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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 7943069" data-attributes="member: 72555">I think of it as scenes.The recomended adventuring day has 2-4 scenes per long rest.  Between each scene, you can get a short rest.An average scene at "local hero" tier (level 1-4) is a (deadly) encounter, a (hard and an easy), (2 medium), (4 easy), or (1 medium 2 easy) encounters roughly.  Scenes can be made harder by exceeding this budget.  As you gain tiers the scene budget edges up a bit.(You can give a scene a 4 point budget, and easy=1, medium=2, hard=3, deadly=4.  Then you can ramp up or down scene budgets based on what your players can take, and how hard the day/scene should be.)Also, the DMG math works best for single-class, featless PCs with not that many, nearly random magic items.If your characters optimize well, then scene budget creeps up.---If you want more a of a sandbox style world, you can break the world down into 4 tiers - T1, T2, T3, and T4.A T1 scene budget is a CR sum of 1-6 (~PC level 1-4)A T2 scene budget is a CR sum of 6-15 (~PC level 5-10)A T3 scene budget is a CR sum of 15-22 (~PC level 11-16)A T4 scene budget is a CR sum of 22-30 (~PC level 17-20)A T5 scene budget is a CR sum of 30-60+Note that for single monsters above CR 20, you have to rescale their CR to CR*2.5-30, as monster CR after 20 scales faster than it does before 20.  (so a CR 30 is really 45).Encounters where things are "broken up" are easier than if they are all together.The PC level ranges is for a 4 person party.  For other size parties, add up PC levels and divide by 4 is a half-decent way to do it.(Note: "adding up CR" is imprecise, but it is really easy and gets you pretty close.)So you could start the players off in a village, with a few problems.You seed the area with mostly T1 scenes, and some non-aggressive (at least immediately) or hidden T2 scenes, with the T1 scenes leading to information on the T2 ones.You can also level up using CR per player.1: 2 CR/PC2: 4 CR/PC3: 8 CR/PC4: 12 CR/PC5-10: 5 + level*3 CR/PC11-20: level*2.5 CR/PCTime in each tier is:T1: About 25 T1 scenes to reach T2T2: About 66 T2 scenes to reach T3T3: About 43 T3 scenes to reach T4T4: About 20 T4 scenes to max level.You can use this to help populate your world.Now, over time, your scenes can move and merge.  Two scenes can merge into a scene 1 or 2 Tiers higher.---In my case, I'm building a world using roughly this mathematics.  I'm using gritty rests, so each Scene is an adventuring day, and 2-4 scenes get a long rest (or a week) tacked on; so 10 days per adventuring day, or an average of 3 days per scene.Based on that I can build a rough calendar of when PCs reach each tier.Day 1: Tier 1Day 75: Tier 2Day 275: Tier 3Day 400: Tier 4Day 470: Level 20This assumes "efficient adventuring".  If we throw in a +33% factor for downtime not attributed to adventuring:Day 1: Tier 1Day 100: Tier 2Day 350: Tier 3Day 500: Tier 4Day 600: Level 20So I can populate the world in such a way that the Scenes "level up" over time; basically, unsolved problems get worse.To do this I need about 150 scenes for my players to encounter over 20 levels.  If I want a sandbox, I need 3x that number at least -- call it 500.Now I can clump these down a bit.  I can have something 10x bigger than a scene -- an arc? -- that I can assign a tier to.  10 scenes takes 10 days of adventuring plus 3 long rests, so 31 days, or a month of in-world time.I don't have to detail these arcs yet.  I just have to know how beefy they are at Day 1.T1: 8 arcs prepped, 2.5 arcs to beat tier.T2: 20 arcs, 6.5 arcs to beat tier.T3: 12 arcs, 4.5 arcs to beat tier.T4: 6 arcs, 2 arcs to max levelArcs can be linear or not.  If they branch, the length should be about 10 scenes (give or take).An example of an Arc could be a Kobold cult.  I want it to be a T1 arc.10 T1 scenes, total CR from 1 to 6.  So each "scene" has 8 to 42 Kobolds in it (!), and the Arc has 80 to 420 Kobolds.That is a lot of Kobolds.  Will get boring.So I'll say 4 of the scenes in this arc are Kobold based.  Kobold bandits.  A Kobold patrol.  A group of "rebels" in a cave.  The temple itself with a shaman, Guard Drake and some Kobolds (low T2 scene, climax).A random 1d4 dire wolf encounter (CR sum to 1-4) while exploring (or similar).Maybe the Kobolds are raiding a trade route.  And the city thinks it is the hill folk they are paying tribute to, but are cheating.  So a the hill folk scene (CR 4ish) (which can be talked around!) can be added to the arc.The Kobolds are in a Temple.  The approach to the temple 1d2 gargoyles guarding it (CR 2-4).  Ok 7 now.  Getting close.A stream they have to ford has a Water Weird in it (CR 3).There will be 3 different paths to follow.  2 of them are wrong, and need creatures.  1d4 Harpies (CR 1-4) along one path, and the other has a Giant Spider and some Spiderlings (CR 1+).Ok 10 scenes in this arc.  If they exhaust it, they are half way out of the tier, and it should take them a month, give or take.If they wait too long, the Kobolds "level up" and complete their ritual.  The result is a T2 threat.</blockquote>

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