D&D 5E I have never once worried about "encounters per day" when prepping D&D 5E (a poll)

[billd91]

For those of you concerned about "a long rest after every fight" - do you allow more than one long rest in a 24 hour period? I honestly I am not sure if that is an actual rule in the books, but this limit makes sense to me and have had some version of it in every edition I've played.

It is an actual rule (page PH 186) that characters cannot benefit from more than one long rest in a 24 hour period.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I've worried about it. I didn't do anything about it, but I did worry a little

 

[Burnside]

For those of you concerned about "a long rest after every fight" - do you allow more than one long rest in a 24 hour period? I honestly I am not sure if that is an actual rule in the books, but this limit makes sense to me and have had some version of it in every edition I've played.

It is an actual 5E rule that you can only benefit from a long rest once in a 24 hour period, and I absolutely do enforce that.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I only used the word "worry" because of the tone of the threads/posts on here complaining about how that part of 5E is broken or does not accurately reflect the game at the table.

I've found that if players think they can fully recharge after every fight, they play in ways that make the game a lot less fun. Paladins and sorcerers (and other full casters) going nova at the drop of a hat tends to prevent other players from doing their thing at all.

But once you get players in the habit of not assuming they can always rest - the actual number of fights doesn't matter so much. Just the possibility of more fights to save spell slots for does the trick.

On the other hand, on top of that, the combat minigame is the most fun as a wargame when attrition is a significant factor. Without attrition, it's rather simple and easy as a game. Now, you (the general you) probably don't care - DnD is lots of fun not played as a wargame and if not played as a wargame the challenge of encounters doesn't matter very much. Most people, in my experience, aren't looking for a wargame when they play DnD.

 

[MNblockhead]

No. Every campaign in I've run since 5e came out has been very sandboxy. How many encounters they have per day is largely up to the players. If they don't do the prep work and gather intel, they may find them selves struggling to survive escaping from far more than the recommended enounters. Or they may be surprised by a tough encounter, but have an exit to rest strategy, risking that they may have lost some progress do to the enemy bringing in reinforcements and being more prepared for the party when they return. They have to weight the consequences. Do we risk another couple of fights or do we risk leaving and having a tougher time of it when we return.

It makes the sessions swing pretty wildly between cake walks and OMG HOW CAN WE SURVIVE THIS!

If find that this approach works much better with experienced players. Newer players, or players that are used to more linear storylines designed to progress through a series of level-appropriate challenges, can easily find themselves in a TPK situation. But it works for us.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I don't worry about it.

There will be days where my gamers go 5 hours without rolling a single d20 and they can't stop talking about how good the session was, aka I just go where the story goes without trying to fit it into any formula. This may mean there's too many encounters out there or stuff they can't handle, but as @MNblockhead put it, it's on the players to assess risk-reward.

 

[Horwath]

All encounters are Deadly or Deadly+, so encounters per day is moot point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Assuming these numbers are in any way representative whatsoever...

WotC was spot-on for rebalancing things so everyone is on the same resource schedule (more or less). Because, again IF this is representative, this means a sizable majority play the game in a way that actively flaunts the fundamental balance between classes, specifically in a way that massively favors full spellcasters and disfavors non- or low-spellcasting classes. AKA, the classes that have been given the short end of the stick since at least 3e and arguably much earlier. (Because we all know that "I don't care about the number of combats per day" basically never means "I regularly run several more encounters per day than the game expects"!)

 

[aco175]

I worry more about encounters per game night. I try to pace things to finish a scene or encounter roughly the time we want/need to go home for the night. I never want to start a large encounter and have to stop it halfway through for time reasons. We did it once in 4e and it was ok, but not desirable.

I also tend to make the dungeon and let the players set the pace. There may be some rooms or areas that are easy but others are more deadly. The PCs could wander around with 8 easy/medium encounters and still want to press on, or hit 3 deadly encounters and want to look for a place to rest.

I do sometimes make a 5-room dungeon (maybe 5-8). This may be set to handle a standard day with 3-4 easy, 1-2 medium and 1 hard encounter. I do not think the party will need to break away and sleep before coming back.

 

[Reynard]

I want to change my vote. it occurred to me that I have been frustrated with player Nova-ing and "5 minute workday" strategies at times in the past, and that counts as "worrying about encounters per day" I guess.