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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 6842617" data-attributes="member: 6788736">Unless I am very much mistaken, isnt OOtA effectively a series of smaller set piece areas (mini dungeons, each with their own chapter) separated by longer distances where its not '1 adventuring day per day'Chapter 1 (Velkenvieve) for example has 14 encounter locations (or around two AD's - standard for these adventures to get PCs to 3rd). The oozing temple has 6 (plus a possible encounter or two on the way and randoms). The lost tomb has 5 (plus daily randoms). Every other chapter roughly conforms to the 6-8 section also.When you're not exploring one of these individual 'zoomed in' sections youre travelling 'between chapters' and not likely to get more than 0-2 encounters on one of these days. I dare say days will pass with no encounters at all. There are also several 'rest' areas where you can engage in downtime activities.Which is perfectly acceptable - a risk of an encounter or two off camera on the way to the 'central' adventure locations, then zooming in for a standard 'longer' AD where the PCs are moving down 10' wide corridors and not fast forwarding though hours or days at a time.You get this right? Its been told to you often enough but you seem to be willfully ignoring it at this point - you dont ram 6-8 down your parties throats every single day. You dont even do it every single adventuring day. Its OK to have some days feature no encounters. Its OK to have some feature just one. Its OK to have more than 6-8.In fact, If youre ramming 6-8 medium to hard encounters every single day on your party, I'd go so far as to say youre doing it wrong. Youre not supposed to religiously stick to the magic 6-8 figure.Its a guideline; a default balancing point where the encounter difficulty and PC classes balance out. It is not a set in stone 'must obey' bit of RAW that you need to dogmatically apply. The DMG makes no such rule - it simply gives you a peek 'behind the curtain' and tells you how long long rest resources are supposed to last (on average), and how many short rests you should be handing out to your PCs per long rest (on average).You'll have longer AD's and you'll have shorter AD's You'll have days with more short rests, and you'll have days with less. You'll have harder than 'medium-hard' encounters, and some you shouldnt fight and will be lucky to survive if you do. You'll have trivial encounters that you can steamroll without breaking a sweat. But the sweet spot - the balancing point - where encounters and classes balance the best - is 6-8 medium to hard encounters and 2ish short rests per long rest.Or to be more correct, the classes balance the best when the long rest dependent classes are conserving resources in expectation of a 6-8 encounter AD. They dont need that many encounters - just to conserve resources in expectation of that many.Throw that many at them around 50 perecent of the time (say...in zoomed in areas of published adventures - hint, hint) and leave the rest of the travel/ off camera stuff to the threat of an encounter or two maybe (and maybe more - gotta keep em guessing!).</blockquote>

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