D&D 5E 6-8 encounters/day - how common is this?

[S'mon]

That does look like a sort of secondary balance-point. 6-8 encounters roughly balances any/all of the PH classes. 3-4 harder encounters with the same number of short rest balances /most/, but not so much those with significant all-encounter dailies. If you don't have a class like that (or do, and the PC is underperforming) there you go, a nice alternative.

My tabletop 5e group has Barbarian (Rage - daily encounter-long), Druid (wildshape short
rest hour long) and Warlock (2 spells per short rest). Since I'm not going to be able to hit 6-8 fights/day without railroading that I won't do, there seems no way to achieve perfect balance. But given that 3-4 fights/day is likeliest, giving short rests after each fight at least keeps the Warlock viable. Boosts the Druid, doesn't
affect the Barbarian (or the Wizard or the Bard).

 

[OB1]

Just an observation and a suggestion.

Perhaps we are making too much of the "suggested 6 to 8 encounters per day" line, and not enough of the recommended encounter XP per day budget.

Look at it this way...a dungeon with 8 rooms* might be considered an 8 encounter day, even though only 4 or 5 of those rooms actually include dangerous monsters or encounter level traps to fight (the other rooms consisting of color, treasure, or puzzles which tax player brains but not character resources). Encounters have never been defined exclusively as combats.

So if we instead decide to focus on the daily xp budget, we can easily meet that with 3 to 4 hard to deadly encounters.

When I'm designing an AD, I use the DXP budget to determine how much the party could face and accomplish their primary objective, but the day itself I design over the DXP limit. It is then up to the players to look for ways to avoid encounters to ensure they can get to their main goal. I'll then determine which encounters (if any) can't be avoided, think of some ways the others could be (though leave options open for whatever crazy stuff the party may come up with) and try to get a sense for what the party may be able to do in combat with excellent tactics. Note that if the party is optimized for combat, they will be able to handle a higher DXP budget.

So if my party of 5 has a DXP of 10,000, and the objective is to sneak into a castle and rescue a princess scheduled for termination I might design to the following.

6,000 - Minimum encounter level to accomplish objective (start with 3 separate unavoidable encounters)
10,000 - Average xp of encounters party can deal with in combat (add 2-3 encounters with Hard DCs to avoid)
12,500 - Good tactic/Lucky rolls budget (add 1-2 encounters with Medium DCs to avoid)
16,500 - Total Encounter XP on the board (add 1-2 encounters with Easy DCs to avoid, but with possibility of Deadly individual encounter if they don't, this is where I also like to tempt players with a shiny treasure to entice them into a combat that won't help them with their primary objective, but may provide some other benefit)

The other advantage of designing this way is that if players have unlucky rolls to start the day in a combat or two, they still have a path to victory if they can figure their way around some of the encounter difficulty.

To be clear, I don't design every single session to this, but instead I use whenever the players are heading into a major objective. Typically that's once or twice per character level.

 

[Flamestrike]

My tabletop 5e group has Barbarian (Rage - daily encounter-long), Druid (wildshape short
rest hour long) and Warlock (2 spells per short rest). Since I'm not going to be able to hit 6-8 fights/day without railroading that I won't do, there seems no way to achieve perfect balance. But given that 3-4 fights/day is likeliest, giving short rests after each fight at least keeps the Warlock viable. Boosts the Druid, doesn't
affect the Barbarian (or the Wizard or the Bard).

The barbarian now has perma rage however which is a massive boost.

With 6-8 encounters per day, he has to conserve rages and choose the ones to get angry in.

Once i got up to 3 rages a day in this campaign, I would be looking to MC out of barbarian pretty quickly. BM Fighter would be my first point of call (seeing as short rests are now assumed after each fight).

This isnt a criticsm - just to highlight how a DMs policy of rests/ encounter pacing makes certain choices better than others, and directly affects gameplay.

 

[The_Furious_Puffin]

My tabletop 5e group has Barbarian (Rage - daily encounter-long), Druid (wildshape short
rest hour long) and Warlock (2 spells per short rest). Since I'm not going to be able to hit 6-8 fights/day without railroading that I won't do, there seems no way to achieve perfect balance. But given that 3-4 fights/day is likeliest, giving short rests after each fight at least keeps the Warlock viable. Boosts the Druid, doesn't
affect the Barbarian (or the Wizard or the Bard).

From playing at a table with 1 short rest per fight (defacto), if you have a druid it will clown your encounter balance something shocking. You may want to house rule that resting ends wild shape, otherwise dumbness of this format begins:

End fight 1 in Elk or Bear form. Short rest, using Elk HD to go back to full. Come into fight 2 with: 42 hp (starting form) + 42 HP (wild shape 1) + 42 HP (wild shape 2) + 64 HP (level 8 druid) = 190 HP.

Only saving grace is no barkskin.

Edit: Regardless of what you do, if you have a proposed rest schedule you probably should tell your players upfront so they can make class decisions.This is probably the most important thing to do, because if you have 3 encounters per long rest or something and you tell me then I know and, I will just play a daily power schedule class or just some house rules for whatever I am playing.

Edit 2: This is why I generally play and suggest druids when sitting down for a new 5E game - because you're split over two power schedules and great at low levels no matter how it turns out you'll not get screwed by the system.

 

[Tallifer]

Sigh.

Why are you incapable of admitting the slightest fault on the part of the official products?

Why are you dead set on interpreting any fault or wonkiness as a weakness on the DM's part?

It's so frustrating to have you cheerily say anything that you don't feel is working as well as you would have wanted, is because you're doing it wrong. It's never the ruleset, it's never the designers.

I think your influence on struggling DMs is horrible, and I can't stand replying to you anymore.

The game is perfect and impossible to improve. You win.

I really don't understand you. There is no hard fixed rule for encounters per day. It is merely advice for a general situation. The basic rue is that the Dungeon Master is the master of his world and his campaign.

 

[The_Furious_Puffin]

I really don't understand you. There is no hard fixed rule for encounters per day. It is merely advice for a general situation. The basic rue is that the Dungeon Master is the master of his world and his campaign.

The problem is that damages the class balance and there isn't a ton of assistance on what you should do. I mean, say I want to run a game that is going to 3-4 encounters per long rest. What do I need to do to the champion fighter to make it competitive with the warlock and bard in this situation?

Noting your sig block, compare it to 4E. In 4E the game survives (mostly) if you have change the ratio of encounters:long rests because the PCs are on the same power schedule. As [MENTION=8900]Tony[/MENTION] Vargus points out above you need to change the encounter XP budget to reflect the players can blow off more or less dailies and use more or less HD but that's only one variable which is a lot easier to control.

5E has two variables - class power changes differently by class depending on the encounter:shortrest:longrest ratio (and that's a two variable thing in and of itself), and you need to change encounter balance to reflect that more or less dailies will be used per encounter. Three interdependant variables makes it complex.

For example, if the game said:

Some random examples: 
6-8 encounters with 2 short rests + 1 long rests: Use Champions are published
3-4 encounters with 1 short rest after each encounter + 1 long rest: Champions don't lose much ground in this model, becaues action surges refresh or maybe it says Champions lose significant ground in this model because the number of rounds per day of combat more than halves. We suggest increasing the champions critical range by +2 at level 6 under this encounter model

For a couple of options. BAM now I can see exactly what the tradeoffs are from changing the rest schedule.

 

[S'mon]

The barbarian now has perma rage however which is a massive boost.

With 6-8 encounters per day, he has to conserve rages and choose the ones to get angry in.

Once i got up to 3 rages a day in this campaign, I would be looking to MC out of barbarian pretty quickly. BM Fighter would be my first point of call (seeing as short rests are now assumed after each fight).

This isnt a criticsm - just to highlight how a DMs policy of rests/ encounter pacing makes certain choices better than others, and directly affects gameplay.

I don't use multiclassing (& never seen it any 5e game I play in) so that's not an issue.
Barbarians get plenty of good high level class abilities so not a problem in terms of class
power.
Barbarians effectively have perma-rage after round 1, with a bit of management, in every game I've GM'd or played. I've never seen a Barbarian, mine or someone else's, enter a major battle
without Rage.

I'm not that interested in nerfing Barbarians; I would rather bring Warlocks & Fighters up.

 

[S'mon]

From playing at a table with 1 short rest per fight (defacto), if you have a druid it will clown your encounter balance something shocking. You may want to house rule that resting ends wild shape, otherwise dumbness of this format begins:

End fight 1 in Elk or Bear form. Short rest, using Elk HD to go back to full. Come into fight 2 with: 42 hp (starting form) + 42 HP (wild shape 1) + 42 HP (wild shape 2) + 64 HP (level 8 druid) = 190 HP.

Only saving grace is no barkskin.

Edit: Regardless of what you do, if you have a proposed rest schedule you probably should tell your players upfront so they can make class decisions.This is probably the most important thing to do, because if you have 3 encounters per long rest or something and you tell me then I know and, I will just play a daily power schedule class or just some house rules for whatever I am playing.

Edit 2: This is why I generally play and suggest druids when sitting down for a new 5E game - because you're split over two power schedules and great at low levels no matter how it turns out you'll not get screwed by the system.

Druid - I think what you've pointed out is that Druid Wildshape has a 1 hour duration and is intended to end on a short rest. That's a good point, I'll make sure Druid Wildshape ends when resting..

What I've done is proposed the above rest schedule based on the experience of playing the first 11 sessions (Shattered Star 1 - Shards of Sin, a dungeoncrawl) using 5e RAW. I know the PCs will be a Barbarian, Druid, Warlock, Bard, and two new - Bladesinger Wizard & a Monk. I'll be
running the rest of Shattered Star + Rise of the Runelords; inasmuch as they assume a rest schedule it's 3e style 4 encounters per day. It looks to me that 15 minute rests, max 3 SR per day, will help ensure the Warlock is viable - 30+ sessions of running online 5e game with a Warlock PC he often seemed very
weak compared to the Barbarian & Rogue; I want to avoid that.

 

[Flamestrike]

The problem is that damages the class balance and there isn't a ton of assistance on what you should do. I mean, say I want to run a game that is going to 3-4 encounters per long rest. What do I need to do to the champion fighter to make it competitive with the warlock and bard in this situation?

3-4 isnt a bad number to run with, and the game works fine around this number - as long as your PCs are keeping some stuff in reserve for in case they get another encounter or two before long resting.

Remember - the party are expected to be out of resources (spell slots and hit dice mainly) after 6-8 encounters. So after 3-4 they should be running at about 50 percent (still have half hit dide remaining, and 50 percent of their spell slots).

You could increase difficulty slightly for a 3-4 encounter day, and grant an automatic short rest after each encounter (to boost the short rest classes in line with the boost the longer rest classes are getting from the shorter AD) and the game wont break or be too out of kilter. You probably wont notice it too much.

If you did this though, I would certainly include the occasional longer AD and impose it on the party, to make the long rest classes (casters) regulate a bit more, and give the short rest classes an opportunity to take the spotlight.

Just enough to keep the players guessing and conserving powers 'just in case'.

 

[Flamestrike]

30+ sessions of running online 5e game with a Warlock PC he often seemed very
weak compared to the Barbarian & Rogue; I want to avoid that.

Thw warlock is short rest dependent. The barbarian is long rest dependent. The Rogue is rest neutral (it actually shines the brightest on longer AD's featuring a lot of encounters and few opportunities to rest, as it has a fantastic suite of 'at will' abilities in skills, cunning action and sneak attack).

My guess is these 30+ sessions featured shorter adventuring days (1-3 encounters) and few short rests (or both).