Encounters for larger parties

[AuraSeer]

My group and I are finally converting to 4E. I'm the DM for a group of six players (fighter, paladin, rogue, ranger, wizard).

I plan to stick mostly to published adventures until we're all comfortable with the ruleset. My issue is that the published stuff all seems balanced for a party of four.

What are some rules of thumb for scaling up 4E encounters to accomodate more players? Should I just add more minions, or do their numbers tend to make things too difficult? What's the best way to power up a solo without having to edit its whole statblock?

(Is this all explained in the rulebooks in an obvious place I've managed to overlook?)

 

[Mengu]

Actually most published adventures are for party of 5, with tips on how to increase to 6 or decrease to 4.

Usually add an extra standard monster or 4-6 minions to bump it up for an additional PC. If you look at XP budgets in the DMG, this is pretty much spelled out.

But I find that a party of 6 has a bit more redundancy than a party of 5, and initiative can play a larger role. So I'm inclined to go slightly over the recommended XP budget for a party of 6, but not so much as to increase the encounter level. So I'll maybe bump one of the brutes or artillery up a level or two to make him a "sergeant" so to speak, or add a few more minions, or maybe add a terrain difficulty or surprise, or something to hinder the PC's a bit or give the monsters a breather. Sometimes I might flat out add more monsters which increases the difficulty, but I send them in waves, making it more manageable for the PC's.

Similarly going from 5 to 4 members reduces redundancy, and the fights can become a bit more swingy. To make it easier, having one of the monsters act a bit delayed or have a non-combat effective maneuver for them to do, can be a quick hack to give the PC's a better chance.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, the encounter difficulty tables in the DMG (and likely in the DM's Kit too) give encounter "budgets" for 4, 5 and 6 person parties.... just add monsters of XP enough to push it up from a 5 man encounter to a 6 of the same difficulty level.

Or, if you don't want to dig out your books, simply add one standard monster of equal level to the party. If there is not such monster, add 4 minions (at heroic tier) instead, or a monster of the closest level to the PCs.

As for a solo, add some other monsters (as above), some traps or level the monster up to be the XP you need. Unfortunately, levelling the monster up does mean editting its stat block. That said, editting it is pretty simple - you get pretty close to the "by the book" numbers if you simply add +30 hit points and +1 to all to hits, damages & defences for each level increased.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=1331]AuraSeer[/MENTION]
What adventure are you running? And what class is your sixth PC, a leader?

I ran a heroic tier game for a year with 6 players, from levels 1-10, with mostly adventures I made and the occasionally ransacked dungeon/online adventure. IME pump up the encounter more than the DMG would say, so you might include 6-8 minions (instead of 4), or an extra standard monster at L+2 (instead of L). Also play hardball with your encounters, feel free to put the PCs at the disadvantage - surprise, elevated artillery, swampy terrain vs. bog walkers, hostages, slamming two encounters together with no rest, etc.

As for solos, most of the ones I've seen were grindy. If it's pre-MM3 then I double static damage modifiers, reduce defenses by -2, and reduce HP of paragon/epic solos by 20-25%. Add a way for the solo to shake off conditions, lots of examples on net or MM3/MV. And give the solo fight a sense of scene changes, like the 3-part boss fight. Ex. once the giant is bloodied it smashes the room's supports which causes a chunk of ceiling to fall and shatter the ground beneath the PCs, triggering a skill challenge/hazard, then picking up with the bloodied (and more dangerous) giant in the caverns below.

 

[Mentat55]

I agree with the other posters, going from a group of 5 to one of 6 warrants more than just adding one level-appropriate monster. PCs synergize -- that's what they do. When there are 6 instead of 5, there is more than a 20% increase in "fighting power", based on my experience.

I'd probably add one standard monster and a couple of minions, or anywhere from 6 to 8 minions -- minions are easy (and fun, I think) to run.

 

[Storminator]

My party is 7 PCs, so I have to do this a lot. I find increasing a standard monster to an elite works better than adding a bunch more minions, or even adding another standard. It's not the XP, it's the cluttered battle field that sways me. There ends up being nowhere to move to when the board fills up.

PS

 

[KidSnide]

I generally run parties of 6 or 7, so I also have this problem. My usual solution is to add another copy of a monster that's already there. With more than five players, it's even more important to keep the combat round moving. That means I want to add monsters that increase threat without increasing the number of tactical decisions I need to make as a GM.

Also, I recommend lots of "round off" cheating. Letting myself be a little imprecise with math really speeds up combat.

-KS

 

[Pentius]

Well, everyone else pretty much has it covered, so I'll just add this:

Minions are good idea, assuming your wizard has picked up some AoE powers. You can use them to round out the numbers. Any character with AoEs will tend to enjoy taking a few out at once.

 

[the Jester]

DMG2 recommends turning a standard into an elite over adding another standard just because it helps keep the fight faster.

 

[jbear]

Not much to add; I would stress how important interesting terrain features are in 4e. Making these features challenging or damaging, requiring interaction to turn off or turn to pcs advantage adds a lot of dynamic movement to combats.

Secondly, you may or may not know that monsters published before the MM3 have very low damage. You'll need to get the errata from the WotC (called updates) and adjust the damage. This will be the case almost certainly depending on which published adventure you are using.