Segev
2020-03-06, 10:41 AM
A problem that is often brought up (and to which "use Gritty Realism" is a proposed, but oft-disputed, suggested solution) is the way exploration and overland travel interacts with the short-rest/long-rest system. The "typical adventuring day" expected by D&D 5e is 4-6 encounters, I believe, with 1-3 short rests. On average, you should see 2.5, I think encounters per short rest (sometimes as low as 1, but more often 3 and most often 2). This stresses the short-rest classes a bit to conserve resources, ensures the "endurance" classes who only need rests for hp purposes can shine, and is about right for long rest classes to feel the pinch after 1-2 short rests for the rest of the party if they're moderate but not hyperconservative in their expenditures.
But the typical "explore the wilderness" part of D&D 5e has very different expectations, if you look to the modules. I own Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. I'm actually running the latter. The exploration part is one of the richer parts of the game in the pacing, giving that old-school feel of expeditions out to sites of interest to explore and recover items of value, and find clues to the overarching mystery.
However, the pacing of encounters is practically codifying the 15-minute adventuring day. A short-rest class can nova in a single encounter and, if it goes on too long, feel the pinch long before a nova-ing long-rest class. Moreover, there's no sense that the CR is nearly as dangerous as its number indicates, because when everyone can nova, even the "endurance" classes feel overpowered, because their hp aren't in any real danger.
(There's room to argue that the PCs should be facing long-term struggles over food and such, but whether it's my fault for being too lenient or not, that's a non-issue for my party, with their ranger and their foraging and their smoking the meat of dinos and crocodiles they kill.)
Why do I say the encounter pacing is this way? Because the rules for determining random encounters in Tomb of Annihilation are to roll a d20 for morning, afternoon, and night, and if it comes up 15-20, roll up a random encounter.
ToA has some lovely ideas for one-off encounters (though with the sheer amount of jungle, repetition becomes an issue), but a lot of them are very short and either "avoid the fight" or "kill the things" and then it's done. I've been trying to roll up days of encounters ahead of time, and come up with ways of making "stories" out of them. Connecting them in some way, as a reflection of some underlying jungle geopolitics in a local sense. This helps keep it interesting, but it certainly doesn't stress the party.
Admission: the players express more fear than I think is warranted over the hazards of given encounters, and seem to think they've escaped by the skin of their teeth when they didn't even brush 0 hp and used powers with abandon because they knew they were unlikely to need them later. So...at least it FEELS risky, I guess?
Anyway, onto the idea: what if random encounters weren't single items, but were mini-dungeons? Either actual enclosures, or were designed such that, if you have an random encounter, you're going to have 2-4 encounters that day as it builds up and then climaxes in a mini-boss sort of deal.
It wouldn't even have to be every random encounter. Just enough that, when the singleton encounters show up, it's not a foregone conclusion that it's at most one of three encounters, each separated by a short rest. (And, more likely, is just the one encounter for the day.)
Then again, maybe that's just what rolling an encounter in more than one "time slot" per day is. Exploration is 0-3 encounters per day, with a short rest between each encounter and low likelihood of more than one encounter per day.
But the typical "explore the wilderness" part of D&D 5e has very different expectations, if you look to the modules. I own Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. I'm actually running the latter. The exploration part is one of the richer parts of the game in the pacing, giving that old-school feel of expeditions out to sites of interest to explore and recover items of value, and find clues to the overarching mystery.
However, the pacing of encounters is practically codifying the 15-minute adventuring day. A short-rest class can nova in a single encounter and, if it goes on too long, feel the pinch long before a nova-ing long-rest class. Moreover, there's no sense that the CR is nearly as dangerous as its number indicates, because when everyone can nova, even the "endurance" classes feel overpowered, because their hp aren't in any real danger.
(There's room to argue that the PCs should be facing long-term struggles over food and such, but whether it's my fault for being too lenient or not, that's a non-issue for my party, with their ranger and their foraging and their smoking the meat of dinos and crocodiles they kill.)
Why do I say the encounter pacing is this way? Because the rules for determining random encounters in Tomb of Annihilation are to roll a d20 for morning, afternoon, and night, and if it comes up 15-20, roll up a random encounter.
ToA has some lovely ideas for one-off encounters (though with the sheer amount of jungle, repetition becomes an issue), but a lot of them are very short and either "avoid the fight" or "kill the things" and then it's done. I've been trying to roll up days of encounters ahead of time, and come up with ways of making "stories" out of them. Connecting them in some way, as a reflection of some underlying jungle geopolitics in a local sense. This helps keep it interesting, but it certainly doesn't stress the party.
Admission: the players express more fear than I think is warranted over the hazards of given encounters, and seem to think they've escaped by the skin of their teeth when they didn't even brush 0 hp and used powers with abandon because they knew they were unlikely to need them later. So...at least it FEELS risky, I guess?
Anyway, onto the idea: what if random encounters weren't single items, but were mini-dungeons? Either actual enclosures, or were designed such that, if you have an random encounter, you're going to have 2-4 encounters that day as it builds up and then climaxes in a mini-boss sort of deal.
It wouldn't even have to be every random encounter. Just enough that, when the singleton encounters show up, it's not a foregone conclusion that it's at most one of three encounters, each separated by a short rest. (And, more likely, is just the one encounter for the day.)
Then again, maybe that's just what rolling an encounter in more than one "time slot" per day is. Exploration is 0-3 encounters per day, with a short rest between each encounter and low likelihood of more than one encounter per day.