D&D 5E Basic question - how many encounters per day

[Zardnaar]

Sure and the battlemaster fighter is going all out Nova on his first turn every battle as well - which is just as impressive as fireball.

The barbarian has more enemies on the field so more attacks come his way - enhancing his damage sponge feeling.

The monk is stunning striking and flurry of blowsing every fight.

The warlock is throwing out high level spells a fight.

I'm really not seeing the balance issue.

I guess rogues lose out?

It's for fight 3 and four. Odds are the fighter isn't getting 2 shirt rests, might not even get one.

Warlocks in the same boat.

Monk dies look good by comparison bad they get more ki points.

That leaves the lower level slots as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's for fight 3 and four. Odds are the fighter isn't getting 2 shirt rests, might not even get one.

Warlocks in the same boat.

Monk dies look good by comparison bad they get more ki points.

That leaves the lower level slots as well.

Unless you are going to 6-8 encounters in a day then give the option for a short rest after a single harder encounter works well. It balances pretty well that way. Not perfectly but pretty well.

Do a comparison of the damages sometimes. You'll see.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unless you are going to 6-8 encounters in a day then give the option for a short rest after a single harder encounter works well. It balances pretty well that way. Not perfectly but pretty well.

Do a comparison of the damages sometimes. You'll see.

I can deal with it it's more other DMs. Newer players are more nova happy it seems.

 

[Li Shenron]

I must confess that this whole theoretical discussion is already flying over my head now...

Since 5e, I have only run either DnDNext playtest adventures or converted older 1e-3e editions adventures on the fly, and I just never cared for XP budgets or encounter difficulty estimations, I simply used the 5e version of the monsters in the original adventures, and maybe toned down the numbers if I just had an iffy feeling.

The only thing I did double-check every time is the CR of individual monsters, to make sure it's most of the time not higher than the PC's level, and occasionally 1 point higher for an extra challenge.

Then, I simply let the players take care of calling quit for the day when their HPs and resources are low. Obviously this may be or may not be appropriate in every adventure, but my question to myself has always been... should I really design exactly (and exercise control over) what each adventuring day contains for the PCs? Or let it be more up to them how much to do?

 

[Zardnaar]

I must confess that this whole theoretical discussion is already flying over my head now...

Since 5e, I have only run either DnDNext playtest adventures or converted older 1e-3e editions adventures on the fly, and I just never cared for XP budgets or encounter difficulty estimations, I simply used the 5e version of the monsters in the original adventures, and maybe toned down the numbers if I just had an iffy feeling.

The only thing I did double-check every time is the CR of individual monsters, to make sure it's most of the time not higher than the PC's level, and occasionally 1 point higher for an extra challenge.

Then, I simply let the players take care of calling quit for the day when their HPs and resources are low. Obviously this may be or may not be appropriate in every adventure, but my question to myself has always been... should I really design exactly (and exercise control over) what each adventuring day contains for the PCs? Or let it be more up to them how much to do?

One CR higher hot damn. Looks at CR 17 Dragon vs 8th level PCs. In lair with reinforcements.

One dead dragon.

 

[Oofta]

I usually have between 5-10 fights between long rests. Since I do urban/exploration/mystery arcs instead of dungeon crawls I also use the alternate long rest rules where a short rest is overnight and a long rest is several days to a week or more.

It normally takes 2 sessions to complete an adventuring "day", so I ask people to make sure to note where they left off. I find that it works well for me. I don't dictate specific encounters ahead of time, there will usually be a mix of medium to deadly encounters depending on what they decide to do.

When figuring out encounters I usually have a couple extra. I will also note how many of an enemy make it different encounter levels. For example I know I want a leader type orc such as an Orc Eye of Gruumsh and will then note that including 4 regular orcs makes it medium, 6 makes it hard, 8 makes it deadly*.

By doing that I can give them an easier encounter if they bypass some risk or give them a risky option if they want to take the high risk high reward option. Also lets me adjust if some encounters were easier or more difficult than expected.

*Or whatever the actual calculation is, just making up numbers.

 

[Myrhdraak]

This is an interesting topic which I feel have changed during the various D&D editions. From a game design point of view, I think D&D in 4th and 5th tried to create more balance and "control" for the DMs when planning/designing the adventures. 1st to 3rd Edition was shiftier by design, and not built for 6-8 encounters per day - more like 1-3 or 1-4 from my own experience (but you did not have the same DM support to plan your encounter design either.)

The main issue I have with both 4th and 5th Edition is that is built for 5 / 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. Which means it is very hard to challenge a party with 1 encounter per day. If a character has 40 hp and he is going to face 8 encounters, I can only deal (40/8=5) 5-8 hp/encounter in damage (if I assume they have some magical healing as well).

However, if the party are out travelling, or in the city and I want to throw a challenging random encounter at them, I suddenly have to design something that does 40 hp/encounter in damage, otherwise it will be a walk in the park for them. This is an issue that neither 4th or 5th edition handles well.

What could we do to change this? Well many things of course, but to take something from on top of my mind, I would divide HP into two parts. Stamina HP, which would be more like temporary hp in nature. You have this Stamina HP which could be maybe 10 hp ( in order to reflect the 40 hp example from above). Then we have Wound HP, which is actual physical damage. As soon as you take any wound HP you are bloodied and start to take some penalties. Maybe the Wound HP should be 5 hp in the above example. Our character now have 15 hp in total, which would allow me to throw a 15 hp/enc damage at the party. 3 times as high as the 5 hp/enc damage calculated above. And the party would be seriously challenged.
To make things interesting we can now have different healing rules.

Catch your Breath: Takes 5 minutes and allow the PC to regain up to 5 hp in Stamina HP after the encounter, if he or she took that amount of damage during the fight.
Short Rest: Takes 1 hour and allow the PC to recover all his Stamina HP, but this can only be used 2 times per day.
Extended/Long Rest: The PC recovers 1 Wound HP and all Stamina HP.
Magical Healing: The normal Cure spells, and Healing Word, etc. only recovers Stamina HP. Higher level spells as Heal is required to heal Wound HP.

This design would allow you as a DM to challenge the party with a single tough encounter, but it will not require extremely high challenge monsters to do it. It will at the same time create a possibility to throw a multiple of lesser encounters at the party and challenge them depending on the availability of time (for catching one’s breath or taking a short rest).
The exact level of the Stamina HP and Wound HP would have to be calculated based on the game effect you would like to have, as well as how to make it easy to runt with existing monsters.

/Myrhdraak

 

[atanakar]

We use Slow Natural Healing from the DMG. Not regaining any HPs each morning changes the flow of the game. Also, they only regain 50% of HDs each morning. Short rests are only used to recharge class abilities. No HD healing during short rest. I run 3-4 encounters per adventuring day.

 

[dave2008]

Well sure, but for my upcoming session, how feasible is it for the party to handle that number of encounters?

That is completely acceptable.

 

[dave2008]

This is an interesting topic which I feel have changed during the various D&D editions. From a game design point of view, I think D&D in 4th and 5th tried to create more balance and "control" for the DMs when planning/designing the adventures. 1st to 3rd Edition was shiftier by design, and not built for 6-8 encounters per day - more like 1-3 or 1-4 from my own experience (but you did not have the same DM support to plan your encounter design either.)

The main issue I have with both 4th and 5th Edition is that is built for 5 / 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. Which means it is very hard to challenge a party with 1 encounter per day. If a character has 40 hp and he is going to face 8 encounters, I can only deal (40/8=5) 5-8 hp/encounter in damage (if I assume they have some magical healing as well).

However, if the party are out travelling, or in the city and I want to throw a challenging random encounter at them, I suddenly have to design something that does 40 hp/encounter in damage, otherwise it will be a walk in the park for them. This is an issue that neither 4th or 5th edition handles well.

What could we do to change this? Well many things of course, but to take something from on top of my mind, I would divide HP into two parts. Stamina HP, which would be more like temporary hp in nature. You have this Stamina HP which could be maybe 10 hp ( in order to reflect the 40 hp example from above). Then we have Wound HP, which is actual physical damage. As soon as you take any wound HP you are bloodied and start to take some penalties. Maybe the Wound HP should be 5 hp in the above example. Our character now have 15 hp in total, which would allow me to throw a 15 hp/enc damage at the party. 3 times as high as the 5 hp/enc damage calculated above. And the party would be seriously challenged.
To make things interesting we can now have different healing rules.

Catch your Breath: Takes 5 minutes and allow the PC to regain up to 5 hp in Stamina HP after the encounter, if he or she took that amount of damage during the fight.
Short Rest: Takes 1 hour and allow the PC to recover all his Stamina HP, but this can only be used 2 times per day.
Extended/Long Rest: The PC recovers 1 Wound HP and all Stamina HP.
Magical Healing: The normal Cure spells, and Healing Word, etc. only recovers Stamina HP. Higher level spells as Heal is required to heal Wound HP.

This design would allow you as a DM to challenge the party with a single tough encounter, but it will not require extremely high challenge monsters to do it. It will at the same time create a possibility to throw a multiple of lesser encounters at the party and challenge them depending on the availability of time (for catching one’s breath or taking a short rest).
The exact level of the Stamina HP and Wound HP would have to be calculated based on the game effect you would like to have, as well as how to make it easy to runt with existing monsters.

/Myrhdraak

This pretty similar to what we do, but we call it HP, BHP (bloodied hit points), and it incorporates armor DR:

• HP and AC are calculated and used per the standard rules. No change.
• Additionally, each player gets a separate pool of bloodied hit points (BHP). BHP = [STR mod + CON mod] x Size (Medium = 1). The only way to increase this through magic or a charm, blessing, or boon.
• You take damage to BHP after your HP = 0. We have an optional rule to have critical hits apply to BHP, but it was too brutal for our group so we stopped using it. We might look at trying this again but requiring a confirmation roll on the crit (for the BHP part only)
• When you would take damage to your BHP, you first reduce the damage by your armor's DR. So if an attack does 10 damage and your DR is 5 (AC 15), you only take 5 damage.
  • Armor DR = armor AC-10
• When you are at 0 BHP you die.
• You regain HP normally, but you regain BHP at the rate of 1 BHP per extended rest (which is a week in our game) and the use of a healer's kit (for each point of recovery). With a successful medicine check (DC = 20-remaining BHP) you can gain an extra point of BHP or reduce the rest length to a typical long rest. And of course magic works too.
• HD healing only applies to HP, not BHP

EDIT: We use 5 minute short rest too, but that is not a requirement for this system