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

How many combats per Long rest?


Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
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.
Three combat encounters per session plus exploring is about the same for us, but we play weekly so that 3 weeks between long rests real-time. We do not usually end a session on a long rest. We sometimes end mid-combat, though when we do we try to make sure we're starting at the top of the round for next session.
 

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SteveC

Doing the best imitation of myself
I wanted to comment on the notion that "the story determines when you get rests." In D&D, I find that notion the DM equivalent of "it's what my character would do."

As a DM in traditional play, you create the environment. You make the rooms, deploy the monsters, and set any time limits on what's happening. The "story" only exists because of what you've created. So if an adventuring day becomes 12 encounters, that's largely because of what you did. And like everything I write, if you and your players are having fun, who am I to gripe about it? The only thing I can say is: it's you who's making that decision (especially with time concerns) and largely not your players. Of course there are always those players who are ready to roll for one more room, even when they are spent, and god love 'em.

There are other ways to play than traditional D&D play. There's "emergent play," and "play to find out, err ... play," and those are traditionally found in the PbtA world.

Those games typically aren't about tactical combat. I can't think of a single PbtA or FitD game that is (although I'd like to try it if it exists!) You can resolve entire combats, or even multiple combats, with a single die roll. In Blades in the Dark, we had a game where the GM had us make a Positioning Check (it's the first part of a Score, where you determine where you pick up with active play) and then narrated how we had half a dozen fights before we got to the locked door we were looking for. That's ... not how D&D is commonly played.

As a player in D&D, you're always concerned with resources and the adventuring day, as long as you're playing a character who has resources that reset on Rests. That's whether the DM is concerned with them or not. "What can I afford to do here? Is this encounter worth using another spell slot? Is my Action Surge worth it to use so early in the day?" ... and so on.

What is all this rambling about? Just that when you create an adventuring site, you're naturally making one or more adventuring days. And if you're creating something your players can't be expected to do, it's in the same light as the player who attacks the guards because it's what their character would do.
 

tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
.


So what? As long as you are completing the story/adventure, what does that matter?
It really matters when you combine stuff like


With the added burden of this limitation of the human brain
With things like Ddb's dm/server must trust the client (player) tacit endorsement of players hitting the button because they "forgot"∆ and wot trying to have it every way instead of being clear in no uncertain terms about encounter/adventuring day expectations or the problems that stem from missing the mark. By the time months have passed nobody remembers enough to continue the adventure without a new adventure just to remember where the party left off and that new adventure likewise needs real world weeks or months of encounters to wind up right back where the group was when starting a side quest to remember what their notes were talking about (if they even took notes).

∆the server should never trust the client and trust but verify are such low level coding101 thing for good reason.
 


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."


You: vehicles that don't win on the race track aren't worth driving.

Me: this is a bulldozer. We're going to Banish the race track. If it's Legendary Resistances are too high, we'll throw a yellow flag with Spirit Guardians and slow the whole track.
 
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. By the time months have passed nobody remembers enough to continue the adventure without a new adventure just to remember where the party left off and that new adventure likewise needs real world weeks or months of encounters to wind up right back where the group was when starting a side
quest to remember what their notes were talking about (if they even took notes).

I am the compulsive note taker for all campaigns, dm or player. I love DDBs history feature to remind myself which spells were cast and who got a crit when. I make a note of the overall state of the party, when we took short/long rests, anyone suffering a condition and any buffs that were still in effect at end of game.

If positioning is important, we take pics of the map & minis and attach it to the game chat thread. If we had anyone that was prone to "accidents", I'm sure we'd get in the habit of screenshotting character sheets.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
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.

Back then we had longer sessions and Combat was quicker.
 

Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
You: vehicles that don't win on the race track aren't worth driving.

Me: this is a bulldozer. We're going to Banish the race track. If it's Legendary Resistances are too high, we'll throw a yellow flag with Spirit Guardians and slow the whole track.
You're replying to me...but I didn't post the post in the quote. The person who wrote that is named Blue.
 


cbwjm

Seb-wejem
The 6-8 combats a day always sounded more like a warning than something to aspire to. From memory, the advice in the DMG stated that PCs could probably handle around 6-8 combats per long rest before running on empty and needing a long rest to recover.
 

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