Who Actually Has Time for Bloated Adventures?

[UngainlyTitan]

It's hard to kill them, but not all that hard to bore them to death.

Though the closest I have some to accidently killing a high level party was with a single lich in a globe of invulnerability. It never occurred to the mages in the party to dispel the globe.
I nearly had them all but the fighter made it to the globe with about 10 hp left and action surge.

These are actually really good points. There's some guidance for some of it, but that guidance doesn't actually work very well (if at all). A DM can relatively easily come up with solutions, but they have to do it themselves. Which tends to have results only slightly better than the guidance would give.

These solutions work fine, but I think @Retreater's post has some very good points: That you need to do all that yourself is problematic. I'm not sure that I entirely noticed it before. I have DM'd so long that I do a lot of this stuff unconsciously, and therefore don't notice how much I do myself without the game's support. Clearly, you do it too. We're not the only ones.

I agree that @Retreater has excellent points. I am not sure that they can be solved within the framework of current 5e or the likely revisions. More discussion on the effect of action economy on encounter length and deadliness is in order. Perhaps a detailed article on D&DBeyond with the actual math.

I also think that the adventures should come with a discussion about adjusting the encounter difficulty depending on party size and level.
At least for the boss fights.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I agree that @Retreater has excellent points. I am not sure that they can be solved within the framework of current 5e or the likely revisions.

I think it could; I'm not sure it will.

More discussion on the effect of action economy on encounter length and deadliness is in order. Perhaps a detailed article on D&DBeyond with the actual math.

They should definitely seek community input on the other side of the screen. They've done PC-playtests before. I don't think they've ever really done a proper public DM's playtest.

I also think that the adventures should come with a discussion about adjusting the encounter difficulty depending on party size and level. At least for the boss fights.

That's the part that I think ought to be done that probably won't: Clarity of purpose. A little side-bar or something that goes "behind the curtain" to tell DMs what the intent of an encounter is, and some ways to adjust it on a case-by-case basis might be helpful.

 

[ART!]

So I'm running a PF2e Adventure Path - but this rant holds true even outside the specific system and adventure.
The current chapter of the book has 51 adventure sites. My group investigated 3 this week. At that rate, we're looking at 17 sessions of play to complete one chapter (1/9th) of the Adventure Path. Expanded, that's 153 sessions (or 38 months - just over 3 years) to complete a 1-10th level adventure.
Most of the locations have no bearing on the greater story of the campaign, but it's so hard to parse what is important because there's close to 300 pages and nothing to guide the GM about which of the 8 factions in this chapter alone are worth focusing upon and which have a consistent thread throughout the rest of the Adventure Path.
My wife suggests cutting some of the encounters - but how do I know which ones? Should I just dump all the loot they'd have missed onto their character sheets? How do I know if I'm cutting some vital relationship for the climactic encounter set to take place 3 years from now?
How do you successfully run something like this? Trying to stick to one of these heavily scripted adventures is more stress-inducing than an enjoyable hobby experience.

I feel your pain - deeply! I just finished running Tomb of Annihilation, and ran Tyranny of Dragons a few years back, and I am done running that kind of thing. There's so little guidance about how to adjust things, so few questions answered...I could go on about this, but who needs that rant.

I can recommend Arcane Library's adventures as an antidote.

 

[Retreater]

First off, I am genuinely curious and trying to be helpful but if I am bothering you please tell me and I will stop.
Secondly you kind of remind me of where I was regarding encounters during 3.5

No worries. I appreciate all the advice here. I clearly still have a lot to learn.

Well, first off how challenging do you think it ought to be? I do not run 8 encounters per day either. The players always regard an encounter as deadlier than it is, in my experience. By challenging, I do not mean the DMG categories, I mean in plain language what is average, what is the top end of challenging.
On my part, some encounters are easy to make the party feel powerful and some are hard to make them feel they have earned their win.

I can provide only a vague answer: I want the players (and their characters) to have the opportunity to make interesting decisions. Whether it's in a social encounter, exploration in a dungeon, or a combat, I want their actions (and the resolution of them) to be impactful.
Does the cleric heal the warlock who has taken substantial damage or use her action to embolden the barbarian's might to further threaten the umber hulk?
Does the rogue betray her position to the troglodyte warcaster with a surprise attack and disrupt the spell, or does she stay in the shadows hoping for a better opportunity?
Does the monk leap over the chasm to stop the sacrifice of the baron's son, knowing that he'll be the target of the ogre bodyguard's push into the chasm?
Does the sorcerer drop his last fireball centered on himself in desperation, surrounded by duergar reavers, in the hopes he can take enough of them down with him?
These moments simply don't come up often enough in my 5e combat situations. As designed, the monsters don't tax the party's resources enough that characters have to give up opportunities or make meaningful decisions.

I generally ignore magic items, I mostly pay attention to action economy and damage output.

The last time I did that, it was to the detriment of the game. (Read my previous posts regarding the Wand of Reverse Gravity.)

What is the average damage per round from the party, multiply by the number of rounds you want the monster to last and give it that many hit points and adjust the action economy to make it a challenge to the party. The actions of the bad guys has to match or even over match the party in the early rounds and be somewhere near while they are up.
A dragon has 3 attacks and 3 legendary actions against a party or 4 with may be 5 actions per round at low water to high as 8 not including bonus actions (depending on composition). So a party of 8 will have at a minimum have 8 actions, probably average at 12 or so. That dragon will be near dead in a round and they will probably burn out its legendary resistances in a round also.
This is my suggestion, though to be honest I mostly eyeball it.

The most successful 5e combat system I had was completely abandoning the encounter system and monster design. I averaged the stats of every character (HP, damage bonus, average damage, AC, etc.) and completely retooled every monster they encountered. Did I want a monster to drop a character in 3 hits? Then its damage was 1/3 the average character HP.
But the issue is, we were playing a professionally produced adventure that I bought. The party composition was standard, and no one had a character with ridiculous stats or magic items. I shouldn't have to do that level of customization. The system should basically work out of the box.

They did, it was called fourth edition and we remember what happened.

Yeah. I did tinker with 4E as well. (Mostly with the pretty common houserule of lowering monster HP and increasing damage - just to speed up combats.) Even by mid-levels (paragon tier?), it wasn't unusual to have 2+ hour combats. There was movement, buffs, and a handful of tactical options that could be checked off on your Character Builder sheets (Daily, Encounter, etc.), but there was a boring sameness to most combats.

I think one of my biggest gripes is that D&D has too many combat encounters for many of them to feel worth doing. And the ones we have also take too long. I want high stakes, excitement. I want combats that come down to the climactic 2-3 rounds that actually matter.

 

[payn]

I think one of my biggest gripes is that D&D has too many combat encounters for many of them to feel worth doing. And the ones we have also take too long. I want high stakes, excitement. I want combats that come down to the climactic 2-3 rounds that actually matter.

How do you feel PF2 does here?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Quitter.

If DMs don't become liches so they can keep playing for centuries to come, what has all of that time DMing been for? "Forever DM," my foot!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Same. I have always been envious of homebrewers and their ability to get their players to give a sh@#.

It helps a whole lot when you're rarely needing to find new players because you're mostly playing with people you've known for decades (which might, of course, mean they have no damn interest in a specific homebrewed game, but means I've long since ended up spinning off people who, say, are only interested in by-the-book Game X. There are specific systems or genres I can't get people on board nohow, but I expect that still makes what I can run immensely broader than what you or Retreater can get).

 

[payn]

It helps a whole lot when you're rarely needing to find new players because you're mostly playing with people you've known for decades (which might, of course, mean they have no damn interest in a specific homebrewed game, but means I've long since ended up spinning off people who, say, are only interested in by-the-book Game X. There are specific systems or genres I can't get people on board nohow, but I expect that still makes what I can run immensely broader than what you or Retreater can get).

I think part of it is being able to sell the players on an adventure. An AP has a preview and certain expectations involved. The players have access to materials they can look up on their own time and are not entirely beholden to the GM. Also, folks love to be able to relate gaming experiences so the shared aspect is an enticing one.

However, in the prevalence of social media I think discord/forums can be a game changer. Here I can post all sorts of game materials, answer questions daily, etc.. Its no longer wait until game day or exchange emails like in the past. As much as I prefer face to face gaming, online also gives you access to an enormous pool of players.

So maybe there is hope for homebrewing, but I still love me some APs.

 

[Retreater]

How do you feel PF2 does here?

Because of the adventure design Paizo uses (I think stuck in the 3.x/PF1 mindset), there are still too many encounters. PF2 is based around the encounter as a unit of difficulty balance; however, Paizo still thinks of their adventures as an "adventuring day/attrition model." This is perhaps also a result of "we have to cram X# of encounters in this book to get enough XP to level up."
Honestly, I could get by with a lot less detail and fewer encounters. I would rather have a handful of great, memorable encounters than a bunch of middling ones.
Within the unit of a single encounter, things can turn quickly. Creatures (especially with critical hits) can do a scary amount of damage and really threaten a character. The encounter building mostly works - even if they don't always follow their own advice in their APs. (Having too many Severe Encounters in Abomination Vaults, for example.) But when something says "Severe" - they mean it.
I don't think the PF2 encounters overstay their welcome to the extent that 4e or 5e encounters do.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Ok, I begin to understand. I will offer the advice that has worked for me but to quote Tolkien "Advice is dangerous, even from the wise to the wise"
You have different and to be honest more exacting standards than I. For me the combat encounter minimum is that the fight last long enough that the monsters get to do their cool thing(s). If I manage that, I find that the players will have the opportunities to shine.

No worries. I appreciate all the advice here. I clearly still have a lot to learn.

I can provide only a vague answer: I want the players (and their characters) to have the opportunity to make interesting decisions. Whether it's in a social encounter, exploration in a dungeon, or a combat, I want their actions (and the resolution of them) to be impactful.
Does the cleric heal the warlock who has taken substantial damage or use her action to embolden the barbarian's might to further threaten the umber hulk?
Does the rogue betray her position to the troglodyte warcaster with a surprise attack and disrupt the spell, or does she stay in the shadows hoping for a better opportunity?
Does the monk leap over the chasm to stop the sacrifice of the baron's son, knowing that he'll be the target of the ogre bodyguard's push into the chasm?
Does the sorcerer drop his last fireball centered on himself in desperation, surrounded by duergar reavers, in the hopes he can take enough of them down with him?
These moments simply don't come up often enough in my 5e combat situations. As designed, the monsters don't tax the party's resources enough that characters have to give up opportunities or make meaningful decisions.

Since you mostly use professionally produced adventures and I do not have your party, here is what I think:
I think that most encounters (WoTC ones especially) are for a party of 4 that are not particularly optimised in any way. I DM for a party of 4 PCs and after level 4 or so in WoTC encounters I would routinely trigger the nearby encounters to come to the fight. "March to the sound of the guns".
The party can generally handle it with out too much difficulty and the fight is more interesting because the first lot start to retreat toward their nearest allies and they are coming to them so the terrain is changing. If the fight is trivial narrate it and may be inflict some damage like it was a trap.
If you want an interesting boss fight then you have to account for the actions the party has in a round and the parties expected damage per round. You may also have to take into account control effect you party may have. The bad guys have to have enough resilience and numbers to survive to act in order to be a threat.
I find that the CR system is useless but the XP by PC is useful. The Easy, Medium, Hard and Deadly labels are kind of useless but if you find that you party are making deadly encounters hard or even medium then you may have to double or more than double those threasholds but you they give target numbers that can be very useful guidelines.

The last time I did that, it was to the detriment of the game. (Read my previous posts regarding the Wand of Reverse Gravity.)

Do not give away battlefield control without adjusting for it.

The most successful 5e combat system I had was completely abandoning the encounter system and monster design. I averaged the stats of every character (HP, damage bonus, average damage, AC, etc.) and completely retooled every monster they encountered. Did I want a monster to drop a character in 3 hits? Then its damage was 1/3 the average character HP.

Then use that method to recalibrate your XP thresholds for encounter difficulty. Once you have done it a few times and see what the XP values are totalling out at, I think you will have strong gauge for a fight.

But the issue is, we were playing a professionally produced adventure that I bought. The party composition was standard, and no one had a character with ridiculous stats or magic items. I shouldn't have to do that level of customization. The system should basically work out of the box.

You are right but what can you do?

Yeah. I did tinker with 4E as well. (Mostly with the pretty common houserule of lowering monster HP and increasing damage - just to speed up combats.) Even by mid-levels (paragon tier?), it wasn't unusual to have 2+ hour combats. There was movement, buffs, and a handful of tactical options that could be checked off on your Character Builder sheets (Daily, Encounter, etc.), but there was a boring sameness to most combats.

I really liked 4e but ,yes combat took too long.

I think one of my biggest gripes is that D&D has too many combat encounters for many of them to feel worth doing. And the ones we have also take too long. I want high stakes, excitement. I want combats that come down to the climactic 2-3 rounds that actually matter.

Then have less combat, introduce morale for thrash fights where they flee before combat and/or reinforce the next one along. Another thing I regularly do in area dominated by a particular faction is if the party takes a rest after thrashing the leadership is have the remaining bad guys flee in terror. I use milestone XP though. They leave much of the non coin treasure and any clues needed to get to the next stage.