Dunno if it counts, but, Shattered Obelisk was certainly built around adventuring days. Each dungeon is about 6-8 encounters long. And, while the clock was very much abstracted, there was a sense of urgency in the adventures. Considering that came out in 2023, I'd say that's pretty recent.
I haven't played it so I can't comment much, but from what I have read it is very easy and without any negative consequence to do most days with only a few encounters. Maybe that isn't accurate, like I said I'm going off commentary I have read from people who played it rather than from first hand exp.
but that tracks with every single 5e adventure that I have at least read and certainly those I have played.
Yeah, personally I think a big part of the problem here is the 1-hour short rest. They really should have been 10 minutes IMO. Having some resources that have to last all day, some that you can count on once per encounter, and some that you can use multiple times per encounter is a really great thing for either encounter based or adventuring day based challenge.
Yeah IMO 4e had the best adventuring day pacing mechanics.
Well, what I mean is that people seem to enjoy the way 5e’s combat is designed. Whether that’s because they play full adventuring days and enjoy that challenge or because they do much fewer encounters per day and enjoy the lack of challenge is ultimately kind of immaterial. That’s why I’ve been saying I think it’s a strength of the model that players have the power to decide to retreat and recover after only a few encounters if they want to.
Sure, but a large amount of the common problems people run into running the game are at least in large part created by not wanting to run more than 2-3 encounters per day, and instead spend more time exploring and interacting.
I’ll say, in my experience, players I’ve played with do seem to like the way I run things. I stock dungeons with roughly 4 medium encounters, 2 easy encounters, and 2 hard encounters worth of stuff, I make random encounters hard to deadly in overland travel and trivial to easy in dungeons, and I use those random encounters as the primary source of time pressure. Most often, players will get through 3 or 4 encounters in a day before tapping out. Depending on the specifics of the adventure, it is usually possible for the players to achieve their goals without having to do every encounter, especially if they look for ways to avoid fights when they can. And I give experience for circumvented encounters same as I would for “winning” them through combat. Seems to be really fun and satisfying for the people I play with.
See, I am not sure that giving xp for finding a way around an encounter actually fits the assumptions upon which 2014 5e was built.
Like, I do not consider myself to run anything like a potentially 6+ encounter day, but I also provide opportunities to basically choose whether to get in a fight or cleverly avoid it, and I run exploration and interaction in ways that some people would call them "encounters" because they deplete resources (you better not consider spell slots to be a combat only resource in my games, you will screw yourself over).
so, as with some past debates, our definitions may be more oppositional than our actual practices.
No, indeed, I think having the option to stop part way through and rest if you need to is an intentional part of the design. I am a strong advocate of using some sort of dungeon restocking mechanic to make sure this is costly and feels like a concession, but I also think the restocking should favor easier encounters so that retreating doesn’t make it feel like all your progress up to that point was wasted. It should be possible to chip away at a dungeon gradually. Restocking just insures that 5-minute workdays feel inefficient.
Maybe. I think long rests are a better macro-level challenge, but I would prefer if short rests were assumed after every encounter instead of after 2 or 3 of them.
Short rests should just be taking a moment to catch your breath. In my own game (some similarities to dnd but def not a dnd-like) short rests are variable, and you can take up to an hour, with most things you do during a rest taking 15 minutes or less. Basically, you can do 2 resting tasks in a 15 minute rest and 1 more per extra 15 minutes taken up to 1 hour, but those times can also be shrunk down to "a few minutes" per increment, when the story calls for it.
Doubtful: 5E is already a game that allows for a challenging 6-8 Encounter day, or dialing it down for easy mode. As far as WotC is concerned, that probably sufficiently covers their bases. 5E still works fine if you don't push the resource attrition.
What 5e struggles with, and it doesn't matter whether wotc thinks the bases are sufficiently covered, is a challenging 1-3 encounter day, which is a very common way to run the game, which means that many/most DMs have to adjust encounter design to make up for the lack of support for the way they play the game.
