A problem I have in games, and from what I've seen other people have, is that my natural adventure flow, particularly outside of an actual dungeon, is quite unlikely to result in 6-8 encounters per day; it's more likely to result in 0-2. This messes with expected difficulty by quite a bit (you need something like 50% of the daily budget to actually seriously endanger the PCs) and makes long rest classes (spellcasters mostly, though barbarians also count) disproportionately powerful. Within RAW, the only particular option is the variant resting rules in the DMG. House rules I've looked at involve reducing daily uses (doesn't work well if an ability only has 1 use), and non-time-based resting (resting requires achieving an objective or spending a resource; risks game stalls, and breaks spells that are designed to be cast daily like Mage Armor or Animate Dead).

I haven't come up with an adjustment I really like, and I'm curious how, or if, other DMs have solved with this. 

I think part of the problems is that "encounters" is not necessarily agreed on.  Some folks seem to feel that an encounter is combat.  WotC views an encounter as anything that can bleed party resources such as skill challenges and social encounters.  It's not supposed to be 6-8 bands of orcs or bandits, but that's how some folks take it.

One of the reasons most people think of "encounters" as "combat" is that the vast majority of other types of encounters, although they may drain some resources, will not drain as many as a single combat encounter will. Only a super complex trap would drain as many spell slots and daily uses of things as a hard or even medium difficulty battle would.

And as for skill challenges... the types of complex skill challenges from 4th edition don't exist in 5e, unless you homebrew it (yes, I know that there are some articles here about how to do that, but "skill challenges" per se, are not officially part of the 5e ecosystem). So in terms of RAW and even RAI, "skill challenges" are not a standard way to drain resources.

As for social encounters, they might drain resources, but like traps, it depends on how complex and long-lasting they are. I think it's also just as unusual to go through 6-8 complex and difficult social encounters in a day as it is to do 6-8 battles.

I think it's pretty clear from everything I have seen here on the boards + streams like CR and Chain of Acheron and others, as well as my own direct experience, that the assumption of 6-8 encounters per day is a flawed one, and that the people who made that assumption need to re-calibrate, as it does not reflect the way most typical tables go about playing D&D.

Social challenges frequently don't drain resources because many characters lack any resources that can be drained by social challenges. It's not like a fighter is going to spend hit dice, or a barbarian spend rages, and casters might or might not know any relevant spells. Similar issues exist for other types of non-combat challenges (though now I think about it, giving martial classes resources that they can spend on non-combat challenges has some appeal).

Agreed.

When D&D first came out, it was basically a single-character combat simulator (derived from a military unit combat simulator, Chain Mail). As such, the original focus was almost entirely on combat and dungeoneering. And combat. Nearly all the abilities of characters could be used almost exclusively in a combat or dungeoneering (or combat) context.

In later editions, the players' desire to do something other than combat in D&D has led to the rules talking about non-combat challenges a little more, and claiming (contrary to how original D&D was, in which you only got experience for kills and taking of treasure) that any encounter of any sort, not only combat, can give XP. However, it remains the case that combat is really the only aspect of the game that has ever been fully spec'ed out, as it were. If you count the # of pages devoted to explaining how combat works, or describing spells that are either exclusively or primarily of combat use (like Fireball, Burning Hands, etc.), and stacked them next to the # of pages devoted to explaining how to run traps, it's probably 10 to 1 at least. It's gotta be 20 to 1 if you compare the pages devoted to combat with those devoted to social stuff.

As Matt Colville pointed out, of the "big 3" source books, an entire book, 1/3 of the total, is devoted to providing you with the stats of monsters whose primary function is to be fought in combat (after all, if it weren't, why give them all those combat abilities?). And as Colville points out, that book is the largest of the three. Is there a "Manual of Traps and Puzzles?" No. (You can get some books about this on the DM Guild, but there is no official book about it.) Is there a "Drizzt's Guide to Social Etiquette?" No. 

The DMG on pg. 81 has a section called "Creating Encounters." And although they like to pay lip service to "an encounter doesn't have to be combat", the fact remains that starting on that page, and going to the end of the chapter, the only type of encounter they provide you with any guidance on how to build is the combat encounter (they call the section "Creating a Combat Encounter", bottom of pg. 81). This section goes on for 4 or 5 pages, describing in detail how to set the difficult, and so on. After it's done, the chapter ends. There is no corresponding "Creating a Non-Combat Encounter" section.

So, it's really easy to say "there are many types of encounters, and combat is only one type." But the reality is that since its inception, the only type of encounter the D&D game writers have ever bothered to tell DMs how to actually build, run, and referee in any real detail, is the combat encounter. They give you a little bit on traps (but compared to monsters and their variety, it's less than a pittance), and that's it. Puzzles? Zip. Social encounters? Nada. Mysteries? Nothing. There is zero guidance on how to do these things, what is appropriate as a challenge for a party of a certain level, and so on.

That doesn't mean other guides (on DM guild or elsewhere) don't exist, and it doesn't mean that DMs, including me, can't build such things. 

But... given that first TSR, and now to this day WOTC, devote probably 90% or more of the text volume of the Big Three Books (and also XGE) to combat and combat-related elements, it is not surprising that when people see "6 encounters a day" they think either "6 battles" or "5 battles and a trap." Given what is found in the text, you can't blame anyone for thinking that.

Quote from BioWizard >>

Agreed.

When D&D first came out, it was basically a single-character combat simulator (derived from a military unit combat simulator, Chain Mail). As such, the original focus was almost entirely on combat and dungeoneering. And combat. Nearly all the abilities of characters could be used almost exclusively in a combat or dungeoneering (or combat) context.

In later editions, the players' desire to do something other than combat in D&D has led to the rules talking about non-combat challenges a little more, and claiming (contrary to how original D&D was, in which you only got experience for kills and taking of treasure) that any encounter of any sort, not only combat, can give XP. However, it remains the case that combat is really the only aspect of the game that has ever been fully spec'ed out, as it were. If you count the # of pages devoted to explaining how combat works, or describing spells that are either exclusively or primarily of combat use (like Fireball, Burning Hands, etc.), and stacked them next to the # of pages devoted to explaining how to run traps, it's probably 10 to 1 at least. It's gotta be 20 to 1 if you compare the pages devoted to combat with those devoted to social stuff.

As Matt Colville pointed out, of the "big 3" source books, an entire book, 1/3 of the total, is devoted to providing you with the stats of monsters whose primary function is to be fought in combat (after all, if it weren't, why give them all those combat abilities?). And as Colville points out, that book is the largest of the three. Is there a "Manual of Traps and Puzzles?" No. (You can get some books about this on the DM Guild, but there is no official book about it.) Is there a "Drizzt's Guide to Social Etiquette?" No. 

The DMG on pg. 81 has a section called "Creating Encounters." And although they like to pay lip service to "an encounter doesn't have to be combat", the fact remains that starting on that page, and going to the end of the chapter, the only type of encounter they provide you with any guidance on how to build is the combat encounter (they call the section "Creating a Combat Encounter", bottom of pg. 81). This section goes on for 4 or 5 pages, describing in detail how to set the difficult, and so on. After it's done, the chapter ends. There is no corresponding "Creating a Non-Combat Encounter" section.

So, it's really easy to say "there are many types of encounters, and combat is only one type." But the reality is that since its inception, the only type of encounter the D&D game writers have ever bothered to tell DMs how to actually build, run, and referee in any real detail, is the combat encounter. They give you a little bit on traps (but compared to monsters and their variety, it's less than a pittance), and that's it. Puzzles? Zip. Social encounters? Nada. Mysteries? Nothing. There is zero guidance on how to do these things, what is appropriate as a challenge for a party of a certain level, and so on.

That doesn't mean other guides (on DM guild or elsewhere) don't exist, and it doesn't mean that DMs, including me, can't build such things. 

But... given that first TSR, and now to this day WOTC, devote probably 90% or more of the text volume of the Big Three Books (and also XGE) to combat and combat-related elements, it is not surprising that when people see "6 encounters a day" they think either "6 battles" or "5 battles and a trap." Given what is found in the text, you can't blame anyone for thinking that.

 

 I'm an old 2e player.  I freely admit, I'm just here for the combat and loot.  I don't mind a little RP here and there, but puzzles bore me to tears.  Just get me to the good stuff.

I think the main solution here is to try and go multiple sessions without a long rest. If you time things right, the "adventuring day" can outlast your sessions so it's easier to meet the 6 to 8 encounters if you're still only doing 2-3 per session. Of course, that's easier to do in more dungeon crawly type scenarios, so maybe in situations where that's just not feasible, plan more difficult single encounters. 

I agree with what everyone was saying as far as diagnosing the problem.

As far as a solution, you can try to really, seriously amp up the difficulty. If you throw two deadly encounters at the characters, they'll usually win the first one pretty easily, but the second one will get tough. Or you can kind of squeeze multiple encounters together. Like just after they beat that group of goblins, the reinforcements arrive. They won't even have time for a short rest, let alone a long rest and it might seem like one fight but is really two. Mess with the terrain in a way that restricts mobility, so the casters have to spend time using utility spells instead of attacking. Then the fights take longer.

I guess in short, I look at it as assuming there will be fewer fights than game balance anticipates, you can try finding ways to drain more resources per fight. It's not a great solution, but short of reworking the rule set, I'm not sure what else there could be.

I don't think there is anything that can be done about this now but... I hope when they start thinking about 6th edition, the designers throw out the assumption of 6-8 encounters per day. They need to balance the game based on how people actually play it, not based on some imaginary and arbitrary number of encounters.

Quote from BioWizard >>

I don't think there is anything that can be done about this now but... I hope when they start thinking about 6th edition, the designers throw out the assumption of 6-8 encounters per day. They need to balance the game based on how people actually play it, not based on some imaginary and arbitrary number of encounters.

Well, based on prior evidence they're unlikely to fix it, as they had exactly the same assumptions in 3e, 3.5e, and 4e, and in none of those editions did people play it that way.

General solutions probably have to involve a substantial rethink about how spells are expected to work, so that 'spells per day' isn't really the balancing factor on them in the first place.

Well, a simple kludge if they're not going to rebalance major parts of the game (and I can see why they wouldn't want to) would be to just create a set of tables to convert the difficulty by encounter rate. So for example, what you would call a "Medium" difficulty encounter at 6-8 encounters per day ("epd") would be an "easy" encounter at 3-5 epd and a "trivial" encounter at 1-2 epd. Then DMs could just use the table that applies to their campaign to judge difficulty.

Quote from BioWizard >>

Well, a simple kludge if they're not going to rebalance major parts of the game (and I can see why they wouldn't want to) would be to just create a set of tables to convert the difficulty by encounter rate. So for example, what you would call a "Medium" difficulty encounter at 6-8 encounters per day ("epd") would be an "easy" encounter at 3-5 epd and a "trivial" encounter at 1-2 epd. Then DMs could just use the table that applies to their campaign to judge difficulty.

 That has the problem of relative class balance; it means casters are disproportionately powerful. You can't fix that without either making spells weaker relative to martial abilities, or making it so you're rate-limited on casting spells.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

I think part of the problems is that "encounters" is not necessarily agreed on.  Some folks seem to feel that an encounter is combat.  WotC views an encounter as anything that can bleed party resources such as skill challenges and social encounters.  It's not supposed to be 6-8 bands of orcs or bandits, but that's how some folks take it.

 agreed. a wizard that had to use spellslots to cast Charm, Geas and other spells to make social encounters go smoother will have used up resources that can not be used in combat. Going into the wilds to explore and travel will lead to plenty of situations where wizards have to cast Feather Fall or Fly when the rogues climbing kit falters. However a lot of people skip these elements of play and then complain needlessly.

Problem is not really the system. Problem is that most DM's are to fixated on combat or don't utilize the cornerstones of play that make up what DND is about. Those DM's need to look at the resources PC's have and how those can be used in other situations besides combat. While also starting to use traveling etc. properly instead of just skipping over it.

Problem is that most DM's are to fixated on combat 

I see this claim quite often. And although it is a factually true statement, as I explained above, I don't think you can really blame them, given that, by sheer page count, the game of D&D is also fixated on combat. As I discussed above, combat encounters are the only sorts of encounters at are fully spec'ed out for the DM, and have step-by-step, complete instructions on their construction, placement inside a dungeon, management, and how they are run. Traps are a distant (very distant) second. And there is quite literally no usable advice anywhere in the manuals on how to construct a meaningful -- and to the point of this thread, resource-draining - social or puzzle encounter. The social encounter section is mostly about how to do charisma checks, but charisma checks are not a limited resource. The PCs can't only make so many charisma checks per long rest. And even if they could, these resources would not be used in combat anyway, so draining them would not affect the fight later on with the owlbear.

The reality is that most of the time (not all, but most) non-combat encounters drain different sorts of resources from combat ones, with the primary resource that can be used in either being spell slots. The monk's or fighter's limited-use combat abilities will not be used socially, for example, nor the tiefling's Hellish Rebuke innate ability nor the half-orc's Relentless Endurance, nor the dragonborn's breath weapon.  Sure there are exceptions, like the eloquence bard's universal speech, which could be used both in combat and socially, but these examples are rather rare compared to the mountain of abilities that are only usable in one circumstance. So even if the DMG weren't so unhelpful about how to build and run non-combat encounters, it's unclear to me that having lots of them would drain sufficient resources from a party to make a single "hard" combat encounter that day actually be hard. Again, the only way it would is if there are lots of spellcasters who have drained their slots in social encounters. Possible, but hard to pull off consistently.

So although the statement is accurate, I think it unfairly implies that the blame rests with the DM, who is somehow being "too limited" in encounter design, when the vast majority of the book is written assuming that most of the resource-draining encounters will, in fact, be about combat.

Social encounters can drain a Bard’s Bardic Inspiration. Using spells for social encounters can drain a Sorcerer’s Sorcery Points when used for Subtle Spell. Social encounters can occasionally drain a Paladin’s Lay on Hands. Not to mention, players will burn Inspiration points or Lucky feat rerolls for social encounters if you let them. Let them. 

But the biggest (non spell slot) drain that social encounters can have is on money. Gotta bribe that townsguard to let the party into town without a weapons check? 50gp please. Gotta bribe the barkeep for information? Another 50gp. Need to procure an Adventuring License from the Magistrate? That’ll be 50gp... Each. For a party of 5, that’s 250gp. Now the party is down 350gp in three encounters. That’s 7 Healing Potions the party can’t buy now. 

Decided not to bribe that guard? The party is now down to daggers, one-handed swords, and quarterstaffs while in town. So when the Giant Rats swarm out of the sewers to attack the town the party doesn’t have their good weapons, the fight is harder, and the healing potions flow. Didn’t spring for that Adventurers License? When the Magistrate shows up after the rat fight “That’ll be a 75gp/person fine for Adventuring within town limits without a license.” 

The biggest problem is that dungeon exploration and overland travel have vastly different encounter rates and different restrictions on when you can rest.  My preferred solution is to simply not try to kill people in overland travel.  They might have encounters if having encounters accomplishes something, but the goal isn't to deplete their resources.  Unless travel is practically nonexistent in the world, it doesn't make sense to have the rest of the world be as dangerous as dungeons are.

What I realized lately is that the bought adventures very often follow the same path: informatin gathering --> getting there with maybe some easy encounters but with ample room for short and long rests and then a dungeon at the end.

Only at the end of a chapter/arc do we actually see the 6-8 resource draining encounters. It was the first time our Barb ran out of rages and couldn't do so in the final fight.

As a DM I put in in intersting encounters on the way but not that many as combat envounters take quite a chunk out of the game and as several people before have said. Social encounters or wilderness exploration often target skills or different resources.

I think there are not that many ways to change that. Some ideas:

1. make fewer but harder encounters

2. have a dungeon that goes through easy to medium to hard etc. (classic)

3. make the boss fight rerally hard so that even with full resources it will be a close fight. (Mercer does that quite often)

Of course you could always change the winning conditions from kill that evil thing at the end to a social encounter/ stopp something/ protect something get out alife witha thing against all odds...

Send in reinforcements after a certain time to build up time pressure. The first 10 Goblins were easy but you can hear the next wave approaching already. Do you wait until you are finally overrun by the little buggers or do you change tactics?

Just some ideas but some cool examples in the official books for these alternative enconters would help for sure.

*typos*

make the boss fight really hard so that even with full resources it will be a close fight. (Mercer does that quite often)

This works... if they have most or all their resources. If they have gotten used to not even having to worry about resting, and then you pull this on them when they are low on resources, it could end up wiping the party.

I recall one episode in Season 2 of CR in which they had 4 fights in a row with some demons. They fought a couple, chased them to the top of a well, fought them a bit again, chased them to the bottom of the well, fought some mephits, then fought the other demons and their boss. By the last fight they had drained most of their resources and a couple of them actually went down and had to make death saving throws (a rare occurrence in CR).

It was a good fight but, by about the middle of the 4th fight (the boss fight) you could see that several of them were clearly frustrated. Laura was grousing, Travis was grumbling, Taleisin said several times that he "didn't have any good options left." That fight is about the closest in the first 55 or so episodes I have seen to them actually losing, other than the infamous one against the Iron Band. But in the Iron Band fight, they were fully rested and could go nova on the enemies and were just taking on more than they could chew. In this boss fight, the enemies weren't that powerful, but they had already spent their spell slots and ki points and so on in the earlier battles, so they had to fight without (most of) them. And let me tell ya, they did not like it. As I say, several of them started grumbling.

So this is the other problem... unless you make a habit of regularly draining the party of their resources, they will grow accustomed to having all their abilities in every battle, and come to depend on them. They will not have any experience with "fighting bare bones" as it were, and won't know what to do. Several of the CR folks seemed utterly at sea after they had run out of all their special abilities, probably because it had hardly ever happened before, and rarely to all of them at once. They almost lost that fight, not because it was hard, and not even because they had no resources, but because they weren't used to 'bare knuckling' it and they struggled to come up with the right tactical choices.

And they often do things for story or character reasons and stick to it even if it was a bad choice. I like that but it could clearly flip the battle.

You are right that with a real tough boss you have to be careful but you could always not use a special ability if you want spare them. The players have no clue that you didn’t use something as they often don’t know that their foe had the ability to begin with.

I also tend to have lower monster counts to reduce workload on me as a DM. What I did in one group Was that I rolled 3 Ankhegs into one Boss with phases. The party was quite surprised to see that after destroying the first Armor plating the thing started to fly and use different attacks. (It was a little bit like the queen in aliens). Great fun.

One thing you can do is use waves of enemies.

If the first wave is too hard, you just don't do the next wave or two. But if they plow through the first wave, before the last monster falls, have reinforcements arrive. Repeat as often as needed to make it a fun challenge.