D&D 5E Combat Encounters Per Dungeon Budget

[Charlaquin]

Having gotten the OG OD&D from DMsGuild with the current sale ($not bad for $6!), and the original recommendations were basically the same as @Charlaquin shared from B/X, ut not phrased quite as clearly (kind of the OD&D to B/X relationship across the board)

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Neat! I wonder what “each” is referring to in the gems/jewelry column?

 

[Charlaquin]

I find combat encounters to offer a poor return of fun for the time invested,

I am sometimes amazed at how differently people seem to play the same game.

 

[Hriston]

Neat! I wonder what “each” is referring to in the gems/jewelry column?

You roll twice — once for gems and once for jewelry — using the given percent chance for “each” roll.

 

[Charlaquin]

You roll twice — once for gems and once for jewelry — using the given percent chance for “each” roll.

Oh, ok that makes sense.

 

[GMMichael]

Yeah, the ability to avoid encounters certainly complicates things.

See, I find avoiding encounters to also be, well, encounters.

I am sometimes amazed at how differently people seem to play the same game.

And this (prior quote) is in spite of all the rules WotC came up with to homogenize the game. I'm one of the players who doesn't like D&D combat, but with the right DM, I could probably still get a kick out of it. As a DM, I'll bend over backward to avoid players having to say, "I move here. Attack. Does 17 hit? 13 damage. I'm done."

One of the bending-tricks is to not plan dungeons out in terms of combat encounters.

 

[Parmandur]

Neat! I wonder what “each” is referring to in the gems/jewelry column?

@Hriston git it, but I do have to say that sort if brow-furrowing "what does that mean?" I'd a very common question reading OD&D, and that is with all sorts of other context I have that nobody in 1974 could have had

 

[CreamCloud0]

a tangential curiosity i have to OP's question, how many environmental-noncombat encounters/puzzles are typically worth an equal amount of attrition/difficulty to a combat encounter in the same dungeon?

or to put it another way, is a dungeon puzzle 'encounter' equal to a combat one?

 

[ad_hoc]

It isn't 6-8 encounters every time it is just the potential for that many encounters.

Encounter can mean many things and players should be able to engage in exploration and social interaction to succeed at many challenges.

I wouldn't specify X amount of encounters that must be combat.

 

[Charlaquin]

a tangential curiosity i have to OP's question, how many environmental-noncombat encounters/puzzles are typically worth an equal amount of attrition/difficulty to a combat encounter in the same dungeon?

or to put it another way, is a dungeon puzzle 'encounter' equal to a combat one?

I would say non-combat encounters can vary in difficulty, just as combat encounters can. Unfortunately, since the game doesn’t really give us a CR-analogue to determine non-combat encounter difficulty, you just kinda have to make your best guess. But personally, I like to treat simple one-and-done traps and hazards, and puzzles where no HP or similar resources are at risk as equivalent to easy encounters, and complex multi-step traps and hazzards, and puzzles with potentially dangerous consequences for failure as equivalent to medium encounters.