D&D 5E 6-8 Encounter Adventuring Day as the Key to Combat as Sport/War in 5e

[Morlock]

Only two real comments: First, is it really wise or even useful to bring up the "war vs. sport" dichotomy again? Everywhere I've seen it discussed, it has ended up doing a lot more harm than good.

I find it useful. I greatly prefer combat as war over combat as sport.

 

[bedir than]

Just 5 hours... my table is so slooooooowwwwwww

 

[OB1]

Hiya!

[MENTION=6796241]OB1[/MENTION], I have got to say...you and I have virtually opposite views on how to write up an adventure for our game. To me, pretty much everything you did was "backwards". I'm not picking a fight, just pointing out something I think a lot of folks miss: The 5e rules systems are frickin' awesome in that they can handle both 'styles' of DM'ing!

Paul L. Ming

100% agree, and I use various styles depending on what my goals are for a particular session. In the above case, this was the culmination of several months worth of adventures, and I wanted to create a challenge that I was sure that the party could overcome but that would also be very challenging, and feel like I hit the sweet spot. But I also use the guidelines to create much looser sessions as well.

I think the great strength of the 6-8 encounter day is that I can create modular encounters that may or may not come up in a given session and then quickly recycle or re-purpose those elsewhere. I used to always think that if I spent time creating an encounter I had to use it or it was 'wasted', but no more. To me, the plan helps to improvise later and the guidlines let me judge how tough a particular goal is going to be for the players to accomplish.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

@Hemlock - I'm fine with a few easy combats and always use TOM when I suspect one will be too easy for the party to allow it to be resolved quickly. I had two combats that took less than 15 minutes each to resolve in the above scenario. Importantly, as easy as they were to resolve they still caused the party to expend resources, which changes how the party can deal with other encounters in the day. And of course there is always the chance that the DM crits on a hit or two, or the party misses an important save, and suddenly an 'easy' encounter can really mess with the party's plans for the day.

When I say "boringly easy" I also mean "does not force significant expenditure of resources." If your Medium encounter with two Displacer Beasts just leads to the Fighter/Enchanter shutting down one Displacer Beast with Hypnotic Gaze while the Paladin grapples the other to the ground so that the Sharpshooter and the Monk can dismantle it with nigh-impunity--if that happens, then your Medium encounter was boringly easy. Even more likely, the Monk discovers the Displacer Beasts while scouting and the party just drives them off or kills them from long range without them ever getting an attack in. In order for the Displacer Beasts to be even slightly interesting, there has to be a real threat there such as "if the Displacer Beasts get away they're going to come back with Hobgoblins as backup," in which case it's really a Deadly encounter with two Displacer Beasts and twelve hobgoblins which Combat As War tactics can split into two encounters. The Medium version with just the Displacer Beasts doesn't do anything useful, IMO.

 

[OB1]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] - Yes, I think I agree in principal here, where I think we may differ is that I'm okay with the possibility of a boring encounter as long as it's resolved quickly (say 1 or 2 rounds of combat) as long as it has the possibility of being something more.

So in your Displacer Beast scenario above, I could see this being tough if the monk, while scouting, blows a check and has to face them without the rest of the party, or the Displacer Beasts win initative and score a crit on their first attack, or one sneaks away and alerts the Hobgoblins.

And the more of these types of encounters that you throw at a party, the more likely that the dice go against them and something unintended happens. The party thinks, "ah it's just a couple of guards, we can take them" and then something goes horribly wrong, making them wish they had snuck around the guards instead.

 

[ThirdWizard]

So if someone wants to play this as sport, they would be purposefully putting themselves at higher risk than necessary in order to challenge themselves in that type of gameplay (again, think MSG5, it's much easier to accomplish missions with careful thought and planning, but if you like and are skilled at FPS gameplay, you can also go in hot and have fun doing so).

That's not really Combat as Sport. Combat as Sport is about setting up challenges on a micro level, whereas combat as war is setting up challenges on a macro level. It isn't about how PCs approach combat, it's about how you set up and approach combat as a group (DM and players together) and what the, for lack of a better term, metagame expectation is for the session.

The way you describe your game, I personally see that as 100% Combat as Sport.

There is no overarching strategy employed by the PCs in order to overcome or bypass the entire mission. They approach each encounter as they come to it utilizing mechanics of the game. They don't do anything like I would expect to see in a Combat as War scenario. There are no armies being formed, no hallways collapsed, no turning monsters against each other, no making deals with devils to help against demons. Those are things that comprise Combat as War. It means throwing expectations out the window, and creating a new scenario where the rules of success and failure are determined by a different outcome than the DM expected. None of that happened, so I don't see how it could be considered Combat as War.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Hiya!

[MENTION=6796241]OB1[/MENTION], I have got to say...you and I have virtually opposite views on how to write up an adventure for our game. To me, pretty much everything you did was "backwards". I'm not picking a fight, just pointing out something I think a lot of folks miss: The 5e rules systems are frickin' awesome in that they can handle both 'styles' of DM'ing!

Me? I pretty much ignore the PC's completely when writing up my adventures. The only thing I keep in mind is a VERY rough idea of their levels. Not classes, races, magic items, equipment, skills, etc. Just the 'rough levels' (e.g., if characters are levels 9,9,10,11,12...I think '10th or 11th'). This rough-level is used as a base starting point. After that, however, it's ignored. I would go about thinking how a Nalfeshnee would have his lair set up, it's capabilities to maintain it through power and fear, and what it thinks it can get away with without attracting the attention of things more powerful than it who would want to take it from him. Then I get to 'designing' the dungeon around that. If a cool idea for an acid-pit trap room comes up, I'll toss it in. Then figure out why/how it 'works' and is 'maintained' by the bad guys. Do I worry about the PC's having means of protecting themselves from acid? Nope. Do I worry about them having means to recover/restore/create destroyed equipment? Nope. Do I worry about 'What if?' scenarios? (like the wizard decides to bring his spell book with him). Nope again. None of that is my concern.

So...I may end up with a 'dungeon' with a half-dozen 'encounter areas', or three dozen ones. Again, I don't concern myself with any "design limits" or much in the way of "PC's".

Now, this all assumes I'm actually trying to "design an adventure". I usually don't do much of that of late. I'm much more of a "here are some point form notes, a couple cool maps that caught my eye, and a few reminders of what the PC's last actions have caused to happen...or not...over the last month". I do a lot of "sandbox with wings" style DM'ing (re: a sandbox that I do a LOT of 'winging' in). I enjoy the on-the-spot creation challenges that crop up during the session, so planing out a "6-8 encounter with an XP budget" session is...completely opposite from how I like to do things.

Am I alone in this? Or are there others who enjoy this sort of "improve DM'ing" and "logical campaign world-based adventure locale design"?

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I pretty much run my game like that overall. At this early stage in 5e (been running it since the beginning, but still not sure I've entirely pinned down the power balance between PCs vs. monsters) I tend to check how difficult an encounter will be, but eventually that will probably become a rare thing for me to do.

My "starter dungeon" for the 1st-level PCs in my current game involves them waking up in a dungeon with no gear, and having to explore it to try to get gear and not die. They found pieces of wood to use as clubs (and there is a pen-knife and a crowbar also), and eventually miner's picks. Three party members have attack cantrips. No armor for anyone.

They decided to go the direction that led right into the centipedes' lair (though they didn't know it), got green slime dropped on one of them, etc. Out of the total of 5 giant centipedes they fought, only one managed to hit before it went down, and the character made her save. So the dice have really been on their side. (One character got swarmed by a centipede swarm though, and may have a phobia now.) Failed saves vs giant centipede poison can be nasty on 1st-level characters.

Hopefully things are a bit more hairy for them later on in this dungeon...

 

[OB1]

That's not really Combat as Sport. Combat as Sport is about setting up challenges on a micro level, whereas combat as war is setting up challenges on a macro level. It isn't about how PCs approach combat, it's about how you set up and approach combat as a group (DM and players together) and what the, for lack of a better term, metagame expectation is for the session.

The way you describe your game, I personally see that as 100% Combat as Sport.

There is no overarching strategy employed by the PCs in order to overcome or bypass the entire mission. They approach each encounter as they come to it utilizing mechanics of the game. They don't do anything like I would expect to see in a Combat as War scenario. There are no armies being formed, no hallways collapsed, no turning monsters against each other, no making deals with devils to help against demons. Those are things that comprise Combat as War. It means throwing expectations out the window, and creating a new scenario where the rules of success and failure are determined by a different outcome than the DM expected. None of that happened, so I don't see how it could be considered Combat as War.

I agree that my players played this episode primarily as sport, but they could have gone for war as well (though their particular options would have been limited due to choices made in previous sessions that led to a ticking time bomb) since the option was definitely there to bypass all combat on the way to completing their objective. The examples I give on how each encounter could be beaten without combat are just that, examples. Players can and do come up with things I'd never think of, and I use the examples I did think of as guidelines for what could/couldn't work or how difficult it might be.

Also worth noting that this particular session came at the end of the overarching Tier 2 plot lines, and the decision to confront Nalfeshnee in his lair in the Abyss was part of a choice the players made to avoid potential civilian casualties had they waited for him to come through the portal and attacked him with an army there.

What I'm attempting to set up is a scenario in which the consequence of failure for a CaW focused plan is ending up in more combat than desired, while the failure of a CaS focused plan would be needing to think of ways around problems instead of thru them, and the 6-8 encounter adventure day feels like the right tool to use to accomplish just that.

I may be misunderstanding the larger CaW/CaS debate, but the insight it has given me into how to structure adventuring days at my table has proved valuable.

 

[Rhenny]

And the more of these types of encounters that you throw at a party, the more likely that the dice go against them and something unintended happens. The party thinks, "ah it's just a couple of guards, we can take them" and then something goes horribly wrong, making them wish they had snuck around the guards instead.

This is the heart of the matter for me. In my sessions, what tends to happen is that the PCs can go for a while without getting too beaten up, but every once in a while "wham". Sometimes it happens during a difficult fight, but other times it happens during an easier fight that just turns bad. It's kind of like stretching a rubberband. They stretch it and stretch it, but don't know when it will break. Eventually it does break, and they run to seek safety and recover if possible.

The "nearly" random feel (especially for levels 1-5) that any moment can turn sour keeps the players more tense than I would have imagined.

Another thing I've noticed is that as DM, I always think that things are easier than I intend them to be (and I feel that players aren't as tense as I'd like), but often when I speak to them about the adventure/session, they tell me they were more tense and challenged than I thought. Not knowing what might pop up next and the threat that a crit or two could turn the tides, is key.

 

[OB1]

The "nearly" random feel (especially for levels 1-5) that any moment can turn sour keeps the players more tense than I would have imagined.

And at higher level's, not knowing how many more encounters lay before them, and how they can be dealt with, makes my players stingy as heck with their daily resources, making fights more challenging, which becomes another source of tension. And even when they try to get around encounters, they understand that failure on that stealth check or persuasion roll or survival check or performance doesn't just mean a fight now, but possibly a chain reaction that may force them to re evaluate how to accomplish their current objective. Makes that single d20 roll carry a lot more weight.