DnD 3.x encounters per day

[JRRNeiklot]

In 3e? one encounter if we're lucky.

 

[swrushing]

varies too much by circumstance and plot and considerations of balance.

i mix these up a lot in an ongoing campaign.

sometimes the situation will leave the pace to the players and they will likely as not take the smart road of "few per day" to mazimize their power and resources.

sometimes the situation encourages them to move more quickly, providing additional problems if they take too long, and they cannot mazimize and need to be a little tight with their expenditures. "if the fighter can handle it, let him and save your spells."

sometimes it a steamroller and the pacing allows them little option for rest and they have to be extremely careful with resources.

doing any one of these would seem to be too predictable and likely to cause imbalances, while i find mixing these up keeps things exciting and helps give everyone a moment to shine.

EDIT: BTW i am interpreting "per day" to mean "between rests" as i have had scripts where several days passed without opportunities to rest.

 

[derbacher]

It varies every session. Yesterday we had 6 combat encounters in an 8 hour session (big chase going on, bad guys escape, get tracked down, attack; lather, rinse, repeat as needed). Last week only 2 combats in 6 hours. It just depends on where the players take the story.

 

[Nifft]

It totally depends on the day.

The PCs are high enough level that they can, for the most part, decide when the day is over... they seldom have more than 1-2 after that point. So, from 10 (!) to 1, depending.

-- N

 

[Mark Oliva]

Number of Encounters varies

How many hostile encounters there are in my campaign depends upon where the PCs are, what they decide to do, where they go, etc. It can be anywhere from zero to more than 20. In fact, not only in theory but also in practice, that's exactly what happens. If we count friendly and neutral encounters the range probably increases to somewhere between 10 and 30 or 40.

 

[zeo_evil]

Somewhere between five to seven almost every day unless terrain says otherwise. Location plays a part in what is an encounter or not as I rarely treat anything that isn't hostile an encounter. A city has fewer of these encounters so it can be as little as three in these situations.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Even during a combat heavy day, it can vary vastly. I've run many many EL-5 or so encounters back to back, for instance, and that would slide the scale pretty far that way.

Looking over the past 5 sessions (hooray for records!):
one session ago: 2 (EL-1 and EL+3)
two sessions ago: 1 (EL-6)
three sessions ago: 3 1st day (EL-3, EL-3, and EL-0), 1 2nd day (EL+1)
four sessions ago: 5 (EL-0, EL-0, EL-0, EL-4, EL-6)
five sessions ago: 1 (EL+2)

Each session consists of roughly one week, usually one of those days involving combat.

EDIT: I find it funny that my most combat heavy day has some of the highest EL combats in it.

 

[tetsujin28]

Usually only one or two. We only get to play for about four hours a week.

 

[wingsandsword]

I really couldn't say.

However many the plot calls for. You write the plot and adventure first, then the mechanics to fit them. The number of encounters per day is strictly a coincidence. A higher number means it's more challenging, but the DM shouldn't softball it and start throwing out battles or struggles just because the theoretical design of the system says that optimally a character should have "X" encounters per day.

In practice, dungeon crawl adventures are much better for having multiple encounters in one day, as you often have several in close physical proximity, and less chance to rest. Outdoors typically has less. Cities can go either way, back in 2e I've run a chase/investigation scene in a city which in 3e terms would probably have been a half-dozen "encounters" in rapid succession.

 

[Pinotage]

Mostly one or two, but then when you're running PbP games it rarely wants to be more than that. However, when it comes to the BBEG, then there can be more on that given day, but on average I think it's one or two.

Pinotage