Need assistance/advice on shifting challenges of pre-written module

[DrClarke]

(I'm going to post this here because I'm not getting any help on the official wizards boards and I'd really like to learn this stuff a bit better).

Okay, first off I’ll list/link the source I’m working from incase anyone is interested.

It’s the “Cross-City Race” module from Dungeon Issue #176 (sorry DDI subscribers only): Cross-City Race

So here’s my dilemma and I’m not necessarily looking for someone to do the work for me, I’m really looking to understand some of the mechanics better so I can do this myself, but I certainly wouldn’t mind some guidance/example from the source if possible.

Scenario: I’ve DM’ed a campaign for a year now and I usually mix & match pre-printed content (i.e., Modules, Dungeon Magazine, Dungeon Delve, etc.) with an injection of non-mechanic story arcs from scratch.


I want to incorporate “Cross-City Race” into the story, but the module is for five characters of level 1-3. I have six players of level 4-5. I’d like to learn how to effectively change variables in a pre-printed adventure to match levels of my desire, hence, altering this adventure to challenge my party.

As I go through the material I see three bits of mechanic that probably might need to be changed:

1. Monsters/NPCs
2. DCs
3. Skill Challenges

I understand how to “build an encounter” from page 56 of DMG, but this seems a lot different.

Question #1 – for Monsters/NPCs – can I actually just tack on a few levels and that suffices? A great example would be to load said monster/NPC in the Adventure Tool application and add a few levels to it and it automatically adjusts stats for me. Example: “Halfling Second-Storey Man” from the module (page 15). Is that mechanically acceptable for making the challenge shift to a higher level party?

Now the DCs and Skill Challenges are really confusing me. I do not quite understand how to shift them appropriately to offer a higher level party a proper challenge and remain mechanically correct. Any advice here? I can offer a couple examples for those that can see the module:

1. (Page 6) “Jumping down requires an Acrobatics check against DC15”. So is it DC 15, because it’s a moderate DC for levels 1-3 (according to page 42 of DMG)? And if so, would I be correct in shifting it to a DC 17 to maintain a moderate challenge for levels 4-6? Is that a proper assumption?

2. (Page 16) “The River: Barges Skill Challenge” – The module lists this is a Level 2 challenge. Here I’m completely lost on how to shift this to my target party. (I’m using DMG2 page 80 as my information), but it’s not “clicking” yet. Any assistance/advice here?

Sorry about the book I just wrote just trying to be thorough with my information.

Thanks if you decide to tackle this with a response!

 

[LostSoul]

Honestly, I would run it the way it is. That way you don't get on the level treadmill, working just to stay in the same place. You can show off how the PCs are better now than they were a few levels ago.

That doesn't answer your question, though. If you want to level it up, do this:

1. Change the DCs to fit the 4-6 level band. There are a number of them on page 6 - Acrobatics DC to "jump down" is 17, to climb down it's 13, moving from street to street is 17, etc. Do the same for the skill challenge encounter DCs.

2. Level up the opponents. Either bump up their levels by 3 by adding HP, Atk, and Defense bonuses or find some new NPCs in the Compendium that have the right level.

3. The prize should be 940 gp and a level 8 magic item, or something like that.

 

[Amaroq]

Good questions, Doctor.

I'm not adept at updating printed encounters, but I do do a lot of monster-mashing; most of my party are power gamers who "recognize" monsters from printed sources, so I typically change levels, adjust fluff, etc for at least one monster per encounter and sometimes all monsters.

Adjusting Monsters:

Its not quite as simple as "just change the level in the builder", because the builders don't tend to adjust all of the "side" variables appropriately. They do really well for HP, defenses, and attack bonuses.

You then need to (manually) consider:

- Resistances
- Auras
- Number of powers
- Damage of powers
- Healing

As a ridiculous example, the tool I use, if a monster has a 4d10+18 damage attack at level 23, and I downgrade it to level 1, it still does 4d10+18, which is utterly lethal to a level 1 party.

Unfortunately, I can't give you "hard and fast rules" for how to make those adjustments: its something that became easy over time, but not something I've formulated.

You can use printed monsters of the same role as a good guide, though. So, if you're looking to modify a Level 1 lurker into a Level 5 lurker, for example, I'd suggest using the Compendium to read lurkers of level 4-6, get a "feel" for their damage, resistances, etc, and then decide how many powers your L5 lurker should have, and what damage they should do to fit the "flavor text".

Adjusting Encounters:

My group tends to be 4-6 players, and I never know how many are going to show when I'm designing the encounter(s). Therefore, I tend to have to stat out my encounters for "if I have 4, if I have 5, and if I have 6 players."

Interestingly, its not a linear scaling. Assume I had four monsters that could put the fear of death into the 4-man party. The 5-man party will beat five of them. The 6-man party will cake-walk six of them. Its been .. interesting .. to observe.

So, I'll tend to bump up the lethality for the 6-man version .. for example, leveling up the monsters helps them survive longer (more HP), and I think a "block" of minions needs to increase in number as well (E.g., 100 xp = 4 minions for a 4-man party, but 8 minions for a 6-man party.)

Simply leveling up the monsters and adding one more level-appropriate opponent may not be enough for you - but to avoid a TPK I'd suggest you follow that formula for the first session as you get used to it.

Oh, also, I've found it useful, for creating tactically interesting situations, to not introduce all of the monsters in Round 1 when facing six PC's. You need to do some flanking, threaten the back line, whether its "hidden" monsters (lurkers), flying monsters who hop over the melee types, archers, etc.

Skills

Your assumption "1" is correct. Jumping down is a moderate DC for levels 1-3, so to adjust it for levels 4-6, you'd kick it up to a DC of 17.

You'll want to do that across the board where it makes sense to.

However, you also want to let the players "shine" for being higher level. So, things like, climbing a mundane wall, or jumping down from a second story .. you may want to leave them at their original level-1 DC .. simply so that your players can experience "success" for leveling up.

Of course, anything "critical" to an encounter needs to scale: a crevasse 2 feet wide that required a Jump of 15 needs to become 3 feet wide and require a Jump of 17 .. but you need to update the "flavor" text to match the increased challenge.

Skill Challenges

For my money, Skill Challenges, like monster design, are more of an art than a science.

Therefore, Step 1 is "Let go of the fear of doing it wrong."

Step 2 is to decide "What would be fun, here?"

Step 3 is to decide "What are the consequences of failure?"

Step 4 is to decide "What creative approaches might my team try?"

Step 5 is to decide "What paths / branching do I want to allow?"

The answers to those will give you wildly different skill challenges.

I've run an obstacle as a skill challenge, where there were minimal consequences for failure, it was just that it was consuming Standard Actions in the middle of a fight.

I've run a chase scene as a skill challenge where each success let you gain ground, and each failure lost ground. The PC started at a "distance" of 0. Each success netted him +1, each failure gave him a -1, and a "moderate success" was a +0. When he reached -2, he was captured. At -1, he was just about in melee range. At 0 he had a lead. At +1, he could start using terrain to duck out of view. At +2 he could make Stealth and hide checks. At +3, he was scot free.

I think the more creative you're willing to get with designing your skill challenges, the better off you'll be ... one of our DMs treats them as a full-on improv session: he doesn't even tell us what the "usable skills" are, he just lets us describe what we're doing, and sets the skill and DC based on how applicable/useful he thought it would be.