D&D 4E I Hope 4E Fixes Encounter Levels per Day...

[Ogrork the Mighty]

One thing I really dislike and find to be a royal pain in 3E are the assumptions the game designers made about encounters per day.

For example, if a party of four 10th-lvl characters fight a CR 10 monster it is assumed that the battle is relatively balanced.

However, if that same battle is the only encounter of the day, suddenly it's not so balanced.

Making matters worse, an EL 15 encounter that would otherwise be near impossible now becomes much more winnable if it's the only battle of the day.

Taken to extreme, if the party only engaged in one encounter per day (i.e., in some campaigns were there are no random encounters and combat occurs less often), all of sudden they get big-time XP for encounters that they could blow all their daily resources on.

In short, I really wish D&D game designers would go back to per encounter XP rather than basing it on assumptions about how many encounters will/should occur per day. Leave it to the PCs to determine when they've had enough without tying the DM's hands and forcing additional encounters to justify the XP. Using ad hoc adjustments is a royal pain in the arse.

 

[FireLance]

Actually, I think the amount of xp received is pretty much in line with the theoretical difficulty of the encounter.

In theory, at least, an creature of CR X+2 is supposed to be twice as tough as a creature of CR X, is expected to use up twice the number of resources, and overcoming it gives a party twice the amount of experience.

A CR 10 encounter yields about 3000 xp for a party of 10th-level characters. If the party faces 4 such encounters per day, they gain 12000 xp.

A CR 12 encounter yields about 6000 xp for a party of 10th-level characters. If the party faces 2 such encounters per day, they gain 12000 xp.

A CR 14 encounter yields about 12000 xp for a party of 10th-level characters. If that is the only encounter they face in the day, they gain the same 12000 xp.

A CR 15 encounter yields about 18000 xp for a party of 10th-level characters. So in theory, if the party works together so well that they are able to take on six CR 10 encounters in a day, they should be able to take on a CR 15 encounter as well.

In my view, basing your gameplay assumptions around the idea that the party will face a set number of encounters per day does cause some problems, but the rate of xp gain (at least, under the 3.5e system) is not one of them. In short, I don't see how per encounter xp is going to make any difference.

 

[Pygon]

We'll still have players that blow their piles on one encounter and try to rest.

It will be interesting to see the kinds of over-optimized builds that players come up with so that they can get by with per-encounter abilities, and just keep going and going and going...

 

[psionotic]

Having more at will and per encounter abilities will let DMs worry less about the number of encounters that occur during the day, as more party resources will be recovered between each fight than previously. Balancing dense dungeons and multiple fights in a day should be easier.

 

[Li Shenron]

There is no way out. As long as there are "per day" resources, these are going to somehow determine the amount of battle that can be fought in a day. More flexibility can be achieved with a point-based system like the 3.0 Psionic rules, that allows the character to concentrate or dilute the firepower, but still the fact that there is limit after which the (significant) powers are out of order will put a limit on the daily encounters, and this number will need to be addressed during game design.

Moving from a limited to an unlimited amount of resources removes the problem but introduces the opposite problems: the characters can choose to just go on and on forever like in an endless day (see WoW).

Perhaps an interesting possibility would be to use the 2nd way, but introducing a different kind of limit, not based on how many resources you've used so far, but simply based on time. With a minor bookkeeping, the characters may get tired after a certain amount of hours of adventuring activity, and this may make their spells/resources less effective (reduced effects) or unreliable (% failure) unless they rest for the night. This way there is no harsh restriction on the number of encounter, but there is still some minor realism in needing to rest.