D&D 5E "When DMing I Avoid Making the PCs have 'pointless' combats." (a poll)

[lingual]

If you have 6-8 fights a day, some of them have got to be close to pointless.

I suppose attrition is a part of the game.

 

[Sabathius42]

Or simply the way session zero is done?
I give a lot of explanations to new players and to people that come to our Friday Night Dungeons. People know that I am a harsh DM that challenges the players to do their best and perform above and beyond normal expectations. Pushing their limits and so on.

I also tell people that short rests is a full night sleep and a long rest is a full week in a safe environment such as an inn, a castle or stronghold. Anything else only gives a short rest and you can only have two short rest between long rests. Not 3, 4, 5, or 6. Only two. So you'd better be wary, prudent and aware of the consequences. I also modified the light cantrip. It now only gives the light of a candle. I enforce the disadvantage rule on perception check without light so people carry torches and one of the great magical item can have is actually the Drift Globe. Players love that magical item and want to have more than one at all time!

Do wizards in your game only get one set of spells from the time they leave civilization to when they return? How would you do an epic journey in that setup.

I've never gotten a good answer on how GMs balance spell refreshing in games where short and long rests are stretched out to day/week.

 

[SteveC]

The discussion about using a Hut to provide easy rests definitely changes what qualifies as a pointless encounter. It's also something that needs to be addressed by the GM if it alters the campaign.

Any time there's an issue where the game is radically altered by a character power, spell, or other effect there just needs to be a conversation about it. I don't think that's out of line since we're all just expecting to have a fun experience with the game. Whether or not that "fun" means more challenge or a more casual game is really up to everyone involved.

 

[Helldritch]

In your bandit example...that is indeed an encounter....but it isn't a combat. There is a difference between the two. The poll was asking about pointless combat.

I find constant and relentless random encounters harm the "realness" of most settings. If a wandering party is consistently getting attacked multiple times a day then so should everything else in the world, including the wandering monsters themselves. The roads of the world would be piled hip deep with dead rotting bandit, goblin, and orc carcasses as no entity could travel along them even an hour without being harassed.

Roads=civilization=some degree of safety.

First bolded part: I feel the opposite. It makes the world much more alive. Encounter tables are not limited to combat but could be merchants, farmers, animals and so on.

Second bolded part: Road = civilization = risks of encountering what societies have the worst to offer or the best.

Heck, in the real world we have: Break and entry, car jacking, theft, murder, assault and many others.
We also have: Neighbourgs, friends, stores, cops (guards), services and so on.

The problem is not random encounters, it is how they are used and applied. Do not go overboard with them.

Edit: pronoun change...

 

[Helldritch]

Do wizards in your game only get one set of spells from the time they leave civilization to when they return? How would you do an epic journey in that setup.

I've never gotten a good answer on how GMs balance spell refreshing in games where short and long rests are stretched out to day/week.

Just like the fighter swings a sword, wizards use cantrips a lot more. Skills such as medicine, alchemy and herbalism become a lot more important. Hey!, players are taking the healer's feat simply because it is so useful.

 

[Celebrim]

In your bandit example...that is indeed an encounter....but it isn't a combat. There is a difference between the two. The poll was asking about pointless combat.

It strikes me as an optional combat. The thing that you've encountered is trying to flee. Do you want to give chase? Which is the same sort of encounter as "A white stag with hoofs and antlers of shining gold leaps across the road in front of you." You don't have to give chase, but if you do it will turn into combat at some point if the magical stag can no longer flee. Likewise, "As you are travelling on the road, you begin to hear the music of a lyre. After a little ways, you espy three females of an elvish air, clad only in a wreath of leaves around their hair, lying on a patch of sunny sward a just off the road. One is playing a lyre," is also an encounter that may or may not be combat depending on whether the party is stupid enough flirt with dryads and someone fails a saving throw.

I find constant and relentless random encounters harm the "realness" of most settings. If a wandering party is consistently getting attacked multiple times a day then so should everything else in the world, including the wandering monsters themselves. The roads of the world would be piled hip deep with dead rotting bandit, goblin, and orc carcasses as no entity could travel along them even an hour without being harassed.

Roads=civilization=some degree of safety.

I agree with you to some extent. I do consider what the life of an average farmer taking a wagon load of hay into town is going to be like when designing random encounter tables for civilized regions. As the two above encounters show, or haymonger could have an interesting day even if he personally isn't really threatened - he's not dumb enough to get involved in fey things, not skilled enough to chase the hart, and not handsome and charming enough to get himself in trouble with dryads even if he was inclined to. Even if I have 1% chance of encountering bandits along the way, chances are they'll ignore him as he's clearly not got enough coin to be worthwhile and it's bad policy as a bandit to 'dirty your nest' by attacking locals.

It should be pretty obvious that a 1% chance of encountering a random red dragon is far too high. An active red dragon so near the road would threaten the existence of civilization in the region, and unless the PC's are spectacularly unlucky they probably would not be the first person to encounter such a monster. The whole region for 40 miles around would be talking about how a large dragon had been spotted in the area.

I have made different random encounter tables for civilized roads during the day and during the night so that riding home drunk from the tavern after the sun has gone down is a somewhat riskier proposition.

 

[Umbran]

Per "How to Play," it's the goal of the DM and players both to make it so. Same for exploration and social.

Well, then you are, avoiding them have pointless combats! You are taking steps to make sure it isn't pointless!

 

[Helldritch]

It strikes me as an optional combat. The thing that you've encountered is trying to flee. Do you want to give chase? Which is the same sort of encounter as "A white stag with hoofs and antlers of shining gold leaps across the road in front of you." You don't have to give chase, but if you do it will turn into combat at some point if the magical stag can no longer flee. Likewise, "As you are travelling on the road, you begin to hear the music of a lyre. After a little ways, you espy three females of an elvish air, clad only in a wreath of leaves around their hair, lying on a patch of sunny sward a just off the road. One is playing a lyre," is also an encounter that may or may not be combat depending on whether the party is stupid enough flirt with dryads and someone fails a saving throw.

And is an optional combat pointless? Here in the fleeing example, the players know that they are strong. Known enough to be feared and recognized by the "rattle" of the world. It shows them that they have achieved something. With the dryads, it is about the same. But this time it is more like will the player actually flirt, flee or simply have small talk? Maybe the dryads are in need of help as bad trolls are cutting down the forest and thus, spur a whole adventure.

I agree with you to some extent. I do consider what the life of an average farmer taking a wagon load of hay into town is going to be like when designing random encounter tables for civilized regions. As the two above encounters show, or haymonger could have an interesting day even if he personally isn't really threatened - he's not dumb enough to get involved in fey things, not skilled enough to chase the hart, and not handsome and charming enough to get himself in trouble with dryads even if he was inclined to. Even if I have 1% chance of encountering bandits along the way, chances are they'll ignore him as he's clearly not got enough coin to be worthwhile and it's bad policy as a bandit to 'dirty your nest' by attacking locals.

Sure, and at the same time, why do you think local lords hire adventurers in the first place? Might it be that some bandits dirtied their nest by attacking locals and a few merchants because the pickings were not good enough for them?

It should be pretty obvious that a 1% chance of encountering a random red dragon is far too high. An active red dragon so near the road would threaten the existence of civilization in the region, and unless the PC's are spectacularly unlucky they probably would not be the first person to encounter such a monster. The whole region for 40 miles around would be talking about how a large dragon had been spotted in the area.

1% is high, but not for the adventurer. Simply because of a few things.
When travelling, the following applies.
1) First, there must be a chance for an encounter. Mine is about 20% (16+ on d20)
2) It must not be only an event. I give a 50% of an encounter to be "just" some noise, the traces of a battle and so on.
3) If you count all this, and if I had a table set for d%, it means that the dragon might be there is now a mere 0.1%.
4) If a dragon is indeed sighted. It might not attack, just flying by depending on the level of the group, then it is a good thing simply because the local authorities will seek to hire... adventurers!

I have made different random encounter tables for civilized roads during the day and during the night so that riding home drunk from the tavern after the sun has gone down is a somewhat riskier proposition.

That is a nice idea.

 

[Jer]

If you have 6-8 fights a day, some of them have got to be close to pointless.

I suppose attrition is a part of the game.

If you're having pointless fights just to get to the arbitrary 6-8 combats per "day" that is a suggestion in the DMG its time to rethink what you're doing. Even the advice in the book is just that 6-8 is the average number of combat encounters the party should be able to handle before they need a rest, not an expectation of the number of encounters they're going to have every single adventuring day before they rest.

(And that's before I get to my own personal objection that the writeup in the DMG is annoying. Their language around encounters feels off - like they're switching between two definitions of "encounter" - one that is "any kind of encounter" and one that is specifically a "combat encounter". 6-8 total encounters per day makes a lot more sense than 6-8 combat encounters per day, which is far more than any group I've ever played with averaged between rests. if the PCs take time in their adventuring day to talk their way out of a fight, or avoid a fight through clever skill/magic item use, or solve a riddle, or work through a trap, or ask a bunch of people questions about the mystery they're trying to solve, or any of the other things that PCs will do during an adventure, that's something the game should account for. IME the adventuring day has a lot of that kind of stuff in it and sometimes there's only room in it for 1 or 2 combats before it makes sense to have a rest.)

 

[overgeeked]

If you're having pointless fights just to get to the arbitrary 6-8 combats per "day" that is a suggestion in the DMG its time to rethink what you're doing. Even the advice in the book is just that 6-8 is the average number of combat encounters the party should be able to handle before they need a rest, not an expectation of the number of encounters they're going to have every single adventuring day before they rest.

Right. But...the game is balanced around that idea. The PCs have a certain amount of resources and they should be spread across that much combat in between long rests. If you put fewer fights in front of them, their resources have dramatically more impact if you keep the encounters "average" or "hard," so if you have fewer fights but want them to be meaningful, i.e. not pointless, then you also need to ramp up the difficulty of those fewer fights. Because if you don't, the PCs will steamroll those fights.

(And that's before I get to my own personal objection that the writeup in the DMG is annoying. Their language around encounters feels off - like they're switching between two definitions of "encounter" - one that is "any kind of encounter" and one that is specifically a "combat encounter". 6-8 total encounters per day makes a lot more sense than 6-8 combat encounters per day, which is far more than any group I've ever played with averaged between rests. if the PCs take time in their adventuring day to talk their way out of a fight, or avoid a fight through clever skill/magic item use, or solve a riddle, or work through a trap, or ask a bunch of people questions about the mystery they're trying to solve, or any of the other things that PCs will do during an adventure, that's something the game should account for. IME the adventuring day has a lot of that kind of stuff in it and sometimes there's only room in it for 1 or 2 combats before it makes sense to have a rest.)

That mostly stems from the designers falsely insisting that D&D is not a combat-focused game, but it is. They try to give a nod and a wink to the idea that there are other types of meaningful encounters, but when designing the game and the modules that go with it, it's almost all combat all the time. Which is why they made such a big deal about being able to gasp complete Witchlight without resorting to combat. Such innovation. Much new. Well, for D&D it is innovative and new.

 

[ART!]

I will add seemingly trivial combats that serve no greater purpose when I feel like it will spice things up, but in that case it's not pointless, so I voted "true". And honestly they might seem like they serve no greater purpose than entertainment, but they usually result in more than just s little fun, i.e. little plot threads and character development. So, again - not trivial.

 

[Jer]

Right. But...the game is balanced around that idea. The PCs have a certain amount of resources and they should be spread across that much combat in between long rests. If you put fewer fights in front of them, their resources have dramatically more impact if you keep the encounters "average" or "hard," so if you have fewer fights but want them to be meaningful, i.e. not pointless, then you also need to ramp up the difficulty of those fewer fights. Because if you don't, the PCs will steamroll those fights.

I get the feeling that your players might be a bit more optimized than mine are. I mean, I do double up on the XP budget for encounters because Medium encounters are super boring even with my players who do not play tactically at all. But I've never seen my players just steamroll an encounter even when they only end up having one encounter in an adventuring day. They usually don't know that it's going to be the the only encounter unless I tell them up front "this one is the last encounter of the day so feel free to go nova on it".

That mostly stems from the designers falsely insisting that D&D is not a combat-focused game, but it is. They try to give a nod and a wink to the idea that there are other types of meaningful encounters, but when designing the game and the modules that go with it, it's almost all combat all the time. Which is why they made such a big deal about being able to gasp complete Witchlight without resorting to combat. Such innovation. Much new. Well, for D&D it is innovative and new.

My apparently controversial opinion is that 5e is the best edition of the game so far for running non-combat encounters. My players are far more likely to go for the non-combat solution in 5e than in any previous edition of the game, and the game has given me enough tools to do the "semi-structured improv" thing that I'm used to doing in other game systems. 3e was too fiddly and 4e was great for fights (best edition for combat ever, IMO), but 5e is the one that really gets out of the way and lets the semi-structured back-and-forth improv work like it does in other games.

 

[Celebrim]

And is an optional combat pointless?

You'll have to understand, that just as I don't full agree with some others in the thread here, I don't fully agree with you either. I'm not really on anyone's side. In this case, I was pointing out that an optional combat isn't pointless. It's a decision point with consequences that could be meaningful to the story. Whatever the PC's decide to do, whether laugh at the bandits as they run away or chase them down and mercilessly slaughter them, that's story. So on this I think we pretty much agree, and you being argumentative about things we agree on is weird

On the other hand, while I generally agree that there are not pointless combats, there can be pointless encounters. While in theory I like the idea of color encounters where nothing happens, in practice over the long haul non-encounters become pointless very quickly.

...It must not be only an event. I give a 50% of an encounter to be "just" some noise, the traces of a battle and so on....If a dragon is indeed sighted. It might not attack, just flying by..

I'm sympathetic. Being the full simulation GM that I am there is a part of me that wants to have "Flock of seagulls" as an encounter or similar stuff that you would actually encounter if you were in particular wilderness environments. And yes, in theory even these non-encounters with flocks of seagulls or herds of plant eaters placidly grazing in the distance has potential story, but you have to be careful that you aren't wasting too much time on non-events. Even the good reasons of establishing setting, exposing potential resources to hunt or befriend, or setting up encounters where the PCs can be the active party ultimately isn't necessarily good enough justification when 95% of the time the encounters are going to become redundant and the players are just going to say, "We leave them alone." in order to avoid creating trouble unrelated to their goals. So I would tend to minimize the amount of non-encounter encounters that I was bothering the PC's with, especially after the first day of travel I'd probably just say something like, "You continue to see lots of wildlife similar to what you saw the prior day".

 

[overgeeked]

I get the feeling that your players might be a bit more optimized than mine are. I mean, I do double up on the XP budget for encounters because Medium encounters are super boring even with my players who do not play tactically at all. But I've never seen my players just steamroll an encounter even when they only end up having one encounter in an adventuring day. They usually don't know that it's going to be the the only encounter unless I tell them up front "this one is the last encounter of the day so feel free to go nova on it".

Maybe, but I doubt it. I don't allow charop builds and make the players roll their character's stats specifically to avoid charop. I also don't allow multiclassing. It's an optional rule after all, lol. But a lot of my players seem to come from wargame and video game backgrounds, so playing more tactically is generally how they go. My baseline for a good encounter is deadly. And if allowed to nova, they will, and will steamroll. Apparently I have a uniquely bad experience with 5E. My players will abuse anything they can to avoid risks, so they (until I banned it) would use Leomund's Tiny Hut to get a long rest, face one combat, then turtle up again. Lather rinse repeat...until I banned it. They ignored anything like timers and didn't care about consequences related to just sitting around doing nothing.

My apparently controversial opinion is that 5e is the best edition of the game so far for running non-combat encounters. My players are far more likely to go for the non-combat solution in 5e than in any previous edition of the game, and the game has given me enough tools to do the "semi-structured improv" thing that I'm used to doing in other game systems. 3e was too fiddly and 4e was great for fights (best edition for combat ever, IMO), but 5e is the one that really gets out of the way and lets the semi-structured back-and-forth improv work like it does in other games.

It's better than some, not as good as others. To me. I think 4E with its skill challenges did a great job for non-combat encounters, though I grew to really dislike the specific implementation of skill challenges in 4E. But that's mechanically handled non-combat encounters. The older TSR editions of the game handled them perfectly. The mechanics didn't cover them, so the referee had to. The players had to think their way through problems instead of relying on a button on their character sheet to smash until whatever obstacle the referee put in front of them went away.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Being the full simulation GM that I am there is a part of me that wants to have "Flock of seagulls" as an encounter

Do it. Your PCs would run all night and day.

 

[Lanefan]

Being the full simulation GM that I am there is a part of me that wants to have "Flock of seagulls" as an encounter

I ran a "flock of seaghouls" against a party once - does that count?

 

[Helldritch]

You'll have to understand, that just as I don't full agree with some others in the thread here, I don't fully agree with you either. I'm not really on anyone's side. In this case, I was pointing out that an optional combat isn't pointless. It's a decision point with consequences that could be meaningful to the story. Whatever the PC's decide to do, whether laugh at the bandits as they run away or chase them down and mercilessly slaughter them, that's story. So on this I think we pretty much agree, and you being argumentative about things we agree on is weird

On the other hand, while I generally agree that there are not pointless combats, there can be pointless encounters. While in theory I like the idea of color encounters where nothing happens, in practice over the long haul non-encounters become pointless very quickly.



I'm sympathetic. Being the full simulation GM that I am there is a part of me that wants to have "Flock of seagulls" as an encounter or similar stuff that you would actually encounter if you were in particular wilderness environments. And yes, in theory even these non-encounters with flocks of seagulls or herds of plant eaters placidly grazing in the distance has potential story, but you have to be careful that you aren't wasting too much time on non-events. Even the good reasons of establishing setting, exposing potential resources to hunt or befriend, or setting up encounters where the PCs can be the active party ultimately isn't necessarily good enough justification when 95% of the time the encounters are going to become redundant and the players are just going to say, "We leave them alone." in order to avoid creating trouble unrelated to their goals. So I would tend to minimize the amount of non-encounter encounters that I was bothering the PC's with, especially after the first day of travel I'd probably just say something like, "You continue to see lots of wildlife similar to what you saw the prior day".

Yep, as the saying goes: "Too much of something makes it boring." The "Art" of DMing is exactly to know when not to go overboard with these types of encounters. It can make the world much more alive to have scenery, too much of it can become booooooooring. The goal is to have enough to spur the imagination and to have some scenery encounters that might spark the adventure in unexpected way. Having the player encountering a burned house might spring them into investigating what happened.

What I often do is to roll in advance the encounters for the trek and to link them somehow into a nice little "side track adventure". So far, my players really love the way I do it.

One thing to note: There is a big difference between a wilderness encounter table and an adventure related random encounter table. While one is there to make the world much more alive, the second is there only to reinforce the sense of danger and unexpectedness of the adventure.

 

[Helldritch]

I ran a "flock of seaghouls" against a party once - does that count?

Lacedons man, lacedons...
Did your players started to sing

 

[Celebrim]

What I often do is to roll in advance the encounters for the trek and to link them somehow into a nice little "side track adventure". So far, my players really love the way I do it.

Now we are getting closer and closer to the same page. Yes, I often build encounters based on random encounter tables.

You know what my favorite entry in a random encounter table has become?

Roll Again Twice.

As inspiring to the imagination rolling up a random monster can be, I find that it's a blast to roll up two random monsters and then figure out what their relationship is to each other. Did the party come into an ongoing conflict between two groups, say a predator/prey type relationship? Is one monster the mininss of the other? Is one monster riding the other one like a steed? Is it a mixed herd of animals? Etc. There is an enormous amount of 'living world' that having the option 'Roll Again Twice' on the table opens up. I used to have it show up just like 1% of the time. But the more I play, the more it's becoming like 10% or 20% chance on the tables I make.

 

[payn]

Now we are getting closer and closer to the same page. Yes, I often build encounters based on random encounter tables.

You know what my favorite entry in a random encounter table has become?

Roll Again Twice.

As inspiring to the imagination rolling up a random monster can be, I find that it's a blast to roll up two random monsters and then figure out what their relationship is to each other. Did the party come into an ongoing conflict between two groups, say a predator/prey type relationship? Is one monster the mininss of the other? Is one monster riding the other one like a steed? Is it a mixed herd of animals? Etc. There is an enormous amount of 'living world' that having the option 'Roll Again Twice' on the table opens up. I used to have it show up just like 1% of the time. But the more I play, the more it's becoming like 10% or 20% chance on the tables I make.

What happens if you get roll again twice again?