D&D 5E How many combat encounters per adventuring day does your group have?

[Flamestrike]

That seems rather extreme to me.

How so?

That's a long rest every 12 hours of play (4 x 3 hour sessions). That sounds about right to me, with time for 1-2 combat encounters per session (so around 4-8 combats per long rest).

Where so many DMs screw up is they conflate 'adventuring day' with 'game session'.

Not that there is anything wrong with 'auto rest on end of session'. But if you're not getting more than 2-3 encounters in per session, it should be auto SHORT rest at the end of the session, with every third such end of session rest being a Long rest.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Combats will come if the story dictates it. Thus there's no guarantee of how many times that will happen in any particular day (either in-game per adventuring day, or out-of-game per session.) Now, because it's D&D and D&D is a roleplaying game built from the ground up as a "go kill monsters" board game, combat will usually be the more prominent story choice that results when different options are available. But you can never be sure.

Along these lines, and pardon the pedanticism here, we might want review the fact that combats are not encounters, but a means of encounter resolution. In other words, combat is one possible means of resolving a meeting between PCs and NPCs/monsters. Love him or hate him, here is Angry's take where he covers that and more:

Three Shocking Things You Won’t Believe About D&D Combat

In this preamble to The Angry Guide to Kicka$& Combat, we’re going to tell you a few things you never knew about combat and debunk a few things everyone thinks they know about combat.

theangrygm.com

I think it is one of his better pieces, personally, and I'm glad this thread made me revisit it. On Roll20, I've fallen into the trap of "me DM; me set up rooms with Roll20-stat-sheet monsters with oh-so-clickable attack actions; when PCs meet monsters me ask for initiative and - combat! Cuz, that's what me prepped!" So, yeah. There's that... which I really need to work on... again.

 

[Oofta]

Along these lines, and pardon the pedanticism here, we might want review the fact that combats are not encounters, but a means of encounter resolution. In other words, combat is one possible means of resolving a meeting between PCs and NPCs/monsters. Love him or hate him, here is Angry's take where he covers that and more:

Three Shocking Things You Won’t Believe About D&D Combat

In this preamble to The Angry Guide to Kicka$& Combat, we’re going to tell you a few things you never knew about combat and debunk a few things everyone thinks they know about combat.

theangrygm.com

I think it is one of his better pieces, personally, and I'm glad this thread made me revisit it. On Roll20, I've fallen into the trap of "me DM; me set up rooms with Roll20-stat-sheet monsters with oh-so-clickable attack actions; when PCs meet monsters me ask for initiative and - combat! Cuz, that's what me prepped!" So, yeah. There's that... which I really need to work on... again.

Yeah, there's something about grid lines and positioning that tends to lead to combat in my experience.

It's one of the reasons I tend to do everything theater of the mind until initiative is rolled.

Even once combat starts, it doesn't have to be to the death. One side or the other will flee, surrender or some other outcome.

 

[Malmuria]

Along these lines, and pardon the pedanticism here, we might want review the fact that combats are not encounters, but a means of encounter resolution. In other words, combat is one possible means of resolving a meeting between PCs and NPCs/monsters. Love him or hate him, here is Angry's take where he covers that and more:

Three Shocking Things You Won’t Believe About D&D Combat

In this preamble to The Angry Guide to Kicka$& Combat, we’re going to tell you a few things you never knew about combat and debunk a few things everyone thinks they know about combat.

theangrygm.com

I think it is one of his better pieces, personally, and I'm glad this thread made me revisit it. On Roll20, I've fallen into the trap of "me DM; me set up rooms with Roll20-stat-sheet monsters with oh-so-clickable attack actions; when PCs meet monsters me ask for initiative and - combat! Cuz, that's what me prepped!" So, yeah. There's that... which I really need to work on... again.

That's definitely true, which is why I specified combat encounters. The 6-8 encounters per adventuring day assumes that the encounter drains resources, which most of the time will mean combat. My players tend to try to approach encounters by means other than combat if they can. The result is that when we do have combat, the PCs have comparatively more of their resources available.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I chose “2”, more because it’s probably the average than because two fights specifically is a common thing. It’s more often either 1 or 3-4, rarely 5, basically never more than that unless I’m Doing A Thing.

 

[Malmuria]

How so?

That's a long rest every 12 hours of play (4 x 3 hour sessions). That sounds about right to me, with time for 1-2 combat encounters per session (so around 4-8 combats per long rest).

Where so many DMs screw up is they conflate 'adventuring day' with 'game session'.

Not that there is anything wrong with 'auto rest on end of session'. But if you're not getting more than 2-3 encounters in per session, it should be auto SHORT rest at the end of the session, with every third such end of session rest being a Long rest.

Do you find this makes the narrative pacing of your game weird? Because, if you meet every week, that's one month of playing time for one day of in-game time. So after a year of playing the characters will have been adventuring for 12 days. Of course, you can have downtime, but if there is a semi-urgent narrative threat, it's going to be one sprint to the end.

 

[iserith]

I can see where the idea of Random Encounters to drain resources or add combat-specific tension has arisen.

I do respectfully disagree that the purpose of Random Encounters, in a modern environment, something the players inherently want to avoid.

Random Encounters are meant to spice up the game however this can occur. It could be surprise treasure or a sudden helpful NPC.

I do agree that DMs have gotten too scared of putting excessively high CR threats in a random table since these ludacris high-level creatures can provide interesting worldbuilding and roleplay opportunities.

Notably, the published encounter tables in XtGE include monsters that may be well above the level of the PCs.

 

[Asisreo]

Along these lines, and pardon the pedanticism here, we might want review the fact that combats are not encounters, but a means of encounter resolution. In other words, combat is one possible means of resolving a meeting between PCs and NPCs/monsters. Love him or hate him, here is Angry's take where he covers that and more:

Three Shocking Things You Won’t Believe About D&D Combat

In this preamble to The Angry Guide to Kicka$& Combat, we’re going to tell you a few things you never knew about combat and debunk a few things everyone thinks they know about combat.

theangrygm.com

I think it is one of his better pieces, personally, and I'm glad this thread made me revisit it. On Roll20, I've fallen into the trap of "me DM; me set up rooms with Roll20-stat-sheet monsters with oh-so-clickable attack actions; when PCs meet monsters me ask for initiative and - combat! Cuz, that's what me prepped!" So, yeah. There's that... which I really need to work on... again.

I'm glad someone is saying it. I've never found D&D is at its peak when rigidly enforcing the guidelines, except for a specifically tough/challenging/satisfying adventuring day. Its always when the game is allowed to be run organically.

Wizards and warlocks and rogues aren't competing for resources, instead they're asking themselves "Should we use the wizard's unique spell that could piss them off if it fails, the warlock's unique feature that works under certain conditions, or the rogue's naturally high ability check that is almost guaranteed to pass but won't give exact results?"

This is a choice where resources aren't necessarily strained, but they still have a meaningful choice and consequences for their actions.

 

[Flamestrike]

Do you find this makes the narrative pacing of your game weird? Because, if you meet every week, that's one month of playing time for one day of in-game time. So after a year of playing the characters will have been adventuring for 12 days.

12 adventuring days. Not 12 days.

Of course, you can have downtime, but if there is a semi-urgent narrative threat, it's going to be one sprint to the end.

One adventuring day might be clearing out a dungeon level, followed by - and immediately following - several days journey to and from a different location, and then a week or more of downtime between adventures.

You're not getting waves of encounters every day for 12 days straight!

Personally I stick to a 6 or so encounter median for AD's my games, with some AD's being just the one or two Deadly+ encounter, and some being even longer than 6 encounters (or featuring multipart encounters).

I use the DMG 'Average XP per AD' charts as my general guide.

As long as you stick to the roughly 6 or encounters as a median, your players conform to this expectation, and marshal resources accordingly.

The short/long rest resource mechanic of 5E has is advantages (it gives you levers you can pull on to tweak class performance, and move the spotlight around), but I personally would have prefered a system that balances more around individual encounters, with most powers 'per encounter' and maybe even with an in encounter minor recharge ability, and few 'long rest/ daily' type powers.

 

[Zardnaar]

Large amount? 4-6.

More typically 2-4 sometimes one.