I don't play D&D that often, but I'm playing in the D&D5 campaign now.

The last few sessions, we've had a number of isolated fights in the wilderness - where we're traveling for severals days with nothing happening, and then get into a fight. Since it's so long between these, it means that we can use all our best spells and limited-use abilities immediately. Doing this, we were able to win all of these fights handily.

Is this a problem, do people think?

To my mind, the one issue is that we got a ton of XP compared to the difficulty. Intuitively, it feels like the XP should be proportional to how difficult things are. Under the experience system, if we have five fights within an hour - that's the same XP as if those same five fights are scattered over a month. However, it is vastly more difficult to survive the five fights in an hour.

The easy and difficult part should even out and it is not worth keeping track of. as for the isolated fights it all really depends on if you know that they will be isolated. The first time you Alpha strike and dump your stuff then have a second encounter you may grow more cautious.

Wilderness encounters do however tend to go the way you described in many games I have played in, as GM I might ramp them up a little to challenge the players but depends on my mood and pacing of the game.

Our D&D4e games experienced the same phenomenon. There were often in-game days, or even weeks between fights, because we weren't in a dungeon or some other artificially-constrained environment that forced multiple fights per day.

I actually count on this factor as more often than not a random wilderness encounter is just a speedbump on the way to the adventure now.

Some things I do.

I use BXs reaction table to spice things up. Friendly spectres, bloodthirsty gnomes, etc.

Also before the groups long or short rest finishes I roll to see if there was a followup encounter. Such as more creatures like they just encountered. Or something that was following those creatures or just investigating the noise.

That way the players know not to blow everything in the fight as there is ever that small chance they will get jumped before they recover.

Another thing I carry over from BX is non-com animal encounters. Deer, rabbits, false alarms or just sceenery reminders that the place isnt a void.

The DM could just not award experience for those kinds of random encounters.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;815461The DM could just not award experience for those kinds of random encounters.

Why? They still have to slog through them. There just isnt the potential hassle afterwards.

Youd get the same problem in the dungeon if the DM is allowing short and long rests anywhere anytime.

Quote from: jhkim;815448To my mind, the one issue is that we got a ton of XP compared to the difficulty. Intuitively, it feels like the XP should be proportional to how difficult things are. Under the experience system, if we have five fights within an hour - that's the same XP as if those same five fights are scattered over a month. However, it is vastly more difficult to survive the five fights in an hour.

I play old school D&D, so most of the XP come from treasure not kills. As monsters found wandering in the wilderness are unlikely to have much treasure, such encounters are unlikely to generate much XP and so do not cause the issue you mention. If you reduce the XP given for killing things and up the XP for other factors (it need not be treasure), you can avoid the issue.

On the other hand, if you want to maintain the modern D&D bit about most XP coming from killing things, you can just assign a XP multiplier based on the GM-decided danger level of the actual encounter. Fully rested and unlikely to have any more encounters that day might have a multiplier of 0.25 while that 5th combat encounter in an hour might have a multiplier of 1.75.

Way back when, we never recovered spells during an adventure, so there was even more resource management in the wilderness (where it was slower to get home or somewhere equivalently safe). When things shifted to recovering spells daily, I didn't care for it and tended to (small) dungeons in order to pile up several encounters in quick succession. Otherwise you need some reasonable possibility of multiple encounters in a day.

Quote from: jhkim;815448I don't play D&D that often, but I'm playing in the D&D5 campaign now.

The last few sessions, we've had a number of isolated fights in the wilderness - where we're traveling for severals days with nothing happening, and then get into a fight. Since it's so long between these, it means that we can use all our best spells and limited-use abilities immediately. Doing this, we were able to win all of these fights handily.

Is this a problem, do people think?

To my mind, the one issue is that we got a ton of XP compared to the difficulty. Intuitively, it feels like the XP should be proportional to how difficult things are. Under the experience system, if we have five fights within an hour - that's the same XP as if those same five fights are scattered over a month. However, it is vastly more difficult to survive the five fights in an hour.

I would agree, that XP should be adjusted by the GM to match the real 'challenge' to the party.

Quote from: jhkim;815448I don't play D&D that often, but I'm playing in the D&D5 campaign now.

The last few sessions, we've had a number of isolated fights in the wilderness - where we're traveling for severals days with nothing happening, and then get into a fight. Since it's so long between these, it means that we can use all our best spells and limited-use abilities immediately. Doing this, we were able to win all of these fights handily.

Is this a problem, do people think?

To my mind, the one issue is that we got a ton of XP compared to the difficulty. Intuitively, it feels like the XP should be proportional to how difficult things are. Under the experience system, if we have five fights within an hour - that's the same XP as if those same five fights are scattered over a month. However, it is vastly more difficult to survive the five fights in an hour.

I would agree, that XP should be adjusted by the GM to match the real 'challenge' to the party.

I guess this is why old-school D&D wilderness encounters are "30-300 orcs", where the dungeon might have 3-30.  One more bit of Gygaxian design elegance that got overlooked in more recent 'encounter balance' design.

Quote from: S'mon;815855I guess this is why old-school D&D wilderness encounters are "30-300 orcs", where the dungeon might have 3-30.  One more bit of Gygaxian design elegance that got overlooked in more recent 'encounter balance' design.

Yes. In addition, there were fewer healing spells and slots to cast them, and natural healing took a bit of real time. Add those factors to random encounters not generating much XP and it becomes easy to see why it is often wise to avoid such encounters if possible or parley/negotiate with intelligent creatures.

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;815450The easy and difficult part should even out and it is not worth keeping track of. as for the isolated fights it all really depends on if you know that they will be isolated. The first time you Alpha strike and dump your stuff then have a second encounter you may grow more cautious.

Wilderness encounters do however tend to go the way you described in many games I have played in, as GM I might ramp them up a little to challenge the players but depends on my mood and pacing of the game.

This is key here. I have one player who always goes for her biggest guns first, leading to another player (her boyfriend) commenting "Really? You need to use that on a wolf? When we're looking for a dragon's lair?"

My group doesn't KNOW they are maybe only getting one wilderness encounter that day (for instance), so they rarely go all in on the first random encounter (unless it is going very badly for them).

Quote from: RandallS;815495I play old school D&D, so most of the XP come from treasure not kills. As monsters found wandering in the wilderness are unlikely to have much treasure, such encounters are unlikely to generate much XP and so do not cause the issue you mention. If you reduce the XP given for killing things and up the XP for other factors (it need not be treasure), you can avoid the issue.

Does it not strike you and un-immersive to think that the Rangers might guard the backwoods of the north for a dozens of years slaying hundreds of orcs, gobins, trolls and the like and never getting past 2nd level because none of the things they killed were rich?

Won't bandits always be higher level than lawmen?
What if the players killed a bunch of creatures and skinned them and made their hides into clothes and armour? Would they get XP for the value then? Is the expereinced then gained a result of their excellent combat tactics and courage or a recult of their excellent craft skills and seemsmanship?

Would you prefer an overland trek of constant fighting?