I knew the 2024 revisions toDungeons & Dragonswould bring changes to the game, butI am sad on behalf of allDnDfans that the recommendation of multiple combat encounters per adventuring day seems to be disappearingfrom the recommendations in the newDungeon Master’s Guide. The currentDMG, released in 2014, clearly recommends an adventuring day with six or more battles. I have confirmed from my DM experience, this is the only functional way to run 5e. The problem was not multiple combat encounters per day, but the lack of DM guidance on how to achieve that.
The 2024DnD DMGjettisoned the adventuring dayas a concept based on some truly bonkers logic, essentially concluding that because most groups were not following the six to eight battles per day the 2014DMGrecommended, the idea should simply be tossed out. This fails to place blame where it is due, since the priorDMGadvised multiple encounters per adventuring day butoffered new DMs no guidance on how to facilitate that actually happening within their stories. TheDMGdid not illustrate how narratives with urgency and time-sensitive stakes make adventuring days with multiple battles flow smoothly through storytelling.
Not All D&D Class Are Created Equal
Some Classes Have Daily Resources, Others Rely On Short Rests
Mechanics likeShort Rests are clarified inDnD’s 2024PHB, and theyremain central to the balance of the game, along with Long Rests. By its design, 5eDnDhas a strange approach to class balancing and rest rules. The 3e rules had no Short Rest paradigm, so most abilities were either always available or had a number of daily uses. Fourth edition used a unified Power System across all classes, meaning every class benefited from both Short Rests and Long Rests. The current rules take a bizarre approach by having some classes that rely almost entirely on Short Rests.
One of the biggest differences when playing aDnDwarlock instead of a wizard is having spells that refresh based on Short Rests instead of Long Rests. There is some trade-off between those classes, just as there is between a fighter that refreshes Action Surge and Second Wind on a Short Rest, and a barbarian with a daily pool of Rage uses. When viewed based on their performance in a single encounter,5e classes are not remotely balanced. Game balance only emerges if an adventuring day includes many encounters that challenge a party through attrition, not a single brutal fight.
Stories with a sense of real stakes and urgency are simply more enjoyable and engrossing for players, compared to an aimless, low-stakes sandbox approach.
My experience as a DM through multiple editions has taught me thatDnDalways functions best as a game of attrition-based challenge, demanding judicious resource use, not optimal tactics and performance in one desperate battle per 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 run, less dramatically powerful classes like warlock and monk can still contribute, and much of that comes down to their ability to refresh their primary pool of powers more often throughout the day, unlike a wizard or cleric’s spells.
Multiple D&D Encounters Make Adventuring Days Dramatic
There Is No Space For Roleplaying With A Single-Encounter Format
I have given newerDnDDMs tips on creating urgencyin their stories, which serves a twofold purpose. Stories with a sense of real stakes and urgency are simply more enjoyable and engrossing for players, compared to an aimless, low-stakes sandbox approach. This style brings real weight to the drama of a campaign’s story, anda 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-driven stakes that greatly enhance drama are also what justifies a six to eight battle adventuring day.
D&D Made The Martial-Caster Divide Absolutely Worse
Martial classes and full spellcaster classes were close to balanced in the 2014 Dungeons & Dragons rules. 2024’s rules make martial classes obsolete.
Frankly, as a DM, I have found the single “ultra challenging battle per day” format kills drama and roleplaying, andDnDis a roleplaying game, not a tactical miniatures game. If the party instigates a grueling battle, or has one thrust upon them, they have an overriding goal of survival. There are tactical decisions that can lead to that, but that is not “roleplaying” as most define it. Once the battle is won, without stakes, the party can – and likely should – take a Long Rest. No drama, no roleplaying, just a battle they might survive by a hair’s breadth.
Dungeons & Dragonsneeds the adventuring day, and behaving otherwise reflects incredibly bad judgment.
SomeDnDDMs trick players into roleplaying, or so they perceive their role. I see it more as creating a space to roleplay and trusting that my players will engage with that. The space is important, however, and it conveniently exists within the 2014 style “adventuring day.” Players set out with specific goals that are important to their characters and have time-bound stakes, whether it is a selfish goal, like claiming a treasure from a dungeon before their rivals, or an altruistic one, like saving a village. This makes it sothe players decide what is important to them, and what to risk dying for.
D&D Needs To Give DMs The Tools To Succeed
Stories With Time Bound Stakes And Urgency Make Marathon Battles Organic
This “space for drama” emerges organically in the attrition-based adventuring day. Players might see their characters badly worn down by the early encounters in the day, having exhausted more daily resources than they expected. Now, in character, they have a decision to make. They know their goals are absolutely lost to them if they back away now – the treasure will not be theirs, the village will be destroyed – whatever that goal was, it will be failed. Or they can press on,knowingly risking their lives for their convictions, or their greed. It is a decision, unlike tactically struggling to survive.
Even the most well-meaning efforts to shift from an attrition model to one with one or two highly challenging battles will fail with 5eDnD. Too much of the game balance relies on recovery throughout the adventuring day via Short Rests, and a battle that truly taxes a party’s daily resources in one combat is likely to cut a campaign short with an anticlimactic Total Party Kill based on the luck of the dice.
Despite efforts toremove bad advice from 2024 DnD’s DMG, itexists implicitly in the notion that a multiple encounter adventuring day does not matter to the game’s balance. It absolutely does. There is no parity between classes without challenge by attrition. Far more unsatisfying TPKs emerge from a lone battle approach than a coherent attrition-based model. It is also the death of drama for a game, by shifting conflict into a survival-mode followed by a Long Rest, removing those lacunae for dramatic, in-character decision-making.Dungeons & Dragonsneeds the adventuring day, and behaving otherwise reflects incredibly bad judgment.
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Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson. The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the ’70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.
