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

[ad_hoc]

I think fundamentally it takes too extraordinary of circumstances to explain why characters would push on with their resources at the limits for it to make any sense in a normal adventuring day, and when the occasion arrives where it does actually make sense without elaborate conceits that characters would simply have no opportunity to rest it feels unfair to enforce that because players have gotten used to playing their characters without being so strapped for resources and it is likely in the lead-up to the climactic final battle or some such.

Most action movies force the heroes to move on without resting. There is no tension to a story where the party can just take things at their leisure. If that is the entire game I wouldn't have an interest in it. I want danger and excitement in my stories.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Miss those 5 minute adventuring days, eh??

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Miss those 5 minute adventuring days, eh??

No? That's literally the point. We aren't getting adventuring days of the expected length (6+ encounters, most of them combat). We're getting things closer to the 5MWD, where you blow all your resources to utterly trounce 2-4 encounters and then get a long rest.

Crawford has openly discussed this in a (long) YT video. And if you look at all the UA articles published for the last year or two, they've moved to PB-per-long resources rather than once-per-short resources. I wouldn't be surprised if we get an "Anniversary Revision" or the like that incorporates this and other feedback to try to tweak the issues with 5e rather than outright replace it. Something that could use all or nearly all current 5e modules/adventures/DM prep without meaningful modification (no changes to items or monsters, minimal changes to spells, most changes focused on class design), so they could solve issues like Sorcerers not quite having enough spells, Warlocks and Champions getting a lot of short shrift, and Beastmasters.

 

[Staffan]

As an example of an adventure with way too many encounters, I present Princes of the Apocalypse.

Spoiler

Feathergale Spire: 6ish, but there are plot elements that can change this up.
Rivergard Keep: 9
Sacred Stone Monastery: 13+random+lich
Scarlet Moon Hall: 10ish (fairly open design, so it's hard to say what areas would be in the same encounter).
Temple of the Howling Hatred: 14
Temple of the Crushing Wave: 18
Temple of the Black Earth: 15
Temple of the Eternal Flame: 16
Fane of the Eye: 12
Howling Caves: 8 + assorted terrain hazards.
Plunging Torrents: 14
Black Geode: 11
Weeping Colossus: 8

Once you get into the Temples and below, it's all just different levels/regions of the same really big dungeon (the Temples form a 2x2 grid where you can go from air to water to earth to fire to air, but not water to fire or air to earth; below that they all have passages leading to the Fane, and the Fane has passages leading to the elemental nodes). The dungeon is mostly static – there are a few places where the adventure specifies that if the PCs retreat and return, some defenders move from area A to area B, or they summon reinforcements, but by and large there are limited opportunities for the defenders to reinforce once the PCs get there.

These dungeons/levels are all clearly too big for a single assault, and at the same time there are very few consequences to retreating and resting. This is pretty bad design.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, I mean, it will matter if the class design was predicated on "give up some non-combat ability in order to have more combat ability."

Which...uh...yeah, that's kind of literally what the Fighter is.

Also if there aren't that many combats for the casters to burn their spell slots for, they'll have much more to use for non-combat stuff and thus dominate that area.

 

[Zardnaar]

New campaign I'm tweaking some things.

1-3 encounters, short rest classes get resources doubled and they refresh on long rest.

Something like fighters probably just go with PB on long rest for their short rest abilities.

I'll make more use of custom monsters and exhaustion.

 

[Panfilo]

Not only is it not real now, but if I'm honest the tradition of optimization in D&D has largely been about avoiding the 4-8 encounter day (depending on edition) for a long time. Rope trick pocket dimension shenanigans, 5 minute utility spamming in 4E, and so on. It's incentivized by the system at the same time as being balanced against it, so if I were being generous I'd say it was a central tension of the game. If I were less generous I'd say it was a flaw.

Part of why we still have a degree of linear fighters quadratic wizards in 5E is because despite the reigning in of spell slots, specific broken spells and non-concentration effects, casters shrimply know they'll rarely go past 2 encounters before being able to bail or rest. It effects the balance of the Luck feat, sorcery points, and things of that nature as well. It means we rarely have to think seriously about hit dice beyond 4th or 5th level. Prior to Witchlight, WotC seemed to still be endorsing "the long day" in 1st party content, but I think this represents them finally moving on how people actually run the game.

It's one of very few things about 5E that would actually necessitate an edition change to fundamentally fix, though it's obviously not going to cause that by itself since people don't care about it enough to disengage. D&D is (in-character) safer now, and a lot of players expect dungeons to be, in the words of Cookie Monster, a sometimes food. I think we'll see an officially unlabeled but fan-recognized intra-edition divergence between these two playstyles, Long Day and Short Day. As far as I'm concerned, it's for the best: players and DMs will have a clearer idea of how to find the kind of game they most enjoy.

 

[Flamestrike]

To be honest I think the 6 fights per long rest is not really that common to start with in official content. In all the WOTC adventures I have played and DMed I think I have only had a handful of days that met that threshold.

How? Every dungeon ever has at least 6 encounters per level. There are plenty of dungeons in every published adventure.

Name one that doesnt.

 

[Flamestrike]

First, my games pretty much never have 6 fights between long rests. That much combat is exhausting from a play perspective

A long rest takes a minute to resolve.

Its no more exhausting having 1 encounter per long rest from a play perspective than it is having 50 per long rest.

It's only exhausting if by 'squeezing in 6 combats between long rests' you mean '6 combats per game session' and the two things are not even related in any way at all.

Decouple long rests from game sessions. Thats not the rule anyway. I mean you could just as easily couple them to 'every 6 encounters you get a long rest' and youre done.

 

[Flamestrike]

Part of why we still have a degree of linear fighters quadratic wizards in 5E is because despite the reigning in of spell slots, specific broken spells and non-concentration effects, casters shrimply know they'll rarely go past 2 encounters before being able to bail or rest.

The DM running those casters is allowing that then.

A simple doom clock, or reactive enemy, or mechanical change (gritty realism etc) or a simple 'nope' from the DM and that problem ceases to exist.