D&D 5E Combat Encounter Difficulty

[Hussar]

I read "just have more encounters per day" over and over again.

Never do I see any of acknowledge:
1) the game rules do not force the 6-8 encounter day in any way form or shape. There's nothing even close to formal aids to help the DM out. She is completely on her own in creating story based timers.
2) this is utterly incompatible with wilderness exploration adventures ("hexcrawls") or long distance travel adventures

Not really. I've mentioned this in another thread, but, actually, this is pretty easy to do - you simply make random encounters into random events. Instead of having one, and only one, group met during a day, a random event includes two-four encounters, spaced some time (but less than a short rest) apart. So, the bear wanders into your camp, the sound of fighting attracts that troll and the party of orcs that was hunting the troll stumbles in some time later.

Ok, that was a pretty quick and dirty event, but, I think you get the point. Making one big encounter is far less interesting than slowly building tension by stringing together three encounters.

3) no official adventure follows this guideline AT ALL

Really? We're playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen right now. Just finished up the section where you go to the castle in the swamp, with all the lizard folk and whatnot (sorry, terrible at remembering proper nouns) and we were pretty much (mostly through our own actions) forced to deal with the entire castle in a series of encounters over a single day. Now, I don't know how much of that was the DM ad-libbing and how much was in the module (his comment was that there was very little guidance actually given), but, my experience (very limited so far) with Hoard is that strung together encounters are pretty much the norm. Same went for the Phandelver module as well. Again, this might be 100% due to the DM, but, it's certainly not impossible to do in the modules.

Is a long string of individually trivial encounters (where the only challenge is to conserve resources) any fun?

Sorry, but the level of advice which basically says "do 6-8 encounters and all problems go away" is incredibly and frustratingly short on discussing the overall picture.

IMO? Yes, absolutely. It is very fun. Far more fun that single, slogging encounters where everyone blows all their big guns in the first two rounds and the rest of the fight is mop-up. For me, the fun encounter is the one after that one, when the party is down on resources and NOW has to deal with a challenge.

Note, even just stringing three encounters is generally enough. You don't have to do the 6-8 every day. But, you generally do have to chain some encounters together and not allow for short rests between every encounter. Forcing players to actually conserve powers makes the game far more interesting.

If the PCs are in the habit of popping downed PCs up again in the middle of combat with healing, can
they really object when the monsters notice this & start finishing off the fallen?

Fair enough. Again, I haven't seen a lot of the "whackamole" behaviour, so, it hasn't been an issue for us.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] - I'm not sure how viable it is to focus on 1st level. Since most groups are only first level for a single session, it might be better to focus on, say, 6th level.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm going to do a snap shot of "hard" encounters at level 1.

PC's are Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard.

Fighter HP = 12 hp
Rogue = 10 hp
Cleric = 10 hp
Wizard = 8 hp

If the fighter is at full hp there is a 33% chance he gets KO'ed on the first hit he takes.
If the Rogue and Cleric are at full hp there is a 50% chance they get KO'ed on the first hit they take.
If the Wizard is at full hp there is a 67% chance he gets KO'ed on the first hit he takes.

Assuming the ORC has approximately a 50% chance to hit on most of the PC's then and doesn't die before his turn begins. There is about a 6% chance that 2 PC's get downed on turn 1 in any encounter they fight 2 orcs. There's a much higher chance that a single PC gets downed on turn 1.

That's just one hard fight. There's still another before a short rest is even reached. Chances for KO on turn 1 increase drastically if the party is not at full hp.

Personally I don't see how a level 1 party could possibly:
1. Fighter 2 Orcs
2. Fight 2 Orcs
3. Short Rest
4. Fight 2 Orcs
5. Fight 2 Orcs
6. Short Rest
7. Fight 2 Orcs
8. Fight 2 Orcs

The only way I don't think the party die is if the party has access to either the healer feat, or the inspiring leader feat or both. The ultimate point is that 6 encounters at hard difficulty will actually be hard for most every level 1 party. Most would be lucky to make it through such a gauntlet alive.

I don't think hard means it will be hard every time despite how the dice fall, i think it means it could range anywhere from the low end of medium to the higher end of deadly.

Thoughts?

I don't worry about easy to deadly. I make encounters I know can push my characters to the brink of death by taking away their hit points and last long enough where they feel they've been in an epic battle that requires them to play up to their abilities.

I also don't care for the lower level game. I push the PCs to level 10 plus as fast as I can. That's where the fun starts for me when I can start designing some crazy stuff and still have them survive.

 

[Hussar]

I don't worry about easy to deadly. I make encounters I know can push my characters to the brink of death by taking away their hit points and last long enough where they feel they've been in an epic battle that requires them to play up to their abilities.

I also don't care for the lower level game. I push the PCs to level 10 plus as fast as I can. That's where the fun starts for me when I can start designing some crazy stuff and still have them survive.

See, there's another issue. You're designing fairly short adventuring days for high(ish) level groups. That means the group's daily recharge characters can blow through their biggest guns in most encounters, and high level magic really changes how encounters play out. Now you have groups that are almost always operating at peak power because of that. When the party can drop 5th and 6th level spells (and probably multiple spells) in most encounters, they just get such a huge power bump.

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Note, the idea of 6-8 encounters isn't really necessary. What is necessary though is the 3 encounters. Think about the OP's example. The wizard has blown through his third level spells (I think) and the cleric has used at least one (Daylight spell) and probably both by the end of the second encounter.

It's not unreasonable to think that the group is going to spend 15-20 minutes mopping up this encounter - chasing down the fleeing baddies, stripping the treasure from the encounter, healing, perhaps spending a ritual on Identifying any magic items, that sort of thing. Not too much of a stretch. Now, this is a watch post, so, presumably there would be patrols out there using this watch post as a base. It's not a stretch, IMO, to have a patrol wander back to the post before the party leaves and before the party has a chance to short rest.

Now, as a DM, I could have a medium difficulty Drow patrol - half a dozen CR 1/2 drow, and a couple of Elite drow come back and find the party. It's possible that the drow might ambush the party (thus strongly increasing difficulty) or just go with regular attacks. The drow open up at decent range - they do all have bows/hand crossbows, meaning they can get at least one volley of attacks into the party before the party gets into melee range. I don't know the exact layout of the encounter, so, I'm spitballing here. But, since the party has already blown through its big guns, you don't have fireballs wiping out the encounter. Plus, likely, the party won't have Action Surges left and the Battlemaster is likely either very low or out of Superiority Dice. The Warlock only has 2 daily spells, so, he's likely down to at will attacks.

IOW, a fairly moderately difficult encounter now seriously challenges the party. That doesn't require any forcing the players to do anything. Just a bit more activity on the part of the bad guys.

 

[Flamestrike]

The way the game works none of that matters. Not sure why you believe that to be the case.

Because that IS the case. The classes are not balanced against each other for a single encounter adventuring day.

The classes ARE balanced against each other at the 6-8 encounter/ 2 short rest AD.

Look at a Paladin 6 vs a BM Fighter 6. In a single encounter AD:

• Paladin lay on hands = 30 points of healing. Fighter gets 1d10+6 (11.5 on average) with second wind [advantage paladin].
• Assuming no spells cast, the Paladin spams +8-10d8 damage worth of smites. The BM gets +4d8 damage [advantage paladin]
• Both have a fighting style. Both have extra attack. Both have a feat/ ASI [even]
• The fighter has Action surge. The Paladin has his oath abilities with divine channel [even].
• The Paladin has spells. The BM has the utility of superiority dice [even]
• The Paladin has an aura. The BM has a bonus feat/ ASI [even]

Look at the above numbers. In a single encounter adventuring day (or an adventuring day featuring a small number of encounters with no short rest) the Paladin comes out clearly on top.

Now lets increase to a 6-8 encounter/ 2 short rest AD:

• Paladin has lay on hands for 30 points of healing. Fighter gets 3d10+18 (34.5 on average) with second wind [even].
• Assuming no spells cast, the Paladin spams +8-10d8 damage worth of smites. The BM gets +12d8 [even]
• Both have a fighting style. Both have extra attack. Both have a feat/ ASI [even]
• The fighter has Action surge x 3. The Paladin has his oath abilities with divine channel x 3 [even].
• The Paladin has spells. The BM has the utility of superiority dice [even]
• The Paladin has an aura. The BM has a bonus feat/ ASI [even]

The classes balance at this point.

Now look at a Wizard 8 vs a Warlock 8.

In a single encounter AD, the wizard gets the ability to blat [2 x 4th level spells, 3 x 3rd level spells, 3 x 2nd level spells and 4 x 1st level spells]. He still has arcane recovery and cantrips up his sleeve. The Warlock gets 2 x 4th level spells and invocations. CLEAR advantage to the Wizard - and thats before you factor in teh fact the wizard has a greater range of spells known and is far more lijkely to have 'the right spell for the job' at hand.

In a 6-8/ 2 short rest AD, the Wizard still has the same number of slots = +1 extra 4th for a total of 3 due to arcane recovery. The warlock now has triple the number of slots (or 6 x 4th level slots); enough to spam one per encounter. The Warlock has 6 x 4th level slots to the Wizards 3 x 4ths, 3 x 3rds, 3 x 2nds and 4 x 1sts. The classes balance at this point.

I don't need to rebalance the classes. Why would you think I would need to?

Because the classes balance at the 6-8 encounter/ 2 short rest sweet spot. If youre throwing less encounters at the party (and allowing less short rests per long rest) then you're favoring long rest dependent classes (full casters, barbarians and paladins) and nerfing short rest dependent classes (warlock, fighter and monk).

No one plays a barbarian

What? Dude your experiences differe greatly from mine. Barbarians are crazy good in 5E.

If you have played the game to high level, you would understand how painful it is to be a caster when it comes to killing creatures

Dude, the problems get worse with casters at high level if you allow the 5 minute AD.

This is accepted wisdom.

The adventuring day with 6 to 8 encounters is a waste of time for well played, optimized parties.

Rubbish. Give me an optimised party of 5 PCs of (lets go with 7th level). Ill design 6-8 medium to hard encounters for them to encounter, complete with a story attached and we can run them through it if youre game.

If he is a Sorlock, his nova is even higher using a bonus action to use double cantrips in a round. A sorlock using Quicken Spell with eldritch blast does a potential 208 damage in two rounds using a cantrip and four sorcery points which he can renew with short rests while a wizard using a 9th level does a potential 140 (though it is AoE damage if fighting multiple creatures).

Youre using nova tactic arguments as a reason to build encounters that encourage nova tactics.

You get this right? You dont stop nova tactics by increasing difficulty and having single encounter AD's. This just encourages nova tactics.

You instead force longer AD's on the party.

Youre using player nova tactics as your argument for how players at your table are capable of (in your words) 'steamrolling' the expected encounter difficulty. In the same breath you admit to only throwing 1-2 'deadly' encounters at them.

Youre creating encoutners that your players have to nova. Youre encouraging nova tactics mate. Dial back the difficulty and increase the number of encounters.

I'll end this by saying you need to study the 5E math more than you have or get more experience playing high level campaigns.

No mate, my 'maths' is just fine.

Look - show me this [5 x 7th level] 'optimised' party and ill show you a [6-8 medium - hard encounter on average/ 2 short rest] AD that will challenge the out of them.

Im deadly serious. Give me an optimised party of whatever level you want and I'll show you a quick adventure of 6-8 medium-hard encounters with 2 short rests. You can then explain to me how these encounters get 'steamrolled'.

 

[Flamestrike]

Also [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], I dont want to come off sounding hostile mate.

If you want to avoid the [6-8 Encounter/2 SR] default thats fine. If you and your players prefer a nova strike style of play, then great!

Its just you cant then critique any class disparity that may arise [and it would arise] or any issues you may have with encounters getting 'steamrolled' or problems with 'the systems encounter difficulty'.

These are not flaws with the encounter guidelines [which assume a default of 6-8 and 2 short rests]. These are all problems of your own making by you choosing to avoid this default. I'm not saying that to be a douche either.

Its no different to if you went with a different rest variant [longer rests or whatever]. It would have a dramatic impact on the game maths.

You seem to base your maths of nova strikes from your players; nova strikes which your own encounter design and adventuring day policing as DM encourages as your games default.

I really wish I could sit down with you at the table and show you how the [6-8/ 2 SR] plays out mate. It really does work amazingly once you get into it and your players get on board.

Remember - no-one is talking about forcing more encounters per game session on your players. We're talking about running the players through more encounters before letting them long rest. The two are not the same thing. You can have just as many encounters per session as you always have - youre simply making your players stretch character resources over more encoutners before letting them long rest [either through timed quests, dangeous environments, DM fiat or whatever].