Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Historical context] Why "6 to 8 medium/hard encounters" meme is obsolete
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="discosoc" data-source="post: 7210051" data-attributes="member: 6801554"><p>Actually, "can handle" is in the description for what the DMG calls an "Adventuring Day." My sheet isn't concerned about how many such encounters happen in a day, beyond needing to use *some* number to figure out how many sessions each level would take. I could update a single field to change the number of encounters per day to 20 and all it would do it change how many sessions a level takes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The difference -- and the reason I even did mine in the first place -- is that mine ignores "easy" encounters entirely, and takes the average of the lower threshold for medium, hard, and deadly encounters. This reality was far more representative of my personal play experience, where fights were often a mix of high-medium to low-deadly encounters.</p><p></p><p>Also, all the calculations are handled directly rather than attempting any shortcuts because other pages hook into that data in ways that values can be adjusted if I want to try changing something. For example, I have an SQL database of all the 5e monster stats, and another page that I can use to build encounters based on all the normal data (type, size, CR, special abilities, AC limits, etc) exposed via drop-downs and such. I can pretty easily change a few things in an encounter -- perhaps because an extra player is showing up -- and immediately get updated data on where things like character levels will end up at the end of the session and how that will effect later sessions. With the number of sessions needed usually being fractions, I found that it meant every 2 or 3 sessions we'd have levels that only needed 1. Being able to anticipate this meant being able to plan my stuff further out than a week away.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, I did not link that sheet here because I thought it was some kind of ultimate data source to rule all other data sources. I linked it because it proved incredibly accurate and useful well above it's intended purpose, and figured someone else might be interested in seeing the same values I came to, because they *are* my values and not based on the DMG Adventuring Day xp expectation -- values which indicate a sever bias towards many low-end medium encounters. If you don't like my data, feel free to ignore it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="discosoc, post: 7210051, member: 6801554"] Actually, "can handle" is in the description for what the DMG calls an "Adventuring Day." My sheet isn't concerned about how many such encounters happen in a day, beyond needing to use *some* number to figure out how many sessions each level would take. I could update a single field to change the number of encounters per day to 20 and all it would do it change how many sessions a level takes. The difference -- and the reason I even did mine in the first place -- is that mine ignores "easy" encounters entirely, and takes the average of the lower threshold for medium, hard, and deadly encounters. This reality was far more representative of my personal play experience, where fights were often a mix of high-medium to low-deadly encounters. Also, all the calculations are handled directly rather than attempting any shortcuts because other pages hook into that data in ways that values can be adjusted if I want to try changing something. For example, I have an SQL database of all the 5e monster stats, and another page that I can use to build encounters based on all the normal data (type, size, CR, special abilities, AC limits, etc) exposed via drop-downs and such. I can pretty easily change a few things in an encounter -- perhaps because an extra player is showing up -- and immediately get updated data on where things like character levels will end up at the end of the session and how that will effect later sessions. With the number of sessions needed usually being fractions, I found that it meant every 2 or 3 sessions we'd have levels that only needed 1. Being able to anticipate this meant being able to plan my stuff further out than a week away. Lastly, I did not link that sheet here because I thought it was some kind of ultimate data source to rule all other data sources. I linked it because it proved incredibly accurate and useful well above it's intended purpose, and figured someone else might be interested in seeing the same values I came to, because they *are* my values and not based on the DMG Adventuring Day xp expectation -- values which indicate a sever bias towards many low-end medium encounters. If you don't like my data, feel free to ignore it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Historical context] Why "6 to 8 medium/hard encounters" meme is obsolete
Top