D&D 5E 6-8 encounters/day - how common is this?

[meshon]

I kind of like the idea of switching between a short rest being an hour and a short rest being overnight, depending on the situation. One for a dungeon crawl, the other for a wilderness trek, like the long chase after the first chapter of Out of the Abyss.

Sorry, I totally veered away from the topic, although switching between modes might give you a way to make the 6-8 day happen more often.

 

[Blue]

I go for 3 to 4 very hard encounters per day (twice the XP of standard encounters). They take longer, require more resources, but as long as they still get 2 short rests per 1 long rest, things work out.

Standard difficulty combat encounters are simply too easy for my group.

I would expect that double size but half the number of combats is too easy for many groups. The daily resource classes will do better with condensed combats. Their AoE can hit more, one casting of a buff can last for multiple encounter budgets worth of foes, etc.

 

[AtomicPope]

Do you time limit you quests? Surely: 'the BBEG has to be stopped before [time X] or else [bad thing Y] happens' isnt unusual.
(because stuff...)
A seven level 'mega-dungeon' that teleports around the multiverse every week to a different location, and has never had its final level defeated would be a pretty awesome idea for an adventure hook in fact.

You described the D&D plot for the Scifi/Fantasy movie "Krull".

 

[Greg Benage]

This topic has come up a lot and I don't have a new opinion to share, except this: The notion that 5e is so precisely balanced that it will "break" without 6-8 encounters per day -- regardless of factors such as campaign style, player skill, party composition and enemy capabilities relative to party strengths and weaknesses -- is pretty funny. It's a guideline -- a rough guideline of dubious utility, in my opinion -- and both the DM and players will still have to make judgments about how much fighting they can handle in a given day. Same as it ever was. The factors unique to each table that the encounter-building guidelines necessarily ignore will outweigh whatever abstract "balance" there is between the classes.

Play the game. If it's not flowing the way you want it to, given specific characters doing specific things at your specific table, make adjustments and keep playing. If it is flowing the way you want it to, you're doing it right regardless of how many encounters you average per long rest.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would expect that double size but half the number of combats is too easy for many groups. The daily resource classes will do better with condensed combats. Their AoE can hit more, one casting of a buff can last for multiple encounter budgets worth of foes, etc.

The increased XP budgets allow for larger foes, as well as more of them. Also you're assuming that the players took AOE.

Yes, a reduced number of encounters increases the effectiveness of long-rest classes. But that's assuming these are combat specialized PCs who have little capability for doing anything outside of combat. Long-rest classes can't trade out their spells on a short rest and they have a cap on their total spells known, there are plenty of things that do not require the complexity or investment of combat that you can throw at players to take advantage of this. If you do, the end result is that PCs become less specialized and more utility which overall reduces their spotlight-stealing during combat.

Drop a couple magic items and say "okay, now who's got Identify?"

I probably run 6-8 "encounters" per session. That can cover days, weeks or even more of game time. Probably 2-4 of those are combat encounters. The parties in my game have a lot of control over how they approach encounters and I'm not a huge fan of dungeon crawling. The rest consist of various world hazards, traps, threats and other things which are quick to resolve and rarely threaten the party, but present challenges outside the combat pillar. They may require party resources, but it will typically NOT drain HP or class features. My combat encounters tend to be large one-shots such as a single powerful monster and several lesser monsters aiding it in addition to terrain and other dangers; or larger "running" encounters think: LOTR the escape from Moria where the party doesn't have a chance to rest and everyone is reasonably ran ragged by the end of the fight.

I don't think I could reasonable run 6-8 combat encounters per session. I just don't think I have the energy to throw a half-dozen fights against readily defeatable foes for no purpose other than to drain their resources. If I want to drain their resources over time, I just limit the types of rest they can get. Getting a "breather" may be the best thing you can get today. You may even have to fight with a point of exhaustion tomorrow.

 

[Flamestrike]

I actually have the all data for my current campaign.

Session 01 - 1 combat encounter
Session 02 - 3 combat encounters + long rest + 5 combat encounters
Session 03 - 4 combat encounters
Session 04 - 3 combat encounters
Session 05 - 4 combat encounters + long rest + 1 combat encounter
Session 06 - 3 combat encounters
Session 07 - 4 combat encounters
Session 08 - 1 combat encounter + long rest + 2 combat encounters
Session 09 - hex crawl, no more than 2 combat encounters back to back
Session 10 - 5 combat encounters
Session 11 - 1 combat encounter + long rest + 1 combat encounter
Session 12 - 2 combat encounters
Session 13 - 1 combat encounter (escort mission!)
Session 14 - 2 combat encounters
Session 15 - 2 combat encounters
Session 16 - no combat encounters
Session 17 - 5 combat encounters
Session 18 - 1 combat encounter
Session 18 - 4 combat encounters

You've only had 4 long rests over 18 sessions and over 50 combat encounters?

Or are you mapping long rests to = end of play session?

Because this seems to be much more common than I thought.

 

[Flamestrike]

if you dont use 6-8, wont the daily classes be too strong? Eg: too much paladin smite and wizard fireballs going on?

Yes.

Long rest resource dependent classes will have an easier time of it on shorter adventuring days (as they always have done). In response many DMs (unwisely) then ramp up the difficulty (instead of using more encounters). This just throws the balance even further out of whack, encourages nova tactics and punishes the players of short rest classes (the fighter, monk and warlock) even further.

Nothing wrong with the occasional single encounter AD of course. But dont be scared to toss in the rare meat grinder as well. Give the party 7 hours to find the exit to the dungeon or (bad thing happens) with like 12 encounters to overcome before they escape. Let the party short rest as often as they want within this meta (they could get up to six short rests in this time). Such longer ADs will favor the 'at will' classes (Champion, Rogues) and the short rest classes (Warlock, Fighter, Monk) over the full casters, barbarians and paladins (who have to stretch spell slots, rages and smites over 12 encounters and 7 hours).

In short, mix it up. Have your default aim for the 6-8/ 2 short rest mark, but throw in enough longer and shorter days (or less or fewer short or long rests) to keep the PCs guessing (and give different classes the opportunity to shine).

And dont link long rests to 'end of session'. At the end of the session make your players record HP, HD, spell slots and resources remaining - take a note yourself on a cheat sheet if needed. They have character sheets for a reason.

 

[Flamestrike]

Re this long rest at the end of the session thing (which seems to be quite common).

At the end of a session, I ask my players for totals of current HP, HD remaining, spell slots/ rages/ sup dice/ action surge etc remaining and write it down on my notes. Then during the weeks planning I'll have a good idea where the players are at, and how to pace the next session. Once the players get used to the DM asking at the end of the session, they become a lot better at tracking these things.

At the start of the next session I recap where we left off and I again ask the players the same question (and compare to my notes). This serves as a refresher to everyone at the table the state of play and the level of resource depletion at the table before the session starts. It also brings everyones minds back to the plot and the state of play of the game. They should be able to rattle off the same details with the same level of precision.

As the DM we have enough going on during the week statting up encounters, planning stuff and mapping stuff out. Its a player responsibility to track resource depletion, and its really not that hard to do.

For those that like to link long rests to end of session, and only have 1-3 encounters per session, I would have thought a short rest 'ping' at the end of every session (with a long rest 'ping' at the end of every third session) would be the way to go.

 

[The_Furious_Puffin]

Not DMing 5E currently, but I'd note there is a natural desire to have a long rest at the end of a session because as the GM you want to have some sort of climax and aftermath at the end of the session to make sure people end on a high note and help player engagement. Like, you'll do the opening conflict to draw people in, chance for PCs to do their thing(s), some setbacks, progress and some sort of climax for the episode, and the aftermath which sets up next sessions opening conflict.

Doing what you're suggesting breaks up the pacing by preventing a realized climax and aftermath for the session if you play shorter sessions where you cannot get through sufficient encounters. The DM I'm currently playing with doesn't explictly staple end of session = long rest but it often happens because he generally tries to end the session on a narrative break (which results in slightly elastic session end times).

Then again, that game is also not even close to 20-30 minutes a combat (to quote the GM when I mentioned that 'AHAHAHAHAHA, wait.. really?')

 

[Mouseferatu]

A lot of this depends on the style of the campaign. I often have many (in-game) days pass between sessions. I rarely use "adventure areas" like dungeons. I prefer one or two large fights over 6-8 because that's what fits the circumstances and the ongoing story. Six combat encounters in a day? That would feel forced and artificial for a campaign that's structured (in some respects) like an epic fantasy and makes use almost exclusively of plot-related combats.