Dungeons & Dragons Has Done Away With the Adventuring Day

Adventuring days are no more, at least not in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. The new 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide contains a streamlined guide to combat encounter planning, with a simplified set of instructions on how to build an appropriate encounter for any set of characters. The new rules are pretty basic - the DM determines an XP budget based on the difficulty level they're aiming for (with choices of low, moderate, or high, which is a change from the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide) and the level of the characters in a party. They then spend that budget on creatures to actually craft the encounter. Missing from the 2024 encounter building is applying an encounter multiplier based on the number of creatures and the number of party members, although the book still warns that more creatures adds the potential for more complications as an encounter is playing out.

What's really interesting about the new encounter building rules in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is that there's no longer any mention of the "adventuring day," nor is there any recommendation about how many encounters players should have in between long rests. The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide contained a recommendation that players should have 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters per adventuring day. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide instead opts to discuss encounter pace and how to balance player desire to take frequent Short Rests with ratcheting up tension within the adventure.

The 6-8 encounters per day guideline was always controversial and at least in my experience rarely followed even in official D&D adventures. The new 2024 encounter building guidelines are not only more streamlined, but they also seem to embrace a more common sense approach to DM prep and planning.

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons & Dragons will be released on November 12th.

 

[Parmandur]

I think thats largely up to interpretation. Some may see an adventuring day as a single cinematic scene, in which case yes it doesnt seem to fit. Others might see an adventuring day as the entire episode. For a good portion of D&D history, the adventuring day was the pacing mechanic.

What I am hoping is the pacing presentation allows for running a game in both those and more types of expectations. Dare I say modular?

The 2014 approach already did, the "Adventure Day" was the maximum rhe party could handle. The closer a party is pushed towards their maximum, the more things would balance out. But going lower always worked fine, it would just introduce some wonkiness, with wizards or Paladins overpeforming because theybhad room to nova.

The budget approach is basically the same thing, and the pacing advice will likely end up being tje same thing: hopefully more clear.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering too. A fight where spellcasters can nova and one where they are down half their spells are to very different fights even when they're against the same enemies. From what I see in the PHB, none of that has changed.

Are we still going to get new DMs asking, "Why are the PCs curbstomping all my 'difficult' encounters?"

I'll have to look at the details, but my first instinct is that making the guidelines simpler without fundamentally changing the game is just going to lead to more confusion.

That's why you send multiple waves or break up encounters into separate pieces. If you always have enemies showing up in fireball formation while the wizard can hide safely in the back, don't be surprised if your enemies are constantly hit by fireballs.

That and nothing in the new advice says you can't have more encounters, it's always been about XP budget guidelines, which is still only a suggestion since one size doesn't fit all.

 

[Parmandur]

Very much this. The game is designed around daily resource attrition, whether the designers acknowledge that fact or not. I predict that leaving out discussion of combats per adventuring day in 2024 is going to have similar effects as leaving out magic item prices in 2014. Just because you don’t talk about it doesn’t mean people will magically stop needing that information.

I expect the advice will wash out to being the same thing, given how the PC and Mosnter balance remain the same.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

That's why you send multiple waves or break up encounters into separate pieces. If you always have enemies showing up in fireball formation while the wizard can hide safely in the back, don't be surprised if your enemies are constantly hit by fireballs.

Yeah, my point is will the DMG contain such advice?

And said encounter with waves of enemies will also play differently depending on how many resources PCs have left.

 

[Rabulias]

While I find the 2014 6 to 8 encounter recommendation a bit high, people often forget that the term "encounters" includes things like social encounters, hazards, traps, puzzles, exploration challenges, etc.

 

[Charlaquin]

I expect the advice will wash out to being the same thing, given how the PC and Mosnter balance remain the same.

I hope you’re right

 

[Charlaquin]

While I find the 2014 6 to 8 encounter recommendation a bit high, people often forget that the term "encounters" includes things like social encounters, hazards, traps, puzzles, exploration challenges, etc.

The whole adventuring day thing was pretty poorly explained, yeah. It’s mostly based on hit point attrition: how many rounds of pressure to their hit points can a party of 4 PCs handle before needing a long rest. If you’re not interested in pushing PCs to their limit every day, it’s not that important, and there are ways to pressure the party’s hit points that don’t involve combat. Changing the way this is discussed in the new DMG makes sense, given how often it was misunderstood in the 2014 DMG. I just hope it is still discussed, and that the discussion makes the intent clearer, rather than less clear.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, my point is will the DMG contain such advice?

And said encounter with waves of enemies will also play differently depending on how many resources PCs have left.

Setting up encounters is a whole separate topic, maybe one that should be revisited after we have the new DMG. But there are plenty of ways to have attrition matter in a single combat encounter. Simply having enemies approaching from different directions so they can't all be hit with the same AOE spell is just one. Personally I just mix it up a bit, sometimes there are only a handful of hard encounters, sometimes there are several encounters spread out without a chance to rest.

But the five minute work day has pretty much always been an issue for D&D in all editions if you let it be.

 

[ezo]

Nobody ran 8 encounters thst were combat heavy per day with wizards in the party else the adventuring party runs out of spells too fast.

Laughs in AD&D

Hi, nice to meet you, I’m nobody.

Nonsense. I had plenty of 8 (or more) encounter days. The fact that cantrips never run out means that the casters are still punching at their weight even with no slots to use.

me, too!!! ;-)

DM: So, lets see here. 2-3 Fights. So... every encounter needs to be Deadly. Well that really didn't change much from 2014.

Except it seems (?) there is no longer a Deadly encounter type.

 

[DarkCrisis]

me, too!!! ;-)



Except it seems (?) there is no longer a Deadly encounter type.

I assume its because no one should die in 5E