D&D Ditching Multiple Encounters Per Day Is A Terrible Idea (& I Can Prove It)

I knew the 2024 revisions to Dungeons & Dragons would bring changes to the game, but I am sad on behalf of all DnD fans that the recommendation of multiple combat encounters per adventuring day seems to be disappearing from the recommendations in the new Dungeon Master’s Guide. The current DMG, 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 2024 DnD DMG jettisoned the adventuring day as 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 2014 DMG recommended, the idea should simply be tossed out. This fails to place blame where it is due, since the prior DMG advised multiple encounters per adventuring day but offered new DMs no guidance on how to facilitate that actually happening within their stories. The DMG did 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 like Short Rests are clarified in DnD’s 2024 PHB, and they remain central to the balance of the game, along with Long Rests. By its design, 5e DnD has 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 a DnD warlock 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.

My experience as a DM through multiple editions has taught me that DnD always 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 newer DnD DMs tips on creating urgency in 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, and a 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.

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Frankly, as a DM, I have found the single “ultra challenging battle per day” format kills drama and roleplaying, and DnD is 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.

Some DnD DMs 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 so the players decide what is important to them, and what to risk dying for.

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.

Despite efforts to remove bad advice from 2024 DnD’s DMG, it exists 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 & Dragons needs the adventuring day, and behaving otherwise reflects incredibly bad judgment.

Source: Dungeons & Dragons/YouTube

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.

Original Release Date

1974-00-00

Publisher

TSR Inc. , Wizards of the Coast

Designer

E. Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson

Player Count

2-7 Players