I feel slightly silly going on about this in depth. Oh, well.
Look, context matters. [MENTION=71699]vonklaude[/MENTION] you said this:
It then states that 2-3 short rests are expected in an "adventuring day" i.e. over that number of encounters. Implicitly, the "day" ends with a long rest i.e. there is one long rest per adventuring day. Regarding class balance, those guidelines amount to a clear suggestion of the design intent, e.g. an ability that recovers on a short rest (like Warlock spell slots) will be usable 3-4x per "adventuring day" (use, rest 1, use, rest 2, use, optional rest 3, use) while one that recovers on a long rest will be usable only once (use, end of day long rest).
My reply:
Yes, except
- Other than that the number of encounters needs to be at least 3, this says nothing about the number of encounters, which was what I was talking about.
I would have thought that it was clear that "this" meant
the section on short rests since that's what you were talking about in the part of your post that I quoted. I guess though, that wasn't clear, since you replied with a discussion of the other parts of the Adventuring Day section.
Hmm. On DMG84 "The Adventuring Day" opens with "...most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day." <snip>
Anyway, I stand by this: Other than that the number of encounters needs to be at least 3,
the section on short rests says nothing about the number of encounters.
But back to the main point, which for some reason, you did not quote from my post.
My main (intended) point was that there is nothing in the DMG to suggest that amongst all the combinations of encounters that meet the XP budget, those combinations containing 6-8 encounters are in any way preferred, recommended, or better for the game.
When you said
It's true that we have to do some work to understand the design intent, as we have to breakdown the "adventuring day" XP and realise it pays for the specified number of encounters. Take the example in the book - 3x 3rd PC, 1x 2nd PC. Their Medium is 550XP and Hard is 825XP. Their "adventuring day" XP budget is 4200XP (3x1200 + 1x600). That pays for 7 medium or 5 hard encounters. 3 deadly or 15 easy encounters would also do it. The designers don't seem concerned with playing "exactsies", but for each combination of PC levels the "adventuring day" XP pays for about the guideline number of encounters. Generally about one encounter less than the guideline (skewing the game toward the "easy" difficulty setting that appears to have been the design intent).
It seemed to me that you were acknowledging there that the recommendation (and yes, I am perfectly fine with calling the section
in its entirety a recommendation) in the DMG is not for a particular number of encounters, but for a set of particular combinations of numbers of encounters and difficulty. However, when I replied
Yes, and to reiterate, there is nothing in the DMG to say that one of these should be preferred over the others.
You then said
I'm not certain what you mean here? Are you saying that, notwithstanding that the DMG gives an XP budget designed to pay for roughly 6-8 medium or hard encounters and tells you that a party should be able to handle about that many encounters per "day", it fails to say that range should be preferred? Is it right that you believe it should contain words like "The preferred number of encounters is..." or "We recommend you use..." to have that meaning? For me that is demanding an extraordinarily literal reading of the language, and I'm a hard-core literalist in my rules interpretations. If it doesn't mean to recommend 6-8 medium to hard encounters per adventuring day, it contains a lot of wordings that might trick people into believing it does. Are you open to a possible alternative view here?
At which point I am uncertain both about why you are uncertain of what I meant and about what exactly you think the DMG is saying. With respect to what I mean, I suppose it could be confusing because I have been phrasing it as a negative. I did that because I was contesting the notion that "6-8 medium to hard encounters" is a combination recommended by the DMG
singularly and uniquely above all others. Put positively, I guess I would say this:
The DMG recommends that the encounters for a party during an adventuring day have a total XP value that can be calculated by <details> using the Adventuring Day XP table. As an example, (ignoring the small disconnect that [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] has shown is probably a simple historical mistake) 6-8 medium to hard encounters could meet this criterion. To paraphrase a noted author, 7 medium, 5 hard encounters, 3 deadly or 15 easy encounters would also do it. The only additional wrinkle is that to allow the short rest mechanic to work as intended, the set of encounters needs to be separable into three roughly equal (XP-wise) subsets.
As to what you mean, let me ask about an example. Assume that we have a particular party and a particular set of 7 medium encounters and a particular set of 3 deadly encounters. Assume further that the total XP for the 7 medium, the total XP for the 3 deadly, and the adventuring day XP budget for the party are all roughly equal. Do you think that the DMG intends to say that for an adventuring day for that party the 7 medium encounters is more recommended, more preferred, or better than the 3 deadly?
(A reply that at least begins with either "yes" or "no" would be the most helpful.)
