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

[tetrasodium]

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.

"From time to time" is the critical part of that nothing wrong. When "time into time" is more like "nearly all the time" things start coming apart.

Edit: before saying "well dont do that as a gm" level that at wotc in their adventures teaching new gms to do exactly that

 

[Benjamin Olson]

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.

Most action movies cover a lot less narrative than a full D&D campaign. And action movies have scripted main characters, who will happily do irrational things to serve the writers goals of keeping the pace of action up (whereas D&D characters usually only do wildly irrational things to confound the plans of the DM "author"). And action heroes all have plot armor and will always do just well enough to prevail. Action movies need fast pacing to generate tension and excitement partly because the audience needs to be distracted from the predictability of the resolutions.

D&D isn't a movie. It doesn't need to ramp up tension by making the action fast paced. Tension, danger, and excitement come from the fact that victory is not assured even when the heroes do go in at full strength, and nobody knows for certain where the story will go. Sometimes it is rational for heroes to rest even when it is not cinematic for them to do so.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.

That'd be because most people don't want to track resources between sessions and just refresh because it's easier and avoid tedium.

Actually, I think most people don't actually enjoy the resource management mini-game in general and that part of the game is coasting on inertia and the people who are passionate about it.

 

[mrpopstar]

That'd be because most people don't want to track resources between sessions and just refresh because it's easier and avoid tedium.

Actually, I think most people don't actually enjoy the resource management mini-game in general and that part of the game is coasting on inertia and the people who are passionate about it.

I'm all about resources, and the exploration pillar in general. Food, water, healer's kits, torches and ammunition are tracked. All those things become important and apply pressures to the adventuring day.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

No if you get past the first guard you likely only fight at the room at the very top (unless you purposely go to the stables or intentionally search the rest of the tower). If you don't get past the first guard then you fight there in the entrance (including the opponents from the other three rooms on the ground floor who come to help ariving on turn 2) and then you fight again in the last room at the top of the stairs.

That is from memory, but I am fairly sure it is correct.

 

[Rabulias]

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

Not all of those encounters will be equal. 2-4 hard or deadly encounters will probably eat up the same resources as 6-8 medium encounters.

 

[abirdcall]

Most action movies cover a lot less narrative than a full D&D campaign. And action movies have scripted main characters, who will happily do irrational things to serve the writers goals of keeping the pace of action up (whereas D&D characters usually only do wildly irrational things to confound the plans of the DM "author"). And action heroes all have plot armor and will always do just well enough to prevail. Action movies need fast pacing to generate tension and excitement partly because the audience needs to be distracted from the predictability of the resolutions.

D&D isn't a movie. It doesn't need to ramp up tension by making the action fast paced. Tension, danger, and excitement come from the fact that victory is not assured even when the heroes do go in at full strength, and nobody knows for certain where the story will go. Sometimes it is rational for heroes to rest even when it is not cinematic for them to do so.

The onus is on the player to make a character who wants to adventure.

The onus is on the group to make an exciting and fun story. What you describe sounds like a tedious exercise that I would not be interested in.

D&D 5e is definitely not designed to have the party face encounters at full strength that put them in peril. Try out the standard adventuring day where tension builds over time and more classes are feasible.

It's okay for heroes to rest but then there should be consequences. Usually failing the mission objective. If there are no consequences then that's just anticlimactic and boring to me.

Take The Terminator as an example. If the heroes had the choice to go to the motel and rest after each encounter with the Terminator it would be a boring movie. Action movies follow this structure because it is exciting even though we all know they're going to win in the end anyway.

 

[abirdcall]

That'd be because most people don't want to track resources between sessions and just refresh because it's easier and avoid tedium.

Actually, I think most people don't actually enjoy the resource management mini-game in general and that part of the game is coasting on inertia and the people who are passionate about it.

The only way to avoid that is to have everyone play Rogues. I don't think 5e would be as popular as it is if people really did hate that part of it.

I do try to end sessions on a short rest to avoid tracking everything and to have a natural stopping point. The short/long rest pacing mechanic is one thing I really like about 5e for this. We can have a little rest without having everyone full again.

 

[cmad1977]

It’s not “6 fights”.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Take The Terminator as an example. If the heroes had the choice to go to the motel and rest after each encounter with the Terminator it would be a boring movie. Action movies follow this structure because it is exciting even though we all know they're going to win in the end anyway.

Sure, and a D&D campaign fighting the Terminator can be exciting even if the heroes rest between every encounter with said Terminator, because a D&D campaign is not reliant on fast pacing to generate tension and keep audience engagement the way an action movie is.