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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FallenRX" data-source="post: 8824145" data-attributes="member: 7033472">So during one of the many debates on the 6-8 adventuring day balance, apparently there was one comment that caught my attention, that confirmed something fascinating about the math of the adventuring day, its not balanced around class resources, its balanced around HP. Here is a chunk of it that explains it a bit.Full post <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/ymknzx/comment/iv4jdls/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">here</a> , but this recontextualizes a lot of the debate on the "Encounter day". its not based on Class resources like spell slots, just how much damage they can take in a day, and are expected to take, and heal back with Hit dice. Looking further into his findings on his site <a href="https://tomedunn.github.io/the-finished-book/classes/xp-and-player-characters/" target="_blank">here</a>(which show the math proving this), it turns out XP actually is a formula on how much damage/health a monster can do, rounded to certain numbers to suit speed of progression in levels, more on this <a href="https://tomedunn.github.io/the-finished-book/monsters/calculating-monster-xp/" target="_blank">here</a>.Now note, he does say class resources can affect these calculations, but the primary encounter day is designed around mainly HP, and Hit Dice. A Deadly encounter is deadly, because they do enough damage to do about 70% of the players health at that level over a 2-3 round period, and monsters XP values are actually a calcuation of how much damage they can do/take rounded to a number to fit progression speed, Its why XP actually matters in calculating encounter balance, XP is literally a Monsters "Power Level" rounded for rewards to keep progression between level consistent, CR is just a simplification of this to be easier on DM's, so you dont have to do literal algebra to make monsters/calculation monster power.Now looking into more into his findings at the sites, some interesting confirmations come forward about how classes are balance, since encounters are balanced around HP, Martials surprisingly come out on top, becuase they can always take the most damage, and wizards at the bottom because they can take the least damage, but this changes with class resources, Wizards(and casters) seems to be balanced around the idea that they must spend resources to make up for this using spell slots, but the problem is the same problem as when calculating CR, it doesnt account for non-damaging effects that circumvent whole encounters, i wouldnt be surprised if WOTC simply just calculated the power of them as equal too whatever the average DPR of a damaging spell in the same slot level(Crawford said they do this in a interview about encounter balance a long time about), but definitely leads to a better understanding of the game.All and all what this means is, if you want to challenge your players more you need to actually damage them equal to the amount the encounter needs, and if you do not damage them, that encounter almost doesnt count toward the "Adventuring Day/XP Budget", and you can basically run more.Either way this is all fascinating stuff, please correct me if im wrong about anything. If im completely wrong in my understanding of this, ill just delete the post and explain it better.Tell me your thoughts on this?TLDR: The games adventuring day and encounter design is primarily done by HP, and Hit Dice, so damage is what matters the most.Monster XP's are literally their calculated Power Level of how much damage they can take/dish out, just rounded to a number for the sake of progression pacing. Balance your games around the damage done to PC's in a Single Encounter+Resources they can use to recovery.</blockquote>

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