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

[ad_hoc]

The corollary of monsters acting realistically is that PCs get to act realistically too - and
retreat when low on resources. That might mean one or even two extra encounters on
the way out, but the PCs will account for that likelihood by retreating even earlier.

Sure, the PCs often have the option of retreat. But then they will also often not get a chance at the full success or have a harder time of it later.

 

[zaratan]

Several sessions into my current game, I realized that 1 hour short rests were meaning that a short rest never occured in my games at all. I changed it to a 15 minute short rest, and now things are much better.

Only be careful about 1h spells and effects. Those are exactly to not let you keep using after a short rest.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Only be careful about 1h spells and effects. Those are exactly to not let you keep using after a short rest.

I do rule that you can't concentrate during a rest. That seems to have solved all of those issues.

 

[zaratan]

I do rule that you can't concentrate during a rest. That seems to have solved all of those issues.

yes, I think there is just a feel spells with 1h duration without concentration, like longstrider or freedom of movement. But there is some spells that you should keep the concentration with short rest, like suggestion or high lvl hex or hunter's mark.

The important part is that work with your table.

 

[feartheminotaur]

OP: Yes and no? I'd wager the rest mechanic is largely a product of the type of game, table preference, and in some cases the type of table in general. My kid's game is whatever they want (usually when they get bored). My hexcrawl will be short rest/day, long rest/week. The 'generic' tables I've been on - FLGS and Roll20 - generally follow whatever the rest recommendation in the module is. Roll20, as a 'table', is easiest to stay on 6-8 target as it's kinder on session breaks so you don't have to take a long rest at the end of each. You can just stop mid-fight, even mid-round, and it's all there for you next time without much fuss (you can even click buttons for PCs who are late/missing).

Our long term home game DM goes by the adventuring day XP table in the DMG, not the 24 hour clock for long rests. She doesn't like the "a short rest is a lunch break and a long rest is going to bed" concept - she adjudicates them as an actual activity. A long rest is 8 hours, at any time of day, spent studying spells, sharpening weapons, mending armor, eating, and so on - all things that are tough to do while you're asleep. Short rests are subject to narrative availability, but overall she tries to match it to 1/3 and 2/3 ADXP when building adventures. Rests generally correspond to her adventures (e.g., this ancient crypt has an adventuring day's XP worth of challenges in it) or her narrative breaks. Resting outside them usually results in a narrative setback since the world doesn't stop turning while we rest.

We're 16th level. That's 20k XP each (so, no, it doesn't need to be, or is it, all combat earned) before a long rest. Once we get around 7k, which can be a day or an hour, based on the encounters, she narrates a short rest opportunity. Sometimes we take it, sometimes we don't, and sometimes we can't. Same at 14k. Once we get to 20k, we've either cleared the dungeon or finished apprehending the Baron's assassin or what not and we take a long rest. If we don't reach our objective, she narrates dull blades and exhaustion - letting us know in-game not on-sheet we are running on empty. Sometimes we pop a tiny hut and suffer the narrative setback and sometimes we push on depending on how things are going.

Edited to dispel the wall of text

 

[S'mon]

Sure, the PCs often have the option of retreat. But then they will also often not get a chance at the full success or have a harder time of it later.

IME that's usually a price they're willing to pay to mitigate the risk of dying. I *have*
seen PCs push on past their limits in one last desperate throw of the dice against
overwhelming odds - but those kind of events are naturally rare. And certainly few
published adventures do anything to require this; it takes a lot of tweaking to raise the
tension.

 

[Newti]

When I plan a serious adventure, i don't just let my players rest without consequences. They will get nightmares, exhaustion, visions of impending doom etc. if they try to abuse the long resting.
I very rarely have a boss fight with a fully rested party. Players with 100% ressources in 5e are insanely strong. A group of 5 lvl 6 characters can relatively easy kill a CR 12+ non-flying, non legendary monster if they have all the burst etc. available... super scary.

 

[Ancalagon]

A thousand times this. 6-8 combat encounters per day means that the average PC is killing 7 people per day. 49 people per week. More than 200 people per month. Each. It means that the average PC is having their life threatened more than the defenders in the Warsaw Uprising.

Well, on one hand the average PC isn't adventuring every day - there are periods of inactivity when they rest, booze at taverns, research spells etc. On the other hand, there is a reason why the term "murder-hobbo" was created...

 

[Wuzzard]

I've never had a player complain about the number of encounters or class balancing of characters around encounters per day. It may be theoretically true that on the whole some classes don't work as well in comparison to others unless encounters per day are higher, but its really not an issue in practice. Sometimes there are more encounters per day than others. The PC's with daily powers don't seem to be nova'ing regardless. Sometimes you never know when you are going to get that next long rest, so be careful!

 

[Xeviat]

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.

I don't use twice the monsters. I tend to use bigger foes, or the same number but tougher. Instead of a fight with 4 CR 1s, it's a fight with 4 CR 2s.