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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 9775333" data-attributes="member: 6787503">So is [USER=697]@mearls[/USER] saying PCs actually only engage in four rounds of combat per day?That's actually somewhat close to my experience, but I thread this needle a bit differently than most, I expect, to suit my play style.First, I completely ignore encounter difficulty. I total the party's adventuring day XP budget at the beginning of the day when they're fresh, so I have that number available. All my encounters are generated randomly using AD&D resources, so throughout the adventuring day I roll up encounters and only adjust the number of monsters if it exceeds the current XP budget. I don't reduce to less than one monster. If an encounter results in the party engaging in combat, the adjusted XP for the encounter gets subtracted from the budget. If the encounter is resolved another way such as socially or if one side evades the other, then the XP budget is unaffected. I also use morale rules and other procedures that might affect the results.Here's an example from my current game. The party consists of six level-one PCs with an adventuring day budget of 1,800 XP. In an eight-hour dungeon exploration, they had three combats: a one-round fight vs. three large spiders (112.5 adj. XP), a three-round fight vs. eight orcs (1,600 adj. XP), and another one-round fight vs. another large spider (12.5 adj. XP). They've now left the dungeon looking for a place to take a long rest so they don't risk exhaustion from attempting a forced march. Their remaining budget is 75 XP. At our next session, they will immediately face a random encounter check with a 1 in 12 chance of encountering an ogre. There's an abandoned castle nearby where they could take a long rest, but they'll be attacked by a wild boar upon entering the castle's courtyard, so that's at least one more round of combat if they choose that option. If they try to camp in the wilderness, they'll face one or two more checks to encounter the ogre before they complete a long rest. That amounts to five or maybe a few more rounds of combat before the first long rest in this first-level game, so I guess in my case they were only off by factor of maybe three or four?</blockquote>

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