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.

 

[Yaarel]

Neither of which I would want in my game. I run campaigns in a persistent ongoing world so it's not just one exception. It's one exception and then another and yet another. I do occasionally make exceptions, I had a Aasimar in my last campaign and in a 4E I had a Deva. Heck I even had a goliath. But all three just passed as human and I had backstories about where they came from.

My world is less high fantasy than some games, so having the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz just doesn't work for me.

I am comfortable with settings that have a thematic focus.

When I reflavor the Warforged as an "Animate Suit of Armor", I have the anime Full Metal Alchemist in mind.

 

[Zardnaar]

The problem with authority is what people will do to keep it should it be threatened. Even at this scale it's a problem.

It says 'you have this authority and you are the final arbiter of it' and then the natural result of authority kicks in because it's your way or the highway.

Then the culture comes in and starts telling you that you need to fight to keep it. You deserve it after all. You do the work It's your world. Anyone that challenges that is the problem. They need to be shouted down. They need to be stopped. They need to be excised.

Well the new phb specifically says your concept may not work in the DMs world.

Warforged are a big one. They don't belong in most campaigns. Not that they're very popular anyway.

I probably won't allow Artificers in 2024 games. 2014 is fine.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

The problem with authority is what people will do to keep it should it be threatened. Even at this scale it's a problem.

It says 'you have this authority and you are the final arbiter of it' and then the natural result of authority kicks in because it's your way or the highway.

Then the culture comes in and starts telling you that you need to fight to keep it. You deserve it after all. You do the work It's your world. Anyone that challenges that is the problem. They need to be shouted down. They need to be stopped. They need to be excised.

I don't know that the small minority of DMs who act inappropriately is the reality you'd see if this was the case.

In studies people react to positive encouragement very predictably. A recent study, by Columbia student Lisa Blackwell and Stanford students Kali H. Trzesniewski and Carol Sorich Dweck, on positive encouragement showed that students who were told they would be smarter, tried harder in class at very high numbers. They also performed better in very high numbers.

I think it's indisputable that being told you are more powerful is positive encouragement. So we'd expect a similarly high number. But yet, in the community, we see no sign of such a high occurrence of power hungry DMs.

If we count every post on D&D horror stories, and we assume every one is about a power hungry DM, we aren't even close to the numbers required. Which means that your theory relies on an abundance of bad, power hungry DMs which players accept and never say a word about. And many of those DMs would be playing with players who are playing online, as online play is very common. And those online players would just remain mute about the issues.

But we see none of this. And that makes me think that there is a flaw in your theory. If maybe, the issue is one of poor social skills and not inadvertant encouragement.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am comfortable with settings that have a thematic focus.

When I reflavor the Warforged as an "Animate Suit of Armor", I have the anime Full Metal Alchemist in mind.

And what if the theme is different to the one you want to play? You want to play Full Metal Alchemist, but the theme is Norse mythology? Do you still insist on your warforged, or do you play the vargr race that is part of the campaign setting?

 

[Yaarel]

DnDBeyond

ANIMATED ARMOR

Any setting with golems, animated statues, or animated armor, can sensically integrate a Warforged character, especially if unique or rare.

 

[Yaarel]

And what if the theme is different to the one you want to play? You want to play Full Metal Alchemist, but the theme is Norse mythology? Do you still insist on your warforged, or do you play the vargr race that is part of the campaign setting?

Norse includes things like "golems", such as Hrungnir mades out of stones. Animating an object is rare, but plausible.

Obviously, I encourage the Norsesque options in a Norsesque setting. But reflavoring a character inspiration, or immigrating it from elsewhere in the world is no problem.

For example, there are no (bookish) Wizards or (priestly) Clerics in a Norsesque setting. Either they are from elsewhere, or maybe a Dvergar might be a Wizard, and a Cleric reflavor as warrior magic similar to Paladin.

 

[Zardnaar]

DnDBeyond

ANIMATED ARMOR

Any setting with golems, animated statues, or animated armor, can sensically integrate a Warforged character, especially if unique or rare.

Such things exist. To be defeated. No you can't play one.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

DnDBeyond

ANIMATED ARMOR

Any setting with golems, animated statues, or animated armor, can sensically integrate a Warforged character, especially if unique or rare.

So you insist on trying to shoe-horn in your magic robot, rather than engage with the theme everyone else signed up for? Heard the term “problem player”? That’s one who puts their personal wants and desires ahead of everyone else in the game.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Warforge have ton of lore & history attached. Be ready to fit Cannith, Creation Forges, The Last War & so on. Heck have fun with comments about how elemental airships & lightning rails are common back home or how they are so much better than things balloon travel &steam trains if you have those & they happen to come up too.

All of that without even touching on their "childhood" or the societal implications that That horrorfest of warcrimes & torture requires.

i don't believe that adding warforged to your setting requires all of those other specific story threads to be dragged along with them, why is this the only creation story they can ever have and why are they chained to it on a five-inch leash, it's like claiming if you add uruk-hai into a setting and saying that just cause you added them that also means you have to add saruman, sauron, mordor, the rings of power, the wizard-angels and a couple of hundred years of other miscalaneous bits of lore.

 

[Yaarel]

Such things exist. To be defeated. No you can't play one.

The point is, if they exist in the world, then playing one can make sense within the themes and tropes of the world setting.