How Many Encounters in an Adventure?

[Retreater]

I know this is going to be highly subjective, will vary from group-to-group, and will also vary according to the needs of the adventure, but here's a general observation I've made recently about 4e.

Generally speaking, combats are longer than any other edition of D&D but also more tactically interesting in 4e. Yet, most adventure modules were written with the old design paradigm of presenting a dungeon with 30+ rooms to clear, with most combats (while being tactically interesting) not really mattering to the story. Leveling up would take around 10 encounters.

So what would be a more reasonable design paradigm that wouldn't make 4e feel like such a slog? That might allow more time at the table for role-playing and exploration?

For example, would a dungeon of 3-4 solid encounters be a better fit for the design goals of 4e? With maybe 5-6 encounters per experience level?

Just curious what everyone thinks, as I'm just starting to get back into this edition.

 

[Odysseus]

For the adventures I wrote myself. I usually tried to aim at leveling up around every three sessions. And each session would vary from 0 to 4 combat encounters.
Which averaged out to about 6 combat encounters per level.
Adventures tended to run around 3 combat encounters. However that particular group tended to gravitate towards short adventures, and preferred one big battle to lots of little rooms to clear. And I did end up with the strategy of a dungeon level being one encounter, no matter how many rooms.

 

[pemerton]

I tend to think in terms of "encounters per day" rather than "encounters per adventure" - the encounter and the "day" (ie interval between extended rests) are fairly key concepts in thinking about 4e pacing, whereas "the adventure" is not (in my view).

Here's one old actual play post (from when my game was in mid-Paragon):

Recently, the PCs in my game took on the following sequence of encounters without an extended rest:

*Comp 2 L14 skill challenge (as a result of which each PC lost one encounter power until their next extended rest);

*L17 combat;

*L15 combat;

*L7 combat;

*L13 combat;

*L15 combat;

*Comp 1 L14 skill challenge;

*L16 combat;

*L14 combat;

*L13 combat;

*Comp 1 L15 skill challenge;

*L16 combat (the L15 solo was defeated by being pushed over a bridge down a waterfall);

*L15 combat (the solo returned later in the night, having survived the fall and climbed back up).​

The PCs started this day at 14th level, and finished it at 15th.

Admittedly some of the encounters involved waves/split opposition rather than a unified force; but equally, in some of the encounter the PCs were split and couldn't bring all their power to bear simultaneously or in a co-ordinated fashion.

I don't run that many dungeons (neither in general, nor in 4e). But here's another old post which describes how I ran two bits of H2 (the Chamber of Eyes and the Well of Demons - and the post is spoilerific, if that's stilll an issue nearly 10 years later):

I've run Thunderspire in dribs and drabs, but not straight through. It has some good maps and creatures, but the plot is a bit weak and the encounters as written not always that dynamic.

For the Chamber of Eyes I did two things. First, I joined the introductory encounter (with the hobgoblins torturing the prisoner) onto the Chamber of Eyes: (i) run the corridor in the introductory encounter onto the entryway into the foyer of the Chamber of Eyes; (ii) add a secret passage exiting the NE corner of the hobgoblin chamber via a secret door and running diagonally, with staircases, up to the balcony in the Chamber of Eyes foyer; (iii) add a spyhole/arrowslit on the E wall of the hobgoblin chamber (near the barrels) looking onto the Chamber of Eyes foyer; (iv) add a portcullis that the hobgoblins can drop in the entryway to their chamber, making the secret passage the only easy path between their chamber and the Chamber of Eyes.

Second, I was prepared to run the introductory encounter, C1, C2 and C4 as a single encounter with waves. The PCs first heard the prisoner being tortured (I made it someone they had already met earlier in the campaign who they knew had been captured by goblins/hobgoblins and were hoping to rescue) and entered that chamber. The portcullis (iv above) was dropped, trapping them in that room. As they made fairly short work of the hobgoblin soldiers the warcaster opened the secret door and fled up the passage (ii above) with half the PCs chasing him while the others finished off the soldiers. The PCs correctly feared that he was going to get reinforcements. The PCs narrowly failed to stop him on the balcony, and he went through the other door and alerted the goblins in C2. I had the bugbear engage the PCs on the upper level, while the skull cleavers came out through the main doors to make missile attacks - some of the PCs jumped down to engage them, while others fought the bugbear and one who had been left behind in the first room attacked through the spyhole (iii above). The warcaster meanwhile went on and alerted the chief, who came forward to join the skullcleavers with his wolf while the archers controlled the long-ish corridor with cover from the shrine doorway (I eliminated the second warcaster as unnecessary).

This was a very dynamic encounter, with PCs moving around through the various corridors in the entry way, going back and forth into the original room to take advantage of the arrowslit, and in the end causing the hobgoblin archers to retreat after defeating the rest of the goblins. (They then took on the archers with the rest of C3 - roused from their drunken revelling - as a separate encounter.)

I also decided that the duergar would wait and see what happened rather than joining in on the potentially losing side of a fight - the PCs discovered the duergar in their rooms as they were looking for somewhere to take their short rest and ended up negotiating a contract with them, paying 300 gp to be delivered in a months time to pay for the release of the slaves (the players preferred this to the thought of having to assault a duergar stronghold).

In the Well of Demons I also ran the gnoll encounters together as a single more dynamic encounter (again leaving the tieflings out of the equation, figuring that they would make a more interesting encounter after the gnolls had been dealt with). The interesting aspects here were (i) the players thought the first chamber with the motely crew of monsters was the more challenging encounter, and so blew quite a few resources on it and therefore were really pushed to the limits with the gnolls, (ii) the use of the connecting tunnel from the boar room to the entry chamber as a way of making the PCs fight on two fronts (and yes, enemies were pushed into the well) and (iii) replacing the barlgura demon with a naldrezu (sp?) from MM2, which is a lurker that captures a PC and teleports it away to munch on it - combined with the two-fronts aspect this introduced extra mobility and tension into the fight.

My focus would not be on encounters per adventure or even encounters per level (the latter will take care of itself if you just apply the XP rules, or you can just make it one level per X sessions without causing any headaches). I would focus on good pacing within encounters and good pacing of encounters per extended rest, so that the players actually feel some pressure.

The issues with many of the module encounters are simply that (i) they're mechanically boring and (ii) they're narratively boring. Work on both of these and you shouldn't have any issues!

 

[Jhaelen]

I know this is going to be highly subjective, will vary from group-to-group, and will also vary according to the needs of the adventure, but here's a general observation I've made recently about 4e.

Generally speaking, combats are longer than any other edition of D&D but also more tactically interesting in 4e.

Combats in D&D 3e were longer than combats in 4e. They required fewer rounds of combat but took a lot longer to play through. This was mostly caused by page-long stat blocks with long lists of feats and spells that required looking them up and game effects that required you to recalculate ability bonuses and combat modifiers all the time.
So, 4e combat was actually quicker _and_ more tactically rewarding.

Yet, most adventure modules were written with the old design paradigm of presenting a dungeon with 30+ rooms to clear, with most combats (while being tactically interesting) not really mattering to the story. Leveling up would take around 10 encounters.

Well, that's because almost all official D&D 4e adventure modules are really, really badly designed. Only a few modules that were released close to the end of the edition's lifetime are actually any good.

So what would be a more reasonable design paradigm that wouldn't make 4e feel like such a slog? That might allow more time at the table for role-playing and exploration?

This is easy: Use milestones to decide when it's time for the heroes to level up! This allows you to design as many encounters as you like, but frees the players from having to encounter even a single one, if they can come up with clever ways to avoid them and still complete their objectives. Really, you should try it, it's quite liberating.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly, the game assumes the equivalent of 10 at-level encounters will level you up. HOWEVER, you don't really run a vast number of at-level encounters, and each level above at-level is about a 25% XP increase. If the average is level + 1 then that means actually running 8 encounters. HOWEVER, you are supposed to give out about 2 encounters worth of quests, so now you're down to about 6 encounters. Of those 6, as many as half could be SCs. Lets assume all quests and SCs are at-level (there isn't any indication of making such things over-leveled). That would mean you'd have something between 4 and 5 actual full-blown combat encounters per level. Maybe throw in an extra one to represent a couple of minor encounters or whatever.

How long should an adventure be? Dramatically 5 acts is about the longest you'd want it to run. Even if you assumed each act was a day worth of encounters (say half of a level worth) that would be less than 20 encounters to make a whole adventure, and at most 2/3 would be outright fights. Figure the characters level after act 2, and again at the end (or maybe after act 4, act 5 can be a wrap up). You could also run a 3 act adventure with something like 8 combats. Even that would be a pretty full adventure and you could level the PCs after act 2.

 

[cmad1977]

Depends.

 

[MoutonRustique]

My general take on it is this : 3 per significant goal (as a rule of thumb)

While this may look like the "delve system", in some ways it is, but in an other (important) way, it's the opposite.

The basic idea is this :
1- you have one combat* that's related to approaching
2- you have one combat* that's related to overcoming the main obstacles
3- you have the finale

* The asterix here is important. One of the worst things about 4e modules is their presentation of "combat encounters". The language strongly leads a DM to assume this must be a combat. There are gajillizions encounters that state : "The monsters charge as soon as they see the PCs. They all fight to the death."... It's hard thinking of a worse way to present an encounter than this...

It's very formulaic - but, for my group, it's become the sort of predictability you have from a good TV show : you know you're at point X of the episode and Y is certainly around the corner, but it's more anticipation than "predictable".

So usually :
- opening situation (often pretty free-form)
- skill challenge (often pretty free-form) to get a handle on things, research, hide to get a breather, etc.
- encounter (with opposition that will probably result in combat - but no door is closed)
- skill challenge (often travel, or more resource obtainment from new info gained)
- encounter (see above)
- skill challenge (final traps, preparations - this one is often incorporated into the finale)
- finale

The skill challenges are almost always very loose affairs - but I use this presentation to write my things, or alter modules since it's easy to understand the flow and intent.

As a very simple example :
Kobolds are attacking villagers
- get clues, figure out why the attacks are happening, where the kobolds are from
- kobold encounter during the traveling part
- the kobolds have access to much better tech than they should have, what's up with that? Also, must find the real source (old cave system adjacent to abandoned lumber mill)
- kobold encounter (the whole cave system - not a room, the cave)
- again, better the tech (the mill bits are an upgrade, but not enough), more clues - figure out that the kobolds are minions of gnome tinkerer near town (that bastard!)
- deal with gnome tinkerer

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would just say I think that IMHO skill challenges are not some 'lesser type of thing' which doesn't rise to the same level as other types of encounters. They are equally consequential and so when I say "5 encounters" and you say "3 encounters" it seems we REALLY mean basically the same thing, since you don't appear to count the SCs in that 3 number.

 

[MoutonRustique]

I would just say I think that IMHO skill challenges are not some 'lesser type of thing' which doesn't rise to the same level as other types of encounters. They are equally consequential and so when I say "5 encounters" and you say "3 encounters" it seems we REALLY mean basically the same thing, since you don't appear to count the SCs in that 3 number.

True - it's just that what I most uses SCs for is a bit too disjunctive, or "wide" to constitute a defined encounter in my head, most times. They tend to cover many encounters, for which combat would not necessitate taking out the mat - too easy, too hard, or just make no sense, etc. (I attack the ancient ruins! Die book!)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

True - it's just that what I most uses SCs for is a bit too disjunctive, or "wide" to constitute a defined encounter in my head, most times. They tend to cover many encounters, for which combat would not necessitate taking out the mat - too easy, too hard, or just make no sense, etc. (I attack the ancient ruins! Die book!)

lol.

I think my conception of 'encounter' (I actually don't use the term in HoML, everything is a 'challenge' of some kind) is just looser. If it takes 3 days, oh well! Time is in any case really just another form of narrative dimension. It can be compressed or extended for dramatic effect as-needed.

Actually, that has got me thinking. I should rewrite the rest, recovery, and duration rules to erase the vestiges of the 'logisticalist' aspect of it. So make rests 'minor' and 'major' and do away with the notion that they take certain fixed periods of time, or come at some special interval, or represent some specific action that the characters undertake.