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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8283287" data-attributes="member: 20564">There are several balance points of multiple encounters, and they adjust at different rates.The most obvious is deadliness.  We can increase the toughness and/or number of foes, add hazards and traps, and otherwise increase this pretty well.  This is what seems to be addressed in the OP.  That's do-able.The other is class balance between the at-will characters like the rogue and the long-rest recovery classes like full casters or hybrids like the paladin and barbarian, and the short rest recovery classes (often hybrids as well) like the Monk, the Warlock, and some others like the Battlemaster Fighter.Casting high level slots will do more in a single action then one at-will Action.  This shouldn't be a surprise.  If all we have is enough rounds of combat to exhaust a caster of high level slots (and use low level slots on things like Bless and Shield and Absorb Elements that all scale well), the output per action for the casters is a lot more than for the at-will classes.And we can look at the flip side - if you took all spell slots away, a caster just using cantrips should average less effect per Action than an at-will character doing their thing.So really, what we need to do to balance the effect per action is get casters to use a good number of cantrips, to bring down their average effect per Action.Considering that most spells are an Action to cast, that means that even if we reduce the number of encounters, we really can't reduce the total length of the encounters much.It gets even harder when you look at effects with duration.  An action to cast a spell/activate an ability that is only effective for 3 more rounds before the combat ends with a normal combat but might last more rounds in a longer combat will be more effective for the same Action.  Look at Spiritual Weapon.  What's more powerful - a barbarian who can rage every combat or one who only has enough rages for 1/3 of the encounters?  Even concentration spells can last longer (and are no weaker lasting the same), and they often have a big effect like Spirit Guardians, Call Lightning, or Animate Object.  So to balance the greater effect, that's more rounds of cantrips to balance out.This isn't even addressing the classes with significant short rest mechanics.  Reducing down to three with guarenteed plot ways to get a short rest between them is about as tight as you can get without going and nerfing those classes.  Doing only a single or two encounters on a regular basis will be a bad thing.To sum up, in order to reduce the number of encounters but still have the effects of more encounters we need to balance both the deadliness (for the threat), the number of rounds (to keep the inter-class balance), and the number of short rests.  Just making them deadly will unfairly boost long-rest recovery classes over others, and cutting out short rests per day will nerf those classes that need them.</blockquote>

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