D&D 5E 1-3 Encounters per Adventuring Day

[FrogReaver]

So if the casters put out the same effort in terms of spell slots expended, but in one session it was diluted by adding in a number of cantrips, the effectiveness per action is a lot different between those sessions.

The same thing happens with short rest abilities.

 

[Blue]

One point on deadliness - it's not just about how much hp attrition you have but your opportunities to heal between it. For example: a one encounter day with identical hp attrition to a 8 encounter day is a lot more deadly because there's less opportunity to heal between the damage.

So, I'm not actually looking to balance around hp attrition - that's just a starting point to get the discussion rolling.



Let's talk long-rest and short rest classes as there's only one class that is solely at-will.



Let's do a small thought experiment.

Level 3 Wizard and Level 3 fighter. 1 Encounter day. Let's say it lasts 8 rounds. Assuming 60% chance to hit.

Wizard using Magic Missile then firebolt will do:
14+14+10.5+10.5+10.5+10.5+3.3+3.3 = 76.6

Fighter Using Action Surge and a battlemaster damage dice will do:
12+6+6+6+6+6+6+6+18 = 72

That's pretty dang close. Much closer than you were expecting I'm sure?



No one disputes that. But we no longer just have an at-will / daily divide. Short rest abilities have the same effect you just mentioned as long rest abilities. As demonstrated above with the fighter and wizard example.

Short rest will definitely have an effect. But also read what I wrote about efficient use of slots. A caster keeping up a long lasting spell will have a greater effect over multiple rounds without any extra expenditure. Area of effect and debuff/crowd control can have greater effect when there are more and/or more powerful foes in the encounter. Actually put in place what I am discussing.

 

[FrogReaver]

I feel that positing that if you crunched the numbers it would show something does not actually address the concrete points given. Instead of handwaving, can you crunch the numbers?

When you did so in the other thread about the barbarian your numbers only dealt with one facet of raging, so forgive me if hypothetical numbers you haven't presented don't work as a counter-argument. I'd love for you to present them so we can have a reasoned and factual discussion on it.

How about toning it down when you are replying to a quote that wasn't even directed at you.

 

[FrogReaver]

Short rest will definitely have an effect. But also read what I wrote about efficient use of slots. A caster keeping up a long lasting spell will have a greater effect over multiple rounds without any extra expenditure. Area of effect and debuff/crowd control can have greater effect when there are more and/or more powerful foes in the encounter. Actually put in place what I am discussing.

1. This is a new point and not something you previously mentioned. Pardon me for not responding before you actually raised the point.

2. A caster can only keep up 1 concentration spell regardless. Using one slot per day on such a spell sounds more efficient but it really isn't because after you've concentrated on that then you have to use inferior spells the rest of the encounter. Note that this isn't the case in a high number of encounter day. You use more slots casting superior spells but they have a greater relative impact on each individual encounter - meaning you don't need to use your other slots on inferior spells during that fight.

 

[Blue]

How about toning it down when you are replying to a quote that wasn't even to you.

Dave2008 had replied to me, and you were agreeing with him. Pretty sure that's part of the discussion.

It felt rather dismissive to support that with "I think number crunching will show the same thing", especially when earlier number crunching you provided on a related topic was incomplete.

 

[FrogReaver]

Dave2008 had replied to me, and you were agreeing with him. Pretty sure that's part of the discussion.

It felt rather dismissive to support that with "I think number crunching will show the same thing", especially when earlier number crunching you provided on a related topic was incomplete.

Dave said he didn't think the numbers would support it. I agreed with his conclusion and told Dave that I thought numbers would support it.

Not sure how or why you are taking that as personally dismisisng anything you've said.

 

[Blue]

1. This is a new point and not something you previously mentioned. Pardon me for not responding before you actually raised the point.

Actually, I had addressed that in several earlier posts:

It's the little cousin of nova-ing. Basically that having fewer total rounds of combat per day means more actions casting slots vs. casting cantrips. And those rounds of combat broken up less also means more efficient use of slots for long-lasting spells - say having a buff up in all combats using 3 slots instead of 6, and getting to use those extra actions not recast it in a different combat are instead used contribute in other ways.

And then

First, long lasting spells have more effect simply because the encounter is going longer, plus lack of need to spend slots and actions to recast it again in another encounters. It's hard to argue that 6 slots and 6 actions are less efficient than 3 slots and 3 actions for the same result.

Note that arguments that it would only be 3 even with more encounters because of varying difficulty requires players to have perfect knowledge of when to cast or not, including a good expectation fo how many encoutners they will have in a day which many DMs vary. And still, it's worse because it's still would hvae been of some use in the easier encounters. So that is disproven.

Second, increasing deadliness is done by doing one, both, or a combination of tougher and/or more numerous opponents. Both of these can allow a caster to contribute more for the same number of slots and actions through good spell selection.

More numerous opponents means that area of effect can catch more. A fireball that hits 3 foes does 24d6 reduced by saves, while one that hits 5 foes does 40d6 reduced by saves. Greater contribution per action

The nature of saves in 5e is that most creatures will have 2-3 bad saves - ones that they aren't proficient in and don't have a great ability score. These bad saves mean that if you chose the right save to target, more powerful creatures will fail saves just as frequently as less powerful creatures. So if there are more powerful foes, then the same slot will be able to debuff/crowd control/whatever something more powerful. Denying an action to a more powerful creature is a greater contribution than denying an action to a less powerful creature.

Back to your point

2. A caster can only keep up 1 concentration spell regardless. Using one slot per day on such a spell sounds more efficient but it really isn't because after you've concentrated on that then you have to use inferior spells the rest of the encounter. Note that this isn't the case in a high number of encounter day. You use more slots casting superior spells but they have a greater relative impact on each individual encounter - meaning you don't need to use your other slots on inferior spells during that fight.

I don't quite follow. Having up a concentration spell and then using non-concentration slots is a commonly accepted way to project more power per round. There's nothing about using "inferior" spells for the rest of the encounter unless by inferior you mean non-concentration. And I can tell you that switching concentration spells frequently during a combat is not something most do so I don't think that's what you mean. But other spells need not be inferior in terms of level, for example a cleric could have up a Bless spell and then be using other slots for things like Spiritual Weapon and heals.

Please, help me understand what you mean by this.

 

[neogod22]

It's not what was meant. 5-8 (not 6-8, not sure where the 6 came from) encounters/day refers to encounters which drain PC resources - i.e. hit points (and hit dice), spells, "per short rest" and "per long rest" abilities and so on.

Only a minority of RP or skill-based challenges are likely to actually meet these criteria, in my experience. Traps often will, if there are enough of them (not just one negated by a single roll). Trying to get across difficult and dangerous terrain may, if it's likely the PCs will need to cast spells to get past it and/or lose HP doing so. Social encounters though? They're extremely unlikely to in large part because it's so hard to cast spells in a social situation, and if a situation could devolve into combat, it's basically a combat encounter (just one you can avoid), and likely has either a zero resource cost (if avoided by Persuasion/Intimidate rolls together with good RP), or the same resource cost as a normal combat encounter. The binary nature of a lot of skill-challenge or RP stuff means that it's often hard to quantify in the 5-8 model, too, by which I mean so much of it results in a "zero resources used" vs. "lots of resources used" situation, whereas combat fairly reliably uses a moderate amount of resources.

I disagree with the OP that D&D 5E remains well-balanced at 1-3 encounters/day. At lower levels, it's not a huge problem, because the party has so few resources. It's thus very easy to think, particularly if you don't play above 5th or 7th level, that "This is fine". However, at, say 10th or 13th level? 1-3 encounters is a joke.

To challenge a party who are competent players, and understand how to manage their resources, with even say 3 encounters/day at 10th or so, you need to basically throw "Deadly" level encounters at them repeatedly (or close to it). This gets pretty old pretty fast, in my experience, and it still doesn't feel balanced, because it tends to be that the first encounter is a stomp, the second is a stomp but the players are concerned about getting low on stuff, and the third is precarious as heck (this ties in with what an earlier poster said re: a party with full resources being able to easily handle two deadly encounters).

I've got a lot of experience with this, note, because I have a party of 5-6 13th-level (actually 14th now) characters, and I've always found it difficult to build believable adventures with 5-8 encounters/day (outside of dungeon-type scenarios). Again, at lower levels, this seems to work fine - 1-3/day, and you don't even have to go that hard. Indeed 5-8 at low levels is often pretty scary stuff. But once you get up towards and into double digits, that has changed. Particularly if the PCs manage a short rest between the encounters. Whereas 5-8 feels really good at those levels.

I think any guidelines for 1-3 encounters/day are probably slightly pointless because the game just isn't built for it. A better approach, and one I'd consider with a new campaign where I was expecting to go with 1-3 encounters/day, might be to go towards the Gritty Realism optional rule in the DMG, though I think I'd go with the model where they can take a "break" for 1hr to spend HD, and maybe make the long rest be 3 days, not seven.

It seems like at high levels, there really isn't a winning scenario. A lot of times, if the fight seems like it will be easy, a lot of players won't use resources anyway. I was thinking of maybe running a campaign where you only get HP back when you spend HD, but give them all their HD back when they take a long rest. This might gibe a grittier situation where the character will use resources to kill enemies faster, so they take less damage. It will also have the characters decide of they want to dpend more on things like potions, or take extra time for rest.

 

[FrogReaver]

Actually, I had addressed that in several earlier posts:

Apologies - I missed that one line discussing concentration spells right after you presented the general case right before it. I did discuss the general case though - but if you want to talk specifically concentration spells I'm game.

And then

Not fair in quoting yourself in a subsequent post when you've not given someone else a chance to respond to that post yet.

Back to your point

I don't quite follow. Having up a concentration spell and then using non-concentration slots is a commonly accepted way to project more power per round. There's nothing about using "inferior" spells for the rest of the encounter unless by inferior you mean non-concentration. And I can tell you that switching concentration spells frequently during a combat is not something most do so I don't think that's what you mean. But other spells need not be inferior in terms of level, for example a cleric could have up a Bless spell and then be using other slots for things like Spiritual Weapon and heals.

Please, help me understand what you mean by this.

You must take a wizard relative to a fighter in a 6 encounter day and compare that with a wizard relative to a fighter in a single encounter day. You seem to be saying a wizard does more per round in a single encounter day than a wizard in a 6 encounter day - which while true isn't a useful point by itself.

Instead you should be considering the impact the wizard is having on the single encounter day and compare that with the impact the wizard is having on the 6 encounter day. Impact is not measured by looking at their actions alone but also at what heir allies and their opponents are able to do. So the question is: how do we measure impact. So far you've disagreed with any method I've suggested - but while not perfect I'm finding my measurement methods for impact far superior to your ideas around it.

I think that's really where we need to begin. How should we be measuring impact.

As a simple example: consider the impact of doing 10 DPR against an enemy with 100 hp. Now consider the relative impact of doing 20 DPR against an enemy with 200 hp. I would say both characters have the same impact on the fight at hand. However, throw in an ally that does 500 DPR in the first fight and one that does 20 DPR in the second fight. I would now say the first Character has less impact than the 2nd.

So then impact IMO is a function related to your own actions, ally actions and enemy actions. Any measure that isn't accounting or comparing for all 3 will be fatally flawed.

So how do you propose we measure impact?

 

[Don Durito]

If there's one thing to take out of this discussion. It's that the frequency of short rests is perhaps the most important metric balance wise.

I have to agree with others that 1-3 encounters is fine at lower levels, but I think it's not ideal past around say level 8 when primary casters have so many spells. (But now we're starting to get outside of the range at which most people play).

But it's not that big an issue either. It doesn't really bring new issues into the game, it just compounds issues that already exist (healing magic will likely be more abundant - more out of combat problems will be solved by spells etc - but these things already exist).

There's a few other potential issues too. If fighters can action surge every combat, then it no longer feels like they have anything special they can bring out for a boss fighter.

But of course you gain a lot not being tied to repetitive loop of encounters then long rest which doesn't seem to suit the style of game the vast amount of players seem to be playing.