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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Condiments" data-source="post: 6850162" data-attributes="member: 6802006">The largest problem I have with the 6-8 battle assumption, is that it comes with the idea of DMs forcing encounters or in words used here "policing the adventuring day". My DMing play-style is generally allowing the players to approach encounters and dungeons in a way that they want. What they encounter or are "policed" by arises naturally out of the situation they find themselves in. So, if the players take the necessary precautions, they won't be affected by nightmares/obstructions preventing long rest or more forced fights down their throat because I've arbitrary decided they haven't reached some resource limit. If my players are effectively using stealth or talking their way through encounters with minimal resource cost, I don't feel the need to push a fight on them just because.I think my current adventure is the closest I've gotten to the 6-8 encounters with really only 2 combats so far. Here is the recap:Party(Level 9):Dragon Sorcerer(optimized)Ranger/Rogue(optimized)Circle of Land Druid(Un-optimized)Battlemaster Fighter(Un-optimized)NPC sorcererPlayers are adventuring into the "Sea of Moving Ice" to rescue or put-down a friendly silver dragon(Alexius) they've known for a long time that has succumbed to the mind altering influence of one of the campaign villains. Alexius is mind controlled and stupefied(acting bestial) by an "orb", or piece of flesh of the BBEG is using as a doorway to the material realm. The captain of the ship transporting them stated quite clearly that despite the pay he would only wait 2 days in these dangerous waters before leaving them stranded putting a time pressure on their efforts. They embarked off their ship that transported them onto a smaller boat and:Encounter 1: They dealt with the environmental issues like ice threatening their boat by scrapping across its sides, and thick ice packs slowing their progress.Result: Minimal resource cost other than time, Sorcerer used fire-bolt to try and melt any encroaching ice but it was slow going until the land druid used control water to clear the debris. He also used the spell to create a current to speed the boat up for a time.Encounter 2: The mind controlled Silver Dragon crossed paths with group on the hunt for food around its lair. Result: The party did its best to conceal its location from the dragon with the ranger used its pass without a trace while directing the boat with his decanter of endless water under a ridge of one of the nearby icebergs. They watched the dragon catch a large fish and begin to eat upon one of the nearby icebergs. This encounter was meant to be a tempting opportunity for the party to engage the dragon while it was vulnerable, but they would be punished heavily. The ranger then hunters marked the fish the dragon was hunting, then switched to the dragon while it was feasting. The dragon noticed this "mystical" marking, and became agitated but failed to discover the party.Encounter 3: Following the hunter's mark on the dragon back to its lair, a large piece of ice became dislodged from one of the nearby icebergs causing a large tidal wave of water that rushed towards the party about to overwhelm them.Result: Land Druid once again casted his trusty control water spell to part the wave as it was cresting upon the party in a badass Moses moment.Encounter 4: They enter the front part of the lair which has tunnels and chambers carved out of the center part of this massive iceberg. The path they take was a slanted slope caked with ice, and at the bottom was a bed of thin ice. Failing certain checks, players could scrap across the jagged edges of the tunnels they were traversing, or be submerged in freezing cold water when breaking through the ice resulting in possible exhaustion.Result: Players used divination potions to scout out possible routes before entering the lair entrance itself. Discovering the most direct route to the orb of Mundus, they moved as quietly as they could into the icy tunnels. Turns out Circle of the Land druids don't care about environmental obstructions, so he and the Range/Rogue easily moved down the slope with the help of rope. The sorcerer got lucky on a roll, and the dragonborn fighter slid on her armored butt while using the rope and her claws to steady herself(which I ruled as athletics rather than acrobatics). The Ranger scoped out the thin ice and used his decanter of endless water on cold setting(enchanted item) to strengthen the ice by letting it pour out upon the ice bed over 30 minutes.Encounter 5: Another slope leading into a heavily fogged room with icy slick floors and thick rocks jutting out of the walls. A frost troll lay slumbering at one of the room, and a frost golem lays dormant into the wall activated by the call of its master(Mundus) or loud noises. Tunnels lead out of the chamber into other heavily guarded areas, and noise can attract patrols. Some parts of the ice are thin and players can crash through into freezing water.Result: Sorcerer flubs his roll going down the slope hits harshly on the ground yelling out in the process waking the troll. The ranger sees the thin ice and begins to use decanter to freeze the frozen floor again, giving time for the troll to find a good hiding position for surprise. The group scouts ahead with the ranger leading after they freeze the floor, when the troll leaps upon the ranger. What follows is a deadly battle, as the ice golem waiting in the wall animates to the sound of battle and assaults the party. The resulting noise made attracts a nearby sahaguin patrol(priestess and baron) into the battle from behind further putting the party on their heels. The ranger is brought to 0, and the sorcerer is brought below 1/2 HP with the party burning through slots to deal with the enemies. Thinking it was too dangerous to stick around, the Druid heals the group and then they charge ahead to deal with the orb directly.Encounter 6: The party enters a huge chamber slick with ice, low visibility, and ice pillars. The low visibility and space will make it difficult to deal with the silver dragon(white dragon stats) with lair actions, and the orb(with spell-casting).Result: Having taken the most direct route the orb of Mundus, it immediately begins to work its magic upon them. It silently calls upon its dragon which renters on the far side of the chamber un-noticed by the party ready to unleash a deadly surprise round upon them. Before anything can happen, the sorcerer charges towards the orb, knowing its other-worldly origin, casts banishment. The orb of Mundus casts counter-spell to negate the effect, only to be counter-counter-spelled by sorcerer(Didn't expect that to happen, I had forgotten he had taken the spell, so out-played on my part). The orb is banished to its home plane of water. However, the dragon still magically stupefied but no longer under control by the Orb, approaches the party in a guarded curious manner as if trying to determine if they're a threat. The players try to talk the dragon down, with the sorcerer using his hat of disguise to appear as the silver dragon would in his human form. The sorcerer failed both his charisma rolls trying to pacify the dragon, and was snatched up by the curious dragon and it escaped through one of the watery tunnels in the floor with the sorcerer in his claws.(Unplanned part of the adventure, but was made in response to player actions)Encounter 7: The dragon swims through the ocean away from the party with the sorcerer in its clawed hands. A submerged ship of sahaguin patrol the icy depths and have been alerted by the sudden disappearance of their master's telepathic connection, seek to control the dragon and deal with any invaders to their iceberg lair.Result: The dragon swims and then flies away for some time from its lair, eventually landing with the sorcerer upon on large iceberg where it normally feeds. The dragon, its gruff bestial nature, plays with the sorcerer roughly forcing him to burn a misty step and then greater invisibility to get away, slipping into the freezing water with only 20 HP left. The rest of the players follow as fast as they can, with a NPC sorcerer uses many of her spell slots to get the party out of the iceberg, and then uses fly to get herself and two others into the air. The druid uses his giant eagle form to follow them. The submerged sahaguin ship bursts forth from the depths, firing its harpoon guns at the players. They take a few hits, and decide to fly higher to avoid the fire. The party eventually leave the boat in the dust, but the ship continues to pursue the party to reclaim their dragon for their master.Encounter 8: The rest of the party arrives at the dragon's iceberg while its thrashes around looking for the invisible sorcerer.Result: After failing to make the checks to calm down the dragon, they decide to fight it. The following fight is a brutal battle even without the dragon having its lair actions. It brings down everyone but the PC and NPC sorcerer to 0 with the use of its legendary actions. They even got lucky with no breath weapon recharges, so the fight could easily have swayed into TPK territory without clever play. The sorcerer finished off the fight by poly-morphing the single digit HP fighter and druid into T-Rexs and they used their bites to finish it off before it can fly away.Encounter 9: They decide not to finish off the dragon, but seem unable to get through to it.Result: The ranger uses the potion of mind reading upon the nearly unconscious dragon, communicating their non-hostile intentions and memories to calm it. Once the dragon falls asleep and the party short rests the druid uses the spell Dream to enter the Dragon's thoughts and convinces it to fight against the enchantment that holds it's mind.Next session...Encounter 10: Nearly spent of all their hit dice and spells the party watches in horror as the sahaguin ship approaches their iceberg to re-claim their prize they've worked so hard for.Result: To be continued...So as you can see, through use of environmental effects and non combat encounters you can still burn through party resources to a point. The only problems I see are with fighting classes like Barbarian and Paladin and to a lesser extent fighter. Their design actually pushes the game towards more fights otherwise they will appear very powerful all the time during combat, as their most important spells rage and smite are primarily spent in-combat. At least with paladin they have some at least out of combat ability.</blockquote>

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