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

[TwoSix]

Cool... now you just need to round up a few hundred thousand more anecdotes from other distinct groups and the "vast majority" claim you are backing up will start to sound like something more than assuming that majority matches personal opinion and the guys that spent years figuring out the majority opinion screwed up, rather than assuming that the guys that spent years figuring out the majority opinion got it right and any points of disagreement with personal opinion are a result of the completely normal thing of having a minority opinion.

My apologies, but you appear to have confused me with someone who cares more than the two cents I've already thrown in.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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 wouldn't be fair to just run 6-8 encounter days and expect the game to balance perfectly, no. The DM still has to put effort into it, if that's what he wants. But, it's the theoretical point where those efforts will be at their least herculean, FWIW.

It's a guideline -- a rough guideline of dubious utility, in my opinion

Won't argue with that.

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.

Even though there's only a handful of sub-classes that limited, people do play them, it's rare to see an all-primary caster table. Then there's the Warlock, which, in spite of it's casting focus, is short-rest recharge.

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.

That style is evocative of the classic game, though, and it is meant to (and does) work in 5e.

As long as the two short rests a day are met, the short rest classes balance against the long rest classes.

So, 6-8 encounters/day with a short rest after every second encounter or 3-4 tougher encounters/day with a short rest between encounters, is roughly equivalent? Sounds reasonable to me.

Balancing classes around 6-8 encounters/day was a terrible design decision, a mistake I'm surprised they made after such a long playtest. And yes, we're talking about combat encounters specifically, because the other two pillars drain very few in-game resources.

It's only a mistake if there was a better solution that accomplished all the same things. Remember, 5e was trying to capture classic-game feel. Balance wasn't a priority, classes differentiated by different resources mixes was. If you're going to have long-rest recharge and short-rest recharge and mostly-at-will classes skipping about, feeling neatly differentiated, yet balance them, you're going to need to balance them around some point.

I'd argue that 5e doesn't even really try to balance the classes around 6-8 encounters, it just recommends that as the point where the DM might find it easier to impose balance, if he wants to (not every group needs balanced PCs).

Cooperative players

Very helpful, indeed!

So it's pretty much a disaster all around. The vast majority of groups average way fewer than 7 encounters/day, for reasons that are blindingly obvious. I really have no idea why the game is balanced around 7 encounters/day with 2 short rests, rather than (perhaps) 3-4 encounters/day with 1 short rest.

In theory, as Xaviat pointed out, above, it should also theoretically balance with 3-4 harder encounter with a short rest between each of them (2-3 short rests).

Bringing down the number of encounters/day any further would mean needing to reduce spell slots, which would start to lose some of the 'classic feel' that's (IMHO) contributed so much to 5e's success.

 

[JonnyP71]

Reading this thread really makes me wonder why some of you bother...

Does it REALLY matter if a day has 1, 2 or 20 encounters? As long as everyone enjoys themselves. Does it matter if classes are perfectly balanced? Are all your players really that sensitive, demanding their own equal share of the limelight all of the time?

How many players really pick a Warlock character based on how many short rests the DM might let them have? Almost none!

5E is brilliant, because it successfully meshes a lot of the better points of earlier editions to produce a game which is relatively simple and fast to play. It can be enjoyed by grid/miniatures groups and theatre of the mind groups alike! It is the most accessible version of the game for newbies since Red Box D&D in the early 80s!!!

A good DM is one who keeps their players engaged and who creates a story which the players enjoy. A great DM will surprise their party constantly with fantastic ideas, plot twists, and imaginative locations and NPCs. A good DM is flexible and give the players the game THEY want.

A bad DM is one who insists on breaking it down mechanically to the nth degree, or who always prevents a group from resting simply because they've only had 4 or 5 encounters and aren't battered enough yet.

Lighten up and enjoy yourselves!

 

[meshon]

It's one thing to claim that you have to have 6-8 combat encounters in a day for the game to "work". I don't think that anyone is actually suggesting that.

But since that 6-8 day is part of the design, acknowledging that it exists becomes important when you raise a concern about balance, encounters being too easy, that sort of thing.

I mean, based on a quick calculation using a party of four 5th level PCs, 3 encounters with 5 CR2 creatures (4,500 XP, or Deadly) matches up with the adventuring day XP listed on p84 of the DMG.

 

[Kite474]

Reading this thread really makes me wonder why some of you bother...

Does it REALLY matter if a day has 1, 2 or 20 encounters? As long as everyone enjoys themselves. Does it matter if classes are perfectly balanced? Are all your players really that sensitive, demanding their own equal share of the limelight all of the time?

How many players really pick a Warlock character based on how many short rests the DM might let them have? Almost none!

5E is brilliant, because it successfully meshes a lot of the better points of earlier editions to produce a game which is relatively simple and fast to play. It can be enjoyed by grid/miniatures groups and theatre of the mind groups alike! It is the most accessible version of the game for newbies since Red Box D&D in the early 80s!!!

A good DM is one who keeps their players engaged and who creates a story which the players enjoy. A great DM will surprise their party constantly with fantastic ideas, plot twists, and imaginative locations and NPCs. A good DM is flexible and give the players the game THEY want.

A bad DM is one who insists on breaking it down mechanically to the nth degree, or who always prevents a group from resting simply because they've only had 4 or 5 encounters and aren't battered enough yet.

Lighten up and enjoy yourselves!

So basically your saying that game design should not mater what so ever. Your not alone in this opinion and I can respect it. It still confounds me that folks like you never seem to take up freeform. It sounds right up your ally.

 

[Libramarian]

It doesn't actually say in the DMG that most adventures should have 6-8 fights per long rest. It says that a party can typically get through that many medium-hard encounters before they need to rest. If this is accurate, it would be cutting it pretty close to the bone to have most "adventuring days" actually be this long.

I don't create gauntlets like that where the party can't rest until they get through 6-8 fights, but apparently @Flamestrike does and has found that this is a tough challenge for even optimized PCs.

I do think the "gritty realism" rest variant is a must for wilderness adventures. It's unfortunate that the description for this option completely misses the point. It's not about "putting the breaks on the campaign". The point is to not give the PCs automatic rests when game time passes much more quickly than real-world time.

 

[JonnyP71]

So basically your saying that game design should not mater what so ever. Your not alone in this opinion and I can respect it. It still confounds me that folks like you never seem to take up freeform. It sounds right up your ally.

I'm not saying game design doesn't matter, just that it doesn't matter as much as many are saying here. If players are finding it easy then don't worry about calculating xp budgets, just do what my DM did - improvise!!

Our 2nd/3rd level party raid a ship being led by a boastful Drow Pirate and his Goblin crew, and defeat them with barely a scratch inside 2 rounds... "Well, so much for your arrogant claims that you were going to enslave us," said our Paladin, "it almost made us believe you were hiding a Troll on board or something!". At which point the deck splinters and a Troll bursts up from the hold below....

If your group are finding it easy just bring in a few reinforcements, or boost the hitpoints of a few enemies, or make a few of them a bit stronger. You don't have to use the average stats for all the creatures in the MM, the next Ogre might be better armoured, or have a bigger club! And that can be changed on the fly.

Every encounter doesn't all need to be meticulously pre-planned and calculated. Neither me nor any of the other DMs in our group have ever bothered with the concept of an xp budget for an adventuring day. But we play 5E. And we love it. And we enjoy it all the more for not having to think about the predictability of planning for x number of encounters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Does it REALLY matter if a day has 1, 2 or 20 encounters? As long as everyone enjoys themselves. Does it matter if classes are perfectly balanced? Are all your players really that sensitive, demanding their own equal share of the limelight all of the time?

The question really is "does it matter to you, as the DM, if all your players are enjoying themselves or not?" If it matters to you, then, yes, class balance may be something to consider. (Or maybe not, if everyone's playing the same class, for instance, it's a non-issue - and you'll have other issues to deal with). When engineering class balance, the 6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest day being the point at which the designers expect the various class's resource mixes to maybe approximately balance is a helpful thing to know.

A good DM is one who keeps their players engaged and who creates a story which the players enjoy. A great DM will surprise their party constantly with fantastic ideas, plot twists, and imaginative locations and NPCs. A good DM is flexible and give the players the game THEY want.

Yep, and he'll also keep the classes (the ones actually being played) balanced. Not by sticking to the 6-8 encounter day like some sort of rule, but buy adjusting things to take into account how shorter and longer days will impact play, and adjusting accordingly. Many of us do that automatically thanks to experience or even just instinct, but there's nothing wrong with thinking about or discussing it.

Really, the style you're describing, with the DM concentrating on keeping the game fun in the moment, is right up 5e's rulings-over-rules alley.

It's one thing to claim that you have to have 6-8 combat encounters in a day for the game to "work". I don't think that anyone is actually suggesting that.

I wouldn't even claim that the game would work just because you ran 6-8 encounters. It might help, but the DM's job is much bigger than just pacing. Pacing's one of several tools the DM can use to establish a reasonable balance of some sort (spotlight balance still works best for 5e, IMHO) among the PCs, to help facilitate the fun.

 

[JonnyP71]

I guess I just don't subscribe to the balance obsession. I had as much fun playing a 1st level fighter in a 4th/5th level group as I have with my 8th level Necromancer in a group where everyone is lvl 7/8.

 

[Sunseeker]

That style is evocative of the classic game, though, and it is meant to (and does) work in 5e.

I don't get what your point is in telling me this. That I'm playing the game wrong? I never said it doesn't work. I said I DONT LIKE IT and that I feel that it is too much work with too little reward on the DMing end. A lot of things "work" in modern D&D but Gygaxian D&D, what I'm assuming you're referencing as the "classic game", was primarily focused on large dungeon crawls. So are you trying to suggest that 5E only "works" with dungeon crawls?

So again, your comment seems empty of value.