D&D (2024) How many combats do you have on average adventuring day.

[Paul Farquhar]

But I've never seen a cleric dominate a battle in 5e other than turn undead.

I've seen a Twilight Cleric dominate, in pretty much every battle.

 

[GrimCo]

To be completely honest, i personally, never bothered with concept of adventuring day or encounter balance.

I design encounters by following in setting logic. That means that sometimes PCs steamroll encounter in 2 rounds and sometimes they run away hanging on threads and sometimes they find way to circumvent combat all together.

Also, both myself and two other guys in group who DM, aim to end session in a way that enables any one of characters to have valid in game reason why they are not present in next session. While we do try to play regularly, on average, 1 out of 4 sessions is without one of the players present.

 

[Zardnaar]

That’s the thing, if you had 8 combat encounters per adventuring day, in the real world a day would last months! We average around 3 combats per session, and try to end sessions at the end of a day. So, if dungeon crawling, 3 encounters per day is typical. If travelling overland, no more than 1 encounter per day.

Yup and also what the story calls for.

It's also related to combat length and session length.

1 session =1 long rest. It's a bit harder to split over several sessions.

New players don't hold back either they're resting once they run out of stuff. 5E monsters hit hard so once they're out of resources they really don't want to go looking for another 3 fights.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I've seen a Twilight Cleric dominate, in pretty much every battle.

Right. That is unsurprising. It is blatantly broken. Did they get an update in 5.5?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That’s the thing, if you had 8 combat encounters per adventuring day, in the real world a day would last months! We average around 3 combats per session, and try to end sessions at the end of a day. So, if dungeon crawling, 3 encounters per day is typical. If travelling overland, no more than 1 encounter per day.

BTW, whilst I definitely do not have eight encounters between longs rests, gritty rests help alleviate the issue you mention.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've seen a Twilight Cleric dominate, in pretty much every battle.

That's the worst one.

Most can do it generally light, twilight, certain builds of nature, arcane, tempest

 

[ezo]

So for days where combat is the primary encounters, you guys typically (but not always) have a combat after a long rest, take a short rest, have a combat after the short rest, and have a long rest?

We get in rests whenever the story warrants it.

If the PCs are in a place of relative safety and can get in a short rest, they will as long as it makes sense and a couple resources need replenishing.

A long rest only occurs if the PCs are in a place of safety, fortification, etc. Often times this is when the rest for the night, but after taking out pretty much all threats in an adventure, a long rest before the next journey makes sense--and the location is "now a place of safety" due to the removal of all threats.

That’s the thing, if you had 8 combat encounters per adventuring day, in the real world a day would last months!

So what? As long as you are completing the story/adventure, what does that matter?

The story should dictate how many encounters happen during a day "in game time", not some artifcially forced mechanic. If it takes you a session to finish three combats how does that really impact things for you?

Suppose an adventure has 11 encounters, such as infiltrating a bandit camp or something. You have scouting, patrols, etc. and then moving into the camp and taking things out looking for captives, etc. The PCs have been traveling during the day to get to the camp (maybe a few random encounters depending on the travel distance), then knowing time is a factor have one night to accomplish their mission.

They might get in a short rest when they arrive, but they can't use 8 hours for a long rest or over half the night will be gone! So they start scouting out the place, and then formulate a plan, and move in. If you have a few buildings, with a couple rooms or more in each building, you can easily have 10 or more encounters. But you have to get through them all in that one "game night", so it will take you 3-4 sessions or more.

Here is a map I used for such an adventure and I've numbered the place where encounters happened. There was basically about 20 encounters (including outside patrols, etc.) not to mention the 3 or 4 encounters to get to the stronghold. It took us 6 sessions to complete everything (1 to get the adventure, travel there, and scout, 2-4 clearing out upper level, 5-6 clearing lower level). The PCs got a short rest after arriving, and another short rest after clearing out the upper level. They didn't get a long rest until they finished session 6.

Now, not every adventure is like this of course. And we do play mostly every week, which I know is getting rarer and rarer IME for most groups.

Otherwise, IMO it would feel artificial and like a series of one-shots if you try to keep a long rest / end of day when you end each session.

Could you outline what a typical session for you looks like? Maybe it wouldn't feel as bad as I imagine it would for me...?

Come to think of it, the heroic variant (5 min short rests, 1 hour long rests) might appeal to groups who like ending the session on a long rest?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Yup and also what the story calls for.

It's also related to combat length and session length.

1 session =1 long rest. It's a bit harder to split over several sessions.
.

I have never, in any edition or system, linked sessions and "full recovery" together. Generally it was limited to "adventure over, take downtime."

Heck, in 1e it was anathema, as full recovery could take multiple days of game time for casters. And other game systems make healing much slower (Shadowrun can take weeks) or tie powers to slowly recovering events (White Wolf blood/gnosis/quintessence/etc). Even in high magic Earthdawn, full recovery would take days if you took Wounds.

Maybe it's a newer player thing carried over from CRPGs.

 

[Queer Venger]

voted about 2, my players sometimes take their sweet time exploring. Our game yesterday (Lost City that I modified for Spelljammer) we had 2 combat scenes and ended with a cliffhanger.

my players are really loving the new heroic inspiration rules

 

[Blue]

I disagree with your analysis on several levels.

First, I don't think "average effectiveness per action" is the one and only barometer of intraparty balance.

This... okay, let me restate this with cars.

Me: "If you have a flat tire, it's a sign that your car isn't fit to drive."
You: "I don't think having a flat tire is the one and only barometer a car being fit to drive."

I trust you can see how those differ.

I'd be glad to discuss how wildly varying effectiveness per action is or is not a sign of in-combat imbalance. Basically, you will need to show that regardless of the number of encounters, both at-will and casters have around the same output over time - so no "this particular situation favors one or the other".