D&D 5E Adjusting to 1 encounter per Day: Putting the XP Budget into a single fight

[Stalker0]

So with all the talk of game balance of late, something that keeps coming back up is the notion that players that get to rest more often and fight less encounters in a day will find challenges easier than a party that gets the full 6-8 encounters.

So the real question is: Well how much more can a party take on?

So we could start with a simple premise: What if the DM just pushes the entire daily adventuring budget into a single encounter. Aka its expected the party will go hog wild, throw every bit of juice....and be completely spent by the end. So what would that look like in terms of challenge?

So lets take 4 level 7 characters. They have a daily adventuring budget of 20,000. So here are some example challenges that would fit their entire budget. I had to go a bit under or over much of the time, as often adding just one more of almost any monster just shoots the encounter XP way up.

• A Demilich (CR 18)
• Two Young Red Dragons (CR 10) - 17.7k
• 3 Githyanki Knights (CR 8) - 23k
• 4 Mind Flayers (CR 7) - 23k
• 5 Flesh Golems (CR 5)
• 8 Black Puddings (CR 4) - 22k
• 200 NPC Guards (CR 1/8)

So just taking a look, what do people think? Do you generally feel like these would be really challenging encounters for such a party who is going "all out"? Would this crush them into the dirt, would you expect them to win with no problems?

If this produces reasonable results it might be the way to go for people who just want to do 1 "big combat" a day, and help them understand what you really need to throw out to challenge such a party.

 

[TerraDave]

I think all parties that want to reach 8th level should have to fight through this. Starting with the guards and ending with the demilich.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

First, I'd point out that it would probably make classes that rely on short rests to feel less powerful o2n the long run, as they would be overshadowed by the PCs that can nova each fight (if they notice the pattern of not having a string of fights in a day. That may or may not be a problem with your group.

Second, I think the CR system can't really be precise enough for this kind of assessment to work out well with extreme CR differences. Here's my impression :

1. High CR monsters can be a hit or miss thing. If the PCs get the drop on them, alone, they can usually kill them off in a round or two even if they are very low level compared to the threat... but the monster may be able to kill off a PC with a single attack if he gets an action... and can possibly be totally untouchable if he plays right. In this category, I'd place the Demilich. It's immune to non-magical attack & flying. Unless your martial characters have a magical bow or crossbow, they can't do anything to the Demilich who could kill them by floating over them. With 3 legendary resistance and life drain, there is a strong possibility that casters won't be able to kill it before they are life drained. Same goes with the red dragons. with superior mobility they can go in, breath fire (probably roasting the squishier characters) and fly out of range until they can breath fire again.

2. At the other end of the spectrum, the 200 NPC Guards can either kill the PCs off with the action economy OR be wiped from afar by area of effects spells. If closely packed, 3 fireballs will kill them all before they can even notice the PCs. Same with black pudding. They are slower than the PCs and can be killed at no risk with arrows. Not the most heroic of fights and it would produce a goofy encounter instead of a deadly one.

The more "balanced" results would be against enemy with a roughly identical number as the PCs, without hit-or-die powers. That narrows the range of possible encounters.

The 4 mind flayers one should be in that range, but if they use their powers right, it's a TPK. For example, they should open with 4 mind blasts. There is a strong possibility all characters will fail one of four DC 15 INT save and be stunned... which exposes them to brain extraction on the subsequent rounds (10d10 damage on an attack with advantage...) That or have the possibly remaining active character be subjected to Dominate Monster, taking him out of the fight as well.

In real play, I often use "deadly" encounters but that's by mixing one BBEG with a number of lower CR minions. Those are not deadly (just challenging) but in my experience achieve the result you're looking for.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah, give those guards enough space and they’ll wipe the PCs out far easier than the demilich

 

[LoganRan]

The notion that 200 average guards isn't automatically a TPK for four adventurers of any level makes me sad.

I know DnD is a fantasy game, but I still prefer it to give at least a perfunctory nod to realism.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

The notion that 200 average guards isn't automatically a TPK for four adventurers of any level makes me sad.

I know DnD is a fantasy game, but I still prefer it to give at least a perfunctory nod to realism.

I am no military expert, but I am pretty sure in real life 200 people charging with baionets from afar are no match for a party of machine gun wielding soldiers. I won't lookup engagements in the late 19th century in Africa but it should be close to that result. Any sufficently reliable magic is undistinguishable from technology.

With a good commander that knows the PCs capabilities and can select the battlefield, the PCs are toast, though.

 

[Asisreo]

So with all the talk of game balance of late, something that keeps coming back up is the notion that players that get to rest more often and fight less encounters in a day will find challenges easier than a party that gets the full 6-8 encounters.

So the real question is: Well how much more can a party take on?

So we could start with a simple premise: What if the DM just pushes the entire daily adventuring budget into a single encounter. Aka its expected the party will go hog wild, throw every bit of juice....and be completely spent by the end. So what would that look like in terms of challenge?

So lets take 4 level 7 characters. They have a daily adventuring budget of 20,000. So here are some example challenges that would fit their entire budget. I had to go a bit under or over much of the time, as often adding just one more of almost any monster just shoots the encounter XP way up.

• A Demilich (CR 18)
• Two Young Red Dragons (CR 10) - 17.7k
• 3 Githyanki Knights (CR 8) - 23k
• 4 Mind Flayers (CR 7) - 23k
• 5 Flesh Golems (CR 5)
• 8 Black Puddings (CR 4) - 22k
• 200 NPC Guards (CR 1/8)

So just taking a look, what do people think? Do you generally feel like these would be really challenging encounters for such a party who is going "all out"? Would this crush them into the dirt, would you expect them to win with no problems?

If this produces reasonable results it might be the way to go for people who just want to do 1 "big combat" a day, and help them understand what you really need to throw out to challenge such a party.

I've done this before (and plan on doing it again fairly soon), and from my experience, you may be alarmed by how quickly party members can just die, especially if the enemies are given any leeway.

From one side, the demilich is a foe that can heal itself up to 63hp every round fairly easily. A wizard that thought "maybe I should pump my dex and wis rather than con" will have 30-36hp, but the demilich can reliably do 31hp of worth of damage reliably while also just reducing that HP maximum in the process.

Even magical weapons don't do full damage and avoidance makes any real damage hard to land consistently. It also has legendary resistance so no matter how unlucky the DM is, the Demilich will at least survive to round 2 from any spell.

Wizards aren't nearly as versatile, either. No wall of force, no disintegrate, only one banishment. The best party member to fight this is either a cleric or paladin and even they will have massive trouble putting this down without nearly TPK'ing.




On the other branch, 200 guards could be easy if squeezed into a nice tight radius, but if they are given the chance to take their turn at least once, I can guarantee that 2 party members are guaranteed to go down and a TPK is actually very likely before round 2. Mob combat is the only way to play it practically and since all identical monsters take turns all at once, they'll all stack with one-another. Now, even if your character has AC >24, if they all gang up, they'd be able to do 40 damage. That's, again, if you're tankier than how its usually possible.

An AC of 19 or 20 gives you 200 or 160 damage and could easily kill you.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I wouldn't throw all that against a party in a single encounter. IMO, that would probably be a TPK, with a possible exception for a party that is well optimized and utilizes good tactics (as well as good luck).

That said, I've had a lot of success recently with chaining encounters together. My default is a deadly encounter with hard encounter reinforcements arriving around round 3, but that's calibrated for my group, half of whom did not optimize their characters to any significant degree (the other two did optimize a bit, but didn't go overboard). That's usually enough for them to require a short rest in order to push on. A deadly encounter into a deadly encounter is oftentimes enough that they feel they need to immediately take a long rest. Also, you can add multiple waves of reinforcements, such as a hard encounter with another hard encounter reinforcing it on round 3, and then an easy/medium encounter reinforcing on round 4/5. Obviously, this needs to be calibrated to the party in question. My other group was able to handle a bit more, IIRC, but we haven't played in over a year, so I no longer recall the particulars.

I think throwing an entire adventuring day at the players at once is likely to be too much for many parties. If you space it out by having reinforcements arrive, however, you can push the envelope. That said, I suspect that even a half adventure day's worth of XP would be a challenge for most unoptimized parties, even if spaced out as reinforcements.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The notion that 200 average guards isn't automatically a TPK for four adventurers of any level makes me sad.

I know DnD is a fantasy game, but I still prefer it to give at least a perfunctory nod to realism.

Actually the bonded accuracy of 5E gives mobs their best chance that D&D has ever given them. In earlier editions high level characters could wade through thousands of low level foes and never break a sweat.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I am no military expert, but I am pretty sure in real life 200 people charging with baionets from afar are no match for a party of machine gun wielding soldiers. I won't lookup engagements in the late 19th century in Africa but it should be close to that result. Any sufficently reliable magic is undistinguishable from technology.

With a good commander that knows the PCs capabilities and can select the battlefield, the PCs are toast, though.

While the Maxim Gun proved a deadly weapon in the colonial wars of Africa it never had odds that lopsided. In the Battle of the Shangani, 700 soldiers fought off 5,000 Matabele warriors with just five Maxim guns. It was very effective at enemies that just charged in but less effective against more modern tactics and I think a lot of its effectiveness was the psychological effect on enemies unprepared for it.