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

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I'd be interested to know what you mean by saying "no trouble matching, or even exceeding".

Matching should be clear, being the adventure days that the party sees 6-8 encounters, each of not particularly difficult nature alone, but end up taking the number of rests suggested by the guidelines - with the XP numbers being within, or near enough to within, the listed guidelines, as apparent by the number of adventuring days before rising in character level.

When I say "or even exceeding" I am talking about how the guidelines are presented: CR tells you not "this will be a challenge at this level" but "no one should die at this level if rested and equipped", and the encounter difficulties (despite their names) tell you not things like "this is going to be this difficult" but "you could end up dead if you do something stupid" - so if you manage through a mix of smart play and luck to get through even more or even harder, then you are still doing what the guidelines say. That's a fact of their nature as being an at least sort of guideline, not an at most, or even a this much, give or take a small margin sort of guideline.

Of course, that opens a different subject for conversation (that being whether an "at least" style guideline is useful, or whether an experienced group of players actual benefit from a different sort of guideline more than they would from this "at least" guideline).

But speaking for myself, the problem with expecting 6-8 discrete encounters per day has nothing to do with game balance or difficulty and everything to do with plausibility and roleplaying. When you look at scenarios that involve an eight-encounter day, such as the "6-8 encounter 13th level adventuring day" thread going on right now, the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that they don't make any sense from an in-world perspective.

Yes, there are many easy to find examples of when a 6-8 encounter day has been presented in a way that strains the participant's ability to say "that makes sense.". That doesn't mean that there is no such thing as a 6-8 encounter day that does make sense - or that a DM shouldn't, or couldn't, figure out how to set up a 6-8 encounter day that does make sense to their group (have to add that "to their group" clause because what makes sense to one group doesn't have to make sense to another).

 

[S'mon]

Thats because in the games you run, and the ones you play in you only ever grant 1-3 encounters per long rest, and rarely short rest.

I don't "grant" encounters at all. I find this whole thing weird, though [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s comments (post 265, Sudoku Puzzle play) have been somewhat clarifying.

 

[S'mon]

But speaking for myself, the problem with expecting 6-8 discrete encounters per day has nothing to do with game balance or difficulty and everything to do with plausibility and roleplaying. When you look at scenarios that involve an eight-encounter day, such as the "6-8 encounter 13th level adventuring day" thread going on right now, the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that they don't make any sense from an in-world perspective. Really, there just "happens" to be a group of frost giants there in the abandoned dracolich lair, right when we teleport in? Really, there just "happen" to be a couple of paranoid death slaads in the entryway to the demiplane with readied actions (according to Flamestrike) to instantly Fireball anyone entering the demiplane? Really, there just happens to be a berserk Iron Golem rampaging through the dungeon? And he and the death slaads just ignored each other, but chose to attack the PCs? It strains credulity to the point where, as a player, I'd be looking for a hidden manipulator behind the scenes. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Eight times is ludicrous.

I agree entirely; it's an in-world problem, 6-8 encounters doesn't come naturally, while forcing it strains plausibility and can break immersion. And IME it gets worse at higher levels, as per your example. That was already obvious in 3e (Scry-Buff-Teleport) - Spike encounters become more common than long chains - and with 5e's return to a 3e style of play it should have been obvious to the designers.

 

[pemerton]

I don't "grant" encounters at all. I find this whole thing weird, though [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s comments (post 265, Sudoku Puzzle play) have been somewhat clarifying.

I'm glad I clarified something for someone!

As someone who has recent (current, even?) experience with classic AD&D, 4e and 5e, how do you find 5e's asymmetric resource suites in conjunction with its obvious aspiration for cross-class balance? Especially given your dislike for managing/pre-planning the encounter sequencing on the GM side?

 

[S'mon]

I'm glad I clarified something for someone!

As someone who has recent (current, even?) experience with classic AD&D, 4e and 5e, how do you find 5e's asymmetric resource suites in conjunction with its obvious aspiration for cross-class balance? Especially given your dislike for managing/pre-planning the encounter sequencing on the GM side?

Yeah, I currently have 3 campaigns active (2 5e D&D, 1 Mentzer Classic D&D) and my 4e campaign is about to restart after a 4 month hiatus. My Pathfinder campaign ended late last year, I don't intend to run 3e/PF again. I'm playing in two 5e campaigns.

What I see with 5e's asymmetric resource suites is that in a traditional Fighter Cleric Wizard Rogue group, such as the Starter Set pregens, everyone fulfils their traditional D&D role and it works fine. The game is not dysfunctional in the manner of 3e/Pathfinder.
The problem I see is that in a mixed group the Long Rest dependent melee classes like Barbarian & Paladin (& SR /LR Moon Druid!) outshine the short-rest Fighter, and to a lesser extent the always-on/situational Rogue. This is true across all the four 5e campaigns I'm involved in. Barbarian is particularly powerful - Moon Druid dominance fades after maybe 3rd level, Paladin quickly runs out of Smite slots, but Barbarian Rage is encounter-long and only gets stronger less likely to run out.

In my 66 session 5e online game the Barbarian class was clearly most powerful through levels 1-10, though early on Rogue compared quite well, while Warlock & Fighter were weak. Now in Paragon Tier (11-16) the Cleric PC has come into his own, his nova casting now compares well to the Barbarian's resilience & long-term hacking in terms of game impact. I feel the Rogue has continued to fade though, he doesn't seem to be getting anything new to compare to the Cleric's high level spells or even the Barbarian's new Rage abilities.

My tabletop 5e game is restarting today after a three week Extended Rest and I'm bringing in 15 minute short resting to help the short rest dependent Warlock. No one is playing a Fighter; it seems clear that the Moon Druid & Barbarian will more than adequately covering that role.

I am planning to play a Battlemaster Fighter myself in an Out of the Abyss campaign scheduled to start in July. I'm worried she will be very weak, certainly compared to the ridiculously powerful Polearm Master Barbarian I play in another 5e campaign, and I plan to talk with the DM to see if she'd consider eg 15 minute short rests.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I agree entirely; it's an in-world problem, 6-8 encounters doesn't come naturally, while forcing it strains plausibility and can break immersion. And IME it gets worse at higher levels, as per your example. That was already obvious in 3e (Scry-Buff-Teleport) - Spike encounters become more common than long chains - and with 5e's return to a 3e style of play it should have been obvious to the designers.

In theory you could solve the problem by saying, "Well, it is enemy action! They're cooperating on purpose." But then that raises a different problem, which is "Why are they scattered in penny packets? If the death slaads and the iron golem are cooperating, why do they deliberately invite defeat in detail instead of fighting cooperatively?" There's even synergies to exploit (Fireballs heal Iron Golems).

I think this problem is solvable, for instance by giving the bad guys objectives to defend which force them to spread out, but it's not easy to plausibly arrange on an every-week basis.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes, there are many easy to find examples of when a 6-8 encounter day has been presented in a way that strains the participant's ability to say "that makes sense.". That doesn't mean that there is no such thing as a 6-8 encounter day that does make sense - or that a DM shouldn't, or couldn't, figure out how to set up a 6-8 encounter day that does make sense to their group (have to add that "to their group" clause because what makes sense to one group doesn't have to make sense to another).

Sure, you could do that, especially at low level. "A group of rogue young male orcs are staging a coup. They've captured several village elders, whom they need alive to vote their leader in as headman, and are holding them separately in eight locations to prevent them from lending moral support to each other. The current orc chieftain has contacted you and asked you for help. He dare not rely on his own warriors in this case so he turns to an outsider. You have one hour to free at least five village elders, and all eight would be better (give you more reward). If it takes you longer than an hour, the rebels will realize they're facing a countercoup and will kill their hostages. You may or may not also see rebel runners from one site trying to alert rebels at a different site--if they get through, those rebels will kill their hostage and retreat."

You have to go out of your way as you can see to prevent this from turning into one giant encounter.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You have to go out of your way as you can see to prevent this from turning into one giant encounter.

I don't see any kind of "going out of my way" in the encounters I design for my group... I'm not actually sure at what point you personally think things go from "interesting and sensible design" to "gone out of my way" for a DM, since this example you provided seems like it makes sense to me - and I'd not feel I'd gone out of my way in designing it, nor would I go out of my way when running it to prevent player choice from preventing these separate "pockets" of orcs being faced as one large group (maybe they can actually take them, or maybe that's a bad choice they'll have to roll with the consequences of - it's not up to me to decide).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't see any kind of "going out of my way" in the encounters I design for my group... I'm not actually sure at what point you personally think things go from "interesting and sensible design" to "gone out of my way" for a DM, since this example you provided seems like it makes sense to me - and I'd not feel I'd gone out of my way in designing it, nor would I go out of my way when running it to prevent player choice from preventing these separate "pockets" of orcs being faced as one large group (maybe they can actually take them, or maybe that's a bad choice they'll have to roll with the consequences of - it's not up to me to decide).

Well, there's the fact that the design is incomplete. I wrote that they were holding them separately to prevent them from "lending moral support to each other," but in fact it still doesn't quite add up. Why not just gag them and keep them in separate rooms? And how are you going to do the vote if you can't ever bring the elders together? I think you could make this scenario work, but it would take additional design*, and if you don't do that additional design then it reverts to one or two giant encounters instead of eight separate ones that invite defeat in detail.

* One possibility: steal a page from 2nd edition and say the orc council has access to a Quill of Law. Two of the laws written by the quill are "No one may harm a village elder" and "Any non-elder must obey the commands given by a quorum of three or more village elders in agreement." In this case, keeping the elders separate is necessitated by the magical constraints. But, clearly I am going out of my way now.

 

[Flamestrike]

In order to fit 6-8 encounters into the daily budget, you need to take them down to Easy/Medium encounters, which most DMs don't seem willing to do. More commonly, DMs will choose one or another of the various DM guidelines to violate: either they will violate the adventuring day guidelines (possibly without realizing and/or admitting to themselves that they are doing so), or they will obey the adventuring day guidelines but use primarily Hard/Deadly encounters and only 3-4 encounters per day, or they just give up entirely on budgets and guidelines and just eyeball everything based on experience.

Also, if youre using the 6-8/2 standard AD as your default, youre not going to be sticking to 6-8/2 for more than around 50 percent of your planned AD's.

In other words, while a fair few of your PCs AD's are going to be 6-8ish encounters long if youre sticking to the guidelines, and will feature around 2 short rests, a fair few AD's are going to be shorter AD's (1-3 encounters only) such as wilderness trecks where anything more than a single encounter or two at max is a stretch. Your PCs might also get the very occasional rarer longer AD to really push them and get them conserving resources.

So from 3rd to 6th level you might have the following AD's (broken up by zero encounter/ zero combat days, or downtime activity):

AD 1: 3 X medium, 2 x hard, 1 x deadly [2 short rests, 1 long rest]
AD 2: 3 x medium, 4 x hard [3 x short rests, 1 long rest]
AD 3: 1 x hard [long rest]
AD 4: 1 x deadly, 2 x medium [1 x short rest, 1 long rest]
AD 5: 1 x medium [long rest]
AD 6: 3 x medium, 4 x hard, 1 x deadly [3 short rests, 1 long rest]
AD 7: 2 x medium [1 x short rest, 1 long rest]
AD 8: 1 x hard [long rest]
AD 9: 1 x hard, 1 x medium [1 x short rest, 1 x long rest]
AD 10: 1 x medium, 4 x hard, 1 x deadly [2 short rests, 1 x long rest]

With the overall AD XP over this time averaging the amounts listed on the 'XP per AD' charts.

So the 'Adventuring day XP' evens out over time. Some days will come out over budget. Some will come out under budget. Just like the DMG doesnt expect you to only ever cram 6-8 'medium-hard' encounters at your party every AD, it also doesnt expect you to cram 'X' amount of AD XP in every single AD.

As long as your campaign overall averages the amounts listed on the 'XP per AD' chart, and your players are managing resources appropriately on individual AD's, you're hitting the right mark.