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.

 

[Maxperson]

You think every table should make a public offering?

There's no guarantee the DM is going to sell more than 49.99 percent of the shares anyway.

 

[OB1]

Just got my DMG from my FLGS and quickly checked my Level 20 encounter from the end of my last campaign. That was a near TPK with 5 experienced players with a well balanced, well optomized and equiped party of 5 (a TPK was prevented by a super clutch Nat20 Death Save by the party's cleric). The XP value of the encounter was just slightly over what the 2024 rules suggest. Just one example, but pretty impressed with where it landed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Regarding the original thread topic, the idea of forcing a certain number of encounters before each short or long rest is about game mechanics and resources. From the point-of-view of the world the characters are in, it is not realistic at all unless the characters are penetrating an enemy fortress or deep within hostile territory. It's just a cheap way for DMs to 'manufacture' tension/challenge. It doesn't really have anything to do with role playing.

With adventures like Master Of The Desert Nomads and its sequel Temple Of Death it makes sense to me because the characters are sometimes crossing land occupied by an entire enemy army and then the heavily guarded stronghold of the enemy overlord. Or in Keep On The Borderlands' Caves of Chaos there are a lot of monster lairs in close proximity to each other so I can imagine a high number of hostile encounters per day if the characters are not stealthy. But for an adventure like Isle Of Dread, I think more than a few encounters a day is unrealistic if you look at the map and see how spread out everything is.

It's better to determine the number of encounters per day by considering the geography of the dungeon/wilderness the characters are in.

Sure, to a point, but in a game you just cannot ignore the impact of mechanics. The balance between the classes for example assumes that there will be several battles between long rests and some short rests between those battles.

 

[ezo]

Just got my DMG from my FLGS and quickly checked my Level 20 encounter from the end of my last campaign. That was a near TPK with 5 experienced players with a well balanced, well optomized and equiped party of 5 (a TPK was prevented by a super clutch Nat20 Death Save by the party's cleric). The XP value of the encounter was just slightly over what the 2024 rules suggest. Just one example, but pretty impressed with where it landed.

So, what they suggest is a deadly encounter was almost a TPK? Sounds a bit more than what is typically thought of as deadly IMO.

It's cool, but I'll withhold judgement until we have another 100 reports or so.

 

[OB1]

So, what they suggest is a deadly encounter was almost a TPK? Sounds a bit more than what is typically thought of as deadly IMO.

It's cool, but I'll withhold judgement until we have another 100 reports or so.

To be fair, the encounter I built was about 10% over the new Deadly guideline in XP and the dice were not in the PCs favor in the first couple of rounds. It was just over double the 2014 Deadly encounter rules.

Also should have mentioned that this was the only encounter of the adventuring day.

Def need a whole lot more reports to say anything conclusive, just found it interesting that it was so close in this example, as that fight was built on 7 years of experience building encounters in 5e and three years of encounters with that party.

 

[ezo]

It was just over double the 2014 Deadly encounter rules.

Then the possibility of a TPK makes more sense IME. Luck is always a factor as well, of course.

Also should have mentioned that this was the only encounter of the adventuring day.

That's even worse (in some ways I guess...?), then, since there was no resource attrition prior to the encounter.

 

[OB1]

Sure, to a point, but in a game you just cannot ignore the impact of mechanics. The balance between the classes for example assumes that there will be several battles between long rests and some short rests between those battles.

Yes, which can be balanced (if the players even care about that) by varying the adventure day from day to day. Every day need not be the same. Also, the short/long rest divide between classes is much smaller in 2024 PCs.

 

[OB1]

Then the possibility of a TPK makes more sense IME. Luck is always a factor as well, of course.


That's even worse (in some ways I guess...?), then, since there was no resource attrition prior to the encounter.

I think that's the point. Hard encounters are now meant to be used for single combat encounter days.

 

[ezo]

I think that's the point. Hard encounters are now meant to be used for single combat encounter days.

Well... they already were... or could be anyway. You can have an easy encounter for a single combat day, after all.

Part of the issue I have with many games is the thought that all or most encounters my be hard or deadly and challenge the party.

I mean, come on, can you imagine how hectic and stressful the game would be ramped up to 8+ all the time!?!

Yeah, no thanks. As it is I already have encounters which nearly give the players heart attacks when I do them; no one I play with would want that all the time.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Part of the issue I have with many games is the thought that all or most encounters my be hard or deadly and challenge the party.

This is just a misunderstanding of proper pacing. Your encounters should vary wildly in difficulty and composition.

Have a mage that just learned fireball? Horde of goblin time.

Have a fighter with a sweet undead killing sword? Give them undead to slaughter.

I feel like some people want all of this laid out for them, or want for simple rules. But this is all table dependent. And learning how to do this to make the game more fun is a big part of growing as a DM.