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

[Flamestrike]

Or I can just keep running the game I have been for decades and not worry about "balance".

For mine, balanced encounters and balanced parties are part of the DMs core job. Making sure everyone has their time to shine, and that everyone is contributing equally (albeit in different ways).

It's a game after all. People play it to have fun. Being overshadowed by other characters, or being steamrolled by over CR'd encounters because 'the DM doesnt worry about balance' doesnt sound like much fun to me, but YMMV, and every table is different I guess.

 

[tetrasodium]

I only kinda skimmed the last couple pages & don't know if it's already been linked up but someone did this great breakdown of what exactly it is that's written on the page in the context it was provided complete with links to design intent from mearls. It's 6-8 medium to hard combat encounters & the system is designed around that assumption.

The GM can start changing things a little by adjusting things here & there like using fewer loldeadly "lethal" encounters but doing so starts creating cracks in the foundation that the GM is left to handle with no guidance & few tools.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing people forget about wizards is it's very easy for them to mess up. Cast the wrong spells and they can be completely ineffectual. If all you can do is hit things with a sword you are not going to get the blame when your bad choice leads to a TPK.

 

[Krachek]

The thing is that the ability to go nova in combat, while not entirely negligible, is fundamentally manageable. As others have posted, simply vary the number of encounters per day. If the wizard doesn't know that today is a one encounter day, then they'll be more conservative with their resources (even if it is a one encounter day).

If your players opt for a 5MWD, banning Leomund's Tiny Hut (and similar spells) is a much less dramatic change than converting all casters to a short rest resource schedule.

Heck, you could adjust the fighter with a few more long-rest-limited big-number resources, and nova wouldn't really be a class balance issue whatsoever.

There are a bunch of ways to address that imbalance without effectively making all casters warlocks. Hence why I think the lack of non-combat stuff is the real balance issue. Until you address that, you really do need 6-8 combat encounters to maintain a semblance of balance, because any of those that is a non-combat encounter is one where the fighter is likely to have about as much mechanical impact as a commoner.

An easiest solution for the fighter imbalance is to not play fighter.
if a table overly favor and cheers shiny and magical solution to social and exploration encounters it would take a fool to play fighter.

 

[Fanaelialae]

An easiest solution for the fighter imbalance is to not play fighter.
if a table overly favor and cheers shiny and magical solution to social and exploration encounters it would take a fool to play fighter.

I realize this is sarcasm, but not playing fighters isn't much of a solution to the issue of balancing fighters against other classes. It's basically just ignoring the issue and pretending it went away.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I treat all encounters as "encounters", it doesn't matter to me which pillar it is. But then again, I also grant XP for role-playing.


There is certainly "more to combat" because that is the pillar that has the most support when it comes to rules, etc.

However, if you mean that more encounters are combat than exploration or social, that is often the case IME, but I don't care about that balance personally.


I agree to a point, but it depends on the encounter and how casters also handle it. Are casters using spells? If so, then martials need encounters to handle via their features (e.g. fighting or whatever). However, if casters are handling encounters through skills, then martials can do the same.

For example, in our session tonight, I had an exploration encounter (handled via skills and saves), a combat encounter, and then three social encounters (handled via skills and role-play).

Ultimately, I don't care at all about the number of encounters during an "adventuring day". IMO the concept is ludicrous. The narrative drives the number of encounters and when PCs can get in a rest. Since players never know when an encounter will take place or how many there might be before they can rest, they have to play conservatively much of the time. If they nova too much, they'll get burned eventually. It is a balancing act, really, but as long as it is dictated by the story, the balance is self-enforced IME.

It has to be Combat. Exploration and Social encounters use up far fewer resources, which is the whole point of having that many encounters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That generally happens when they perceive the stakes of exploration and social encounters to be lower.

When exploration encounters can be as lethal as combat (traps, terrain hazards), and blowing a social encounter means being dropped into a combat encounter at very bad odds, PCs are a lot more willing to burn resources on them.

Skill checks and role-playing don't use up resources.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I see this as mainly a design error that accidentally removed noncombat options from the Fighter class.

It is an error that is both really pervasive and that WotC has been slow to walk away from.

In the PHB, the only justification to restrict Eldritch Knights to the evocation and abjuration schools is that they are the schools that have the least impact outside combat.

Tsha’s had a few non-combat maneuvers for battlemasters and nothing for other subclasses, and even the later designed subclasses tend to emphasize combat.

By way of contrast…

• Wizards get TWO combat subclasses with War wizards and Bladesingers (and Bladesingers are focussed on melee combat);
• Bards get Valor Bards and Swords Bards;
• Warlocks get Hexblades;
• Sorcerers can play discount clerics with divine souls;
• Mercy monks also broaden the traditional role of monks, as do kensei and sun soul monks;
• There are enough cleric domains that clerics can branch out into skill monkey, damage and tank;
• Newer druid subclasses are all about different uses for their Wildshape ability.

Meanwhile, each new fighter subclass continues to be “here are a bunch of combat abilities, plus a ribbon that you can use out of combat”.

 

[Quickleaf]

Am I misremembering, or did the DnD Next Playtest documents involve encounter building guidelines that assumed two fewer encounters per day (i.e. 4-6) than what ended up in the DMG?

I don't have the Playtest docs anymore to confirm.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I find that just by varying up every game session and adventuring day between all the different things players and characters can do in all three pillars... there's more than enough stuff to keep everyone engaged and contributing and not inspiring anyone to waste their time comparing themselves to anyone else.

In a white room would the rogue tend to lose out to the paladin in a fight? Sure. But once they are both on the battlefield and the rogue is able to quickly skitter across the ledges in the cavern to get to the archers raining arrows down upon the paladin while the paladin in stuck in hand-to-hand with a single creature on the ground... the "lessened DPR" of the rogue is never even considered. The rogue is imperative to the scene for the things he can do that other characters can't, so needing to compare apples to apples in something like damage per round/fight is rarely ever a thing.

Or when in a social situation with the local baron... the player of the fighter can and does talk just as much as the bard player does, even though the bard character has higher CHA and proficiency in Persuasion. Because the ability score and skill don't matter nearly as much when the players and DM are speaking to each other in character and I give out info based on the questions I'm asked. The player with less game mechanics at their disposal can still contribute just as much in the scene as another, if I just don't use the game mechanics to be the determining factor of what's going on.

I have always found that uneven mechanical distribution just becomes less of a thing when you just don't focus on the mechanics in every scene.

How does that not teach the bard player that they shouldn't have invested in social skills?