Getting to 6 encounters in a day

[Oofta]

What do you think is a meta-game reward, in this scenario? Because I'm positing that experience is an in-game reward, for the characters, which they earn as a result of taking actions which make sense to them.

Fighting six encounters in a day is not like pulling an all-nighter in college. It's not about the quantity. It's about the objective difficulty, and how hard you need to overcome that challenge. It's like studying chapter six, specifically, where chapters 1-5 are just a review to bring you up to speed so you can tackle it. The point of the first five encounters is that they get you to a place where you might learn something from the sixth encounter.

If I get better at casting fireballs by casting fireballs, why continue to seek out encounters after I've run out of fireballs if I can safely rest until I regain the ability to cast them again? If my PC is in encounters where he's reduced to casting cantrips, why not cast cantrips in camp? Yes, certain PCs are going to be driven and feel like they must push on until exhaustion hits ... but that's not all PCs.

I get what you're saying, I just don't think it's necessary and it feel artificial to me. That's all. It may work great for other groups, for people with different motivations. I'm just saying that for me it would take me out of my sense of immersion and be a de-motivator.

If the phrase "we should do X because we get more XP" ever comes up in a game it bugs me. Call it a pet peeve.

[EDIT] in addition, just like players not all PCs are motivated by gaining levels. Some are, some are not. That, and this rule just feels lazy to me. As a DM if I can't set up encounters that challenge my players without resorting to this kind of meta-game gimmick, shame on me.

 

[OB1]

Another point to keep in mind is that a medium encounter should only take 2 rounds. Ran in theatre of the mind, that’s 10-15 minutes tops, making 6 encounters take 60-90 minutes, which can easily fit into a 2 hour game session.

Break out the maps and minis only for the big set piece deadly combat and encourage your players to treat medium encounters much more loosely.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If I get better at casting fireballs by casting fireballs, why continue to seek out encounters after I've run out of fireballs if I can safely rest until I regain the ability to cast them again? If my PC is in encounters where he's reduced to casting cantrips, why not cast cantrips in camp? Yes, certain PCs are going to be driven and feel like they must push on until exhaustion hits ... but that's not all PCs.

That's simply not how the world works, though. You don't get better at casting fireball by casting fireball. You get better at casting fireball by hitting things with your staff (or casting cantrips, I guess), because you've run out of fireball for the day.

If you think that feels artificial, then I don't know what to say. D&D has always been kind of weird about that. If it helps, you can think of not casting spells in the same way as a fighter choosing to fight with their off-hand, because it increases the challenge.

And you're right that not every adventurer is going to worry about optimizing their learn-rate, of course. But why, then, should the game force advancement on you? Why should your character, who doesn't care about becoming the best, advance at the same rate as their companion who does care? That seems more artificial than anything else, especially if your answer is from a meta-game perspective.

If the phrase "we should do X because we get more XP" ever comes up in a game it bugs me. Call it a pet peeve.

I'm not a huge fan of Fire Emblem, but in the one I played (ten or fifteen years ago), this is addressed from an in-character perspective. Basically, the main character starts out at as a chump, but you also have a champion who is much more powerful to help you out. One of the other characters makes a point of saying that yes, you could just send the champion out to do everything alone, but it's not fair to deny the less-experienced hero their chance at proving themself - and it may even come back to haunt you, later on, if the champion is no longer around to protect you.

That's really all there is to it. The kinds of people who take the easy way out, and never challenge themselves, are not the kind of people who end up as mighty heroes. It does seem to imply that D&D really only works for certain types of characters, but then again, there are no rules saying that you must gain levels.

 

[abirdcall]

Another point to keep in mind is that a medium encounter should only take 2 rounds. Ran in theatre of the mind, that’s 10-15 minutes tops, making 6 encounters take 60-90 minutes, which can easily fit into a 2 hour game session.

Break out the maps and minis only for the big set piece deadly combat and encourage your players to treat medium encounters much more loosely.

This is probably part of it too. Some tables probably take a very long time to resolve a combat.

Our table uses minis for all combats but mostly because some of us lean heavily to visual learning. In the smaller fights we don't care about precise positioning - it's just fun to have all the creatures represented.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I find most stories contain at least 6 combat encounters that are organic to the story.

I don't have a lot of interest in an adventure shorter than that.



Open world games can still contain stories. I'm currently in one.

D&D uses a model of 6-8 encounters in a day, not in a story. If you're only running adventures that take place in the course of a single day, that could work. Otherwise, I find it hard to believe that you can keep having 6-8 resource-depleting encounters per day all of which are relevant to your story.

 

[abirdcall]

D&D uses a model of 6-8 encounters in a day, not in a story. If you're only running adventures that take place in the course of a single day, that could work. Otherwise, I find it hard to believe that you can keep having 6-8 resource-depleting encounters per day all of which are relevant to your story.

These are the stories the game is designed for. Dungeons and the equivalent.


If you want different stories which it is easy enough to tweak when short and long tests can occur.

 

[OB1]

This is probably part of it too. Some tables probably take a very long time to resolve a combat.

Our table uses minis for all combats but mostly because some of us lean heavily to visual learning. In the smaller fights we don't care about precise positioning - it's just fun to have all the creatures represented.

Yeah my players will sometimes put pieces out on the table just to get a mental picture of what group is where, but we still blaze through it.

6-8 encounters is really 12-16 rounds per day which isn’t really that different than what 3e or 4e did. And you can get to those same 12-16 rounds with 4-5 hard or 3 deadly.

What is different is how long those turns should take to resolve. A 5e turn shouldn’t take anywhere near as long to resolve as a 3e or 4e one. As a player or a DM, pushing your table to resolve combat turns more quickly will pay huge dividends in your enjoyment of 5e.

Unless my players are fighting a deadly encounter with a creature at or above their CR, I push for turns to take no more than a minute. I call out who’s on deck in initiative order and expect that player to be ready when their turn comes up. Know what your spell or ability does, have relevant dice ready, etc. And I will put a PC on dodge if they can’t decide or roti Ely have to go to their PHB to look up their ability.

They all resisted at first, but now combat has an immediacy and urgency about it that everyone loves. And everyone pays attention to what’s going on.

 

[Henry]

Game time is not the same as real time.

Why can't you go 3 sessions until having a long rest? That often happens at our table. They will often short rest at the end of a session. Long rests happen at the end of the adventure (or at a safe spot in the middle of a long adventure).

Two reasons:

1) real-world player perception is quite different from game-time PC perception. To the PCs, it’s a few hours; to the PCs, it’s anywhere from two weeks to (in my group’s case) a month and a half (three sessions). It leads to quite the sense of disconnect.

2) your question about 3 sessions till a long rest still does not answer my statement about an unrealistic number of encounters. Unless the PCs are regularly in the middle of a war zone, there aren’t many plausible situations of someone fighting eight encounters in rapid succession. War zones like the gnoll example above, timer countdowns where the bad guy finishes a ritual, “going to kill the hostages in two hours” - and that’s about it. Everything else is pretty much variations on those themes - and I could argue the last two are the same theme. Just because it makes the game math work doesn’t mean it’s the best choice.

If others find it plausible, that’s cool, but the PCs consistently having to fight a marathon of encounters before the day is out strains credulity for me.

 

[Henry]

Yeah my players will sometimes put pieces out on the table just to get a mental picture of what group is where, but we still blaze through it.

6-8 encounters is really 12-16 rounds per day which isn’t really that different than what 3e or 4e did. And you can get to those same 12-16 rounds with 4-5 hard or 3 deadly.

What is different is how long those turns should take to resolve. A 5e turn shouldn’t take anywhere near as long to resolve as a 3e or 4e one. As a player or a DM, pushing your table to resolve combat turns more quickly will pay huge dividends in your enjoyment of 5e.

Unless my players are fighting a deadly encounter with a creature at or above their CR, I push for turns to take no more than a minute. I call out who’s on deck in initiative order and expect that player to be ready when their turn comes up. Know what your spell or ability does, have relevant dice ready, etc. And I will put a PC on dodge if they can’t decide or roti Ely have to go to their PHB to look up their ability.

They all resisted at first, but now combat has an immediacy and urgency about it that everyone loves. And everyone pays attention to what’s going on.

Your combats last two rounds apiece? What are they fighting that goes down in two rounds? That’s like constant rocket tag! Even our Princes of the Apocalypse games had most combats lasting 4 to 6 rounds each, with the boss fights lasting closer to 6 or 7.

 

[OB1]

Your combats last two rounds apiece? What are they fighting that goes down in two rounds? That’s like constant rocket tag! Even our Princes of the Apocalypse games had most combats lasting 4 to 6 rounds each, with the boss fights lasting closer to 6 or 7.

I’ve found most medium combats last 2 rounds, yes. Maybe 3 if a couple PCS miss their attacks.

Hard go 3-4, deadly 4-6. Longest I’ve ever run was 12 rounds and it was double the minimum deadly adjusted xp.