I knew the 2024 reviews for Dungeons and Dragons would bring changes to the game, but I’m sad on behalf of everyone D&D fans that the recommendation of multiple combat encounters per adventure day appears to be disappearing of the recommendations of the new Dungeon Master’s Guide. The current Damagereleased in 2014, it clearly recommends a day of adventure with six or more battles. I’ve confirmed from my DM experience that this is the only working way to run 5e. The problem wasn’t the multiple combat encounters per day, but the lack of guidance from the DM on how to achieve this.
2024 DnD Damage dismissed the adventure day as a concept based on truly crazy logic, essentially concluding that because most groups weren’t keeping up with the six to eight battles a day, 2014 Damage recommended, the idea should simply be discarded. This does not place blame where it is due, as the previous Damage recommended several encounters per adventure day, but didn’t offer new DMs any guidance on how to make it easier for this to actually happen in their Stories. THE Damage did not illustrate how narratives with time-sensitive urgency and stakes make days of adventure with multiple battles flow smoothly through the narrative.
Not all D&D classes are created equal
Some classes have daily resources, others have short breaks
Mechanics such as short rests are explained in D&DIt’s 2024 PHBand they remain central to game balancealong with long rests. By its design, 5e D&D has a strange approach to class balancing and rest rules. The 3rd edition rules had no short rest paradigm, so most abilities were always available or had multiple daily uses. Fourth edition used a unified energy system across all classes, meaning each class benefited from both short and long rests. The current rules take a bizarre approach by having some classes rely almost entirely on short rests.
One of the biggest differences when playing a D&D warlock instead of wizard is having spells that refresh based on short rests instead of long rests. There is some tradeoff between these classes, just as there is between a fighter who refreshes Action Surge and Second Wind on a short rest, and a barbarian with a daily pool of Rage uses. When viewed based on your performance in a single encounter, 5e classes are not remotely balanced. Game balance only emerges if a day of adventure includes many encounters that challenge the group through attrition, rather than a single brutal fight.
Stories with a sense of real risk and urgency are simply more fun and engaging for players, compared to an aimless, low-stakes sandbox approach.
My experience as a master of several editions has taught me that D&D always works best as an attrition-based challenge gamedemanding the judicious use of resources rather than ideal tactics and performance in a desperate battle a day. This is especially true with 5e, with its uniquely asymmetrical class design. Even in the Tier 3 and Tier 4 games I prefer to play, less dramatically powerful classes like Warlock and Monk can still contribute, and a lot of that comes down to their ability to upgrade their primary set of powers more frequently throughout the day, unlike a wizard or cleric spells.
Multiple D&D encounters make adventuring days dramatic
There is no room for interpretation with a single meeting format
I gave latest D&D Tips from DMs on how to create urgency in your stories, which serves a dual purpose. Stories with a sense of real risk and urgency are simply more fun and engaging for players, compared to an aimless, low-stakes sandbox approach. This style brings real weight to the drama of a campaign story, and a sense of consequences that are not present if the campaign allows the party to retire for a Long Rest after a single encounter. Quite conveniently, the same story-based challenges that greatly heighten the drama are also what justify a day of adventure of six to eight battles.
Frankly, as a DM, I’ve found that the unique “ultra challenging battle per day” format kills the drama and RPG, and D&D It’s a role-playing game, not a tactical miniatures game. If the party instigates a grueling battle, or has pressure on them, they will have a primary objective of survival. There are tactical decisions that can lead to this, but this is not “roleplaying” as most define it. Once the battle is won, without risk, the group can – and probably should – take a Long Rest. No drama, no roleplaying, just a battle they could survive by a hair’s breadth.
Dungeons and Dragons needs a day of adventure, and behaving otherwise reflects incredibly poor judgment.
Some D&D DMs trick players into roleplaying, or else they realize their role. I see it more as creating a space to roleplay and trusting my players to engage with it. Space is important, however, and conveniently exists within the 2014 “adventure day” style. Players set specific goals that are important to their characters and have time limits, whether it’s a selfish goal like claiming treasure from a dungeon before your rivals, or altruistic, like saving a village. That makes it so players decide what is important to them and what to risk dying for.
Stories with time limits and urgency make marathon battles organic
This “room for drama” emerges organically on the day of friction-based adventure. Players may find their characters quite worn out from the first encounters of the day, having exhausted more daily resources than they expected. Now, in character, they have a decision to make. They know that their goals will be completely lost if they back down now – the treasure will not be theirs, the village will be destroyed – whatever that goal is, it will be failed. Or they can continue, knowingly risking their lives for their convictions or for their greed. It’s a decision, as opposed to fighting tactically to survive.
Even the most well-intentioned efforts to move from a friction model to one with one or two highly challenging battles will fail with 5e D&D. Much of the game’s balance depends on recovering throughout the adventuring day through short rests, and a battle that truly strains a party’s daily resources in combat will likely shorten the campaign with an anticlimactic Total Party Kill based on luck of the dice. .
Despite efforts to remove bad advice from DnD’s 2024 DMG, implicitly exists in the notion that a day of adventure with multiple encounters doesn’t matter for game balance. It’s absolutely true. There is no parity between classes without challenge through attrition. Many more poor TPKs emerge from a lone battle approach than from a coherent attrition-based model. It’s also the death of drama for a game, by shifting the conflict to survival mode followed by a Long Rest, removing those gaps for dramatic in-character decision-making. Dungeons and Dragons needs a day of adventure, and behaving otherwise reflects incredibly poor judgment.
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