D&D 5E The 6-battle adventuring day, does it even exist?

[abirdcall]

No if you get past the first guard you likely only fight at the room at the very top (unless you purposely go to the stables or intentionally search the rest of the tower). If you don't get past the first guard then you fight there in the entrance (including the opponents from the other three rooms on the ground floor who come to help ariving on turn 2) and then you fight again in the last room at the top of the stairs.

That is from memory, but I am fairly sure it is correct.

We are talking about what I consider to be 5e's worst adventure.

What is your response to the structure of RotFM and HotDQ?

They both have a good blend of 6+ encounter days and 2-4 ones often without telegraphing to the players that there are fewer encounters.

 

[abirdcall]

Sure, and a D&D campaign fighting the Terminator can be exciting even if the heroes rest between every encounter with said Terminator, because a D&D campaign is not reliant on fast pacing to generate tension and keep audience engagement the way an action movie is.

To you I guess. Not to me.

 

[Malmuria]

That'd be because most people don't want to track resources between sessions and just refresh because it's easier and avoid tedium.

Actually, I think most people don't actually enjoy the resource management mini-game in general and that part of the game is coasting on inertia and the people who are passionate about it.

There's also the out of game reality that scheduling can be hard. Some groups can meet every week, which makes continuity not that difficult. But I've been in situations where we could meet once per month at best. In this case it's better to have each session be a discrete experience (not only for tracking resources but for avoiding narrative confusion). It kind of tracks with what Crawford said recently about moving to producing adventure content in 'bite sized' chunks.

 

[Malmuria]

One way to think about this is: what is the desired play experience and how does the "adventuring day" assumptions get in the way of that, if at all? If you want to play a game that is a enjoyable grind of per rest resources, then the CR system seems to work. If you want to play a story focused game in which the PCs are never really in danger because they are usually a near full capacity when facing a challenge, the system also works. What if you want to have 1-2 combat encounters per day that feel high stakes but are not swingy and random (i.e. situations where player tactics matter less than the randomness of the dice)? In my experience as a dm, I generate a "deadly" combat, and either it's actually not that deadly, or worse, it's all of a sudden too deadly and requires that I fudge die rolls or don't play the monsters too tactically, what in another thread someone called "combat as performance." And as a player, I can tell when the dm is doing this and it is bothersome. It's one of the main reasons I'm not interested in neo-trad gameplay anymore.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm all about resources, and the exploration pillar in general. Food, water, healer's kits, torches and ammunition are tracked. All those things become important and apply pressures to the adventuring day.

As opposed to me.

Last time a DM asked me to track my encumbrance, I leapt through their third floor window, hotwired a nearby truck and fled to Canada where I lived ten years under an assumed name as a trapper, gaining a special affinity with the local wolves and falling in love with a woman named Miranda. I only returned to my old life and the States when Miranda accidentally mentioned rations in passing.

 

[abirdcall]

[/SPOILER]

One way to think about this is: what is the desired play experience and how does the "adventuring day" assumptions get in the way of that, if at all? If you want to play a game that is a enjoyable grind of per rest resources, then the CR system seems to work. If you want to play a story focused game in which the PCs are never really in danger because they are usually a near full capacity when facing a challenge, the system also works. What if you want to have 1-2 combat encounters per day that feel high stakes but are not swingy and random (i.e. situations where player tactics matter less than the randomness of the dice)? In my experience as a dm, I generate a "deadly" combat, and either it's actually not that deadly, or worse, it's all of a sudden too deadly and requires that I fudge die rolls or don't play the monsters too tactically, what in another thread someone called "combat as performance." And as a player, I can tell when the dm is doing this and it is bothersome. It's one of the main reasons I'm not interested in neo-trad gameplay anymore.

This is a good summation of pacing game styles using the 5e framework.

I will add to the first one that the threat of many encounters is needed, not actually that many encounters always happen. The players just need to believe that there could be more (sometimes there will be, sometimes there won't).

I have a feeling with people who play the 'ultra deadly' 1 encounter per long rest way that they do what you say here and fudge things or have enemies perform poorly to keep the PCs alive. Not every time, just the times when they would otherwise be wiped out which would be far more often than in a regular campaign.

I've seen people argue on forums to do just that and that a key DM skill is to lie to the players and make them believe they are in danger when they aren't at all. The idea of that bothers me to the core.

The most egregious example I've seen of this was a DM story from the beginning of Out of the Abyss. In it level 1 PCs are expected to escape imprisonment from a conclave of drow. Well instead of that the DM's players took on the entire conclave which included 10+ quaggoths, 15+ drow including fancy ones like a CR 8 wizard and defeated them all. The DM told the story as both a testament to how good the players were and how easy 5e is. The idea that it could just be that the DM forced them to win regardless of what they did wasn't entertained.

 

[mrpopstar]

As opposed to me.

Last time a DM asked me to track my encumbrance, I leapt through their third floor window, hotwired a nearby truck and fled to Canada where I lived ten years under an assumed name as a trapper, gaining a special affinity with the local wolves and falling in love with a woman named Miranda. I only returned to my old life and the States when Miranda accidentally mentioned rations in passing.

Carrying capacity is very generous. I don't use the variant rule for encumbrance, and I don't worry about it unless someone is trying to carry something unwieldy (like an unconscious creature or chest filled with treasure).

I'm interested in equipment counts nonetheless. I track time over wilderness treks and dungeon delves. Torches burn quick, water goes quick, etc. And you only recover half your expended ammunition after each fight.

I like when those things matter. The exploration pillar is my favorite by far.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm interested in equipment counts nonetheless. I track time over wilderness treks and dungeon delves. Torches burn quick, water goes quick, etc. And you only recover half your expended ammunition after each fight.

I read this is 'play a cleric'.

Then I cast Light, create food and water, and whatever clerics get as cantrips and don't have to file paperwork with the DM.

 

[Asisreo]

Then I cast Light, create food and water, and whatever clerics get as cantrips and don't have to file paperwork with the DM.

As a DM, this would be absolutely 100% fine with me. I'd love to see the wizard cast prestidigitation to have the food taste good too.

Why? Because as a DM, I don't derive challenges from the survival aspects of the game, at least not 5e D&D. In essence, exploration itself isn't meant to be a challenge, its meant to be an experience. You explore new locations, find new treasure, avoid dangerous traps, see exciting wonders, and discover interesting lore.

While I understand the idea that exploration should be a challenge like combat, that's not what the game means when it calls exploration a pillar of play on par with combat.

Many DM's (bad ones, IMX) bastardized exploration and throw it out because they don't actually put in work to make it fun or interesting or even meaningful. And if they did that to combat, the same would occur.

Imagine: Your mission is to dethrone an evil merfolk king. The first fight is an ogre. Okay, cool. The next fight is another ogre but bigger numbers. Uh huh. Third fight is an ogre that doesn't hit back. Uh? Finally, you enter the throne room of the evil merfolk king! He has the stats of an ogre...

Hey, wait a minute! That's boring!

Same thing when you explore a forest. And then another but the wolves are dire. And then another but the river is a DC 30 instead of 10 like last time. yawn. Make sure to put effort into your areas so exploration isn't a slog fest.

 

[mrpopstar]

I read this is 'play a cleric'.

That's up to the players!

Then I cast Light, create food and water, and whatever clerics get as cantrips and don't have to file paperwork with the DM.

You can only benefit from one casting of light at a time, and you have to survive until you're at least 5th level before you can cast create food and water (though it hasn't been my experience that clerics prepare that spell unless they've run out of other options).

And no one is filing paperwork. Players can be trusted to manage their own character sheets.

Edit: Spell names are italicized!​