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

[James Gasik]

If I had players who got resentful about something like that, they would be welcome to find themselves a new DM.

Indeed, the ultimate veto power.

 

[Mort]

Yeah, they change to resenting you for messing with their means of not having to deal with pointless random encounters and interrupted rests.

Yet again, this seems to be a misalignment of play goals/expectations.

If the group REALLY expects to have their rest be sacrosanct then this needs to be something addressed in session 0 as the style of the campaign. The DM needs to know, up front, when certain tools are unavailable to him and whether they are willing to run under those limitations.

To add: random encounters are not "pointless" they are meant to help simulate the environment the PCs are engaging with. If the PCs are in an area populated by orcs, they should not be surprised when orcs come upon their attempted rest.

 

[iserith]

Yet again, this seems to be a misalignment of play goals/expectations.

If the group REALLY expects to have their rest be sacrosanct then this needs to be something addressed in session 0 as the style of the campaign. The DM needs to know, up front, when certain tools are unavailable to him and whether they are willing to run under those limitations.

To add: random encounters are not "pointless" they are meant to help simulate the environment the PCs are engaging with. If the PCs are in an area populated by orcs, they should not be surprised when orcs come upon their attempted rest.

Yeah, while nobody should include them if the players or DM doesn't like them full stop, the DMG provides a whole list of reasons for using random encounters. They are far from "pointless."

 

[FrozenNorth]

If you include CR 6, because it's common to encounter things a CR or 2 higher and those creatures with customizable spell lists, because they are druids, clerics, wizards or sorcerers, you get 7 monsters.

I considered going up to CR 6 in my initial example, but it doesn’t make sense in context: for an encounter budget against a level 5 party, you generally don’t have enough for a CR 6 monster plus several mooks. If instead, you just bring the CR 6 in as a solo, most spellcasting monsters aren’t much of a threat against a party of 4 on their own.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Is that an effect of the change from preparing specific spell slots (like the 3.5 druid) to preparing a set of spells for the day and then using them like the 3.5 sorcerer would?

it is a slight boost form 3.5 but not enough to notice... it was a complaint I heard MORE in 3.5 then in 5e.

13th level caster using there one 7th level spell slot for it doesn't seem that awful for the mansion to me. But I can see why it would bother some.

TBH I don't care but it make rope trick and tiny battl bunker look tame

I wonder if whether on-demand teleporting is annoying or not to some of us (at any level, for one person or a group) is related to the inspirational literature one has. None of mine has it except for a couple that have things like teleportation circle where both ends need to have one - and it annoys me.

yeah, I don't mind teleport when it is "someplace we know, and cost some resources" I mind "just a spell slot" though... teleport circle I think is the much better designed spell... but teleport is in for legacy reasons.

 

[FrozenNorth]

To add: random encounters are not "pointless" they are meant to help simulate the environment the PCs are engaging with. If the PCs are in an area populated by orcs, they should not be surprised when orcs come upon their attempted rest.

This cuts both ways though. If the party is in the “Valley of Aberrations”, they will likely be surprised when the DM brings in the CR 6 refluffed druid to dispel LTH.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If I had players who got resentful about something like that, they would be welcome to find themselves a new DM.

don't worry I am sure plenty will

 

[Maxperson]

I considered going up to CR 6 in my initial example, but it doesn’t make sense in context: for an encounter budget against a level 5 party, you generally don’t have enough for a CR 6 monster plus several mooks. If instead, you just bring the CR 6 in as a solo, most spellcasting monsters aren’t much of a threat against a party of 4 on their own.

Why wouldn't CR 6 work with an encounter budget? The budget for a 5th level party is 14000 for a mix of medium and hard encounters, but it can go up to deadly and drop a few of those. A mage is 2300 XP and a deadly fight for that 5th level party is 4400xp. That's plenty for the CR 6 and several mooks. You'd still have 9600xp for the other fights.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Leomund’s Tiny Hut comes online at level 5. How many CR 5 (or less) monsters in the MM can cast dispel magic?

not enough for the party to worry about it... and the few that do are going to be alone most of the time and be at the mercy of at least 1 round of attacks (if not 2) before the fight and as such not much of a threat.

We can extend this further. Even at level 9, how many CR 9 (or less) monsters in the MM can cast dispel magic?

again not many... but at this level they can at least bring friends.

At a certain point, if every adventure has multiple monsters that can cast dispel magic (and always the same ones) just for the purpose of policing the casters, the adventure is going to feel pretty artificial.

yeah the number of people who can argue "There is no imbalance with casters" that also argue "Every adventure must be tailored to the casters or they will take advantage" amazes me

 

[Maxperson]

not enough for the party to worry about it... and the few that do are going to be alone most of the time and be at the mercy of at least 1 round of attacks (if not 2) before the fight and as such not much of a threat.

again not many... but at this level they can at least bring friends.

yeah the number of people who can argue "There is no imbalance with casters" that also argue "Every adventure must be tailored to the casters or they will take advantage" amazes me

If you customize the spell lists for all the creatures/NPCs with wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, etc. levels, the numbers go up significantly.