Level Up (A5E) Recommended amount of Encounters during travel?

[PQuix]

Has anyone managed to find the sweet-spot for how many encounters to roll for during travel, based on the amount of days the party will be traveling?

I'm thinking when the party is traveling for long periods of time. Let's take a classic Forgotten Realms example: Neverwinter to Waterdeep. That is around 10 days of travel at normal pace. Sure, in this case conditions are probably fine, and rolling 1 encounter for that time is probably okay.

But what about trekking through the desert for 10 days? What about 2 days? Do you maybe have a rule that an encounter should happen every X days with a minimum of Y?

 

[Morrus]

This our advice for ‘best practices’ with journeys. Note it’s just advice not rules, as every group is different.

Journey Best Practices | Level Up

a5e.tools

 

[PQuix]

This our advice for ‘best practices’ with journeys. Note it’s just advice not rules, as every group is different.

Journey Best Practices | Level Up

a5e.tools

Oh dang! I should take a closer look at what's on the tools page! Thank you

 

[W'rkncacnter]

This our advice for ‘best practices’ with journeys. Note it’s just advice not rules, as every group is different.

Journey Best Practices | Level Up

a5e.tools

i would like to ask - what would you define as an "unusually large" region? looking through t&t, i see holdenshire is about a month's travel at normal speed from corner to corner (ignoring obstacles and such) - so would "unusually large" be twice that size? or does the approximate threshold for "unusually large" change depending on the tier of play?

 

[Morrus]

i would like to ask - what would you define as an "unusually large" region? looking through t&t, i see holdenshire is about a month's travel at normal speed from corner to corner (ignoring obstacles and such) - so would "unusually large" be twice that size? or does the approximate threshold for "unusually large" change depending on the tier of play?

For me, I tend to think a couple of weeks travel. But that is going to vary depending on your group and how granular they like stuff.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Has anyone managed to find the sweet-spot for how many encounters to roll for during travel, based on the amount of days the party will be traveling?

In my campaign I've decided to define the sweet spot not by any formula or number, but by reading the room to see when my players start to get bored. As soon as I see any evidence of that, it's time to move on.

 

[Djaevlenselv]

Old school convention would be something like 1/6 chance of an encounter per day of travel. I don't know if that would risk getting too tedious?

 

[Morrus]

In my campaign I've decided to define the sweet spot not by any formula or number, but by reading the room to see when my players start to get bored. As soon as I see any evidence of that, it's time to move on.

That's literally the best way to do it. Do what feels like works for the room.