Dungeons & Dragons Has Done Away With the Adventuring Day

Adventuring days are no more, at least not in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. The new 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide contains a streamlined guide to combat encounter planning, with a simplified set of instructions on how to build an appropriate encounter for any set of characters. The new rules are pretty basic - the DM determines an XP budget based on the difficulty level they're aiming for (with choices of low, moderate, or high, which is a change from the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide) and the level of the characters in a party. They then spend that budget on creatures to actually craft the encounter. Missing from the 2024 encounter building is applying an encounter multiplier based on the number of creatures and the number of party members, although the book still warns that more creatures adds the potential for more complications as an encounter is playing out.

What's really interesting about the new encounter building rules in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is that there's no longer any mention of the "adventuring day," nor is there any recommendation about how many encounters players should have in between long rests. The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide contained a recommendation that players should have 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters per adventuring day. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide instead opts to discuss encounter pace and how to balance player desire to take frequent Short Rests with ratcheting up tension within the adventure.

The 6-8 encounters per day guideline was always controversial and at least in my experience rarely followed even in official D&D adventures. The new 2024 encounter building guidelines are not only more streamlined, but they also seem to embrace a more common sense approach to DM prep and planning.

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons & Dragons will be released on November 12th.

 

[Selas]

Well if they have changed to only 3 levels of difficult, then it is likely the XP budgets have changed. That is really all you need. I can make a combat hard or easy primarily* by adjusting the XP budget I use.

*It also helps to think about what your group is capable of and what you need to do to threaten the specifics of their abilities.

They did. Nerd Immersion did a Q&A livestream yesterday of the 2024 DMG since he received an early copy, and he said that up to lvl 9, XP budget per encounter was similar to 2014. Above level 9, the XP budget increases depending on difficulty, with the XP budget for a Hard encounter at level 20 being around double of what a level 20 Deadly encounter was in 2014. I think he said it was around 22k XP at level 20 Hard encounter.

Edit: I believe he also said this was per player, but I would have to watch it again

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sometimes you find out you were Boromir!

And if I don't want to be Boromir?

It indeed isn't. It is about non-lethal martial arts. D&D isn't. It is about characters constantly engaging in combats with lethal magic and weapons, and killing crapton of things. It somehow feels a bit grotesque if they're doing this just for sport, without their life being on the line also!

It can be grotesque or it could be lighthearted. It's not liek every action show has to be Invincible with blood-splosions and death everywhere.

Absolutely! And I think D&D's genre of violent action adventure sort of implies that we're dealing with dangerous business here!

Gere doesn't set tone. Last Action Hero and John Wick are both action movies. action doesn't require death. In fact, it didn't become luridly fixated on it until the late 90's.

But of course one doesn't need to play it that way if one doesn't find that appealing, and there are others, potentially more interesting defeat conditions.

Then why keep advocating the boring one that kills the character's story along with their body?

But I'd argue that for most people for things to remain interesting, there needs to be some defeat conditions.

Defeat conditions. Not the--again--most boring one. And that's not subjective because death as a defeat condition ends to story.

And BTW, I am not a killed DM at all, I don't particularly like character death, and none of the characters over the 41 sessions of my current campaign have died. But it is still possible that they could.

The secret is that just because you say it's possible doesn't mean it actually has to be. Or that it would be a positive result for it to happen.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They did. Nerd Immersion did a Q&A livestream yesterday of the 2024 DMG since he received an early copy, and he said that up to lvl 9, XP budget per encounter was similar to 2014. Above level 9, the XP budget increases depending on difficulty, with the XP budget for a Hard encounter at level 20 being around double of what a level 20 Deadly encounter was in 2014. I think he said it was around 22k XP at level 20 Hard encounter.

That is interesting!

 

[Yaarel]

I am thrilled with the abolishment of the "adventure day" requiring about 7 combats per day, because it was narratively absurd.

I appreciate the more streamline and self-evident approach.

I will probably continue to use my own method to balance the math: all rests are Short Rests, except twice per level a player can choose to make it grant the benefit of a Long Rest instead for their own character. The narrative is a "deep" recharge with new hope and vigor.

I will probably be happy with using the new encounter building recommendations, using "XP" for the budget currency. But the players will never see XP during the game. I count encounters per level. Not XP. For the "sweet spot", levels 5 thru 8, encounters are about 15 per level. To get to level 5, the number of encounters are about 3, 6, 9, then 12 during level 4. From level 9 onward, there are roughly 9 encounters per level (sometimes upto 12), depending on story and difficulty of challenges.

All of the math refers to levels, not narrative days. So the story timing is whatever it is. The math keeps balance.

 

[dave2008]

They did. Nerd Immersion did a Q&A livestream yesterday of the 2024 DMG since he received an early copy, and he said that up to lvl 9, XP budget per encounter was similar to 2014. Above level 9, the XP budget increases depending on difficulty, with the XP budget for a Hard encounter at level 20 being around double of what a level 20 Deadly encounter was in 2014. I think he said it was around 22k XP at level 20 Hard encounter.

Edit: I believe he also said this was per player, but I would have to watch it again

Likely per player. The old number was 12,700K per player for deadly at level 20. So 22,000 for Hard at level 20 is almost 2x deadly. That seems about right to me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And if I don't want to be Boromir?

Should have been more careful then! Or don't play in a game where the rules say that the characters can die.

It can be grotesque or it could be lighthearted. It's not liek every action show has to be Invincible with blood-splosions and death everywhere.


Gere doesn't set tone. Last Action Hero and John Wick are both action movies. action doesn't require death. In fact, it didn't become luridly fixated on it until the late 90's.

Sure. Comedic slaughter is not something I find particularly appealing, but if you do, go for it!

Then why keep advocating the boring one that kills the character's story along with their body?

I am not "advocating for it." I just recognise that it is one possible defeat condition among many, and sometimes it can be good for the story.

Defeat conditions. Not the--again--most boring one.

To you.

And that's not subjective because death as a defeat condition ends to story.

Of that character, not the whole story. We're not killing the player, they get to make a new character! There are many stories where a death of an important character made the story better.

The secret is that just because you say it's possible doesn't mean it actually has to be. Or that it would be a positive result for it to happen.

Sure, you can engage in illusionism if you want. I have done that. I tend not to do that anymore, as it is more boring to me as GM. I too want to see what happens, not just fudge it!

Also note that the encounter difficulty being such, that the characters can be defeated (which kinda was the topic,) doesn't automatically mean they will die. Many enemies might want to capture the characters alive. Then the characters are in more trouble, but not dead.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I'm sure it's already been mentioned, but I was glad to see that it specificially says you can only take a long rest every sixteen hours. I'm sure 2014 might have said that, but I don't know anyone that did it here. It was like alpha, long rest, alpha, long rest... ymmv

 

[DarkCrisis]

Should have been more careful then! Or don't play in a game where the rules say that the characters can die.


Sure. Comedic slaughter is not something I find particularly appealing, but if you do, go for it!


I am not "advocating for it." I just recognise that it is one possible defeat condition among many, and sometimes it can be good for the story.


To you.


Of that character, not the whole story. We're not killing the player, they get to make a new character! There are many stories where a death of an important character made the story better.


Sure, you can engage in illusionism if you want. I have done that. I tend not to do that anymore, as it is more boring to me as GM. I too want to see what happens, not just fudge it!

Also note that the encounter difficulty being such, that the characters can be defeated (which kinda was the topic,) doesn't automatically mean they will die. Many enemies might want to capture the characters alive. Then the characters are in more trouble, but not dead.

But what if my character is the most important one and the game should cater specifically to me?

 

[Zardnaar]

But what if my character is the most important one and the game should cater specifically to me?

Are you my wife?

 

[Yaarel]

For a hot min, they did want to make a Swiss army knife edition during NEXT. Though, yeah they settled on a tool that can do a bunch of stuff ok, instead of a tool for specific stuff well.

It is up to each setting to add new mechanics to tailor the experience to the mood and tropes of the setting.

Because 2024 is moving away from a "default setting", and relying on the DM to pick a specific setting, the setting choices make 5e become more "modular".

Each setting is a separate tool in the 5e swiss army knife.