D&D 5E 6-8 Encounters?

[miggyG777]

I don't do it every session; just when I want to challenge the players. The rest of the time, they just don't get the 6-8 encounters, and that's okay.

I wonder how you challenge your players in low encounter scenarios then. Do you not rely on the resource mechanics at all in that case? To me that feels like throwing a big part of the D&D design out of the window. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just becoming a different sort of game at that point.

 

[prabe]

I wonder how you challenge your players in low encounter scenarios then. Do you not rely on the resource mechanics at all in that case?

Can't (and won't try to) speak for @jayoungr but:

I run big, complicated fights, at (usually) well beyond Lethal, and I try to run the enemies intelligently, and some part of challenging the players/characters is solving other problems that lead them to those confrontations (because combat is fun). They need to figure out where to look for the person who set up the gate to Stygia, before they can find him and (probably--it's where next session starts) kill him.

 

[jayoungr]

I wonder how you challenge your players in low encounter scenarios then. Do you not rely on the resource mechanics at all in that case?

Sometimes they get easy fights, yeah. Sometimes I rely on things that hit hard and often to "speed up" the encounter.

It's easier to do when the PCs are lower level, but I recall a session last year in which I was a player. Our PCs were all level 12 or 13, which meant we had a lot of resources at our disposal; but we were up against a group of monsters that each had +12 to hit and 5 attacks per round. Even the toughest of us could only take so many rounds of that, so we ended up grabbing the item we'd come to get and beating it the heck out of there. We didn't use every trick at our disposal, but we definitely felt challenged.

 

[Nebulous]

I’d definitely max the dragon’s hit points and ensure it’s high on the initiative order.

How do you ensure it's high on the initiative order with the swingy d20 roll?

 

[prabe]

How do you ensure it's high on the initiative order with the swingy d20 roll?

Obvious answer is to fudge that roll. Less of a DM Fiat is to give it levels in a class with a Advantage on Initiative as a class feature, or some similar bonus, or an item (like a Sword of Warning) that does the same thing. Or homebrew an ability that lets the dragon use some ability other than DEX. Or any combination.

 

[Charlaquin]

I try to stick to the 6-8 encounter per day guideline. I don’t always meet it, but I can usually get in at least 3-4, and I’m getting better at erring closer to the 6-8 benchmark.

 

[Stoutstien]

The best way, in my opinion, to not screw the whole balance of the game is to adjust the resting mechanics to your likings in order to allow for less encounters during a longer timeframe.

And yes, as I see it, the 6-8 Encounters are specifically referencing COMBAT encounters, as they talk about Medium to Hard difficulty in the DMG, which directly refers to the combat calculations of CR.

I wrote a short article about it here:

Why sleeping should not be a long rest. – lew fidelity

They also say that a GM could give out EXP for things other than sucking the life force out of dead stuff. (DMG pg. 261 non-combat challenges).

The last line should have been page one of the DMG and the running the game section of the PHB

"...awarding XP not only based on the difficulty of the encounter but also only if the encounter involves meaningful risk of failure."

 

[robus]

How do you ensure it's high on the initiative order with the swingy d20 roll?

My nickname is my curse. I got tired of my bosses rolling 5 or lower on initiative and getting curb-stomped by the PCs. It was unsatisfying for them and frustrating for me. I now dial it in at 20 (and potentially add its dex bonus for some variety) or 20 +/- a d6 if you want some randomness. But yeah an entire d20 range is far too swingy for such an important foe. (less of a problem at higher levels as the bosses generally have a pretty good dex bonus meaning they're at least guaranteed to be in the upper teens). But below level 12 I'd say it's a necessity to bring a suitable boss challenge.

 

[miggyG777]

They also say that a GM could give out EXP for things other than sucking the life force out of dead stuff. (DMG pg. 261 non-combat challenges).

The last line should have been page one of the DMG and the running the game section of the PHB

"...awarding XP not only based on the difficulty of the encounter but also only if the encounter involves meaningful risk of failure."

The combat encounter still would be your guideline when designing a non-combat encounter as to how many resources it should drain to justify the XP reward.

 

[Blue]

You can handle danger/risk levels in any number of encounters by adjusting the opposition. That works well.

What 6-8 encounters does (in Tiers 2 & 3) is provide the resource attrition needed to balance the long-rest recovery classes with the at-will classes. And since no other type of scene in D&D is as resource intensive as combat, then yes, that count basically only counts combat encounters with just a few exceptions.

Fewer encounters do not use up as many daily resources. I can detail this out if needed. Because of this, the long-rest recovery classes like the casters will be able to get more out of every action they have. This leaves at-will characters as second fiddle. When you actually play 6-8 combat encounters, those at-will characters get to shine just as much as the casters. (And classes like the paladin, with divine smites that make at-will look strong even on short days, suddenly find that they can't sustain that and come back into balance with pure martial characters.)

I mentioned Tier 2&3. Tier 1, casters don't have enough slots (or enough power in them) to dominate on short days. Tier 4 there's usually enough slots that as long as the caster isn't doing exclusively direct damage, there's enough lower-than-highest level slots that still have a lot of utility and trying to balance via resource attrition is a lost cause.