D&D 5E D&D Without Adding House-Rules/Home-brew

[Maxperson]

So, now "It unbalances the game in favor of the PCs." becomes "not being challenged at all"?

I know, on the internet, there's a tendency to restate one's position in more and more severe terms if people don't accept your posit, but could we avoid that, please? The resulting hyperbole isn't constructive.

The 6-8 encounters per day guideline is not isolated from other guidelines. Like, six encounters of one normal goblin each isn't going to cut it, right? There is an assumed difficulty of those encounters. So, if you aren't running the same number of encounters, the difficulty of what you do use should change.

When I quoted it to you, the quote did say that it was medium to hard encounters, and if you had easier encounters it expected more of them, and if you had harder encounters it expected less. I've been posting in that context.

The 6-8 encounters represents what the game feels is a challenge for the PCs before they need to rest. You have to adjust the difficulty if you go below 6. If you go too far below 6, then the party can nova pretty hard and trivialize the encounters. Getting a monster that can withstand the player nova means that the DCs and the damage output are so high, that it has a high chance to TPK the party.

 

[Umbran]

When I quoted it to you, the quote did say that it was medium to hard encounters, and if you had easier encounters it expected more of them, and if you had harder encounters it expected less. I've been posting in that context.

Right, in the context of them having handed you the solution that is on par with the "rule", but apparently ignoring it?

The 6-8 encounters represents what the game feels is a challenge for the PCs before they need to rest. You have to adjust the difficulty if you go below 6. If you go too far below 6

Interesting space to wiggle there - "too far below". Nothing hard that you can be held to in that.

... then the party can nova pretty hard and trivialize the encounters. Getting a monster that can withstand the player nova means that the DCs and the damage output are so high, that it has a high chance to TPK the party.

Well, the party is supposed to be challenged, right? There's folks around here that seem to think having a threat of TPK every session is just about right.

As has already been noted - WotC violates this guideline in its own adventures quite frequently. I'm running Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and the section we are going through has an explicit 8 hour span in which there's no real combat encounter to speak of! Zero is about as far below six as we can go, isn't it? Shouldn't my game be doomed?

The characters could start a fight if they really wanted, I suppose, and they could nova in that. But that wouldn't get them what they wanted.

The guideline is a somewhat trustable way to get one kind of tactical combat game experience out of the rules. It isn't the only way to get that experience, and there are other experiences available.

 

[Shiroiken]

Play yes, run no. I can work with a lot of RAW weirdness as a player, since I don't really have much control over it. As a DM, however, I know I have the ability to change the rules to make it work best for the group. Choosing to use RAW when it hurts the game isn't something I can do.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I love tweaking the rules, butchering and reassembling them in my spare time. Most of them arent even made to be used at my table, they are just fun musing for the forums and such.

At the actual table I dont really care if people want to go with the basic stuff. Even with just the official stuff, there's a lot of options, and that's before adding variants from the various books.

I've played for a long time published campaigns with just the PHB and had lotsa fun. Even playing the starter set with just the basic rules or the SRD would be quite satisfying, even if it would not allow me to bend and twist the system as much as I'd like.

 

[CleverNickName]

Easy question.
I would, and have.

 

[Mort]

Choosing to use RAW when it hurts the game isn't something I can do.

Can you provide an example of when using RAW would hurt the game?

I mean, I can see plenty of situations where house rules, 3rd party supplements etc. might increase the fun at the table sure. But I'm having a hard time picturing how using "straigh RAW" (if there even is such a thing, really) would hurt the game?

 

[Voadam]

DMG page 84

"THE ADVENTURING DAY
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."

This is what the game is balanced around. The designed 5e as a resource management game centered around class abilities and hit points. If you run less than the assumed 6-8 encounters and don't make them deadly to compensate, it unbalances the game in favor of the PCs.

The quoted text seems to say this is the limit of how much you can expect them to handle, not that the game is balanced around that amount or that it suggests you should design around that for a typical adventure.

"Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."

There is some verbage in different spots that leans more on doing this limit amount though.

For example the next two paragraphs on page 84 has both expected xp earned in a day and an expression of limits they can handle:

"In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party's adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest."

The assumption here seems to be that the math shows how far the party can be expected to go and they are generally expected to go until they hit their limit of resources.

That is not unreasonable for mega-dungeon raiding where there are lots of potential individual opposition encounters and retreat between encounters is an option, but really not the expected normal tempo of a lot of D&D such as plot based heroic quests, traveling, urban scenarios, investigations, etc.

 

[Vaalingrade]

For me, this is like asking if I would eat a potato without salt or seasoning.

If I had absolutely no other choice. Like, I've already eaten my shoes and the other plane survivors have grown wary of my hungry stares and are on guard..

 

[Voadam]

Can you provide an example of when using RAW would hurt the game?

I mean, I can see plenty of situations where house rules, 3rd party supplements etc. might increase the fun at the table sure. But I'm having a hard time picturing how using "straigh RAW" (if there even is such a thing, really) would hurt the game?

Using one of the PH halfling pictures as your character portrait?

 

[Oofta]

Using one of the PH halfling pictures as your character portrait?
View attachment 260934

Gaah! There are spoiler tags for a reason!