D&D 5E Encounter Building - Adventuring Day XP Budget?

[The_Gneech]

But I just find wandering monsters particularly nostalgic, because they were so prominent when I was first running the game in the 80s. I was particularly enthralled by the MMII 2-20 encounter tables that you could fill out by frequency, with very rare monsters at the 2 and 20 and common ones in the middle.

I am currently loving the 1-20 table where you roll "1d12 during the day, 1d12+1d8 at night." Friendlier or more "natural" encounters happen in the 1-5 band, anything that comes out only at night happens in the 15-20 band, and 6-14 has a progression of gradually-more-threatening stuff, with weather or interesting terrain bits scattered in there as well.

(How does a group "encounter" an interesting terrain bit while camped? Maybe they find it when foraging for food or water... or it's just read as "no encounter" that time around.)

I love wandering monsters particularly as a way to give the world its own life without me directly intervening. If the ranger wants to put their ear to the ground and listen for what's nearby, I can just look at the tables and say "There are some trolls not too far away... and strangely enough a dragon turtle and three herds of bison. You're not sure what that's about." That is to say, all of that stuff is out there somewhere, but I don't have to keep track of where it is or what it's doing, as those details don't become important until it actually comes up as something the players have encountered.

-The Gneech

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am currently loving the 1-20 table where you roll "1d12 during the day, 1d12+1d8 at night." Friendlier or more "natural" encounters happen in the 1-5 band, anything that comes out only at night happens in the 15-20 band, and 6-14 has a progression of gradually-more-threatening stuff, with weather or interesting terrain bits scattered in there as well.

That's cool - it's actually really close to the MMII one, which was also d8+d12, because d10s were barely a thing back then, I guess (we'd finally had d20s actually numbered 1-20 for a number of years).

At the time, I liked that I could fill out an encounter tables or few and go a long way towards describing the area, without having to write and actual sentence or anything.

 

[draxthis]

It just depends on how mean of a DM you want to be. >: )

LOL. I'm just coming back to DMing after a four year break, I think I will ease into meanness, although I will probably get there muhahahaha.

Definitely some good ideas, I do like the exhaustion thoughts and not giving the players answers.




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