D&D 5E Finally switching my campaign from 4th to 5th Edition.

[Wuzzard]

6-8 encounters per long rest? Does anyone actually do this? In the games I run and participate in it almost never goes more than 4 encounters, and typically is about 2 per long rest, depending on the stage of the adventure.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

6-8 encounters per long rest? Does anyone actually do this? In the games I run and participate in it almost never goes more than 4 encounters, and typically is about 2 per long rest, depending on the stage of the adventure.

Yeah, those numbers always had me scratching my head. The only way I can see it being plausible is if I use the variant rule in the DMG where a short rest is a night and a long rest is a week off. (Which I do want to try sometime.)

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Nova strikes were still possible in 4E (blowing dailies on the first encounter then pulling back to rest) and this is still a thing in 5E. Nova strikes tend to favor the full casters the most (who can dump the highest level spell slot).

I cannot emphasise this point enough. You need to get your encounter pacing and rest pacing right in 5E. Adjusting it one way or the other impacts on different classes differently.

I personally stick to around 6 encounters [[usually budgeted at 1 deadly, 2 medium and 3 hard] per long rest, with usually 2 short rests allowed during that time. I stick to this paradigm for probably 50 percent of the adventuring days the PC's encounter (sometimes there are less encounters, sometimes more). By sticking to this paradigm for around 50 percent of the time, the Players naturally pace themselves around this expectation, and police themselves accordingly.

While I haven't run 5e yet, I'm really interested in this. How do you actually design an adventuring day, say in a dungeon? If the party decides on it's own way through the dungeon, tell me how can you Limit or allow short rests?How do you design a dungeon so that the wanted selection of encounters takes place?

Limiting long Rests by constantly harrassig the characters sort of works (so it gets tedious) but controlling short Rests?

Really curious...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

While I haven't run 5e yet, I'm really interested in this. How do you actually design an adventuring day, say in a dungeon? If the party decides on it's own way through the dungeon, tell me how can you Limit or allow short rests?How do you design a dungeon so that the wanted selection of encounters takes place?

There's a reason why it takes an entire hour to complete a short rest. If there's anything alive in the dungeon, then there's a non-negligible chance that it will come across the party if they spend an entire hour in a single spot.

At least, that's the idea.

 

[CapnZapp]

99 percent of the problems with 5E that I see comes down to many DM's dont get the rest 'meta' and/or dont police it strongly enough in their games.

99% of those advocating the 6-8 guidelines fail to mention just how little mechanical support the game offers the DM to help her actually make this happen.

99% of those ignoring how problematic this guideline is in actual play gloss over how insultingly boring the resulting encounters become.

99% of those putting the blame on individual DMs fail to consider that it might be a systemic failure instead.

(More than one person can play this invent your own statistics game.)

 

[CapnZapp]

Just use more encounters, not harder ones.

Talk is cheap.

In a game where the players, not the DM and not the scenario, gets to decide when to rest and when to press on, this "advice" is only scratching the surface.

 

[CapnZapp]

2. Second question, for other 4E players who have switched over: Which rôles do the new classes approximate? (I notice for example that the PHB ranger is not nearly the Striker of 4E, but perhaps no class is?)

There are no "strikers" in the sense "does the damage while the tank tanks"

In 5E as in classic rpgs, the Fighter (Barbarian, Paladin) is the best BOTH at martial offense and defense.

Monks and Rogues are special-purpose. They offer highly distinctive special abilities, but they pay dearly for them in reduced staying power. They do not offer better damage output than the sturdy fighters.

So unless you value "mixing it up" and/or other "pillars" than the combat pillar, stick with "fightery" fighters.

The concept of the four combat roles striker, tank, leader, controller, assumes a heavy focus on combat. To really understand the 5e classes, you must acknowledge that combat utility simply was not as highly valued back when.

 

[CapnZapp]

6-8 encounters per long rest? Does anyone actually do this? In the games I run and participate in it almost never goes more than 4 encounters, and typically is about 2 per long rest, depending on the stage of the adventure.

This.

 

[Rhenny]

The thing is, each adventuring day is different. On some days, 1 or 2 encounters may be what's called for. On other days 6-8. That's why story needs to drive the game not encounters. That's the big difference between 5e and 4e. 5e was designed around a day. 4e was designed around the encounter.

In my experience, as long as the players are having fun because they are playing their characters and advancing a story (either through the adventure path or one of their own creation), nobody complains about whether encounters are too easy or too hard.

The goal of the game is not to always push the PCs to their limits. The goal is to give them (and the players) interesting situations and stories that let them make interesting decisions within the campaign/adventure.

Also, with bounded accuracy, it is less important that a DM design each challenge with balance in mind. In 4e, it seemed as if all encounters had to be balanced for the PCs. 5e lets the DM mix it up more. Even 1st or 2nd level PCs can encounter creatures that are much higher CR as long as they outnumber the creatures by 2:1 or more. Likewise, using large numbers of smaller CR creatures against higher level parties also can challenge the party (especially if the PCs can't cause enough area of effect damage each round). This really frees up the DM and makes it easier to tell stories and add monsters to support the story, rather than add appropriate monsters and tell the story that accounts for that.

The effects of Bounded Accuracy need to be experienced/learned to really get the most out of 5e, and to become comfortable with it after running 4e especially.

 

[Tanarii]

6-8 encounters per long rest? Does anyone actually do this? In the games I run and participate in it almost never goes more than 4 encounters, and typically is about 2 per long rest, depending on the stage of the adventure.

No. Because 6-8 encounter per rest is a DMG typo. I've read elsewhere it came about because it's based on values from the Play test, and it wasn't fixed when the table was adjusted. If you go by the tables in the DMG, the actual number of encounters for an even mix of Medium & Hard encounters works out to something like 5-6.

Personally I just assume 6 per Long Rest, with two between each Short Rest. If they're Easy, three between Short Rests. If it's Deadly, only one before a Short Rest. Makes things simple. That works out to about the same as the DMG tables without as much number crunching.

So any time you see someone quote 6-8, that means they're quoting the incorrect text, instead of the correct numbers based on the table.