Number of Encounters by Level Per Day

[fba827]

For the most part, I like 3-6 encounters per day with varied difficulties, and this is pretty much level independent.

What he said.




Also, if you get too few encounters, you risk loosing the specialty and awe associated with 'daily' powers since they get used every encounter if you're just having once encounter per day..

I could be imagining it, but I feel like the DMG, somewhere, has a quote that says it expected 4-6 encounters per day (that includes combat and noncombat encounters). Of course, with varying difficulty and you build towards the day's climax, etc.

 

[Iron Sky]

My campaign has mostly been an exploration (area, not local) focused campaign, so the players are constantly traveling here and there. I think the most fights we've had in one day over 8 levels of play was 3. I'd say 80-90% of their combats have been the only one of the day. They still tend to horde their dallies anyway for emergencies

So, I can't really gauge from a DM's perspective.

The game I played in before, we traveled alot, but there was more time spent in specific locations (including a dwarven fortress that took us from level 12-16!). I think the most fights we went through was about 6-7, and usually when we rested was a matter of someone (often the rogue or cleric) being down to their last couple surges. With 3 well-built strikers(by Paragon a daggermaster rogue, a stormwarden, and a feylock), most fights went by fast enough that only a couple surges were spent per fight. When we picked up a Champion of Order Paladin at Paragon, it got even easier.

 

[holywhitetrash]

the lvl 6 party i was playing with did 8 encounters before resting it was the thunderspire labryrinth the part in the duegar stronghold
by the time we got past the forge i was completely out of surges and everyone else only had like 3 surges left and then there was still 4 encounters left

 

[Skallgrim]

This bugs me in general with many of the published modules. There's a bunch of encounters that are so close together, it really makes no sense for the guards or critters or whatever in the next room to just twiddle their thumbs waiting for the PC's to advance. But, if you merge encounters, they can get much, much more difficult (despite being the same XP). It's as is there's a gentlemens agreement to pretend the other group doesn't exist. The party avoids peeking around the corner since then they can get embroiled in multiple encounters, and the monsters pretend not to hear anything.



But that behaviour just makes no sense for either party. The PC's would want to know when to retreat if necessary; without a DM promising to hold back the hordes, they don't have a clue what's coming around the corner - ignoring the chance of being interrupted might be a death sentence.

And for the "monsters" it makes even less sense. In some of those modules, the PC's need to make several short rest of even long rests; there's just no way a sane garrison wouldn't know it was being attacked by then. Yet, they persist in attacking in the worst possible fashion, giving the PC's the initiative and only attacking in small manageable chunks.

It bugs me that there's no good in-game explanation for these things.

Published modules shouldn't bunch encounters together like that without some regard for why they're actually several encounters.

This is a good point, and why, even though I use the published modules, I take a LOT of time to look at them and rework stuff as necessary. If it would make sense for the enemy to do something, I either want them to do it, or rewrite the module so that it doesn't make sense for them to do it.

In regards to, say, the Chamber of Eyes fight in Thunderspire, the bandits in one room did not come out to assist the other bandits, but they instead made their own area much more defensible (overturned tables, blocked areas, etc). Then they and the slavers in the adjacent room planned a fighting retreat. Whichever room got entered, the bandits and slavers would fight them there, and retreat into the next room as they became bloodied.

This created a great situation where people fell back as they got hurt, even thought they weren't defeated.

The only problem was the PCs, who found the defended position of their enemies frustrating, decided to (DURING THE FIGHT) pull back half of their forces and scout an adjacent room. Of course, that room was where the remaining enemies and bloodied enemies had retreated!

I don't make any 'gentleman's' agreements for my enemies. On the other hand, my enemies also don't get any metagame knowledge of character levels either. The duergar don't guard the one door with every single man, armed with crossbows, though that would be effective, because SO FAR, no band of 5 nutjobs has ever been able to breach the gate when it was guarded by 5 orcs.

I do agree, though, most emphatically, with the desire that the published adventures would be written with a bit more care, so that highly untenable combats would be avoided through good construction, rather than 'dumb monster' tactics or careful rewriting.