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.

 

[grimmgoose]

They don't need to plan anything, they just need to know that DnDs game balance comes through resource atrition over a sequence of encounters and not single encapsulated encounters. Unfortunately DnD is very bad at communicating this and it seems to become worse in the new DMG.

It's also not that hard to discuss, so the absence is puzzling.

My biggest advice for new DMs who are playing in higher tiers (past level 8) is to start linking encounters together.

For example, it's no longer just an "orc ambush". It's an orc ambush, which provides a link to the orc chieftain operating in the area, who has plans to imminently attack a nearby village.

Now instead of one encounter, you have two.

 

[Yaarel]

The math works out, so that each level has a certain number of standard encounters.

For example, for levels 5 thu 11, there are approximately 15 encounters per level.

So, the math assumes:
• Full hit points when gaining a new level
• 2 encounters
• Short Rest
• 2 encounters
• Short Rest
• 2 encounters
• LONG REST
• 2 encounters
• Short Rest
• 2 encounters
• Short Rest
• 2 encounters
• LONG REST
• 2 encounters
• Short Rest
• 2 encounters
• Full hit points when gaining a new level

In other words, the math only allows upto two Long Rests per level.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe people should wait to see what stuff actually says. The Encounter Building guidelines have changed.

We know it can't have changed enough, because monsters from 5e are compatible with 5.5e. If they have changed the balance so much that the adventuring day has truly gone away, the older modules won't work any longer without serious reworking by the DM. Since they say that isn't the case, we know the adventuring day is still present in the game balance. Now apparently they have decided not to warn new DMs about it so that that the new DMs won't be able to balance encounters correctly.

 

[Maxperson]

They don't need to plan anything, they just need to know that DnDs game balance comes through resource atrition over a sequence of encounters and not single encapsulated encounters. Unfortunately DnD is very bad at communicating this and it seems to become worse in the new DMG.

A lot of common complaints over DnD balancing issues just stems from a misunderstanding that we should not talk about "balanced fights" but "balanced adventures".

So long as those "adventures"(sequence of encounters) are done before the next "day"(long rest). Hmm. "adventure" and "day." Maybe there's a term we can use for that.

 

[Emerikol]

I know this is old school thinking but for me the idea that a wizard has to cast a spell every combat is not good. Wizards would try to conserve power in my games as much as they could. There was a lot of uncertainty.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

We know it can't have changed enough, because monsters from 5e are compatible with 5.5e

The xp budget for encounters has changed, specifically, increased at higher levels.

 

[Maxperson]

The xp budget for encounters has changed, specifically, increased at higher levels.

Because it needed to, but it didn't change enough to get rid of the adventuring day.

 

[Yaarel]

The xp budget for encounters has changed, specifically, increased at higher levels.I

Is the new math available yet?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is the new math available yet?

I’ve seen it described, but without numbers.

There are only three tiers, easy, medium and hard, and there are no multipliers for larger number of enemies. At low levels the numbers are much the same, at high levels they are significantly bigger. There is no mention of how many encounters there should be between rests.

 

[Yaarel]

Because it needed to, but it didn't change enough to get rid of the adventuring day.

With regard to the game math, it is more helpful to refer the "adventure" or the "adventure phase", rather than the adventure "day".

Each level-up is a major accomplishment of an adventure, at least in terms of personal growth.