KotS: Adaptation for three players

[szilard]

I'm going to run Keep on the Shadowfell for three players. Currently, they are thinking of playing an Eladrin Wizard, an Elf Cleric, and a Dragonborn Warlord.

Things I'm worried about:

The Warlord may get roped into the defender role and may not really be able to make full use of his ally-boosting powers.

Three PCs in an adventure built for five. I can cut out a kobold here or there, but I don't know if there's anything else I should do.

I don't want them to take extended rests significantly more often than a larger group. I was thinking of maybe giving them an extra healing surge or two. Thoughts?

I know teamwork is a big deal in 4e. How well do the rules scale with party size?

-Stuart

 

[Mengu]

You may want to NPC a sword and board fighter with that group. Then you would at least have four. The fighter could easily be worked in as either a body guard or a hireling. You could also allow one of the more experienced players NPC it.

Once you have 4, you should be able to scale the encounters down by taking away a skirmisher here, or a dragonshield there, and follow other adventure suggestions to create balanced encounters.

 

[hong]

Dump Irontooth.

 

[excepti0n]

DMG p.185, Creating New Elites
Apply the template to the PC's

 

[szilard]

Dump Irontooth.

Seriously. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but is there any way to salvage that?

-Stuart

 

[szilard]

DMG p.185, Creating New Elites
Apply the template to the PC's

I'd like to alter the rules as little as possible.

-Stuart

 

[Tony Vargas]

You could use the DMG system. Just remove monsters from each encounter until the exp total works out to what it should be for ony 3 players. I'd also seriously consider reducing the level of any tougher individual creatures where merely reducing numbers would change the character of the scenario too much.

 

[Gort]

Seriously. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but is there any way to salvage that?

-Stuart

Sure. Swap him out for a kobold dragonshield with the savage berserker template. These are the resulting stats:

Irontooth the savage kobold. Elite Brute (leader): 250 XP

Initiative: +4
Senses: Perception +2, darkvision
HP: 68 Bloodied: 38
1 Action Point
Regeneration 5
AC: 18 Fortitude: 18 Reflex: 13 Will: 13; See also trap sense
Resist: 5 fire
Speed: 5
Short Sword (standard; at will) * Weapon
+7 vs AC; 1d6 + 3 damage, and the target is marked until the end of Irontooth's next turn.
Dragonshield Tactics (immediate reaction, when an adjacent enemy shifts away or an enemy moves adjacent; at-will)
Irontooth shifts 1 square.
Mob attack
Irontooth gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls per kobold ally adjacent to the target.
Shifty (minor; at will)
Irontooth shifts 1 square.
Trap sense
Irontooth gains a +2 bonus to all defenses against traps.
Murderous Frenzy
Irontooth gains 1 action point the first time he reduces a foe to 0 hit points in an encounter.
Savage Rebuke (immediate reaction, when hit by a melee attack; at will)
Irontooth makes a basic melee attack.
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Draconic
Skills Acrobatics +5, Stealth +7, Thievery +7
Str 14 (+3) Dex 13 (+2) Wis 12 (+2)
Con 12 (+2) Int 9 (+0) Cha 10 (+1)
Equipment Scale armour, heavy shield, short sword.

Not quite as tough as Irontooth, doesn't have his massive regeneration when bloodied, or his amount of hitpoints, or his damage output, but still certainly a cut above the regular kobolds.

 

[SSquirrel]

If you keep it as 3 players run them as 4th level. We're doing it as 3 players and running at level 3 is a smidge below the 5 man xp total for a 1st level group. 4th level is just slightly above. Here is the extrapolated bit from the DMG

3 450
4 525

We're running a a Fighter, Cleric and Rogue and I think we'll be ok. My wife is gonna run Heathen next and we're making other characters at 8th level for it. Currently looking like Cleric, FighterPaladin (whichever he chooses) and I'll be playing some striker...probly Rogue or Warlock.

 

[excepti0n]

I'd like to alter the rules as little as possible.

-Stuart

I understand, I prefer to leave the adventure as close how the authors intended myself.

The trouble with just pulling creatures out until you've equalled the PC's point tally is all the encounters become the same. Where as the adventure is clearly supposed to be some easy and some brutally hard encounters. Try this method: Look at the encounter level then pull one soldier or one brute who is equal to the level. A plus or minus one to the level will work as well if none equal the encounter level. For a 4 person game your done. For a 3 person game pick out another critter near the level, this time something other than a soldier or brute.

This should leave the encounter as difficult as it was supposed to be for the intended 5 players. It won't always work out so tidy, the final KotS battle for example, but it will get you most of the way through the game. Now as for the players going through it without a defender, well that's their choice I guess and they'll have to find some way to prepare for that.