D&D 5E The 6-battle adventuring day, does it even exist?

[el-remmen]

I was just counting for my group's current adventure premise - raiding the swamp lair of an evil cult.

So far they have had six combat encounters in about five hours of in-game time. They have taken three short rests in that time.

This is the first time this has happened since the campaign began (I think our high was 4 such encounters in a day before this). My guess is there will be at least two more (including the final battle against the big bad) before a long rest. If they leave and come back, they might be tracked and attacked as they rest (depends on their precautions) and will find the going a lot tougher once the occupants realize they are being raided and organize (so far they have luckily avoided this - mostly by making use of secret passages they discovered and used against their foes).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I only see six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day if I'm rolling for random encounters every hour, so it really only happens in dangerous environments (most often dungeons).

You can change the way you structure your encounters and easily achieve this. Build rolling encounters, or have random encounters be locations of a few rooms each (the 5 room dungeon design ethos works great for this). Do this and you'll get closer to the XP budget without straining how many times you have to roll. Honestly, I find these kinds of random encounters to be more realistic that the ones that are just wandering groups of monsters in their encounter sized lots.

 

[mrpopstar]

You can change the way you structure your encounters and easily achieve this. Build rolling encounters, or have random encounters be locations of a few rooms each (the 5 room dungeon design ethos works great for this). Do this and you'll get closer to the XP budget without straining how many times you have to roll. Honestly, I find these kinds of random encounters to be more realistic that the ones that are just wandering groups of monsters in their encounter sized lots.

But I love rolling! Wildly anticipating another creature feature. Hah! Much fun.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But I love rolling! Wildly anticipating another creature feature. Hah! Much fun.

Um, yes? I didn't suggest not rolling. I suggested altering the encounters on your table to more closely align with the rules guidance. It's a simple fix, just requires a small realignment of how you think of random encounters (ie, from single encounter sized things to larger, multiple encounter things). IE, you can still roll and get goblins, but instead of a random scouting party of 5 goblins, dealt with and done, you get the same scouting party, but it's followed almost immediately by a larger war party -- no time to rest or really do much after the first fight. Or, instead of a goblin party, you find a goblin lair -- 3-5 connected warrens with enough goblins to fill out a few encounters.

 

[Staffan]

First, my games pretty much never have 6 fights between long rests. That much combat is exhausting from a play perspective, never mind the in-universe one. This seems to be pretty common from all the online discussions I've followed over the years.

Agreed. And in PF2, I've seen adventures expecting even more encounters in a single day.

Second, only having 2 or so fights between long rests has not been an issue for me because you can just make the combats a little more challenging, and mix in out of combat hazards and encounters to sap PC resources. I know lots of people feel that the 6 encounter day means any DM who runs fewer let's their players "nova" too often and destroy game balance, but for me personally it just means players get to spend more time doing the fun things on their sheet, and I get to have more fun by throwing bigger challenges at them sooner, knowing they will almost always be okay or at least able to flee if needed.

It's not so much game balance, as it is intra-PC balance. Different classes restore their resources on different schedules.

Barbarian – rage is long rest-based.
Bard – inspiration is short rest-based at 5th level and beyond, and spells are long rest-based.
Cleric – channel divinity is short rest-based, spells are long rest-based. Different domains have other abilities, but most either use channels or are long rest-based.
Druid – wild shape is short rest-based and spells are long rest-based. Various circles add different things.
Fighter – second wind and action surge are short rest, and indomitable is long. Archetypes vary, but skew short-rest.
Monk – ki is short rest-based and most of their abilities use ki.
Paladin – channel divinity is short rest-based, and pretty much all their other abilities are long rest: lay on hands, divine sense, cleansing touch, and smitesspells.
Ranger – spells are long rest, and those are their main resource thing.
Rogues – what's resource management? Must be something for the rubes.
Sorcerers – both spells and sorcery point are long rest-based resources.
Warlock – primary spellcasting is short rest-based, mystic arcana are long rest-based but only come into play at high levels. Invocations vary.
Wizard – spellcasting is long rest-based. There's the Arcane Recovery feature that works on a short rest, but that itself only recharges on a long rest.

So, fighter, monk, and warlock are heavily short rest-based. Bards and some druids and clerics are mixed (depending a bit on sub-class), and barbarians, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards are heavily long rest-based. Rogues pretty much don't care.

In other words, in a game without short rests, a 7th level wizard will have a total of 11 spells available, 1 of which is 4th and 3 each of 2nd and 3rd level. A warlock will only have two spells, albeit both 4th level. Adding two short rests to the mix brings the wizard another 4th level spell (probably), but kicks the warlock up to 6 4th level spells. That's a pretty big difference.

 

[overgeeked]

Agreed. And in PF2, I've seen adventures expecting even more encounters in a single day.

It's not so much game balance, as it is intra-PC balance. Different classes restore their resources on different schedules.

Barbarian – rage is long rest-based.
Bard – inspiration is short rest-based at 5th level and beyond, and spells are long rest-based.
Cleric – channel divinity is short rest-based, spells are long rest-based. Different domains have other abilities, but most either use channels or are long rest-based.
Druid – wild shape is short rest-based and spells are long rest-based. Various circles add different things.
Fighter – second wind and action surge are short rest, and indomitable is long. Archetypes vary, but skew short-rest.
Monk – ki is short rest-based and most of their abilities use ki.
Paladin – channel divinity is short rest-based, and pretty much all their other abilities are long rest: lay on hands, divine sense, cleansing touch, and smitesspells.
Ranger – spells are long rest, and those are their main resource thing.
Rogues – what's resource management? Must be something for the rubes.
Sorcerers – both spells and sorcery point are long rest-based resources.
Warlock – primary spellcasting is short rest-based, mystic arcana are long rest-based but only come into play at high levels. Invocations vary.
Wizard – spellcasting is long rest-based. There's the Arcane Recovery feature that works on a short rest, but that itself only recharges on a long rest.

So, fighter, monk, and warlock are heavily short rest-based. Bards and some druids and clerics are mixed (depending a bit on sub-class), and barbarians, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards are heavily long rest-based. Rogues pretty much don't care.

In other words, in a game without short rests, a 7th level wizard will have a total of 11 spells available, 1 of which is 4th and 3 each of 2nd and 3rd level. A warlock will only have two spells, albeit both 4th level. Adding two short rests to the mix brings the wizard another 4th level spell (probably), but kicks the warlock up to 6 4th level spells. That's a pretty big difference.

The game designers assumed 6-8 combat encounters in a day and assumed two short rests per day. They balanced the classes on those assumptions. It's trivial to convert short rest recharging abilities to long rest recharging. Simply multiply short rest recharging stuff by 3. Done. As a 2nd level monk you get 2 ki per short rest is now 6 ki per day. You might need to include some caps or limits, like only so many warlock spells per encounter or some such, but otherwise it's exactly what the game's designers built the game to do and balanced it around.

 

[Oofta]

I use the alternate rest rules and have between 5 and 10 encounters between long rests. It's usually spread out over 2 sessions, sometimes 3.

I find it works fine.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The game designers assumed 6-8 combat encounters in a day and assumed two short rests per day. They balanced the classes on those assumptions. It's trivial to convert short rest recharging abilities to long rest recharging. Simply multiply short rest recharging stuff by 3. Done. As a 2nd level monk you get 2 ki per short rest is now 6 ki per day. You might need to include some caps or limits, like only so many warlock spells per encounter or some such, but otherwise it's exactly what the game's designers built the game to do and balanced it around.

No, the game designers assumed daily XP budgets and (usually) two short rests per day. The 6-8 medium combat encounters is an example of what the daily XP budget can be.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think that the most I've ever had was 5 combat encounters each long rest, with a short rest or two between a few of those fights. Most of them were fairly small (some gnolls, an owlbear, etc), but there were some larger fights the few times I've done this. I don't think I've ever done 6 encounters in a day. In fact, the way that I determine Random Encounters in a single day nearly prevents this from happening (Roll 3 d20s per day, an 18-20 marks an encounter, on a Nat 20, roll a d4. On a 1-2, there's only one encounter from this single check, on a 3-4, there's two. So, at max, there could be 6, but the odds of that happening are 1 in 64,000, so it's almost definitely not going to happen anytime soon).

Even the times where I've ignored this system for an adventuring day or two, I typically only do between 2-4 combats each long rest. I don't find it fun to slog through more combats each day, and neither do my players.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think that the most I've ever had was 5 combat encounters each long rest, with a short rest or two between a few of those fights. Most of them were fairly small (some gnolls, an owlbear, etc), but there were some larger fights the few times I've done this. I don't think I've ever done 6 encounters in a day. In fact, the way that I determine Random Encounters in a single day nearly prevents this from happening (Roll 3 d20s per day, an 18-20 marks an encounter, on a Nat 20, roll a d4. On a 1-2, there's only one encounter from this single check, on a 3-4, there's two. So, at max, there could be 6, but the odds of that happening are 1 in 64,000, so it's almost definitely not going to happen anytime soon).

Even the times where I've ignored this system for an adventuring day or two, I typically only do between 2-4 combats each long rest. I don't find it fun to slog through more combats each day, and neither do my players.

Again, a small shift in how you approach what random encounters are can net a large impact in play.