Encounters/day?

[Squirrelloid]

So, I've looked in what would appear to be the relevant sections of the DMG and found nothing.  Given this is a game with daily resources, how many encounters should characters be expected to overcome before needing to rest?  (or how many total levels of encounters is probably really the best metric).  Ie, if you were going to have the PCs racing a clock, how much could you expect them to get done before the clock ran out.  Do the rules provide any guidance on this whatsoever?

[heffroncm]

The DMG does not provide any firm advice on pacing, and it shouldn't.  There's no way they can predict an 'average' number of encounters.  A Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Wizard, Warlock can likely handle more encounters in a day than a Fighter, Warlord, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard.  Timing of the difficult encounters is also important: if you start with a level +3 encounter, you'll be forcing the party to expend some serious resources right at the start of the day, leaving them wary of continuing.

The best advice comes under Adventure design: Your group is unique, and it's your job as DM to learn the sort of challenges you can make to provide them a fun and interesting adventure.

[Dan2]

I kinda see it changing with levels.  Obviously, it's going to depend on a lot of things, especially how effective you are as a group.

But at level 1, everyone has one daily ability, so if they start losing, they have less ways to pull their fat out of the fire.  To be safe, they'll probably take less encounters than if they had more dailies.

However, there's also the idea that as you get more dailies, the encounters will get harder and require you to use more of them more quickly...

I would still guess that 4 would be a baseline for the number of encounters a say, going below at levels 1-4, and going above at levels 10+.

[brislove]

my basic plan is to run about 1 encounter per daily :-p. I will probably add 1-2 encounters in there but they will be "easier" encounters. 1 per daily of encounters that are actually hard .

[Squirrelloid]

The DMG does not provide any firm advice on pacing, and it shouldn't.  There's no way they can predict an 'average' number of encounters.  A Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Wizard, Warlock can likely handle more encounters in a day than a Fighter, Warlord, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard.  Timing of the difficult encounters is also important: if you start with a level +3 encounter, you'll be forcing the party to expend some serious resources right at the start of the day, leaving them wary of continuing.

The best advice comes under Adventure design: Your group is unique, and it's your job as DM to learn the sort of challenges you can make to provide them a fun and interesting adventure.

They plan on actually publishing pre-made adventures, right?  Clearly there must be some guidelines for how much endurance a party should have (as a function of level).  Saying every party is unique and we can't make general statements on how many encounters they can take is equivalent to saying its impossible to make published adventures, which is bullshit.

[heffroncm]

They plan on actually publishing pre-made adventures, right?  Clearly there must be some guidelines for how much endurance a party should have (as a function of level).  Saying every party is unique and we can't make general statements on how many encounters they can take is equivalent to saying its impossible to make published adventures, which is bullshit.
[/quote]

Wow.  I'm not sure how you could have come off as more of an offensive asshole than you just did.  Maybe you should try, I dunno, READING the published adventure available?  And seeing how there is not more than 2 encounters in the whole thing strung together in such a way that the party couldn't back out and rest up?

Prepublished doesn't mean time limit, and doesn't mean set number of encounters per day.

[munin]

my basic plan is to run about 1 encounter per daily :-p. I will probably add 1-2 encounters in there but they will be "easier" encounters. 1 per daily of encounters that are actually hard .

Not always optimal--see the rules on milestones.  There are definite rewards in the rules for going through multiple encounters in a day, especially multiple encounters without a rest.

[Runestar]

I don't have keep on the shadowfell, so the closest I can find as a yardstick is the sample mini-adventure at the back of the DMG.

If they assumed that you could defeat all the encounters, you end up getting 3325xp from all the monsters overcome, which works out to roughly 6+ fair encounters/day (assuming 500xp budget is fair for a group of 5 1st lv PCs).

[brislove]

my basic plan is to run about 1 encounter per daily :-p. I will probably add 1-2 encounters in there but they will be "easier" encounters. 1 per daily of encounters that are actually hard .

Not always optimal--see the rules on milestones.  There are definite rewards in the rules for going through multiple encounters in a day, especially multiple encounters without a rest.

usually, I'm aware of the milestone rules. You get an action point which is once per encounter anyway. I plan on each challenging encounter eating a daily power. I guess I should explain this better. I mean that challenging encounters (party level +1-3) should be eating dailies, so I'll have ~1 of those per daily the players have, otherwise they will just save them up and crush what should be a tough encounter :-/. I define these slightly differently then the DMG so here is what I think of them as.

Easy encounter: (party level -2 or lower). Doesn't count towards a milestone, the party just beats it up.
Normal encounter:(party level or -1 level). Counts towards a milestone, shouldn't require a daily power from more then 1 character, if even one most of the time, maybe an action point or 2, but not hugely resource draining.
Challenging Encounter: (Party level +1 or +2). most characters will pop a daily, and probably half of them will toss an AP.
Hard encounter: (party level +3-5) These are hard, they are major quest ending fights. I don't expect I will use +5's often, unless I have an optimized party and/or it's their ascension quest. I fully expect everyone to use an AP, and probably 1-2 dailies if they hope to survive.

The DMG refers to +2 as a hard encounter. +2 encounters can be lethal to a player who makes a poor decision, but it's unlikely that a TPK will occur. That isn't hard by my standards. Hard means that one character is likely to die, and everyone will be expending resources in a major way. if you play poorly (such as splitting damage amongst the targets) a TPK is likely. Despite all of this, I almost never use hard encounters, and I have had very few TPKs in my time DMing. I have given out some hints though "these look like challenging foes, you might not be able to hold back".

[X-Codes]

There is actually one +5 encounter in KotS, but said encounter is is split into two "waves," so there is a tangible tactical advantage for the PCs.