D&D (2024) How many combats do you have on average adventuring day.
- Thread starter Horwath
- Start date
I am running The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. The number is less than one.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm fond of how 5e is flexible enough and balanced enough around the encounters that if I have 1 or if I have 7, the PC's can feel a bit of a squeeze in each encounter. Multiple encounters tend to add to a feeling of struggle and fatigue, but even one encounter can be a potential party-killer.
I typically do a dungeon-style format, where I put 5-8 potential combats in for every expected long rest. These don't always turn into combats (sometimes the party avoids them or uses strategy to make them trivial or turns the kobolds into allies for a while or whatever), but that's the sort of the baseline or worst-case/most-fights scenario. I'll fill 10-12 locations with things, so we can fit in some empty places, some treasure, some places that are more puzzle-y, or some places that have allies, or some places that maybe rely more on skills and saving throws than on attack rolls (traps, hazards, etc.).
All that qualifies as one dungeon "floor" for me, and that's about how much I expect the group to be able to get through before they have a long rest. If they long rest before they've "completed the floor," there's usually some consequence to their narrative goals (ie: the enemies retreat with the McGuffin during the night because the party hurt their forces enough to cause a retreat).
I apply this format abstractly, so it applies to wilderness travel (a dangerous mountain they must pass through! A thick forest, full of dangers!), and also applies to more social or mental struggles (for a mystery adventure: the "floor" is a mystery they need to solve, with the "rooms" being clues that allow them to access the "exit" which is the whodunnit - long rest before you find out whodunnit and the perp goes into hiding somewhere else).
But I've run adventures with a more narrative-style format that is more like "OK, here's the ONE encounter you're going to have today!" and have enjoyed the results, too.
I typically do a dungeon-style format, where I put 5-8 potential combats in for every expected long rest. These don't always turn into combats (sometimes the party avoids them or uses strategy to make them trivial or turns the kobolds into allies for a while or whatever), but that's the sort of the baseline or worst-case/most-fights scenario. I'll fill 10-12 locations with things, so we can fit in some empty places, some treasure, some places that are more puzzle-y, or some places that have allies, or some places that maybe rely more on skills and saving throws than on attack rolls (traps, hazards, etc.).
All that qualifies as one dungeon "floor" for me, and that's about how much I expect the group to be able to get through before they have a long rest. If they long rest before they've "completed the floor," there's usually some consequence to their narrative goals (ie: the enemies retreat with the McGuffin during the night because the party hurt their forces enough to cause a retreat).
I apply this format abstractly, so it applies to wilderness travel (a dangerous mountain they must pass through! A thick forest, full of dangers!), and also applies to more social or mental struggles (for a mystery adventure: the "floor" is a mystery they need to solve, with the "rooms" being clues that allow them to access the "exit" which is the whodunnit - long rest before you find out whodunnit and the perp goes into hiding somewhere else).
But I've run adventures with a more narrative-style format that is more like "OK, here's the ONE encounter you're going to have today!" and have enjoyed the results, too.
ezo
Get off my lawn!
It really isn't though, is it?
It varies too much IMO for an sort of "average" to be a useful information. It is really a bimodal distribution.
If I look at each group as separate, I would have an average of 2 for the first group, and probably an average of 8 for the other group.
An overall of 3 is skewed towards the first group because there are a LOT more day of travel and "non-adventure" encounters, so that shifts the overall average lower.
Which encounters turn into combat encounters is often mostly or partially up to the PCs in my game. My current game has a heavy focus on faction politics and the PCs tend to try to talk before resorting to violence, so the average is well below 1 combat encounter per day. The most we had recently was 3 combat encounters in one day, but that was the PCs repeatedly finding and engaging the same enemies who kept trying to escape.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
The question probably should ask "In adventuring days involving a meaningful amount of combat, how many...."
Because now you have people answering "we have entire days with no combat" skewing the averages for a different kind of question than the one you intended to ask.
Because now you have people answering "we have entire days with no combat" skewing the averages for a different kind of question than the one you intended to ask.
Xeviat
Dungeon Mistress, she/her
I generally set things up for 3 deadly fights a day, but sometimes one or more of those get replaced with 2 hard fights. I try to leave opportunity for a short rest after each deadly fight.
Crimson Longinus
Legend
Maybe about four. Though I ramp up the difficulty a lot. And this is with gritty rests and "sanctuary requirement" for long rests.
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