Combat encounters per adventure
I am working on a conversion of a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure module to today's 4th edition D&D. And that conversion process really makes some of the changes from previous editions to 4th edition very clear, with the key factor being the number of combat encounters in the adventure. I have one old module with 54 combat encounters, and I am trying to condense that into a 4th edition adventure with about 10 combat encounters. While keeping the same amount of story and roleplaying.
Now I'm not saying that this is all due to 4th edition. There are significant personal factors at work here too. But 4th edition isn't really suited for having small and short fights which are over after a few dice rolls in 5 minutes. That means that I usually don't do more than 2 combat encounters in one session. And as I play only every other week, an adventure with 54 combat encounters would last over a year. I find that far too much for a single adventure with a single story. With 10 combat encounters and the same amount of story as the original, I can play the adventure in 2 months. That gives everybody involved a much better chance at having an enjoyable coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end, with the end happening before you completely forgot about how the story started.
A general formula of 10 combat encounters per adventure also fits well with the xp structure of 4th edition. A combat encounter of normal difficulty gives the players 10% of the xp needed to level, so 10 fight per adventure results in one level gained per adventure. I have run bigger adventures, but then the players level up in the middle of it, which is something I always find a bit awkward; I prefer having some sort of "training" happening when players gain a level.
But more importantly I think that having too many combat encounters in an adventure is harming the story. Combat stops being meaningful if there are too many fights, it leads to a "here comes another trash mob" mentality in the players. That might be okay for a MMORPG, but not good for a pen & paper roleplaying game. Even a James Bond movie doesn't have 54 combat scenes. Shakespeare's Hamlet, while considered rather bloody, only has 8 deaths in total; I doubt that adding a dozen trash mob fights would have improved the story. I rather have fewer and more memorable combat encounters, and at least half of the adventure being taken up by role-playing and other non-combat sequences.
How many combat encounters do you usually run in a pen & paper role-playing session, and how many do you think should make up one "adventure"?
Now I'm not saying that this is all due to 4th edition. There are significant personal factors at work here too. But 4th edition isn't really suited for having small and short fights which are over after a few dice rolls in 5 minutes. That means that I usually don't do more than 2 combat encounters in one session. And as I play only every other week, an adventure with 54 combat encounters would last over a year. I find that far too much for a single adventure with a single story. With 10 combat encounters and the same amount of story as the original, I can play the adventure in 2 months. That gives everybody involved a much better chance at having an enjoyable coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end, with the end happening before you completely forgot about how the story started.
A general formula of 10 combat encounters per adventure also fits well with the xp structure of 4th edition. A combat encounter of normal difficulty gives the players 10% of the xp needed to level, so 10 fight per adventure results in one level gained per adventure. I have run bigger adventures, but then the players level up in the middle of it, which is something I always find a bit awkward; I prefer having some sort of "training" happening when players gain a level.
But more importantly I think that having too many combat encounters in an adventure is harming the story. Combat stops being meaningful if there are too many fights, it leads to a "here comes another trash mob" mentality in the players. That might be okay for a MMORPG, but not good for a pen & paper roleplaying game. Even a James Bond movie doesn't have 54 combat scenes. Shakespeare's Hamlet, while considered rather bloody, only has 8 deaths in total; I doubt that adding a dozen trash mob fights would have improved the story. I rather have fewer and more memorable combat encounters, and at least half of the adventure being taken up by role-playing and other non-combat sequences.
How many combat encounters do you usually run in a pen & paper role-playing session, and how many do you think should make up one "adventure"?
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