D&D 5E 6-8 Encounters?

[Nebulous]

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.

I hear you man. Who goes first in the first round of combat is way too important, and it relies SO much on that damn 1-20 spread, not the piddly dexterity modifier. I like how PF2 uses Perception as the modifier, I might switch to that. I would like to entirely replace the 5e initiative system actually into something more strategic but I'm not sure how to best do that.

 

[miggyG777]

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.

If you want to stay true to 5e's intended design there simply is no way around of having 6-8 encounters per long rest. Else it just becomes a different game. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, to each their own. I however, have found that playing how WotC has intended the system to work is simply more fun than trying to eyeball it and essentially turn it into a more free-form RPG.

 

[robus]

I would like to entirely replace the 5e initiative system actually into something more strategic but I'm not sure how to best do that.

Mike Mearls has mooted an alternative where your choice of attack determines your initiative. I've not tried it, but it's definitely more strategic!

 

[CapnZapp]

If you want to stay true to 5e's intended design there simply is no way around of having 6-8 encounters per long rest. Else it just becomes a different game. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, to each their own. I however, have found that playing how WotC has intended the system to work is simply more fun than trying to eyeball it and essentially turn it into a more free-form RPG.

Please don't do that. Playing the game with 5 or 9 encounters is not badwrongfun. Don't suggest you must follow the guideline or "it becomes a different game".

No, it's still D&D 5th Edition if you have a single encounter per long rest. Or a hundred

 

[Nebulous]

Mike Mearls has mooted an alternative where your choice of attack determines your initiative. I've not tried it, but it's definitely more strategic!

It certainly looks interesting, but I fear it would slow fights down to a crawl. My group is pretty bad at strategy anyway, and this would further complicate it. I do like how it sounds though.

 

[prabe]

Please don't do that. Playing the game with 5 or 9 encounters is not badwrongfun. Don't suggest you must follow the guideline or "it becomes a different game".

No, it's still D&D 5th Edition if you have a single encounter per long rest. Or a hundred

I concur. It doesn't even necessarily make the game easier to have fewer encounters. You just need to account for everyone going nova.

 

[Stoutstien]

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.

And this is one of the inherent flaws of the system. Combat encounters are generally based on how easy they are to kill the party but HP attrition is not really a factor in determining if a encounter is challenging or not. Most encounter do not last long enough to form meaningful deviation of results.
this system really does need ways of measuring challenge past damage. preventing the horde of troll from eating the refugees is a lot more complicated to give a true challenge rating too.


Should be said a system can be good and still flawed before somebody jumps in to defend the designers. I have the upmost repect and admirationn for the designers.

 

[Stoutstien]

I hear you man. Who goes first in the first round of combat is way too important, and it relies SO much on that damn 1-20 spread, not the piddly dexterity modifier. I like how PF2 uses Perception as the modifier, I might switch to that. I would like to entirely replace the 5e initiative system actually into something more strategic but I'm not sure how to best do that.

I like giving really iconic NPCs multiple turns within a round. so say we have a dragon that has three attacks and it's multiattack option, instead it rolled initiative three times and takes a single attack each turn.
it's damage output is about the same with a little bit more because now it gets multiple reactions but it also gets to act more each round so it's less likely to be annihilated before it gets to do anything

 

[jayoungr]

I like giving really iconic NPCs multiple turns within a round. so say we have a dragon that has three attacks and it's multiattack option, instead it rolled initiative three times and takes a single attack each turn.

Isn't that basically the same as legendary actions?

 

[Stoutstien]

Isn't that basically the same as legendary actions?

Sort of. I found legendary actions to be very limiting and static. It also didn't fix the issues of mobility of the NPC, and the options of actions that are not just basically attacks. So the lich could use one turn to cast a spell and the next to heal itself by sucking the energy away from his undead minions. It allows for encounters to be multi-facet instead of race to zero.

I originally started by making custom legendary actions but realized it was just easier to make multiple turn in a round because it added back the reasonable uncertainty of the order without huge changes to CR of a NPC.