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

[Xeviat]

Less encounters in the day doesn't favor anyone as long as the daily XP budget is still being used. Harder fights are longer. Most of the hard and deadly fights I've ran exceed six rounds. Normal fights are lucky if they hit three. So a paladin has less individual encounters to smite, but they're still going to burn through more smites because they have more foes who have more hp.

As long as the two short rests a day are met, the short rest classes balance against the long rest classes. The only one who is hurt by less encounters is the high level barbarian, who has nothing to do with their extra rages.

 

[ad_hoc]

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.

I only play published adventures and have never encountered pacing/tension problems.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

My main 5E campaign is probably running at 1-3 combat encounters per day with spikes up to 5-6 and lots of 0 combat encounter days. I'm using the longer rest variant. I hate short rest mechanics and this is the best solution that has presented itself to minimize them. I've been mulling over variant class features to replace short rest recovery ones, but I haven't had the time or inclination.

Our other recurring 5E game (Slaughter Fest) uses highly irregular resting rules unbecoming to proper campaigns. Every time you kill an enemy you roll 1d20 vs. its CR or less to see if you get a boon, which includes healing, recovering abilities and a host of other random stuff (like magic item drops, buffs, curses, etc). That's right: real adventurers kill their way to a good night's sleep!

 

[Transformer]

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 is extremely difficult to average 6-8 encounters/day over the course of a long campaign. I've found that I need at least three things to hit 6-8 encounters in a day, and that I can only manage it occasionally:

• An dungeon-style adventure, with enclosed spaces and tightly-packed groups of enemies along a somewhat linear progression.
• A clear, plausible source of time pressure baked into the plot.
• Cooperative players, who are willing to press onward even when a lot of their resources are used up. My current group freaks out whenever someone is knocked unconscious in a combat and insists on a long rest roughly every two combats, forcing me to make the difficult decision whether or not to bring the whole dungeon down on their heads as they sleep in hostile territory. A smooth progression of 7 encounters punctuated by two short rests is something I cannot make them do.

In a wilderness or city adventure, it's extremely difficult to plausibly hit 7 combat encounters/day. Without clear time pressure organically arising from the plot, it's pretty much impossible. Without cooperative players, it's very difficult.

And those are just the logistical problems with getting to 7 encounters/day. There's also the fact that even if you can reliably average 7 encounters/day somehow, it makes the game boring. It's not necessarily the quality of the encounters themselves. You could populate every one of those encounters with cool mechanics and interesting monsters, and having 7 encounters/day on average would still make the game boring.

The reason is out-of-game time vs. in-game time. My group averages at least 30-60 minutes per combat encounter (maybe your group is fast as lightning and knocks out combats in 10 minutes, but most groups can't). That means that if you average 7 combat encounters/day, then a single in-game day takes at least 5 hours of out-of-game play time, and probably more like 7-8 hours once you account for exploration and roleplaying. That's way too much out-of-game time for a single in-game day. That makes the progress of the plot glacial. If I reliably had 7 encounters/day, it would take at least 2 sessions (but probably 3) to get through a single day of in-game plot. That would be miserable.


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. That would be far more in line with how the game is played in the wild, and how players tend to progress organically.

 

[S'mon]

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 is extremely difficult to average 6-8 encounters/day over the course of a long campaign. I've found that I need at least three things to hit 6-8 encounters in a day, and that I can only manage it occasionally:

• An dungeon-style adventure, with enclosed spaces and tightly-packed groups of enemies along a somewhat linear progression.
• A clear, plausible source of time pressure baked into the plot.
• Cooperative players, who are willing to press onward even when a lot of their resources are used up. My current group freaks out whenever someone is knocked unconscious in a combat and insists on a long rest roughly every two combats, forcing me to make the difficult decision whether or not to bring the whole dungeon down on their heads as they sleep in hostile territory. A smooth progression of 7 encounters punctuated by two short rests is something I cannot make them do.

In a wilderness or city adventure, it's extremely difficult to plausibly hit 7 combat encounters/day. Without clear time pressure organically arising from the plot, it's pretty much impossible. Without cooperative players, it's very difficult.

And those are just the logistical problems with getting to 7 encounters/day. There's also the fact that even if you can reliably average 7 encounters/day somehow, it makes the game boring. It's not necessarily the quality of the encounters themselves. You could populate every one of those encounters with cool mechanics and interesting monsters, and having 7 encounters/day on average would still make the game boring.

The reason is out-of-game time vs. in-game time. My group averages at least 30-60 minutes per combat encounter (maybe your group is fast as lightning and knocks out combats in 10 minutes, but most groups can't). That means that if you average 7 combat encounters/day, then a single in-game day takes at least 5 hours of out-of-game play time, and probably more like 7-8 hours once you account for exploration and roleplaying. That's way too much out-of-game time for a single in-game day. That makes the progress of the plot glacial. If I reliable had 7 encounters/day, it would take at least 2 sessions (but probably 3) to get through a single day of in-game plot. That would be miserable.


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. That would be far more in line with how the game is played in the wild, and how players tend to progress organically.

Yes, this fits my experience - and feelings - exactly. I have occasionally hit in the region of 6-8 encounters, but a typical dungeon delve day has 2-4 combats, and wilderness 1-2 if any. A routine of 7 encounters/day would be miserable - and I don't see it in my Classic D&D game either. 2-4 seems typical whether it is Classic, 3e/PF, 4e or 5e that I'm running or playing. 3e's "resources to last 4 encounters" makes more sense - not that 3e did a good job of really hitting that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

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. That would be far more in line with how the game is played in the wild, and how players tend to progress organically.

This is how things turn out most of the time in our games as well. Encounters per day vary wildly depending on where the party is and what they are doing. I much prefer a fewer number of combat encounters that feel natural in play to a greater number of trivial encounters that only exist to provide some kind of balance for rest cycle abilities.

The types of adventures being run have an impact on how much adventuring a group will undertake before taking a long rest. If the adventure consists mainly of combat encounters one after another then the PCs will naturally want to recover after their top tier resources have been expended.

An environment providing more opportunity for exploration, and interaction can extend the adventuring day. If the party is exploring a cave complex, there is no reason to call it a day after the wizard expends his only fireball. Exploration can continue and the party can make more progress before needing to rest. Of course if the DM packs the dungeon densely with unavoidable combat encounters, the players will quickly catch on and seek to rest after every significant combat.

One aspect of old school style campaigning that tempted players into doing as much as possible before stopping to rest was the threat of losing out on treasure to other adventurers if they didn't keep pressing on. In this style of campaign, multiple groups of adventurers would explore the same dungeons during different play sessions. Stopping to rest too often could mean having the good treasure looted by another party before you could find it. That dynamic kind of put a bit of time pressure on the players without needing a plot related gimmick to constantly spur them on.

This element can useful even in single party campaigns. NPC parties will need to stand in for rival adventuring groups but it can be done. Rest too much and another group will make off with the prize while your party sleeps. Once the players realize that the dungeon isn't their exclusive playground then they might be a bit more conservative with resources and will want to rest less often.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...a mistake I'm surprised they made after such a long playtest.

Of course, the alternative explanation here is that you are mistaken about "how the game is played in the wild," and more playtest feedback came from groups like mine who find averaging 6-8 encounters on their adventuring days to not be an issue (though typically reached by having a 3 day adventure do something like 2 encounters on day 1, 12 on day 2, and 7 on day 3, rather than actually 6-8 every day).

And yes, we're talking about combat encounters specifically, because the other two pillars drain very few in-game resources.

I don't think your reasoning follows to your conclusion. I think the encounters aren't specifically combat encounters, and that combat encounters are allowed to use up the extra resources that aren't drained by interaction and exploration encounters.

The vast majority of groups average way fewer than 7 encounters/day

That's an entirely unfounded claim.

 

[TwoSix]

That's an entirely unfounded claim.

Obviously, anecdotal data is anecdotal, but I'll back up [MENTION=70008]Transformer[/MENTION]. I don't think I've ever hit 6 encounters in a day. Like, ever. Anything more than 4 seems terrifically odd to me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Obviously, anecdotal data is anecdotal, but I'll back up [MENTION=70008]Transformer[/MENTION]. I don't think I've ever hit 6 encounters in a day. Like, ever. Anything more than 4 seems terrifically odd to me.

Likewise. Most I've had is 5 in my current campaign, going on 20 sessions this coming Saturday. It will not have 6 encounters either.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Obviously, anecdotal data is anecdotal, but I'll back up [MENTION=70008]Transformer[/MENTION].

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.