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

[Mistwell]

In both my games right now, we're at around this number of combats per day.

In Dungeon of the Mad Mage, we appear to have accidentally stirred up trouble at some sort of front entrance to a region. Meaning we triggered 6 or 7 different encounters all at once and they're all hitting us at nearly the same time. There is some delay before each following one hits us, but often we have not finish the last battle before the next group appears around the corner.

Which for some things is fine. For example, a 1 minute duration spell is going to last through many encounters. And a well timed fireball might catch multiple encounters in one radius.

In Tomb of Annihilation, that jungle is FULL of enemies and overland travel is fraught with constant danger. We can and have triggered this many encounters in a day. Particularly since finding a safe place to rest can be a real problem.

 

[Flamestrike]

In Tomb of Annihilation, that jungle is FULL of enemies and overland travel is fraught with constant danger. We can and have triggered this many encounters in a day. Particularly since finding a safe place to rest can be a real problem.

The entire second part is all dungeon levels/ ruins with reactive enemies and doom clocks (other people looking for the same macguffin etc), where 6 encounters per long rest would be pretty normal.

Ditto the other dungeon areas in the adventure (lost shrines, tombs, mines, grung and pirate camps etc).

You might only get 0-2 most other days of overland adventure, but that's fine and the game working as intended. It moves the spotlight around (and is a feature and not a bug).

 

[ECMO3]

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

Name one that doesnt.

Just one example: The feathergale spire has 5 levels and 11 total rooms and 6 of them have a potential encounter. It will likely only be only a maximum of 3 encounters based on how the rooms are layed out (if you fight in one room on level 1 you probably fight them all). Unless you search the entire spire there is only likely 1 or 2 encounters. 1 if you manage to sneak in past the front entrance, two if you don't.

 

[mrpopstar]

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

Omg autocorrect.

This should say, "Wildly anticipating another creature feature is so much fun!" LOL

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.

Of course I build most encounters with intention, but I do like random encounters and continuous rolling. It's a mini game for me behind the screen, and it also does all the things listed in the Dungeon Master's Guide (creates urgency, establishes atmosphere, etc.).

If you construct a good random encounter table, with a meaningful encounter prepped for each listing, things don't feel as dealt with and done.

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

I dont usually agree with Ezekiel... on much of anything but this is entirely accurate . And a big part of the problem. 5e is a disaster on other ways once you force the 6-8 encounters because wotc stoll designs stuff for desome classes for their 6-8 encounter role and other classes bases on the 10-12mwd equivilant most everyone including wotc adventures themselves actually run because different classes condense into the fraction with different levels of improvement then explode back to the full 6-8 with different levels of success

Sigh. It's not 6-8 encounters, it's the daily adventuring XP budget. Swap up to all hard, and it's like 4-5. Swap in a deadly, and it's 4 or fewer.

With this in mind, you can make some very small changes to how you present encounters and easily get here. Want to burn deadly XP but not be deadly? Great, link 2 medium encounters (or 1 medium, 1 hard) so that the second is arriving as the first is finishing. Waves make for great, engaging combats that burn the XP budget but don't overwhelm, and make lots of sense that not all of the bad guys are clustered together to begin with. Simple.

Or, make a random encounter really random, with maybe just this one isolated group today but tomorrow it's the lead element in a war party, or you find a lair of monsters and it's a mini-dungeon with 3-5 "rooms". These things are very simple to implement and get you to the expected baseline easily.

You miss the point. Other parts of the game are based around that. Everything from the number of times class abilities can be used to how strong they are when they recharge & more changes class balance to a significant degree when you shorten it. You cajt design for both 2-4 and 6-8 unless the assumption is that all abilities are per encounter

 

[Flamestrike]

Just one example: The feathergale spire has 5 levels and 11 total rooms and 6 of them have a potential encounter. It will likely only be only a maximum of 3 encounters based on how the rooms are layed out

So 6 encounters, with some of those encounters being multipart encounters (i.e. coming in waves).

You cant exactly assault the citadel, get halfway in and then leave.

Or you can, but any DM worth his salt would make it a terrible idea, with cultists reinforcing the joint and it becoming 5 times harder the next day.

 

[Flamestrike]

You miss the point. Other parts of the game are based around that.

No, you miss the point. There is nothing wrong with single encounter adventuring days from time to time; you're expected to mix it up as a DM, with some longer than 6 or so, some shorter than 6 or so, some with more short rests than 2 some with less short rests than 2 adventuring days.

On different days different classes will shine. More encounters and more short rests favor Warlocks, Monks and Fighters. Fewer encounters will favor Paladins and Casters. Many encounters and few short rests will favor Champions and Rogues.

It's intentionally designed that way so a DM can play around with class balance by simply adding in short rests, or encounters (or taking them away), and to also remove the 'sameness' that bothered a lot of people in 4E.

The spotlight can be moved around and shared, by simply adjusting your encounter and rest frequencies.

There is no holy RAW that says anywhere 'Thou must do 6-8 encounters and 2-3 short rests'. It's just the classes and encounters are balanced best around that figure. You simply use that as a median or baseline, and design your adventuring days for your Party around that, with maybe shorter days, longer days, more short rests, fewer etc as you see fit.

To see how its done, look at the 15th level Adventure I'm running on this board (to test out high level play). A simple Doom clock has kept the players on task, forced them to be careful with resource use (HP, slots, action surges, SP etc) and imparted a much more strategic level of play to the game (i.e. not just button mashing), while also driving the story forward.

Should the players succeed or fail they'll also feel like their actions matter (and they do) to the story, and what they do has consequences.

 

[abirdcall]

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.

Yeah PoA is by far the worst of the 5e adventures I've played. A lot of it is this but it's also just pretty bland overall too.

Spoiler: PoA spoilers

The penalty for resting without taking out the leaders of the elements is that they escalate attacks against the townsfolk. So they tried, they just didn't do it very well.

 

[abirdcall]

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.

This confusion is far too common (well I haven't seen it in real life but on the internet). I don't entirely know why. The opposite doesn't seem to hold true for these groups. Judging by what I've seen people say they sometimes have multiple long rests per session.

At my table we average 1 long rest per 2 sessions.

 

[Flamestrike]

This confusion is far too common (well I haven't seen it in real life but on the internet). I don't entirely know why. The opposite doesn't seem to hold true for these groups. Judging by what I've seen people say they sometimes have multiple long rests per session.

At my table we average 1 long rest per 2 sessions.

Yeah its weird.

I mean, if you're averaging 0-3 combats per session, and you're already running with a house rule of 'end of session is a long rest in game' just give everyone a short rest at the end of the session instead, and a long rest every 3 sessions.

An 'adventuring day' can be anything you want it to be. Under 'gritty realism' it's often a month or more of in game time, separated by week long long rests.

So many levers there for a DM to pull. A DM that is claiming '6 encounters doesnt fit my pacing' hasnt really thought of ways to make it so it does, because there are literally plenty of solutions, that dont interfere with pacing at all (either narratively, or practically at the table).