D&D Next Q&A

Wizards of the Coast · Aug 2, 2012

D&D Next Q&A with Rodney Thompson is the new home for Rule-of-Three. You've got questionsâ??we've got answers! This week, these include how to define the "adventuring day".

Read D&D Next Q&A on D&D Insider here!

Dark Mistress · Aug 2, 2012

Hmm it was a interesting read, but I am not sure I understand things any better than I did before I read it.

Minigiant · Aug 2, 2012

My inference is:

The Adventure day is worth X amount of XP with can be broken into any number of segments. Each class feature with be given an XP value as well equal to the amount of XP of obstacles it should get rid off. Each class at each level will be then given a features whose daily usage deals with the expect XP of an adventuring day.

So a level 1 wizard spell is gets rid of 200 XP of obstacles a day. The recommended XP for an adventuring day is 1000 XP. So a 1st level wizard get 3 1st level spells to deal with about 600 XP and the at wills, theme, and background deals with the other 400 XP.

BobTheNob · Aug 2, 2012

I fell asleep reading that. It was like listening to a politician speak to a reporter about policy i.e. give the most neutral, non specific answer you possibly can.

Did absolutely nothing to raise nor lower my expectations of 5e.

FireLance · Aug 3, 2012

Seems fairly simple to me. An adventuring day is defined in terms of XP (as a proxy for the number and danger of the challenges encountered) instead of time.

So, if the "adventuring day" for a party of 1st-level PCs is 1000 XP, a DM who wants to enable his PCs to complete the adventure before taking a long rest would put no more than 1000 XP worth of monsters, traps and other challenges in the adventure.

If the DM starts by designing the adventure instead, the total number of XP would give an indication of how many long rests the PCs will likely need to take before completing the adventure. For example, the PCs will need to take one long rest in the middle of an adventure with 2000 XP.

It's basically replacing an encounter XP budget with an adventuring day XP budget.

However, this does not shed any light on how the DM can encourage the PCs to press on if they decide to use all their daily abilities early in the adventuring day before earning their XP "quota" for the day (the "15-minute workday" problem), apart from the obvious solution of having only a single encounter that uses up the entire XP budget for the adventuring day.

And I'm sure that people who don't like the system will uncharitably misconstrue it as one in which the PCs stop adventuring and rest once they have hit their XP "quota" for the adventuring day regardless of the state of their daily resources at that point.

Dice4Hire · Aug 3, 2012

I am still unsure that the 15 minute adventuring day is something that needs to be solved in the rulebook. I think at the table is a better place to solve it.

Morrus · Aug 3, 2012

Dice4Hire said:
I am still unsure that the 15 minute adventuring day is something that needs to be solved in the rulebook. I think at the table is a better place to solve it.

D&D rulebooks aren't written for those grizzled DM's with long beards who recognise that issue and know how to solve it. They're written for new D&D players who are learning how to DM.

Let's not make the mistake of equating "I personally do not have that issue" with "nobody in the world has that issue". 25 years ago, I had some pretty frickin' dire D&D games. I wish I hadn't grown 25 years older in the meantime, but it's not the fault of the 13 yr old kids picking up a D&D rulebook today.

thecasualoblivion · Aug 3, 2012

My big issue with the adventuring day is being able to shorten it for plot/story reasons and not have balance fall apart. As far as I'm concerned, "balanced as long as you have X experience points worth of challenges between rests" isn't really balance at all.

KidSnide · Aug 3, 2012

thecasualoblivion said:
My big issue with the adventuring day is being able to shorten it for plot/story reasons and not have balance fall apart.

And how...

I feel like they've explained the adventuring day five times already. Ok, I get it. What I'd like to hear is how it can be adjusted to handle different assumptions about adventure design.

For example, what if I want a day with a single challenging combat that doesn't take more than 30-45 minutes to play? How do I do that? If D&DN can handle that (along with its standard adventure-day balance), then I'll be a happy camper.

-KS

am181d · Aug 3, 2012

The answer around adding levels to NPCs gave me a great idea: Every player should have an XP value that's written on their character sheet! Otherwise, how will I know when my kobolds level up???