implies value that imparts more moderation privileges to its recipient. In a way, you vote in your moderators. I included the votes as a means of proving reliability. RPG.SE downvotes any question or answer that's poorly formed, has questionable merits, is a duplicate (even in concept) or that is heavily opinionated. 30 votes doesn't mean "30 people agree with this concern", but that "30 people think this concern is valid and believe its requester deserves merit".

Yeah, I know, and you know what? I upvote those discussions about dealing with the 5-minute adventuring day. That doesn't mean that I suffer from the 5-minute adventuring day in the games I run.

[Man_Over_Game]

Yeah, I know, and you know what? I upvote those discussions about dealing with the 5-minute adventuring day. That doesn't mean that I suffer from the 5-minute adventuring day in the games I run.

Sure. I didn't say you had that problem, I said that you agreed that that question was valid.

The reason I brought up votes was to rule out the possibility that those questions/answers were irrelevant and posted without much effort or value. They are not counts of people who have had that problem.

But I found 10 valid anecdotes of separate people who all said that they either have a problem of needing too few encounters, or that the problem came up a lot.

When it came to searching for information from people looking to adjust for more encounters, or who said they regularly had 6+ encounters, when searching the term "Encounters Per Day", I found none.

[LudicSavant]

When it came to searching for information from people looking to adjust for more encounters, or who said they regularly had 6+ encounters, when searching the term "Encounters Per Day", I found none.

That's funny because Google's giving me plenty of results on the very first page when I searched "Encounters Per Day." For example:


Yeah, the encounter day is not the same as a session day. I.e., just because we might have a four hour session with only 2 encounters, doesn't mean that adventuring day ends when our session ends. We might have two ro three sessions that all cover the same adventuring day.

Also, the # of encounters tends to vary, depending on what the PCs are doing, and how the monsters/NPCs would react to them. Our typical session lasts 8 hours. Sometimes the whole session can go by without any combat at all, even in a combat heavy environment (like when we played ToEE and the players spent an entire session playing the various cultists against each other). Other times, we have lots of encounters, and it's not possible for the PCs to stop and rest after 8, 9, or even a dozen encounters. Especially if they stirred up a hornet's nest.

But on average, the 6-8 number feels pretty accurate for us.

[No1ofIntrst]

As far as making the warlock Int based, there isn't too much wrong with it (it loses a couple of multiclasses, but as you've said you aren't using them) and it switches around their stat spread (not a bad thing, considering that there are already a lot of Charisma casters, and DMs like to hand out Int checks for stuff that more is important for lore than continuing the adventure)

On the topic of the 5Min adventuring day (as that's what this tread seems to be now), in the adventure I'm playing at AL (Descent Into Avernus), we've often had around 4 encounters a day, without a short rest. Whether that is because we like to run through stuff, or the way the adventure is designed, I'm not sure.

Average encounters per day is also not a good way of measuring how often characters will fight, as oftentimes you will have lots of 1 encounter days (to add to RP scenarios such as being ambushed on the way to meet the king, etc). There are also quite a couple of times where you will have lots of encounters (6-7), particularly at higher levels (before that, the game is definitely not balanced for more than 2 a day).

Your definition of encounter also is important. Is a trap an encounter? Is a social situation an encounter? Is a door an encounter if your players try to attack it?