Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do players really want balance?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Guest 7037866" data-source="post: 9482212"><p>Yes, if you use Hard and Deadly encounters all the time you will challenge your PCs. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤷♂️" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-2642.png" title="Man shrugging :man_shrugging:" data-shortname=":man_shrugging:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Because the guidelines are for an attrition game, but many groups don't play that way.</strong> The DMs try using medium and hard encounters, but allow too many / too frequent rests and the 5MWD, so the DM isn't running an attrition game.</p><p></p><p>The point is you don't challenge your groups <em>with every single encounter</em>.</p><p></p><p>IME most sessions run about 3-4 hours and have roughly 1 (or a bit more) encounters per hour. This means I am looking at 4-5 encounters or just about half the allotment for an adventuring day. Which in turn means during the session the PCs should have at least a short rest in there somewhere, and maybe a second short rest or a even the long rest if we push the encounter difficulties and/or frequencies.</p><p></p><p>But what happens is groups will get in <em>at least one</em> long rest each session, making the attrition end for the most part. That is fine while travelling if you are doing just random encounters, etc. but not while on the actual adventure. The adventure then starts to feel like it isn't challenging the PCs because too often the PCs are going into a fight at full (or near full) strength.</p><p></p><p>If you have the PCs going in at full strength most of the time and still want to challenge them, you aren't playing an attrition game and have to use more difficult encounters to create the feeling of challenge. Otherwise, you'll feel like the PCs walk over everything you throw at them.</p><p></p><p>So, yes, in general it <em>is</em> working exactly as intended, but IME when people complain about it it's because those DMs aren't using those guideliens as intented.</p><p></p><p>In your case (example) you only provided two encounters, which ended up rated at hard and deadly. Those should offer some challenge to PCs, even if you are giving them frequent long rests. So, it isn't surprising that you say you are challenging your PCs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Guest 7037866, post: 9482212"] Yes, if you use Hard and Deadly encounters all the time you will challenge your PCs. 🤷♂️ [B]Because the guidelines are for an attrition game, but many groups don't play that way.[/B] The DMs try using medium and hard encounters, but allow too many / too frequent rests and the 5MWD, so the DM isn't running an attrition game. The point is you don't challenge your groups [I]with every single encounter[/I]. IME most sessions run about 3-4 hours and have roughly 1 (or a bit more) encounters per hour. This means I am looking at 4-5 encounters or just about half the allotment for an adventuring day. Which in turn means during the session the PCs should have at least a short rest in there somewhere, and maybe a second short rest or a even the long rest if we push the encounter difficulties and/or frequencies. But what happens is groups will get in [I]at least one[/I] long rest each session, making the attrition end for the most part. That is fine while travelling if you are doing just random encounters, etc. but not while on the actual adventure. The adventure then starts to feel like it isn't challenging the PCs because too often the PCs are going into a fight at full (or near full) strength. If you have the PCs going in at full strength most of the time and still want to challenge them, you aren't playing an attrition game and have to use more difficult encounters to create the feeling of challenge. Otherwise, you'll feel like the PCs walk over everything you throw at them. So, yes, in general it [I]is[/I] working exactly as intended, but IME when people complain about it it's because those DMs aren't using those guideliens as intented. In your case (example) you only provided two encounters, which ended up rated at hard and deadly. Those should offer some challenge to PCs, even if you are giving them frequent long rests. So, it isn't surprising that you say you are challenging your PCs. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do players really want balance?
Top