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?
Quote from: jibbajibba;815924Does 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?
Least in AD&D you had to actually collect the treasure to get the EXP.
Also. Alot of treasure from a relatively weak monster actually devalued the EXP gain. (PG 85 A level 10 MU vs 10 kobolds and looting 1000gp would get only 50 EXP for the treasure.)
One of the natural healing options is a full night for a short rest and a few days in comfortable lodgings for a long rest, if I remember correctly (no DMG handy).
It is attributed as a "gritty" option, but I'd rather say it is an option to support campaigns where you don't fight multiple combats in a single day, making it more an option on pacing rather than a direct playstyle option.
In campaigns where isolated fights are pretty much the norm, I'd consider this option, or some variation thereof, pretty much mandatory. It is the only way I can see that keeps 5e rescource management in effect.
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.
A concise version of what I was going to post. Basically, the game is just too easy if you play it as instructed today.
Quote from: Gold Roger;815958In campaigns where isolated fights are pretty much the norm, I'd consider this option, or some variation thereof, pretty much mandatory. It is the only way I can see that keeps 5e rescource management in effect.
I'd second this and go a step further and suggest the other "gritty" options in the DMG go hand-in-hand with making each fight a consideration (and really kill the "campaign of encounters" play-style I abhor). Permanent injury, removing inspiration, extended long rests, healer's kit dependency, spending HD to heal even on long rests... they all add up to "maybe we should work out some tactics before we run into these goblin caves," or even "maybe we should work out how to get the treasure without fighting at all..."
The hallmark of a great player is a wariness of being in a position where dice are being rolled in the first place. The dice are cruel. With a good impartial DM, they are the sole enemy.
I have always found my players to enjoy the occassional battle where they can go all out without worrying about holding anything back. Let them cream the opposition and include the XP in the total.
Wilderness travel is rarely one of those occasions. In most instances of wilderness travel, at least two encounter rolls a day. Else the party realize the structural lack of threat and will game the system.
Quote from: Old One Eye;815997I have always found my players to enjoy the occassional battle where they can go all out without worrying about holding anything back. Let them cream the opposition and include the XP in the total.
Wilderness travel is rarely one of those occasions. In most instances of wilderness travel, at least two encounter rolls a day. Else the party realize the structural lack of threat and will game the system.
I can see this for certain sections of particularly dangerous wilderness.
In the case that inspired my OP, the PCs were traveling for some weeks along established roads, and we averaged one encounter every 4 days or so.
It would pretty thoroughly break my suspension of disbelief if we more frequently encountered life-threatening situations to us (as a party of 5th level characters). As it is, it seemed like travel between cities should be nearly impossible for ordinary people, because they'd just be slaughtered.
Quote from: Old One Eye;815997I have always found my players to enjoy the occassional battle where they can go all out without worrying about holding anything back. Let them cream the opposition and include the XP in the total.
Wilderness travel is rarely one of those occasions. In most instances of wilderness travel, at least two encounter rolls a day. Else the party realize the structural lack of threat and will game the system.
I like 1 check per 4 hours, 6/day, if I'm going to roll at all. 1 in 6 or 1 in 10 is good. Not all will be hostile, and some hostiles can be avoided, but there is a chance of several hostile encounters.
If the PCs are travelling in safe areas, usually fast forward to arrival, or else scripted encounters.