Encounters Per Day. How many?

[two]

So, how may encounters do you have per day on average (90% of the time)?

If you have 2, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3 encounters, answer 2-3.

If you have 2, 2, 2, 2, 999, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, answer 2-3. (you went dungeon delving once but most of the time just have 2 encounters per day).

If you have 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 5, 4 obviously answer 4.

Throw out really low and high results. I'm not looking for a strict average; rather, how many encounters do you have 90% of the time?

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

This relates back to the thread that asks if abilities should be x times per day or per encounter.

I ran Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil a few years ago, and the party would pretty much go and do two encounters and then hole up and rest, then rinse and repeat. The refused to go into an encounter with less than optimal resources.

I found this frustrating since the system was designed around 4-5 encounters per day.

My solution in the future would be to change things to x uses per session. Although I guess that would just make people want to end each session earlier....

Maybe uses per encounter is the best way to handle it.

 

[Lorgrom]

In the current campaign we do between 4-7 encounters a day. Have had other campaignes where it was a low as one encounter every couple of days. But those were campaignes were they were traveling most of the time instead of doing your standard dungeon crawls.

 

[Stalker0]

Until my party hit 12th I did 1-2 epd. Now I do 3-4..it really does balance out fighters and wizards better.

 

[shilsen]

Generally about 1-2. In theory, and frankly in practice too, it makes the PCs much more durable and effective, but it hasn't caused a problem yet (in two campaigns which have gone from 5th to 10th lvl and from 3rd to 9th lvl).

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

In a way this poll is a bit off. I checked '4 per day average' even tho this is nowhere near accurate mathmatically.

Basically my sessions tend to include travel, research, social encounters, world building, and a grand finale against a BBEG. My average for the grand finale day is 4 encounters as the group works thier way through the outer defenses and pushes in for the win...altho I have been known to stack up to 7
IMHO having less encounters for a finale breaks the verisimultude of the setting.
ToEE is an excellent example, resting for a full 8 hours after two encounters {in this case, two rooms} is a sure way to attract attention unless you run the dungeon as if the places outside of PC influence is held in stasis. I much prefer to have guards that patrol and notice when thier buddies have been sluaghtered, creatures that can hear combat through a wooden door, and some semblance of a normal sleep cycle for the PCs.

{Just imagine, you wake up nice and refreshed after 8 hours, fight for half an hour..go back to sleep for 8, rinse, repeat.. By the 3rd cycle your body will be screaming for releif by either staying awake in a very unrestful state or crashing for 12 to 24 hours. Don't beleive me? Try it sometime.}

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Probably a bit less than 1 1/2 on average.

In theory this could be a problem. In practice the cleary majority of our players show a preference for oddball melee specialist and marginal spellcaster builds, so us minmaxers cannot tilt the balance in the PCs favor as we would like. Damn it!

 

[Nail]

resting for a full 8 hours after two encounters {in this case, two rooms} is a sure way to attract attention unless you run the dungeon as if the places outside of PC influence is held in stasis.

That's a nice thought. But consider: Either the PC learn a good strategy, or they die rather often.

PCs that do 2 encounters and then rest aren't just doing it for giggles. They know that doing so enhances their chances at success. If, as the DM, you try to increase "encounters per day", it's still in the PC's best interest to find ways to reduce the number.

I'd be very surprised to see any DM that reliably keeps the numbers of encounters per day over 3. Seriously.

 

[ElvishBard]

For the group I DM for, over 90% of the playing time has more than 5 encounters a day. I ignored the days of travel and whatnot because we just skip over them or have 1 enounter for no real reason, and then they get to the dungeon crawl and slay everything in their path which is much more than 5 battles.

 

[Nail]

I'd be fun to get some cold, hard, statistics on this. I'm guessing that most of us (myself included) have a rather skewed view.