Author Topic: Encounter: The Definition  (Read 3960 times)

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JaronK

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Encounter: The Definition
« on: May 13, 2011, 05:16:49 PM »
This question comes up a lot: what is an encounter?  It's never specifically defined, but it's talked about a lot.  This is for RAW discussion of what actually defines encounters, which is obviously incredibly important for Factotums but also comes up for other folks.  So here we go.

First, the facts.

Quote from: 3.5 FAQ
An "encounter" is more than a combat, but it also includes any other significant event in the game such as stopping to bash down a door, navigating a rickety bridge, or dealing with a trap.  If the characters have a minute or two to catch their breath and rest, assume that the last encounter has ended and all per encounter abilities refresh.

That's in the Factotum section.

Quote from: DMG 48
the game is really composed of encounters.  Each individual encounter is like its own game- with a beginning, a middle, an end, and victory conditions to determine a winner and loser.

But the DMG is mostly talking about combat encounters in that section.  It later goes on to list other possible encounter types on page 51, which include the following (though it does say there could be even more kinds):

Combat
Negotiation
Environmental
Problem-Solving
Judgment Calls
Investigation

Each of those has a little blurb about it... for example, Environmental encounters include "Weather, earthquakes, landslides, moving rivers, and fires."  I find it interesting that even a Judgement call (the DMG gives the example of "Do we help the prisoner here in the dungeon, even though it might be a trap?") counts as an encounter.

And ToB expands on the amount of rest needed to end an encounter on page 40:

Quote from: Tome of Battle 40
End of the Encounter: When an encounter ends, a martial adept automatically recovers all expended maneuvers.  Even a few moments out of combat is sufficient to refresh all maneuvers expended in the previous battle.  In the case of a long, drawn-out series of fights, or if an adept is out of combat entirely, assume that if the character makes no attacks of any kind, initiates no new maneuvers, and is not targeted by any enemy for 1 full minute, he can recover all expended maneuvers.  If a character can't avoid attacking or being attacked for 1 minute, he can't automatically recover his maneuvers and must use special actions to do so instead.

I think that's all the major actual RAW discussion of what the word "encounter" actually means, other than combat, which everybody knows.

Based on this, then, an encounter is any scene where the players are controlling the characters and have some ability to succeed or fail, and lasts until that stops.  For example, if you go into the weapons store and start using diplomacy to bargain for cheaper goods, that's an encounter, which lasts until you leave the store.  If you set up camp for the night and decide to build a basic alarm trap to protect yourselves, that's an encounter too and lasts until the trap is built.  If the player ever has to roll a die to do anything, it's an encounter.  If the player could make the wrong choice and screw something up, it's an encounter.  And the encounter ends any time the characters could just stand there for a minute if they felt like it without much consequence (so most non combat encounters can end any time the players feel like it, though time sensitive ones may not, such as dealing with a series of traps in a row while rising flood waters fill the dungeon as you try to escape).

TL:DR:  An encounter is a scene in game that begins when a player has their character do anything where they could succeed or fail, whether that means needing to win a dice roll or make a meaningful decision.  It ends when the action in question is resolved and the character could stop for a minute.

JaronK
« Last Edit: May 13, 2011, 08:23:50 PM by JaronK »

awaken DM golem

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2011, 05:23:51 PM »
Geez that's thin.

So a Skill Check is an encounter,
Weather is an encounter (and there's always "weather" going on)
and a "regular"  "encounter" is an assumed-to-be-known kind of thing.

That's like the nested Russian Dolls.



4e doesn't define this any better either.

awaken DM golem

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2011, 05:35:27 PM »
hmm ... I wonder how many feats or powers or class abilities,
are tagged to "Encounter" ??

If they could stack, then generating "encounters" over and over and over = gold !!

JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2011, 05:52:21 PM »
Geez that's thin.

So a Skill Check is an encounter,
Weather is an encounter (and there's always "weather" going on)

A skill check definitely makes an encounter.  With weather they do state that it has to in some way provide a challenge, so "the sun just came up" isn't an encounter but "the cold weather forces a Fort Save" is.

And mostly, this just comes up for Factotums... I don't know of any way to really exploit it for gold or anything.  It's not like anyone has a "once per encounter, gain some gp" abilities.  Those tend to be once per day (Wizards!).  Also, experienced gained by encounters is based on challenge level... I suppose you could gain Exp by randomly jumping off cliffs or something, but just starting really basic encounters ("hmm, I'd like to decide whether I eat a hunk of cheese from my backpack or some rations") to gain experience won't work so well, as it just wouldn't be a real challenge.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #4 on: May 13, 2011, 06:23:26 PM »
Geez that's thin.

So a Skill Check is an encounter,
Weather is an encounter (and there's always "weather" going on)

A skill check definitely makes an encounter.  With weather they do state that it has to in some way provide a challenge, so "the sun just came up" isn't an encounter but "the cold weather forces a Fort Save" is.

And mostly, this just comes up for Factotums... I don't know of any way to really exploit it for gold or anything.  It's not like anyone has a "once per encounter, gain some gp" abilities.  Those tend to be once per day (Wizards!).  Also, experienced gained by encounters is based on challenge level... I suppose you could gain Exp by randomly jumping off cliffs or something, but just starting really basic encounters ("hmm, I'd like to decide whether I eat a hunk of cheese from my backpack or some rations") to gain experience won't work so well, as it just wouldn't be a real challenge.

JaronK

There is however, the related issue of what constitutes a "challenge" - some poster a while ago had an example where there was a Balor at the end of a long hallway with an AMF, and pressing a button would cause a large object to fall and crush it to death.  Depending of the meaning of 'encounter' and 'challenge', the button-presser may have just defeated a CR 20 encounter.

JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #5 on: May 13, 2011, 06:28:19 PM »
The DMG does say that modifiers that seriously effect difficulty may change CR significantly.  Unless that button was in some way hard to find or use, that would likely be considered a very low CR encounter (appropriate to an encounter where the challenge was "press this button or get eaten").

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #6 on: May 13, 2011, 08:06:26 PM »
Martial Adepts, or anyone with the Martial Study feat, would be particularly interested in what an "encounter" might be.  Though skimming through ToB just now, the closest thing to a definition I find is on pg. 40 where they talk about the end of an encounter.
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JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2011, 08:24:14 PM »
Good catch, I added that in.  It's a nice clarification of the one minute encounter ending rule.

JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2011, 05:15:44 PM »
HAH !


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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2011, 07:42:00 PM »
Best synonym based on those definitions is "facing an obstacle".
It always seems like the barrels around here have something in them.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2011, 05:34:23 PM »
Divine Mind tries for the love of Thor, to swing his Sword in combat !!


That by itself, is "facing an obstacle".
 :D  ;)

BeholderSlayer

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2011, 05:48:22 PM »
Are we talking about a RAW encounter, or what an encounter ought to be?

The two are definitely different. One skill check should not be an encounter. One trap should not be an encounter.

They probably are encounters based on the RAW, though, even if it is vague.
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JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2011, 06:48:00 PM »
Are we talking about a RAW encounter, or what an encounter ought to be?

RAW.

Quote
The two are definitely different. One skill check should not be an encounter. One trap should not be an encounter.

They probably are encounters based on the RAW, though, even if it is vague.

Yeah, they're clearly encounters by RAW, which is what I'm aiming for... the 3.5 FAQ uses "dealing with a trap" as an encounter example.  Bashing down a door is a skill check too.

But why shouldn't they be an encounter?  What's wrong with it?  An encounter is just a thing you do it seems, and ends when you've done that thing.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2011, 05:28:50 PM »
I don't know of any way to really exploit it for gold or anything.  It's not like anyone has a "once per encounter, gain some gp" abilities.  Those tend to be once per day (Wizards!). 

Arcane Swordsage? :D
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JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2011, 08:09:42 PM »
Heh, fair enough, but those were notoriously broken anyway.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2011, 10:56:54 PM »
Outside stuff that no one allows (Arcane Swordsage) and Factotums, is there anyone else that can break this in any real way? Maneuver users can already refresh easily, as is.

For everyone else, it simply doesn't matter. In fact, until Factotums came out, I'd never even used the term "Encounter" in 3e. 4e uses it a LOT, though.
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JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2011, 12:29:09 AM »
Outside stuff that no one allows (Arcane Swordsage) and Factotums, is there anyone else that can break this in any real way? Maneuver users can already refresh easily, as is.

For everyone else, it simply doesn't matter. In fact, until Factotums came out, I'd never even used the term "Encounter" in 3e. 4e uses it a LOT, though.

Even Factotums can't really break this in any way.  Their spells are limited per day, and played right they rarely run out of IP except in combat anyway.  Even Arcane Swordsages don't care, as they can refresh quite happily in the middle of most encounters anyhow.  The only people I could see caring would be non initiator classes with maneuvers that are useful outside of combat, for example a Rogue with Shadow Hands who uses them to teleport to a new hiding location, then waits a minute bit and does it again.  For them it's useful to know that 1 minute of not doing anything refreshes their maneuver.

Mostly, I just put this together not because it breaks something, but because it's useful to know what the terminology means.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2011, 02:43:35 AM »
Barbarians who rage are normally fatigued until the end of the encounter.  That's been core since 3.0.
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JaronK

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2011, 06:21:59 AM »
True enough.  It's important for them.  Orc Warlords can do infinite 1 round rages that fatigue them to the end of the encounter too, so that would matter if they try to break down doors that way.

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Re: Encounter: The Definition
« Reply #19 on: May 26, 2011, 11:17:11 AM »
[Animate Thread]
It seems this thread is drawing some attention because of an Iron Chef Challenge over at GitP, featuring the Ghostwalker from Sword and Fist.  There's a PrC that needs to know when an encounter ends, for certain....
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