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.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thing is, putting every adventure on a time clock gets old real fast.

I literally described two alternatives to a ticking clock in the very post you’re responding to…

 

[Lanefan]

And a big one: party size of 6-8. Having 6 PCs is at least twice as powerful as having 4. Focus fire and being able to cover many situations makes bigger parties a lot more powerful.

This is something they should give a few pages to in the DMG: suggestions on how to tweak for bigger or smaller parties than the default of four.

In 1e the average party was assumed to be 6-10 adventurers, including PCs, henches, and adventuring NPCs.

Never mind that in-game it would be only logical for the (wise) characters to arrive at "Hey, we just got our asses kicked in those caves; we need to round up some more advanturers and go back in there with a bigger crew. Strength in numbers is a thing, don't'cha know."

 

[Parmandur]

Thing is, putting every adventure on a time clock gets old real fast.

Honestly, in my experience, moat people just accept the premise and roll with it?

 

[Lanefan]

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

If you're the only player in the game, let's get started.

But if you're not, you've got some unpleasant truths awaiting...

 

[Lanefan]

Sigh. I hope this is a misunderstanding from an article rather than what's actually there. I say that because, especially at low levels, the number of combat encounters you run between allowing the party to refresh its resources is vitally important to running a game that you intend to pace out in a session.

I get that there are DMs who will just roll encounters at the group without thinking about balance or planning. I think those are the ones who regularly run 8+ encounters between long rests. I'm using "between long rests," but to my mind, that's what an Adventuring Day is short for.

The moment you intend to pace out what happens during a session, hopefully building it to a climactic moment, and then have a reduction in tension, you're thinking about the Adventuring Day.

I gather you're directly equating the at-table session with the adventuring day (or period between long rests), then?

If yes, why?

 

[Lanefan]

Honestly, in my experience, moat people just accept the premise and roll with it?

For a while, sure, but then they get annoyed by it when it repeats time and time again.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Good riddance if the Adventuring Day is gone. The fact of the matter is that it was great in certain circumstances - such as when the PCs are storming the enemy stronghold. But completely impractical in others. 6-8 encounters per day is tedious while traveling.

The CR rules were essentially worthless at dealing with real PC capabilities at or above lvl / CR 5. And I've had to put in a LOT of legwork as DM since 2014 trying to ensure that all the "deadly" encounters were actually threatening but not unfairly lethal.

Furthermore, the system has had a bunch of inherent hacks like Leomund's Tiny Hut being a ritual spell, that make it far too easy for the PCs to avoid resource attrition without significant DM design shenanigans. Not happy to see the spell return unchanged in 2024.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I like the idea of keeping encounter creation simple. I hope there’s more of this in the DMG.

 

[Selas]

Good riddance if the Adventuring Day is gone. The fact of the matter is that it was great in certain circumstances - such as when the PCs are storming the enemy stronghold. But completely impractical in others. 6-8 encounters per day is tedious while traveling.

The CR rules were essentially worthless at dealing with real PC capabilities at or above lvl / CR 5. And I've had to put in a LOT of legwork as DM since 2014 trying to ensure that all the "deadly" encounters were actually threatening but not unfairly lethal.

Furthermore, the system has had a bunch of inherent hacks like Leomund's Tiny Hut being a ritual spell, that make it far too easy for the PCs to avoid resource attrition without significant DM design shenanigans. Not happy to see the spell return unchanged in 2024.

The spell was changed even if it still remains a ritual, and it did receive a nerf, as spells of level 4 and higher can be cast through or extend into the area.

 

[abirdcall]

Thing is, putting every adventure on a time clock gets old real fast.

That's basically just how action and adventure stories work.

Can you think of an action movie where the protagonists get to rest whenever they want?

Sometimes they get a lot of time to make plans but once the action starts they are in it until a resolution.

The Terminator is a good example. There are 2 action sequences with a long rest in between and that's the movie.