D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Imaro]

Calendar day is the default, you're done worldbuilding if you change it.

But, thanks, for making my point: the party cannot have encounters there with kobolds because it doesn't meet the pacing paradigm anymore. So the encounters there (or lack of) no longer reflect the world (there are kobolds in that there copse!) they reflect your pacing paradigm. The world is left without explanation as to why you can no longer find kobolds in the copse.

Unless, of course, you come up with some new fiction to explain it, in which case....

So you are claiming adventurers have an adventuring day... every single day they are alive. Now we really are stepping into the ridiculous to prove a point. Guess we don't need those downtime rules.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Calendar day is the default, you're done worldbuilding if you change it.

But, thanks, for making my point: the party cannot have encounters there with kobolds because it doesn't meet the pacing paradigm anymore. So the encounters there (or lack of) no longer reflect the world (there are kobolds in that there copse!) they reflect your pacing paradigm. The world is left without explanation as to why you can no longer find kobolds in the copse.

Unless, of course, you come up with some new fiction to explain it, in which case....

Why must the kobolds be gone? Could they just avoid the now far more powerful PCs? Or can yousimply narrate the trip through the forest "along the way, you are pestered by kobolds, but you easily repel their attacks, and they flee before your might. You don't need to waste any resources along the way." Kobolds are still there in the forest, you just don't bother wasting time at the table having high level PCs fight kobolds. Not unless you have some compelling reason to do so.

Again, this goes back to the option you are choosing. It's a choice.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think you're overstating how different a deadly encounter must be from a normal one. You're assuming some massive shift in power level of the enemies....world shaking creatures as opposed to wild animals. That is extreme and need not be the case.

Thanks to BA, you can just add more of the same to a common-creature encounter and make it threatening (what? the wizard can fireball them? not if they're closing in on all sides... besides, that's resource pressure, too).

What we are talking about was taking one dogmatic approach and altering it to another dogmatic approach. 6 to 8 normal to 3 deadly. In that case, there are ways to achieve the change that don't require a change in the world. Can you agree with that?

Actually I see two problems with that. One is that if the 6-8 encounter guideline wasn't flexible enough, a 3-deadlies probably isn't either. The other is that potentially-whole-combat resources like rage, concentration spells, and the like, will be overvalued in the 3-deadly dogma.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Don't you feel like the leap from a normal encounter to a deadly can take less than a 14 level swing? Aren't you providing an extreme example where another far more reasonable example coudl easily suit?

If it breaks at the extremes, is it rational then to hunt for the point at which it doesn't break and then try to claim it works? If, in order to apply the pacing paradigm, you have to come up with other limitations on both the world and the encounters therein, aren't we then agreeing with my claim?

In other words, I fail to see how finding a milder example that might work explains away where it doesn't.

And didn't [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] already address this problem when he said:


These are two ways around there being an impact.

A) The Forest is no longer considered dangerous to PCs once they reach a certain level.
B) If you do want to have a difficult encounter in the forest, you don't need to leap from wyrmlings to ancient greater wyrms....you can simply increase the numbers so it's swarm of low CR creatures, or you can raise the CR slightly and the numbers slightly to achieve the needed math. Neither of which makes the creatures in the forest now capable of threatening kingdoms rather than villages.

A) is a fact of the world, not encounter building, though. If you declare the forest to no longer be dangerous and therefore out of bounds for adventuring, that's building your world to suit.
B) right, which is just moving the pea. Small groups when your low level, huge groups when your higher, why don't they swarm so badly at low level and what's causing them to only travel in huge packs at higher level? Those are questions about the world, and not about the encounter. Answering them requires worldbuilding.

And, further, if you follow the guidance, you should stop counting creatures with CRs well below the player's level in the encounter building math, so, at a certain point, you do outpace many low tier threats as simply not dangerous to you anymore. With a fixed encounter paradigm, this excludes them from being encounters without something actually dangerous on it's own to the players. So, yeah, 400 kobolds might not be a threat to a kingdom, but, according to the guidelines, they're not a threat to a 15th level party, either.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Why must the kobolds be gone? Could they just avoid the now far more powerful PCs? Or can yousimply narrate the trip through the forest "along the way, you are pestered by kobolds, but you easily repel their attacks, and they flee before your might. You don't need to waste any resources along the way." Kobolds are still there in the forest, you just don't bother wasting time at the table having high level PCs fight kobolds. Not unless you have some compelling reason to do so.

Again, this goes back to the option you are choosing. It's a choice.

How do the kobolds manage to avoid the powerful heroes, every time, without fail? The narration is nice, but, again, you've still built that area to not be a threat to the PCs anymore -- you've made a conscious design choice to make that area 'safe' at a certain point, and that point is where you can no longer justify threats because of your pacing paradigm. If you create areas that are outleveled as the party increases in power, that's part of your design decision. This is pretty normal and happens in lots of games. My point is that if you go with 3 deadlies a day exclusively, the calculus on where areas become outleveled changes and you will need to adapt to that in your design. It becomes more rigid with the dogmatic application that it does if you just follow the general guidelines, which are variable around 6-8 medium and hard encounters as an average. There's a distinct restriction to 3 deadlies a day, as there is a different, but not less distinct restriction to 18 easies a day.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So you are claiming adventurers have an adventuring day... every single day they are alive. Now we really are stepping into the ridiculous to prove a point. Guess we don't need those downtime rules.

Um, no, and you can't find a quote of mine anywhere that says that. I've already called you out on this particular strawman before, why are you bringing it back?

 

[Imaro]

If it breaks at the extremes, is it rational then to hunt for the point at which it doesn't break and then try to claim it works? If, in order to apply the pacing paradigm, you have to come up with other limitations on both the world and the encounters therein, aren't we then agreeing with my claim?

Dude all you've doens is steadily add limitations to create a narrow band where you can try and prove that encounters affect worldbuilding. Maybe you should reverse the question above and ask yourself that about the steadily narrowing examples you've had to put forth to try and prove your point.

 

[Imaro]

Um, no, and you can't find a quote of mine anywhere that says that. I've already called you out on this particular strawman before, why are you bringing it back?

So answer this... if adventuring day =/= calendar day... and the adventurers are in the world every calendar day... how can the pacing of an adventuring day be the pacing of the world? Simple answer... it can't be.

EDIT: And for bonus points what is an "adventuring day" as it applies to worldbuiding? If you're letting the encounters impact worldbuilding and those encounters, as well as their pacing, are based on the adventuring day... well aren't you basically claiming the world is built around the adventuring day... which, unless you believe every day is an adventuring day, doesn't seem to be the intent...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Thanks to BA, you can just add more of the same to a common-creature encounter and make it threatening (what? the wizard can fireball them? not if they're closing in on all sides... besides, that's resource pressure, too).

Actually I see two problems with that. One is that if the 6-8 encounter guideline wasn't flexible enough, a 3-deadlies probably isn't either. The other is that potentially-whole-combat resources like rage, concentration spells, and the like, will be overvalued in the 3-deadly dogma.

Sure, I agree about the limitation. I'm not advocating going with any set number of encounters, regardless of difficulty level. I just don't think that such a change REQUIRES an impact on world-building. I would also argue that PC resources need not be so drastically affected that they need to be overhauled (but that may be one to many branches to this tree...or perhaps, one too many limbs for the elephant, to keep the metaphor relevant).

If it breaks at the extremes, is it rational then to hunt for the point at which it doesn't break and then try to claim it works? If, in order to apply the pacing paradigm, you have to come up with other limitations on both the world and the encounters therein, aren't we then agreeing with my claim?

In other words, I fail to see how finding a milder example that might work explains away where it doesn't.

If you don't like it breaking at the extremes, then yes, it is rational to find a point that is in synch with your desires. This does not require other limitations on the world, so no, I don't think we are agreeing with your claim.

Again, it is possible, but not a certainty.

A) is a fact of the world, not encounter building, though. If you declare the forest to no longer be dangerous and therefore out of bounds for adventuring, that's building your world to suit.

No, it's not. Because the dangerousness of the forest is a product of PC level. It is less dangerous to the PCs as they level. So unless you consider PCs leveling to be a part of world-building, I would say this is not building the world to suit. The world is unchanged....the PCs have changed.

B) right, which is just moving the pea. Small groups when your low level, huge groups when your higher, why don't they swarm so badly at low level and what's causing them to only travel in huge packs at higher level? Those are questions about the world, and not about the encounter. Answering them requires worldbuilding.

No it does not REQUIRE world-building. Because the number of creatures that attack can simply be coincidence. When the PCs first went to the forest at a low level, they encountered a few creatures. When they travelled later, they encountered many. This need not require any explanation beyond "bad luck" on their part. Yes, we all know that this is happening because it's a game and you want the encouner to be fun, but this mechanical need does not REQUIRE any world-building changes.

And, further, if you follow the guidance, you should stop counting creatures with CRs well below the player's level in the encounter building math, so, at a certain point, you do outpace many low tier threats as simply not dangerous to you anymore. With a fixed encounter paradigm, this excludes them from being encounters without something actually dangerous on it's own to the players. So, yeah, 400 kobolds might not be a threat to a kingdom, but, according to the guidelines, they're not a threat to a 15th level party, either.

Sure. Hence option A of having the PCs no longer be threatened by the kobolds (or wyrmlings or grumkikns or whatever). This is a product of the PCs going up in level, and is about them changing, not about the kobolds. The kobolds don't vanish because the PCs level up. They're still in the forest, and can threaten other world inhabitants if you like....you just don't bother with combat encounters with the PCs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

How do the kobolds manage to avoid the powerful heroes, every time, without fail? The narration is nice, but, again, you've still built that area to not be a threat to the PCs anymore -- you've made a conscious design choice to make that area 'safe' at a certain point, and that point is where you can no longer justify threats because of your pacing paradigm. If you create areas that are outleveled as the party increases in power, that's part of your design decision. This is pretty normal and happens in lots of games. My point is that if you go with 3 deadlies a day exclusively, the calculus on where areas become outleveled changes and you will need to adapt to that in your design. It becomes more rigid with the dogmatic application that it does if you just follow the general guidelines, which are variable around 6-8 medium and hard encounters as an average. There's a distinct restriction to 3 deadlies a day, as there is a different, but not less distinct restriction to 18 easies a day.

Who says they avoid the PCs? There are so many elements we don't know of that may factor into this. Are the PCs being sent to deal with the kobolds once and for all? Then you can narrate that the PCs slaughter every last one in the forest. Yes, this may impact your world-building....but it's a choice. You can just as easily narrate that the kobolds flee and hide, or that they attack but lose, or that they drop to their knees and worship the PCs or whatever.

More likely, the PCs are just traveling through the forest and are harried by kobolds, but repel all attacks. They don't chase the fleeing kobolds because they have more important 10th level stuff to deal with than chasing kobolds. So after their time in the forest, narrated quickly by the DM, the PCs go about their business and then the kobolds come out of their hiding place, and go back to attacking farmers rather than powerful PCs. World-building unaffected.

As for areas becoming outleveled...I don't really see how it's relevant. This is going to happen at some point. It's not the mechanics impacting your world-building so much as it's simply a by-product of the PCs leveling up. This has nothing to do with a shift in encounters.