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.

 

[TwoSix]

Wow. How can you not consider that the norm? Are you players honestly stopping for a long rest between every single encounter? I think it's time for the monsters to get a brain and attack and harry their enemy.

The most frequent number of "combats per long rest" I see in 5e is 2. It's fairly endemic if the play is more overland/exploratory, rather than site (dungeon) delving.

Assuming a 3 hour session, you get in 2 big fights, and do some roleplaying/exploration between each one. You hit a natural break point, and long rest at the end of the session so you don't have to worry about tracking your hit points/spells used, etc. That's not EVERY session, but certainly over half.

 

[grimmgoose]

Wow. How can you not consider that the norm? Are you players honestly stopping for a long rest between every single encounter? I think it's time for the monsters to get a brain and attack and harry their enemy.

I mean ~gestures to the swarm of complaints online about OP spells/spellcasters~.

When I first started, coming off of 4E, I didn't use the Adventuring Day. Mainly because, to me at least, it isn't natural. I'm always thinking about the "big fight", not the two trash fights that lead to the big fight.

My table also hates it, but we recognize that it's a reality of the system we are currently playing. Like I said though - pretty much all of my problems with 5E stop when you do multiple fights per Long Rest. That's why I think WOTC needs to talk about it.

 

[Emerikol]

The most frequent number of "combats per long rest" I see in 5e is 2. It's fairly endemic if the play is more overland/exploratory, rather than site (dungeon) delving.

Assuming a 3 hour session, you get in 2 big fights, and do some roleplaying/exploration between each one. You hit a natural break point, and long rest at the end of the session so you don't have to worry about tracking your hit points/spells used, etc. That's not EVERY session, but certainly over half.

That is dismaying. I don't play 5e but I thought combat in 5e was fast and furious. So what was suggested in the DMG2014 for typical number of encounters is mostly ignored?

 

[Emerikol]

My table also hates it, but we recognize that it's a reality of the system we are currently playing. Like I said though - pretty much all of my problems with 5E stop when you do multiple fights per Long Rest. That's why I think WOTC needs to talk about it.

I agree. I think if I played 5e these days a lot of groups that don't know my style would be very upset.

 

[TwoSix]

That is dismaying. I don't play 5e but I thought combat in 5e was fast and furious. So what was suggested in the DMG2014 for typical number of encounters is mostly ignored?

We've had some threads about it, but combat time in 5e is highly (highly!) variable. Like an order of magnitude difference between the fastest and the slowest groups. My groups lean towards the slower end, as I have way more thespian-style roleplayers then I do tactical optimizers.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean ~gestures to the swarm of complaints online about OP spells/spellcasters~.

When I first started, coming off of 4E, I didn't use the Adventuring Day. Mainly because, to me at least, it isn't natural. I'm always thinking about the "big fight", not the two trash fights that lead to the big fight.

My table also hates it, but we recognize that it's a reality of the system we are currently playing. Like I said though - pretty much all of my problems with 5E stop when you do multiple fights per Long Rest. That's why I think WOTC needs to talk about it.

Agreed. My perfect D&D wouldn't have "resting" as a thing at all. Healing would be slow, and powerful spells would have to be powered by reagents.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed. My perfect D&D wouldn't have "resting" as a thing at all. Healing would be slow, and powerful spells would have to be powered by reagents.

That sounds cool. I'd love to hear more about the spell idea.

 

[Guest 7037866]

I'll reiterate from my post dozens and dozens of pages ago:

Let the narrative determine when a long rest (sleeping, right? for the most part??) happens.

If you're traveling or exploring, often you will have 0-3 encounters IME before a long rest, and unless the party doesn't need it, you can safely take a short rest after each encounter (if you have the time).

While "dungeoning" or deep in enemy territories, the number can quickly jump IF it makes sense to ahve more encounters, and thus you would have more before a long rest can be taken.

IIRC I think in 5E the most encounters I've had between long rests is in the 13-15 neighborhood.

That is dismaying. I don't play 5e but I thought combat in 5e was fast and furious. So what was suggested in the DMG2014 for typical number of encounters is mostly ignored?

No, it isn't at all IME. It is slow and ponderous compared to combat in AD&D in terms of real-time spent. IME most players take about 1-2 minutes (some much longer!) for their turn. The DM, maybe twice a player if they have a lot of creatures to roll for. Given combat typically lasts about 3 rounds, you're looking at roughly 30 minutes (on the low end) for a battle to play out.

I run my games on the assumption of one combat per hour of the session. Sometimes I might squeeze in one or two extra, other times I might lose one if the combats are large or complex to run. In my current game, I've tracked 79 encounters in 22 sessions, an average of 3.6 encounters per session. Considering our sessions run about 2.5-3 hours, that tracks to the 30 minutes per combat and about an hour or so for strictly role-play/ NPC interaction.

 

[TwoSix]

That sounds cool. I'd love to hear more about the spell idea.

Basically, you change the narrative of magic away from "the caster draws on an internal well of power that slowly recharges" and into "the caster collects magical recipes, which are powered by naturally occurring treasures found by adventuring."

At a mechanical level, instead of "learning fireball", the wizard class gains the capability to turn treasure into scrolls or wands of fireball, that work a certain amount of time. At higher levels and with better treasure, the wizard can make rechargeable or permanent spells.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

We've had some threads about it, but combat time in 5e is highly (highly!) variable. Like an order of magnitude difference between the fastest and the slowest groups. My groups lean towards the slower end, as I have way more thespian-style roleplayers then I do tactical optimizers.

Oh, definitely. It swings wildly from one end to the other in the different groups I've been in. When I run the game, it tends to be FAST because I get hyperactive and excited and speak fast and with energy. Which translates to the players for some reason.

I've had combats that were over in two rounds in 5 minutes and others that took 4 rounds and took an hour. So much variable as to be nearly meaningless!