OB1
Jedi Master
I was recently inspired by the thread discussion regarding the strategic failure of allowing enemy attacks and buried within that thread a link to an older discussion of combat as sport vs combat as war in D&D to consider the flexibility and power of the 5e adventuring day guidelines.
I believe 5e is built to encourage DMs to construct objectives around the 6-8 encounters and daily adjusted xp guidelines, which, when done with a thought as to how players can overcome those encounters without combat, allows the players to dictate where on the War vs Sport spectrum they wish to play any given scenario.
In this way, 5e is set up to play similarly to a game such as Metal Gear Solid 5, where the player is given a mission to, say, extract a prisoner, and then is given tremendous freedom as to how to accomplish that. A player can go in guns blazing, engaging in firefights along the way (combat as sport), or can carefully devise a plan so that they can extract the prisoner without firing a single shot (combat as war). In many cases, missions end up somewhere in between as the carefully laid plans go awry due to a failure along the way, leading to combat. Finally, some missions are simply too difficult to complete until a player is at a higher skill or level.
I recently ran the following set of encounters a a single adventuring day mission over two gaming sessions to great success. I put it now as an example of this type of Day building. Party was 6 PCs at 11th level with 1-2 Uncommon to rare magic items each. The session took 5 hours.
Objective: Infiltrate Nalfeshnee's Lair and prevent him from entering the natural world
Encounter 1: Patrols outside the Lair. Can be avoided by stealth DC 15 or magic 2nd level or better resource. Otherwise Mid Difficulty Combat Encounter (TOM)
Encounter 2: Reinforcements to Patrols. Only triggered if Encounter 1 triggered. Can be stopped if party prevents members of the patrol from escaping. Otherwise Hard Difficulty Encounter
Short Rest Possible (TOM)
Encounter 3: Inner lair Demon Workers. Can sneak by or talked past DC 15. Otherwise Mid Difficulty combat encounter. (TOM)
Encounter 4: Tunnels under the lair. Purple Worm. Players can try to escape (DC 20) or use 4th level magic to avoid. Otherwise Deadly Encounter (TOM)
Encounter 5: Guards outside throne room. Guards (who are flesh and stone golems) continue to file in from basement, forcing players upstairs. No direct way to win combat. Players could skip entirely simply by running upstairs. (Grid)
Encounter 6: Finding an alternate path to the Throne Room. In the halls of the Lair, a minion of Nalfeshnee tries to lure the players into a trap. If they follow, Hard Combat. If not, either Easy combat with minion or DC 10 Persuade/Intimidate or Level 1 spell to get him to show players the back way in.
Short Rest possible (Tom)
Encounter 7: Nalfeshnee's Throne room. Players can ignore everything and just take out the portal being opened, then escape the lair, or they can confront Nalfeshnee directly. Direct confrontation is Deadly Encounter. Taking out the portals requires the equivalent of 3 DC 20 skill checks or 3 Level 3+ spells. (Grid)
Encounter 8: Nalfeshnee's 3 henchmen. Hard Encounter. Established in earlier episodes, Nalfeshnee's henchmen now show up to avenge their boss either outside the Lair (if portal was destroyed) or inside the lair (if Nalfeshnee was destroyed). (Grid)
My players ended up in combat on encounters 1,3,4,7 and 8, defeating both Nalfeshnee and his henchmen by the skin of their teeth and nearly allowing a complication in that the Henchmen were attempting to take Nalfeshees blood into the natural world to start a zombie apocalypse.
But the point is, had they avoided some of those combats (especially the Purple Worm), they would have had a much easier time with 7 and 8, almost making them trivial even though they were Deadly and Hard encounters.
But that's exactly the point of the 6-8 encounter day. By setting yourself up for success towards your true objective, you tilt the game towards Combat as War, making it very likely that your party will have little difficulty in accomplishing your objective. If you want the sport of fighting, you could go in guns blazing and take every combat, but towards the end, may have to risk a TPK or decide to give up the objective. In the same way, the objective can be made much harder than is possible for the players to overcome, with the difficulty of early encounters reinforcing this point and allowing players to retreat before getting in too deep.
Using Theatre of the Mind, the smaller combats triggered off bad stealth checks go quickly, and if unused in this session, can be easily and quickly modified for another session down the road.
I'm working on a set of expanded guidelines for this process and will publish here as soon as I have done. In the meantime, just wanted to throw this out for discussion.
I believe 5e is built to encourage DMs to construct objectives around the 6-8 encounters and daily adjusted xp guidelines, which, when done with a thought as to how players can overcome those encounters without combat, allows the players to dictate where on the War vs Sport spectrum they wish to play any given scenario.
In this way, 5e is set up to play similarly to a game such as Metal Gear Solid 5, where the player is given a mission to, say, extract a prisoner, and then is given tremendous freedom as to how to accomplish that. A player can go in guns blazing, engaging in firefights along the way (combat as sport), or can carefully devise a plan so that they can extract the prisoner without firing a single shot (combat as war). In many cases, missions end up somewhere in between as the carefully laid plans go awry due to a failure along the way, leading to combat. Finally, some missions are simply too difficult to complete until a player is at a higher skill or level.
I recently ran the following set of encounters a a single adventuring day mission over two gaming sessions to great success. I put it now as an example of this type of Day building. Party was 6 PCs at 11th level with 1-2 Uncommon to rare magic items each. The session took 5 hours.
Objective: Infiltrate Nalfeshnee's Lair and prevent him from entering the natural world
Encounter 1: Patrols outside the Lair. Can be avoided by stealth DC 15 or magic 2nd level or better resource. Otherwise Mid Difficulty Combat Encounter (TOM)
Encounter 2: Reinforcements to Patrols. Only triggered if Encounter 1 triggered. Can be stopped if party prevents members of the patrol from escaping. Otherwise Hard Difficulty Encounter
Short Rest Possible (TOM)
Encounter 3: Inner lair Demon Workers. Can sneak by or talked past DC 15. Otherwise Mid Difficulty combat encounter. (TOM)
Encounter 4: Tunnels under the lair. Purple Worm. Players can try to escape (DC 20) or use 4th level magic to avoid. Otherwise Deadly Encounter (TOM)
Encounter 5: Guards outside throne room. Guards (who are flesh and stone golems) continue to file in from basement, forcing players upstairs. No direct way to win combat. Players could skip entirely simply by running upstairs. (Grid)
Encounter 6: Finding an alternate path to the Throne Room. In the halls of the Lair, a minion of Nalfeshnee tries to lure the players into a trap. If they follow, Hard Combat. If not, either Easy combat with minion or DC 10 Persuade/Intimidate or Level 1 spell to get him to show players the back way in.
Short Rest possible (Tom)
Encounter 7: Nalfeshnee's Throne room. Players can ignore everything and just take out the portal being opened, then escape the lair, or they can confront Nalfeshnee directly. Direct confrontation is Deadly Encounter. Taking out the portals requires the equivalent of 3 DC 20 skill checks or 3 Level 3+ spells. (Grid)
Encounter 8: Nalfeshnee's 3 henchmen. Hard Encounter. Established in earlier episodes, Nalfeshnee's henchmen now show up to avenge their boss either outside the Lair (if portal was destroyed) or inside the lair (if Nalfeshnee was destroyed). (Grid)
My players ended up in combat on encounters 1,3,4,7 and 8, defeating both Nalfeshnee and his henchmen by the skin of their teeth and nearly allowing a complication in that the Henchmen were attempting to take Nalfeshees blood into the natural world to start a zombie apocalypse.
But the point is, had they avoided some of those combats (especially the Purple Worm), they would have had a much easier time with 7 and 8, almost making them trivial even though they were Deadly and Hard encounters.
But that's exactly the point of the 6-8 encounter day. By setting yourself up for success towards your true objective, you tilt the game towards Combat as War, making it very likely that your party will have little difficulty in accomplishing your objective. If you want the sport of fighting, you could go in guns blazing and take every combat, but towards the end, may have to risk a TPK or decide to give up the objective. In the same way, the objective can be made much harder than is possible for the players to overcome, with the difficulty of early encounters reinforcing this point and allowing players to retreat before getting in too deep.
Using Theatre of the Mind, the smaller combats triggered off bad stealth checks go quickly, and if unused in this session, can be easily and quickly modified for another session down the road.
I'm working on a set of expanded guidelines for this process and will publish here as soon as I have done. In the meantime, just wanted to throw this out for discussion.
