Getting to 6 encounters in a day

[werecorpse]

Matt Colville posted on YouTube that he is working on house rules to help get past the "5 minute adventuring day" and to address what seems to be a fairly common occurrence being that games tend to have only one or two encounters before a long rest. I'd link but I don't know how.

His solution is to build in to his house rules benefits that accumulate only at the 3rd + encounter, a bit like how in 4e at every 2nd encounter characters would get an action point to spend which encouraged them to push on.

I am attracted to some of the reasoning - in that I like the idea of characters being incentivised to push on during the adventuring day - but I also like the idea of the adventuring day being about resource management and fights getting tougher as you go on because you have used up resources (not easier because your saved resources became empowered). I worry that if the players can hoard resources to get past the first few battles the next few will become easy such that the final boss fight of the day ends up easier than the first fight. Also I don't want to just address this last issue by giving the boss extra abilities otherwise it's just combat ability inflation.

I think I like the idea of granting benefits for pushing on but maybe more narrative/generic less gamist? like
- anytime after completing 3 encounters you are able to take a single short rest taking 1 minute;
- due to your rapid progress catching the enemy slightly off guard all rolls in the first round of initiative in the 5th encounter (including initiative) are at advantage

Id be interested in how others incentivise pushing on and what people think of Colville's idea

 

[iserith]

I've been saying for a while on the forums that you can do this by granting the PCs a cumulative XP bonus that increases with every encounter past a certain benchmark. The more they do in an adventuring day, the bigger the bonus gets.

 

[hbarsquared]

My quick, not-very-thought-out response.

Any "solution to build ... rules benefits that accumulate only at the 3rd + encounter" is additional bookkeeping. As simple as it might seem, it won't happen. Human psychology is very poor with juggling longterm vs. immediate gratification.

The real solution may be to admit how people like to play. If players consistently take long rests after 1-w encounters, then perhaps this is the baseline. This is how people play, how people want to play, and this is how the game should be balanced.

6th edition should/will assume only 2 encounters per day, and balance uses/spells/points accordingly.

 

[robus]

[video=youtube_share;lFct8TtOo18]https://youtu.be/lFct8TtOo18[/video]

The clip in question...

 

[werecorpse]

Thanks Robus, my lack of skill in this area shames me but I knew someone would pick up the slack

Iserith I agree that is one solution. Do you use it & do you tell your players it exists?

Silver Defender - the forgetting thing may happen but I understand it worked in 4e & I reckon some players will remember that it's the third encounter so they get to do X cool thing or get Y benefit. As for possible 6e design parameters I have no dispute.

 

[Sunseeker]

It's easy if the following are true:
A: the fights are small.
B: the party does not have control over when they can rest.

The 6-8 fights works well for a dungeon where the enemies are actively seeking to expel the party, or the party is forced to move forward.

It doesn't work well for an open-world explory type game.

But yes, hanging a carrot out in front of them works too.

 

[iserith]

Iserith I agree that is one solution. Do you use it & do you tell your players it exists?

I do it sometimes, when I think it's important that the PCs should do as many combat challenges in an adventuring day as possible. That varies from game to game.

 

[Oofta]

This is one possible solution of many. Personally I don't like encouraging behavior based on meta-game rewards like XP. It leads to weird dissonance of PCs that push on for no in-world reason. Blech.

Instead I just use the alternate rules where a short rest is overnight and a long rest is several days to a week or more. Other options are not allowing long rests in dangerous areas, etc.

 

[iserith]

This is one possible solution of many. Personally I don't like encouraging behavior based on meta-game rewards like XP. It leads to weird dissonance of PCs that push on for no in-world reason.

But if they came up with an "in-world reason," you'd presumably be fine with it?

Or perhaps if one was created as part of the mechanic, such as it being a boon of the God or Goddess of Skill for those who test their limits in the pursuit of excellence?

 

[AmerginLiath]

It's easy if the following are true:
A: the fights are small.
B: the party does not have control over when they can rest.

The 6-8 fights works well for a dungeon where the enemies are actively seeking to expel the party, or the party is forced to move forward.

It doesn't work well for an open-world explory type game.

But yes, hanging a carrot out in front of them works too.

If the party is in a classic dungeon or similar situation, the DM can design the circumstances such that PCs trying to have a Five Minute Workday are going to either be attacked, surrounded, or reinforced against. Tactically, the party will have to face/force a higher number of encounters before camping or else at best end up besieged.

If the party is in the wilderness or the like, there are still random encounters or other cases of encounters coming to the party (if the PCs decide to camp every few miles instead of making a long trek through enemy territory to rest up, what’s to stop large reinforcements from arriving in the area?). Also, even if there aren’t combats going on, the wilderness can have non-combat encounters that drain resources (and conditions that impede proper rest).

If PCs keep trying to rest after just a few encounters, it’s an issue of design more than anything, a design that regularly presents a sense of predictable safety — combat encounters being treated like scheduled sports matches instead of the fog of war. If the circumstances of the adventure and campaign are designed such that simply being awake and keeping moving to clear out space is a better tactical option than holing up, no mechanical changes or benefits are required. Plus it makes for a far more exciting story.