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<blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8289075" data-attributes="member: 11">Yeah, one or two encounters in a day are not uncommon in my games. Other times there are many more - the temple assault above was five encounters in about four hour's in-game time, six if you include the one they just straight up ran away from.&nbsp; I honestly never think about encounter design from the perspective of character resources - like how much it will likely use up or not - but rather only ever on narrative and simulation. I am not saying there is anything wrong with the numeric approach, but my DM brain doesn't really work like that. I'd be curious to know if anyone ever designs encounters with a possible variance based on what the NPC opponents are doing or not doing? I mean, who is to say the BBEG has access to all their abilities and spell slots when they happen to meet? Usually they do out of convenience - but I have had situations where I had to remember a villain had one less slot of a certain level because according to the plot (and outside of the PCs' sight) he had cast some spell for something and thus did not have it available for the final confrontation. These days, however, I find it a lot easier to use a Matt Colville approach to designed NPC opponents, just giving them whatever at-will, long and short rest abilities I want them to have and not bothering building them using the rules for a class.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="el-remmen, post: 8289075, member: 11"] Yeah, one or two encounters in a day are not uncommon in my games. Other times there are many more - the temple assault above was five encounters in about four hour's in-game time, six if you include the one they just straight up ran away from. I honestly never think about encounter design from the perspective of character resources - like how much it will likely use up or not - but rather only ever on narrative and simulation. I am not saying there is anything wrong with the numeric approach, but my DM brain doesn't really work like that. I'd be curious to know if anyone ever designs encounters with a possible variance based on what the NPC opponents are doing or not doing? I mean, who is to say the BBEG has access to all their abilities and spell slots when they happen to meet? Usually they do out of convenience - but I have had situations where I had to remember a villain had one less slot of a certain level because according to the plot (and outside of the PCs' sight) he had cast some spell for something and thus did not have it available for the final confrontation. These days, however, I find it a lot easier to use a Matt Colville approach to designed NPC opponents, just giving them whatever at-will, long and short rest abilities I want them to have and not bothering building them using the rules for a class. [/QUOTE]

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