D&D General 6-8 encounters (combat?)

[Maxperson]

Given that a lot of the adventures (some written by the designers themselves) don't follow those guidelines, I think it's pretty safe to say that it's not a hard and fast rule.

It's not. Per the DMG, the rules to play the game are in the PHB. Everything in the DMG is a guideline. Well, except for the alternative PHB rules, but those are not active unless the DM activates them.

That said, the designers know the game math and they would not have put in all those numbers, including telling us what the expected amount of xp per game day way, unless the game balance math backed it up. It's probably the strongest guideline in the book.

 

[Minigiant]

You and I run very, very different games. No rule set will satisfy us both.

That's less rulesets and more me.

If I need to grind down 6 encounters and a social encounter is talking 30 minutes, I make the encounter drain resources.

I'm forced random encounters to happen or just let the party logically start attempting to maximize their increased resources.

No, I just make Lydia very clingy and really annoying. Roll Wisdom saving throw to not take emotional damage. Roll Intelligence the Charisma to make a segue if you want to get out without hurting her feeling. Oh you failed your check, she's crying.... ugly crying. Lydia just wants friends. Take 1d12 psychic emotional damage, you heartless jerks.

 

[Maxperson]

@UngainlyTitan @Fanaelialae @Xamnam Thanks for the clarification, I had indeed missed it.

It's a strange bit of advice, isn't it? I started playing D&D with the red-box Basic rules back in 1986, and there wasn't any such guidance offered. I guess I got accustomed to having the game having a certain pace to it, and that pace hasn't really changed. The rules for THAC0 and save throws and such have changed, but I still run the game more or less the same way that I've run it for decades.

The game up until 3e was balanced around death. Hit points were relatively low, tons of spells, abilities and pretty much all poisons were save or die. In 3e it went to stat damage rather than death for most poisons, but a lot of save or die was still there. I don't know what 4e was balanced around, but 5e is balanced around resource management and encounters per day.

 

[Minigiant]

The game up until 3e was balanced around death. Hit points were relatively low, tons of spells, abilities and pretty much all poisons were save or die. In 3e it went to stat damage rather than death for most poisons, but a lot of save or die was still there. I don't know what 4e was balanced around, but 5e is balanced around resource management and encounters per day.

4e was balanced around healing surges (Defense) and dailies (Offense).

As long as one PC had a daily power, you could take on a hard encounter.
As long as a PC had 3 healing surges, that PC can heal back to 75% after combat for another encounter's punishment.

 

[Jahydin]

Wow, lots of good back and forth since I last posted.

One point I see popping up a bit has got me thinking:
"Who cares as long as the players are happy" (This should literally be the tagline for 5th edition D&D btw.)
Can't speak for everyone, but the games I DM, the players would NOT have a good time if it wasn't for me tweaking things on the fly to get combats to "work". And sure, at the end they're happy and high-fiving, but you as the DM know it was just smoke and mirrors and thanks to YOU and not the system. It's kind of a hollow feeling to be honest.

My payers and I play games to challenge each other. It took me a long time to realize, unlike 3E and 4E, that's not what 5E is about. At least not in the same ways. After Level 4 or so in 5E, combats are not about being challenging; they are about feeling like a superhero and having fun. Once I realized that it made things waaaay easier. I could stop caring about getting combats "right" and also throw out my pages and pages of house rules I had to come up with. I could now focus more on the real challenge: the story. 5E games have to have a strong and compelling story that challenges the players to be clever in order to accomplish their goals. For instance, fighting your way through guards to get to the brainwashed king isn't the actual challenge of this scenario, it would be how to do it without killing anyone and also how to un-brainwash him. Still a challenge, just in a different way.

And it makes sense really. 5E is all about giant campaigns with specific heroes players get attached to. Unlike other challenges, combat is the one that can "end it all", so why not err heavily on the player's side?

That sort of thing was not for my main group though. We moved to Pathfinder 2E and I recommend it to anyone who wants challenging combat to be a big part of their games again.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Story" is D&D's secret source. Apply enough of it and the players do not notice D&D's many faults.

 

[Flamestrike]

and a single adventure proves nothing...

I've already literally run three on here with the same results. This would be the 4th.

Feel free to search my posting history and look for yourself.

Heres the deal mate. Your table doesnt cleave to the 6-8 encounter 2-3 short rest adventuring day median. That's why at your table, Casters rule.

They get access to their entire toolbox for a single encounter or two instead of 6-8. They get access to resources that are supposed to be stretched over 6-8 encounters, over just 2, letting them Nova.

Its not an inherent feature of the Wizard class. It's because you're not following the baseline and are allowing the 5MWD that you're experiencing your balance issues.

You've said before you dont enforce the longer Adventuring day, and you let the above happen/ it happens at your table. So really the fault lies with whomever is DMing your games (or alternatively you can blame the rest/ encounter frequency Dnd 5E uses as its balancing point). If your DM actually cleaved to the median of 6-8 encounters/ 2-3 short rests per long rest, the problem would go away.

Thats the truth of it. I can prove it to you by simply designing a 6-8 encounter 2-3 short rest adventuring day at pretty much any level and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It creates situation where the gm is forced into choosing between a MAD style arms race of escalating encounters, a boring snooze of "trash" encounters in loop, or an escalating workload pushed onto the GM to thwart those with things like tuckers kobolds or bulletproof doom clocks that require an ever growing amount of prep & overhead to prepare & run.

I really do not see this as an explanation. I will reiterate, the players think the encounters are tough and they rest when they can after 4, where is the problem. Why are some DMs pushing for 6 or 8?

 

[Flamestrike]

I don't doubt YOU can make a single adventure where the fighter shines... I can make one where fighters might as well sit out, neither proves how campaigns flow.

No, it's literally going to be a normal adventure cleaving to the guidelines in the DMG. 'Go stop BBEG from doing thing'. A Demonic incursion perhaps. A trap or two, and environmental challenge, some magical loot to be found, and 6-8 encounters, with enough time for 2-3 short rests.

I'll post it with a poll afterwards to ensure its fair, and I'll provide a copy to @Mort for him to look at and judge if its 'lol nerf casters' or not.

 

[tetrasodium]

I really do not see this as an explanation. I will reiterate, the players think the encounters are tough and they rest when they can after 4, where is the problem. Why are some DMs pushing for 6 or 8?

That bold bit is the faulty foundation of confusion. You are assuming that players are fighting wotc's insane 6-8 encounter expectation because they consider the encounters to be tough. I've seen players do this:

• GM: up in the distance you see a couple zombies scattered around near the crypt
• Warlock player: Fireball from max range.
• Fighter: action surge with my longbow from that same range.
• gm: they die... they were only zombies, you guys are level 7 or something.
• Players: that's it?
• GM: you aren't even inside.
• Fighter & warlock Players: lets take a short rest
• Cleric & wizard: *sigh& yeas whatever rest I guess

and do it regularly. recovery in 5e is so trivialized that players feel encouraged to freely run about in super mode while still expecting the GM to provide interesting challenges.

Spoiler: This kinda thing doesn't get made without good reason