D&D 5E Encounter Building - Adventuring Day XP Budget?

[pming]

Hiya!

So I'm wondering what other DM's that created their own encounters do in determining their adventuring day XP budgets?

Easy. I don't.

IMHO, "designing daily XP budgets" is a fools errand. As DM, one golden rule that I've learned is this: Players are unpredictable. If I was to spend 10 hours designing a series of ever increasing encounters, each building upon the last, finally cumulating in "Encounter F: The Big Bad Guy Battle", I can almost guarantee that my players will go from "Encounter A, then to B, C, Purple, 19, X, 3.145, Nacho Cheese, Encounter F"...or, alternatively, "Encounter A, B, F".

My point is that the ENTIRE idea of XP budgets and daily "allotment" of encounter difficulties doesn't work unless I, as DM, outright cheat and railroad the players.

As you indicate that your next campaign is going to be Middle Earth based...if I were you I'd just stay away from the whole notion of "numerically balancing XP against expected per-day encounters". Go ahead and watch, say, Lord of the Rings. Now take those 'encounters' and try and figure out if they were Easy, Moderate, Hard, and how much "daily XP" they were supposed to be. The very FIRST encounter that the quartet of zero-level hobbits have is with a freaking Nazgul. Pretty sure that blows the whole concept of "XP budget" and "encounter difficulty" out of the watter right there. Throughout the rest of the movie it doesn't get any better. Middle Earth isn't about killing monsters, taking their stuff, and getting XP; it's about character development and story.

PS: Have an XP for your first post!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[ccs]

I decide how fast I want the party to lv. Then I divide the total XP needed by x sessions/chapters/adventures or whatever I've set as the milestone. Assuming the players do some reasonable amount of adventuring they'll get that much XP when they hit the milestone.... It has nothing to do with what they encounter/fight or CRs.

For ex; In the "all Barbarian" game I set the pace at sessions.
To reach the next lv you have to play a # of sessions = to your current lv. If you're not there for a session, you don't receive XP. Oh, and the action of the session must generally move the story forward. Just showing up but the most of the session devolving into a GoT discussion etc = 0 XP.
One of the barbarians is 3 session behind the others.
1st session: The satyr party - end of session, hit lv2
2nd session: Into the rat tunnels.
3rd session: Into the rat tunnels part II - end of session, hit lv3
4th session: Meet the dragon!
5th session: Back to the inn...
6th session: The rescue - end of session, hit lv4
7th session: Welcome to Dungeonland.
8th session: Exploring the land of giant trees & fungi.
9th session: Running afoul of Absalom.
10th session*: Escaping the land of giant trees & fungi (before Absalom recovers & returns for a rematch) - end of session, hit lv5.
10th session pending due to every ones chaotic work schedules.
11th session: The tiny garden.

 

[The_Gneech]

Ah, Wandering Damage Tables. That takes me back. Seriously, though, in a sense you are using an exp budget of sorts, just one mediated by a random generation method instead of a formula.

The Wandering Damage tables only come up in the lair of the Dragon of Lirpa Loof, overseen by the mad mage Kimmohan.

Seriously tho, the encounters on the table are built with encounter budgets, sure, but that's kind of irrelevant to the daily budget idea. The encounters range from CR 0 (for local wildlife or weather patterns) to APL+2 or so, depending on the environment. Combine that with random determination of what (if anything) will show up, and there's no telling how much XP might show up in a "day"– pretty much the opposite of a budget, actually.

Not that it's worth quibbling about, I suppose, just a nitpick. I think it would be closer to say that my players are self-budgeting based on their evaluation of risk vs. reward. I'll happily let 'em march down the main drag of Goblin Town if they feel like it, encounter math be hanged!

-The Gneech

 

[The_Gneech]

Party Leader: DM we’re going to make camp, set a watch, and rest for the evening
DM: Roger that… [rolls dice behind the curtain of lies, and laughs quietly]. Aha! You are beset upon by a [looks down] herd of bison..! That will show you that you shouldn’t rest out here in the wild..!

Obviously I am exaggerating a bit, but unless you’re in a real bad place, the random monsters of a given area just aren’t going to scare a decent Party. Not to mention that the PHB [pg 186] says that 1 hour of fighting or similar adventuring activity is needed before nullifying a rest. A typical combat lasts what, 3, 5, 7 rounds? 42 seconds is considerably less than that… By the time I send in my 17th stampede of bison, the Party Leader is simply going to look at me and say “DM, now, we’re going to make camp, set a watch, and rest for the late evening / early morning.” Murder Hobos don’t have bedtimes, or work schedules.

And not all the story arcs that I tell involve bad places, and end-of-the-world time schedules. Right now, the Party is tracking an orc shaman through the foothills towards some mountains in the Forgotten Realms. Again, just about anything on a Wandering Monster table just isn’t going to do it…

Anyway, is the Milestone Rest System perfect? Nope, but it does what I need it to do, and I throw it out there in answer to the OP’s question.

Well the wilderness has trolls, wyverns, and the occasional dragon turtle, but yes, the kind of stuff liable to bother you camping in the woods are not the stuff that 15th level characters are likely to be afraid of, so much as annoyed at. But at that level, why are you camping at all, when you could be holed up in an instant fortress? And for that matter, why are you tromping around in the woods when you should be sailing a sea of fire to the City of Brass? I expect there could be wandering monsters in that context to make life challenging for the most jaded explorer!

(I realize that the answer of course is "Because not every campaign goes that way." But that gets into the whole issue of "levelling sweet spots" and the tendency of D&D's core assumptions to fall apart once you reach a certain level. High-level characters interacting with a low-level world always look kinda strange. Heroes of that caliber rarely encounter anything that they don't mean to.)

-The Gneech

 

[S'mon]

One thing re running Middle Earth - I would *definitely* use the DMG 'slow rest' variant where a short rest is overnight & a long rest is a week (somewhere nice). That seems far closer to Hobbit & LoTR time scales than hour/overnight, and would reduce the incidence of flashy magic to something more appropriate.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

I have a couple of questions around this. While I understand your point, could this lead to a false sense of security in a town or inn? Wouldn't the party set up a watch there too? What about the adventures that go deep into mountains without a town nearby?

I am curious because I am planning several adventures for home and I am looking into this topic now. I agree with you that I would not want to set up worthless encounters but I would not want to set up a random town just to accommodate a long rest.

Oddly enough, it was at a Trading Post when the party thought they were going to get a nice Long Rest, but that was where the final encounter of the adventure took place. Their sleep was interrupted so I gave them the benefit of a Short Rest, but not a long one. The town or inn provides the option for a Long Rest, and 99% of time they will be safe because that is the point of a town.

An excursion underground that takes multiple days (or even a week) would be perfect because then I can plan for those 6-8 encounters to occur over the course of the entire trek. Maybe nothing happens on the first day, but the second has collapsed tunnels, roaming drow, or other monsters. The eventual Long Rest can happen when they exit the mountain, or maybe they find some friendly folks down there. Depending on how you want to play it, lets say they are going to an ancient temple in the mountain, then the players know they will have to manage their resources going down, dealing with the temple, and still have enough to get back. As the DM, its you discretion whether to add in a safe place for a Long Rest or not.

The more I think about this option, the more I like it. It lets me as the DM pace the adventure better. That being said, there are certainly ways to work around this, and that rewards players that invest in those options.

 

[draxthis]

The eventual Long Rest can happen when they exit the mountain, or maybe they find some friendly folks down there. Depending on how you want to play it, lets say they are going to an ancient temple in the mountain, then the players know they will have to manage their resources going down, dealing with the temple, and still have enough to get back. As the DM, its you discretion whether to add in a safe place for a Long Rest or not.

The more I think about this option, the more I like it. It lets me as the DM pace the adventure better. That being said, there are certainly ways to work around this, and that rewards players that invest in those options.

Ok,thank you for talking that out. This makes sense. Personally, I would opt more for inserting safe places as necessary. I also like your idea of the benefit of a short rest when they are interrupted or even if the place they are resting is not exactly safe, even if there is no encounter.

This brings up another question, is it possible for some to get the benefit of a long rest and some to only benefit from a short rest? Maybe the party could even plan for a longer adventure strategically by allowing some party members to get a long rest, while some "take watch" for the benefit of a short rest.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Ok,thank you for talking that out. This makes sense. Personally, I would opt more for inserting safe places as necessary. I also like your idea of the benefit of a short rest when they are interrupted or even if the place they are resting is not exactly safe, even if there is no encounter.

This brings up another question, is it possible for some to get the benefit of a long rest and some to only benefit from a short rest? Maybe the party could even plan for a longer adventure strategically by allowing some party members to get a long rest, while some "take watch" for the benefit of a short rest.

That is definitely the stuff I would consider, but would never mention. I'd let the players try and get creative and go from there. You can definitely set up some interesting situations by having the party guard their Wizard so the wizard can safely rest. I picture a big comfy tent that the Wizard stays in while the rest of the party stands guard like the Wizard was some royalty.

Also, don't forget that Exhaustion levels are a thing. Maybe the tradeoff for letting the Wizard fully rest is the others suffer a level of Exhaustion. It just depends on how mean of a DM you want to be. >: )

 

[OB1]

I tend to run in one of two modes, Mission Days and Non-Mission Days.

Non-Mission Days aren't budgeted for recommended XP, may have encounters that range from Easy to 10xDeadly, and tend to center around deciding on, traveling to, or planning their next mission. Rests are usually easy to come by during these types of days, so players can set their own pace. These type of days are not heavily prepped by me ahead of time, and can go on for several sessions. They lean more heavily on the exploration and social pillars of the game, with combat being used to break up the pace and to give them hints on what they will face on their mission and to help develop tactics for it. A single session may contain multiple days, weeks or even months of non-mission days.

Mission Days are budgeted well over the recommended daily xp guidlines, and it is the players job to figure out how to avoid or mitigate some encounters in order to complete their objective. Side missions also exist to temp the players into additional encounters that aren't required to complete the primary objective, and that offer some other type of reward. Careful planning during non-mission days will often allow the party to take on these side quests during the mission day, though skill in combat and luck in rolling also have an effect here. Mission days may have consequences for rests, typically minor ones for a short rest (easier path may close, side-quest may no longer be available) and major ones for a long rest (typically failure of primary objective, or at least a large increase in difficulty). Mission days require heavy prep, always require a session break once the players decide that their next move is to start a mission so that I can prepare it, and may take several game sessions to complete a single day.

 

[Tony Vargas]

that's kind of irrelevant to the daily budget idea. ..with random determination of what (if anything) will show up, and there's no telling how much XP might show up in a "day"

Not that it's worth quibbling about, I suppose, just a nitpick. I think it would be closer to say that my players are self-budgeting

Nod. To a large extent, D&D is traditionally a resource-management game. It has dice, of course, and RP, and the trappings of a genre, but a big part of it is players making decisions about when/how to use a limited pool of resources. Encounter/day budgets are a way the DM can plan an adventure to put the necessary pressure on those decisions to make them interesting or even challenging (and meaningful & viable) and to balance classes with different mixes and recovery-rates of resources (because class is also a decision that needs to be kept meaningful & viable). Random Encounters are also a way to apply that pressure. So is more high-minded 'Living World' design. Which (indeed, how many) of those and other such tools DMs utilize is a matter of style and preference - both theirs and their groups'.

But I just find wandering monsters particularly nostalgic, because they were so prominent when I was first running the game in the 80s. I was particularly enthralled by the MMII 2-20 encounter tables that you could fill out by frequency, with very rare monsters at the 2 and 20 and common ones in the middle.