D&D General 6-8 encounters (combat?)

[Fanaelialae]

My biggest issue with the assumed encounters per day is that it doesn't scale correctly. Level 1 characters can't really benefit from more than 1 short rest, and level 2-4 characters seldom benefit from more than 1 short rest. This means that they can really only handle a couple of combats per day (say 2-4 medium difficulty). Level 5-10 characters have enough resources that they can benefit from 2 short rests and handle 6-8 medium combats per day, as per the assumption. Level 11-16 characters have tons of resources, and could benefit from 2-3 short rests and take on up to 10 medium combats in day easily. I've only run at level 17, but they handled 6-8 hard encounters in a day.

As for combat vs non-combat, it depends on if the encounter uses any resources. Social encounters almost never use resources, except rarely a spell slot or two. Exploration encounters depend on the type, since while traps might drain resources, tricks and travel seldom do. Combat is the only one that always threatens resource use, so it's the easily to consider.

Yeah, though even combat can be highly variable. More times than I can count, I've seen a single spell shift a combat encounter from one that could have consumed a moderate number of resources, to an encounter that consumed exactly one spell. Either by bypassing the encounter entirely, or by rendering the enemy impotent. Oftentimes it's not even a high level spell (usually between a 2nd - 5th level spell).

 

[iserith]

You also run into something in 5e that I don't really recall happening much before: arguments about resting. Half of the part will want to short rest to recover abilities, and the rest will see no benefit so they don't want to. It's a strange dichotomy that encourages player vs player conflict. That isn't a good outcome.

I've seen this happen before and I always thought it was strange. Barring any serious time pressures that make a short rest risky or costly, why anyone would object to taking a short rest is incomprehensible to me. Just say okay!

 

[Yaarel]

Arguments about the 5-minute-work-day is a D&D tradition!

Arguments about how rest and resource management work are systemic to 3e and 5e.

4e made every class use the same schedules, so obviated the arguments.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So why is it bothering the DM if the players do not care or notice. What does it matter to the DM if the party chooses a 5MWD?

Personally I generally do not care about general encounters. I will try and make Boss Fight hard or deadly but I generally do not put a clock or force the pace.
I have noticed though that players tend to overestimate the difficulty of encounters and I try to push the party a little further if I am a player.

Because the DM is a player too, and one who, rules as written, has quite a bit more responsibility than the others. If encounter balance bothers them, then that is just as legitimate as if the guy playing the fighter had a problem with it. If you personally don't care about it, all I can say is good for you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is more like "rest" and a "deep rest" / "refresh" / "renewal" / "second wind".

Short rest versus long rest ... D&D has worse nomenclature than this.

I agree. Many names could be changed in a more coherent game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

How does that not teach the bard player that they shouldn't have invested in social skills?

Because the person who plays the bard wants to take social skills, which is why they chose bard in the first place. And for the times when I do call for a social skill check (which I do), they then have it. But I don't devolve every single time the party talks to someone into a social skill check, because I think that's just silly.

Sure, if every time a player talked to an NPC I immediately said "Roll a Persuasion check" before anything else happened, then maybe the players of those classes that don't have features or bonuses to those kinds of checks might feel like they are missing something. But that's why I don't call for them that often. I just do it every once in a while if the situation might call for it... and it happens infrequently enough that nobody is remembering every past time it happened and who passed and who didn't to make some players feel like their classes were leaving them behind on it.

Balance only really comes into play at the table when something happens so frequently that the players can actually identify the trends-- if they can actually notice and realize that one class is far outpacing the others in whatever it is that is being compared. But if you just don't do the same things over and over again so often that they DO remember it... most issues of balance never come up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Balance only really comes into play at the table when something happens so frequently that the players can actually identify the trends-- if they can actually notice and realize that one class is far outpacing the others in whatever it is that is being compared. But if you just don't do the same things over and over again so often that they DO remember it... most issues of balance never come up.

So, like combat?

 

[Maxperson]

So why is it bothering the DM if the players do not care or notice. What does it matter to the DM if the party chooses a 5MWD?

Balance is the only reason for me to avoid it. I couldn't care less if they stop and rest after every fight, if one fight could challenge them to their fullest without also TPKing them, which is a problem with 5e. It's exceedingly difficult plan an encounter that can survive a full multi-round nova of all PC abilities and dish back during all those rounds without also being so strong that it kills the group.

 

[Charlaquin]

Am I misremembering, or did the DnD Next Playtest documents involve encounter building guidelines that assumed two fewer encounters per day (i.e. 4-6) than what ended up in the DMG?

I don't have the Playtest docs anymore to confirm.

They did, but first of all the encounter difficulty breakdown was different - what the PHB calls a Medium encounter, the Playtest called an Easy encounter, and so on down the line. So the guideline in the playtest was 4-6 of what the PHB calls Medium to Hard encounters. Which works out to the same XP budget, it’s just that the baseline difficulty level of an encounter was higher. Also keep in mind, a lot of numbers changed between the playtest and the PHB, especially monster stats. Because the open playtest was always about finding the right feel for player options like classes, not for working out the combat math.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So, like combat?

Uh... no? Do you run the exact same combat with the exact same make-up of enemies that all do the exact same tactics in the exact same locations and have one each and every game session? If you do, then yeah, maybe your players might notice the trends. But since I don't run my combats in that way... every combat is different and every combat has each character having different ways to work and shine and be successful. No one is wasting their time counting up how much damage each character did because everyone has more important things to do in the fight.