D&D 5E Easy Encounters? Don't take them for granted

[Sacrosanct]

This thread is actually prompted by an earlier conversation from a few weeks ago where someone (can't recall who) mentioned how they just skip over easy encounters and don't even play them based on since they are easy, they are a cakewalk, will be boring, and you shouldn't waste your time on them.

So I paid extra attention to some of my own gaming sessions, and those of a few others to see just how easy encounters in 5e actually played out. The verdict? Just because an encounter is technically easy by the DMG encounter building rules, in no way means it should be skipped or doesn't have a significant impact.

Firstly, often an easy encounter may have other impacts further on during the game. Is that easy encounter a scout group, and if one escapes can it alert the entire force? Do they have a special item/clue that would be helpful to the players? Can they whittle down and harass the party, taking away resources so when the party ends up meeting the harder encounters they won't be at full strength?

For example, a goblin has 50XP value. Eight goblins give an XP modifier of x2.5. So that's what? 1000XP for the encounter total, as far as budget goes? By the rules, that's an easy encounter for a party of four 5th level PCs.

In this example, the party entered the goblin lair. Short version: between the hit and run tactics, the ability of goblins to hide as a bonus action after attack at advantage (since most attacks were done from being hidden), the party ended up casting I think four or five spells (two of them cure wounds) before defeating all of them. The party was at no real risk of dying or anything, but casting valuable spell slots and/or class abilities is significant if it takes away from being able to use them when they're in a much tougher encounter. This is especially true since most parties can't just take an hour for a short rest within the heart of a dungeon complex with monsters wandering around either, let along a full 8 hour rest.

 

[Dice4Hire]

That is one thing I am liking about 5E. Trivial encounters do burn resources, and are quick to do. A nice return to 3.5 and earlier.

4E was just terrible at trivial encounters as each took too long to run and they rarely even inconvenienced the party.

I am a huge fan of trivial encounters.

 

[Andor]

Some things just aren't worth fighting. Like kobolds.

 

[machineelf]

Another thing to consider is that once you get a little higher in level, you ought to be able to slap a few goblins around pretty easily. It's part of verisimilitude for me. If the DM only has you fight in encounters where the bad guys are perfectly matched against you every time, it still feels like the old stationary track problem. At the same time, too many easy encounters does get boring. So I think that throwing in a really easy encounter every now and then is fun. For example, you're a powerful level 12 wizard, and some jerk human commoner in a tavern starts messing with you. Turning him into a pile of ash if you're mean, or turning him into a chicken if you're nice, can be a fun bit of roleplaying and reminds the players about how powerful they have become.

 

[Sunseeker]

Why not just toughen up the potentially harder encounter to burn those resources?

Personally, I think this is a terrible way to essentially cheat the players and cheapen their experience. It feels more like antagonistic DMing to me.

If the players are going to potentially fight for their lives, I will be darn sure to make it a life-risking fight at their full capabilities. Unless there is some over-arching reason that resources should be burnt before the "big fight", I really just don't see the point. Defeating the players with a moderately difficult fight because they were worn out and at half strength isn't an achievement. I just defeated an essentially helpless opponent, pretty soon I'll move on to stealing candy from babies and kicking puppies. It just seems dirty and dishonorable. I'd rather my players fight for their life with everything they've got than lose their lives because they ran out of special stuff mid-fight and the wizard had to run in and hit things with his staff for 1d2 and then take it in the face 'cause he's not armored, or worse, just sit out from the fight because he can't do anything useful.

Granted 5E has added some ways to get around this such as at-will spells and that certainly helps. Some of those spells are even quite powerful, which is great.

Still, it feels underhanded to burn player resources for no other reason than to burn player resources with the intent of kicking them while they're down. I can see some good reasons why player resources should not be able to be recovered quickly in certain situations, but then the "final fight" should be fought with the intention of fighting resource-starved players, not tuned for fully-rested, battle-ready players.

Worse, what to resource-low players do? They stop adventuring and rest. So now the DM is faced with an distasteful choice, either A: let the players rest and recover their resources, negating the purpose of the "easy" encounter, or B: don't let the players rest and keep burning their resources, potentially making the "tough" upcoming fight even harder.

On top of this, it is often very transparent to the players what's going on and that can lead to frustration. Being herded towards a clearly touch fight while being forced to burn precious resources does not fun make.

Lets take a classic example, the Fellowship's travel through the Mines of Moria:
First, they are attacked by The Watcher in the Water. Not a lot of resources burnt here.
They take a rest anyway while Gandalf figures out which way to go.
Once he does, they arrive a the Tomb of Balin, where there is a BIG FIGHT.
--Arguably, the party is now low on resources.
They escape, being unable to stop and recover as they flee the mines.
The Balrog shows up, BUM BUM BUM!
--They don't actually fight it. Gandalf pulls a plot device.
They escape the mines and the sunlight-feating orcs don't follow them far, allowing them to rest their weary bodies.

Burning resources is fine when you intend to throw a fight-that's-not-a-fight at them (ala the Balrog). But if you were to say, make them fight orcs the whole way along and then have to fight the Balrog too? That's basically asking for a TPK, heck, it's basically a planned TPK and I don't think that sits really well at any table.

Burning resources is fine when you're got a party-on-the-run, because at the end you're not expecting them to fight the Dark Knight, but to arrive in Sleepy Hollow and get a full rest, only to find out that the town is the Dark Knight's home!

3.X was easy to run "quick" encounters in. But I felt the point of these was not really to burn resources, but to keep the party on the move. Provide a constant feeling of the need to move forward, either by hook (pointy swords) or by crook (plot items). 4E was a pain to run quick encounters in, I had to do quite a lot of prep-work, and then do a lot of revamping the monsters in order to achieve quick fights. But the goal was still the same. I didn't want people doing "basic attack, basic attack, basic attack" for the rest of the night. I wanted them to feel like moving forward was the necessary thing to do.

Anyway I apologize if I rambled a bit or if I missed the point, but while I understand some situations call for burning resources to achieve a certain feeling to the adventure, I don't like the idea of burning them so that I can kick my party's butt with a big-bad while they're running on empty.

 

[Andor]

Why not just toughen up the potentially harder encounter to burn those resources?

Personally, I think this is a terrible way to essentially cheat the players and cheapen their experience. It feels more like antagonistic DMing to me.

If the players are going to potentially fight for their lives, I will be darn sure to make it a life-risking fight at their full capabilities. Unless there is some over-arching reason that resources should be burnt before the "big fight", I really just don't see the point. Defeating the players with a moderately difficult fight because they were worn out and at half strength isn't an achievement. I just defeated an essentially helpless opponent, pretty soon I'll move on to stealing candy from babies and kicking puppies. It just seems dirty and dishonorable. I'd rather my players fight for their life with everything they've got than lose their lives because they ran out of special stuff mid-fight and the wizard had to run in and hit things with his staff for 1d2 and then take it in the face 'cause he's not armored, or worse, just sit out from the fight because he can't do anything useful.

I kind of have three responses to this.

One. It's terribly meta-gamey. There is only a boss fight? Why doesn't he have minions? Is he an idiot? So anti-social even goblins won't be near him? As a player I want to see encounters that make some degree of sense.

Two. Resource management is, and always has been, part of the game. 5e give the players a lot of control over what kind of resources they have and how quickly they refresh. Limiting the game to one big encounter a day, or ten little ones for that matter alters the balance between classes and how each class plays. See the slow rest thread.

Three. Admittedly I as a player have a great hatred for 1/day abilities because I never know when the boss fight is. You're right, there is an antagonistic playstyle where the GM tries to lure the PCs into spending their resources prior to dumping the big bad on them. And it's not a lot of fun.

However in counterpoint to my own 3rd point there is more drama in beating the big badguy with nothing but pocket link and shakespeare quotes. It raises the stakes and makes it feel like more of an accomplishment. And furthermore there are times when it makes sense in world. If you are fighting a recurring foe who has a good handle on the parties abilities and weaknesses he damned well should do his best to try and deplete them before he comes to grips with his enemies. It's a certainty the party has tried to do it to him.

 

[practicalm]

Depending on the environment, the easy encounter is an opportunity to get past the speed bump to surprise the bigger threat. Get hung up on the "easy" encounter, and the enemies in the next room get to prepare and maybe join the fight if things don't go smoothly. (Though when enemies are set up to warn each other this is probably all one encounter, but if players plan right it could be divided up.)

Having environments that respond to player actions makes things feel real even if it means that it's harder for players to take a rest before facing a new threat.

Players should plan on how to stop the enemy from running. Though in many cases getting the enemy to run is a win. And players should plan on how they might have to retreat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Why not just toughen up the potentially harder encounter to burn those resources?

Personally, I think this is a terrible way to essentially cheat the players and cheapen their experience. It feels more like antagonistic DMing to me.

And for me, it feels like a living world more conducive to supporting verisimilitude. Weaker monsters don't suddenly disappear from campaign worlds just because PCs level up. If it makes logical sense for a goblin tribe to be in an area where higher level PCs happen to be adventuring (like a tribe worshiping a dragon overloard), they should be there.

Where you see a DM being a jerk, I see a DM running the game world logically. Being a jerk or being a nice guy have nothing to do with it. It's running a game realistically.

If the players are going to potentially fight for their lives, I will be darn sure to make it a life-risking fight at their full capabilities. .

And for me, this sounds like metagaming at its worst. The DM, or the game world and its inhabitants, should not cater to the PCs IMO. Players can attempt to rest whenever they want to recoup resources. It's the world around them that allows that to happen, not DM fiat. As a DM, I'm not going to suddenly put all the monsters on pause mode because the PCs decided they want to rest up and go back to full resources. I'm going to play out those monsters the exact same behavior wise whether the party is at full resources or if they are completely out of resources, because that's fair to the PCs. Catering to them is not. Players need to be the ones to make their decisions based on risk assessment. If they know you'll allow them to rest back to full after every encounter by catering to them regardless of what's going on in the environment, why are you playing the game in the first place? Why not just run the various combat scenarios and be done with it? There is no risk assessment there if your players know that they will always be allowed to go back to full. They'll assume every encounter is to be fought, and base their decisions around that and the assumption that they'll always be at full resources before every tough battle.

And to be frank, if a player told me that they shouldn't have to deal with lower level monsters because they are higher level (even if the inclusion of those monsters made sense in that scenario), or that they expect me to allow them to go to full resources before every tough battle? I'd interpret that as some serious player entitlement and tell them my game probably isn't the best fit for them.

 

[Sunseeker]

I kind of have three responses to this.

One. It's terribly meta-gamey. There is only a boss fight? Why doesn't he have minions? Is he an idiot? So anti-social even goblins won't be near him? As a player I want to see encounters that make some degree of sense.

To this point I was thinking that instead of several smaller, weaker encounters to drain resources, those fights would essentially be folded into the "boss fight". So instead of the big-bad having a couple of minions, he has a dozen, or can summon more when needed.

Two. Resource management is, and always has been, part of the game. 5e give the players a lot of control over what kind of resources they have and how quickly they refresh. Limiting the game to one big encounter a day, or ten little ones for that matter alters the balance between classes and how each class plays. See the slow rest thread.

Three. Admittedly I as a player have a great hatred for 1/day abilities because I never know when the boss fight is. You're right, there is an antagonistic playstyle where the GM tries to lure the PCs into spending their resources prior to dumping the big bad on them. And it's not a lot of fun.

I do think there is a place for "lots of little encounters" and "a few big encounters" and a suitable mix in between. I just feel like it's terribly underhanded to create those many little encounters with the intent of essentially kicking the players while they're down with a difficult big-bad at the end.

However in counterpoint to my own 3rd point there is more drama in beating the big badguy with nothing but pocket link and shakespeare quotes. It raises the stakes and makes it feel like more of an accomplishment. And furthermore there are times when it makes sense in world. If you are fighting a recurring foe who has a good handle on the parties abilities and weaknesses he damned well should do his best to try and deplete them before he comes to grips with his enemies. It's a certainty the party has tried to do it to him.

Well yes and the "running gag bad guy" who somehow manages to defeat the players but never kills them, or is somehow defeated by the players but is never killed, there's a measure of plot armor going here beyond simply depleting resources before engaging the players. I find it somewhat insulting if, when the fight comes down to it, the party has nothing left and the villain has nothing left and so they just whack on each other for a bit until someone gets bored and runs away again.

And for me, it feels like a living world more conducive to supporting verisimilitude. Weaker monsters don't suddenly disappear from campaign worlds just because PCs level up. If it makes logical sense for a goblin tribe to be in an area where higher level PCs happen to be adventuring (like a tribe worshiping a dragon overloard), they should be there.

Where you see a DM being a jerk, I see a DM running the game world logically. Being a jerk or being a nice guy have nothing to do with it. It's running a game realistically.

I'm sorry, but I have no desire to debate realism in a fantasy setting with goblins, elves, fireballs, dragons and what have you. I'm not going to address this point again.

And for me, this sounds like metagaming at its worst. The DM, or the game world and its inhabitants, should not cater to the PCs IMO. Players can attempt to rest whenever they want to recoup resources. It's the world around them that allows that to happen, not DM fiat. As a DM, I'm not going to suddenly put all the monsters on pause mode because the PCs decided they want to rest up and go back to full resources. I'm going to play out those monsters the exact same behavior wise whether the party is at full resources or if they are completely out of resources, because that's fair to the PCs. Catering to them is not. Players need to be the ones to make their decisions based on risk assessment. If they know you'll allow them to rest back to full after every encounter by catering to them regardless of what's going on in the environment, why are you playing the game in the first place? Why not just run the various combat scenarios and be done with it? There is no risk assessment there if your players know that they will always be allowed to go back to full. They'll assume every encounter is to be fought, and base their decisions around that and the assumption that they'll always be at full resources before every tough battle.

And to be frank, if a player told me that they shouldn't have to deal with lower level monsters because they are higher level (even if the inclusion of those monsters made sense in that scenario), or that they expect me to allow them to go to full resources before every tough battle? I'd interpret that as some serious player entitlement and tell them my game probably isn't the best fit for them.

I feel like this response is responding to someone else. I don't recall making any points that anything you wrote would address. I get the feeling that you're arguing with some kind of self-entitled player who is demanding you to run the game in a manner in which you usually do not. That was not the perspective I was writing from, nor were any of those things the points I was making. Perhaps you should re-read my post, consider that I was writing from my perspective as a DM, not a player and how I feel about my games.

A great deal of your argument once again hinges on the concept of a "living world", and while I said I wouldn't address this point further I will state the following and after that it may be best that we do not continue the discussion.
The world is not alive any more than the paper it is written on. Someone created it to function in a particular manner when properly operated. Without an operator, it neither lives nor functions, it simply is. Generally speaking the DM is the operator. The puppet-master may be well hidden and there may be many complex systems between them and the player, but without the operator, there is nothing. So yes, at the end of the day it is always DM fiat, whether he chooses to hide that behind the roll of a die on a random table, or behind the veil of "DM say-so" is largely immaterial.

 

[pemerton]

It's terribly meta-gamey.

this sounds like metagaming at its worst. The DM, or the game world and its inhabitants, should not cater to the PCs

The world is not alive any more than the paper it is written on. Someone created it to function in a particular manner when properly operated.

I am with shidaku on this point. How can the GM not be metagaming? What is the gameworld but a fictional creation designed precisely for the players to play their PCs in?