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.

 

[Selas]

I find it appropriate that the list diverges at level 9.

It's usually at level 9 when cheesy optimization can be leveraged reliably.

1. Full caster get 5th level spells
2. Full casters no longer rely on 1st level spell slots for damage
3. Half casters get 3rd level spells
4. Most Single class PCs have received their 2nd sublclass feature by now.
5. Single level dip multclass PC have 2 general feats.
6. 3 level dip multiclass PC have 1 general feat, a 2nd subclass, and maybe Extra attack
7. Cantrips are buffed last level

Well, it's a good thing the new DMG actually provides some guidance on how to address optimization and exploitation

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My only point was that I mostly throw hard encounters (even based DMG calculations) and occasionally ones that are slightly harder than that - although I double checked XGtE a couple of times and they were still ranked "hard". I have never thrown an encounter that was double deadly that I expected the PCs to take out all the enemies, those are reserved for having some other clear goal. I do not and have never needed to throw double or triple deadly combats where defeating the enemy was the goal. No matter how much you try to "prove" that I do.

I'm done with this argument.

Look, mate. Sorry for miscommunication then, but I just literally took what you said about your calculations at face value.

And I've not been advocating for triple deadlies. Double might be fine, depending on the composition. Though I once accidentally had about a triple deadly encounter (as I in no way expected the players to fight those opponents) and despite the odds they somehow won, and even rushed into another battle without resting after that. (Though they used some healing spells and potions in between.) At that point I understood that the CR is pretty meaningless.

 

[samthecat]

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.

That was kind of the point. There used to be a time where resource management was part of the game and your spellcasters were left with cantrips and people had to buy potions because healing magic only went so far

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, it's a good thing the new DMG actually provides some guidance on how to address optimization and exploitation

Yup I haven't seen tbe rules yet but it sounds like an improvement.

They're never going to get it exactly right.

 

[Selas]

Yup I haven't seen tbe rules yet but it sounds like an improvement.

They're never going to get it exactly right.

Here is the video review from Nerd Immersion. At around the 11 minute mark he talks about optimization and exploitation. He also talks about the social contract between DM and players around 9.30 mins.

Edit: These are both included in CH1 of the new DMG

 

[Minigiant]

That was kind of the point. There used to be a time where resource management was part of the game and your spellcasters were left with cantrips and people had to buy potions because healing magic only went so far

D&D as Gygax intended had rivals ready to plunder a dungeon you half cleared so you always wanted to go as far as possible with the fewest breaks.

That's why recorded of time was so important in 0e.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but according to Ginny D’s new video, the new Low, Moderate, and Hard encounter XP budgets are not just 2014’s Easy, Medium, and Hard. At levels 1-5 they track more closely to Medium, Hard, and Deadly, and after that they scale up significantly faster, so that by mid to late game a Hard encounter is multiple times the XP of a 2014 Deadly encounter of the same level. So, good news for folks like @Crimson Longinus who were hoping for guidelines for harder encounters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but according to Ginny D’s new video, the new Low, Moderate, and Hard encounter XP budgets are not just 2014’s Easy, Medium, and Hard. At levels 1-5 they track more closely to Medium, Hard, and Deadly, and after that they scale up significantly faster, so that by mid to late game a Hard encounter is multiple times the XP of a 2014 Deadly encounter of the same level. So, good news for folks like @Crimson Longinus who were hoping for guidelines for harder encounters.

This indeed sounds promising to me, and I also hope that the low difficulty remains easy enough that one can use it for the sort of many encounter missions you like.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but according to Ginny D’s new video, the new Low, Moderate, and Hard encounter XP budgets are not just 2014’s Easy, Medium, and Hard. At levels 1-5 they track more closely to Medium, Hard, and Deadly, and after that they scale up significantly faster, so that by mid to late game a Hard encounter is multiple times the XP of a 2014 Deadly encounter of the same level. So, good news for folks like @Crimson Longinus who were hoping for guidelines for harder encounters.

Better but when we stress tested it even X2 hard wasn't that bad.
Got rough around X5 deadly after 6 or 7 encounters. Around level 10-13.

 

[Yaarel]

Here is the math of 2014. Each level requires a certain amount of xp to reach the next level, and each standard encounter for a level awards a certain amount of xp. In other words, on average, each level requires a certain amount of encounters to reach the next the level. Here are two charts, slightly different from each other, but together the ballpark for what to expect at each level is clear.

It is always better to count encounters instead of counting xp. It is simpler, and more accurate. If what was supposed to a hard encounter turned out to be easy, then it only counts as ½ an encounter. If what was supposed to be standard turns out to be deadly it counts as 2 encounters. The difficulty of each encounter is rated after the encounter is over, in hindsight.

Each level requires a certain amount of encounters to reach the next level. The DM actually has much flexibility to decide how many encounters a level should have, according to taste. For example, the table might want every level to require 12 encounters to reach the next level. Or less to reach level 20 sooner. Or more to stretch out a campaign. Or stay at a certain level indefinitely, such as "epic at 9".

Streamlining the 2014 math, and zooming thru the apprentice tier, I do the following. For example, to go from level 1 to level 2 requires 3 encounters.

Level: Number of Encounters during This Level
1: 3 encounters
2: 6 encounters
3: 9 encounters
4: 12 encounters
5 thru 12: 15 encounters each
13 and up: 9 encounters each

I am unsure if the 2024 DMs Guide guidance will assume different math, such as at higher levels. But I can adjust the number of encounters accordingly, or keep it as is according to taste.