4e Adventure Design Question

[Shadowslayer]

Hi all. This question is primarily aimed at the guys who've played thru the early editions of D&D and have also played enough 4e to know the system a little.

Ive been a player since 1e and a DM since 2e - 3e and now 4. But I've been out of the loop for over a year and am just learning 4th now. (I've yet to actually play a game.) I always enjoyed homebrewing my own adventures, and tend to run campaigns that are about 25% published stuff and the rest I make up on my own. I'm currently in the process of cobbling together my own homebase area - central town / a few ruins to explore / scary forest / non human tribe bent on having the townsfolk as slaves...that sort of thing. I can't say thus far that I've had any problems, but I do have a question.

Does the 4th ed ruleset change the way you design adventures from how you may have done it before? I know that each edition has brought changes in the way published adventures are laid out, but that's mostly cosmetic. (no matter whether you use the delve format or the old 1st ed format, an orc and a pie is still an orc and a pie.)

The big change I notice is the reliance on multiple opponents for each encounter. Instead of simply stopping a troll that lives under a bridge, apparently now youre supposed to stop the Troll, his pet Hellhound, and his 4 Ogre Minions. (ok, its a silly mix - but you get my point) This isn't a major beef mind you...its just the just the biggest thing I've had to "unlearn".

Assuming you're making a standard "playable-in-an-evening-maybe-2" dungeon style adventure, is there anything else you need to take into account?

Any thoughts, or design tips that aren't in the 4e rulebooks?

 

[Piratecat]

I have a mix between solo big bad guys (you can have that troll, you just need to make him tougher) and mixed groups. My biggest change is that minions make me very happy. Tonight I challenged my group with 11 leaping, screaming, giant spiders the size of sheep. Because eight of the monsters were minions who died with one hit, I could still challenge the PCs to a frenetic fight while not necessarily killing them with such large numbers.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't fit your criteria, but while the "standard monster" at the same level as a PC is worth one player, so a standard encounter is 1 monster per PC. There is also "solo monsters" made to face the entire party.

As such your troll in this case would be a solo monster in 4e terms.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the DMG describes the "technicalities" of adventure design pretty well - working with "encounter budgets" or XP values and modifying monster.

Aside from the possibility of using a Troll as a Solo, you could also just pick a higher level Troll.

Each solution has its advantages and disadvantages. The common thing is that "solo" fights are often not all that interesting, at least if the monster lacks options and reactive abilities that surprise the PCs or turn the way the battle is fought.

The best suggestion here is probably to pick or create a "non-boring" monster and/or add interesting terrain features.



Bigger encounter areas: What might have been the area for 3 encounters in 3E can be the area for one encounter in 4E - but still including all the monsters of the three 3E encounters.

Traps usually make the most "sense" if you use them as part of an encounter. There are no Save or Die traps, so a random pit trap dealing 3d10 falling damage to a single PC isn't particularly exciting. (Though it still will cost a healing surge or so, so it still matters for the "adventure day")

It is neat to have Terrain Feature where all the sliding, pushing or pulling can be (ab)used effectively - pushing monsters or PCs into pits or fires is fun, as is breaking through a defensive position with a well-aimed Thunderwave or similar effect.

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Outside of combat, the story aspect doesn't change much. You might want to have an idea of what the different tiers mean to you - what kind of adventures fit to Heroic tier, what to Paragon tier and what to Epic tier.

For adventure motivation, Quests can provide helpful. If you prefer "sandboxes" or at least a very open way of playing the game, you might want to create Quests organically (maybe even the players set the Quests themselves.)

Skill Challenges will be a nice tool to handle situations that you don't want to resolve with a single dice roll, but still want to be affected by the player characters actual abilities. There is a lot that can be done with them, and they can be expanded a lot, too (I am sure someone will bring up the "Obsidian" system described in the House Rules forum).

 

[Inyssius]

Aside from the possibility of using a Troll as a Solo, you could also just pick a higher level Troll.

Not too much higher, though. At [party level + 5] and above, your party may well end up missing literally all the time while the enemy hits literally all the time--and that's not terribly fun.

 

[D'karr]

Instead of simply stopping a troll that lives under a bridge, apparently now youre supposed to stop the Troll, his pet Hellhound, and his 4 Ogre Minions. (ok, its a silly mix - but you get my point) This isn't a major beef mind you...its just the just the biggest thing I've had to "unlearn".

The Troll in your example would be a Solo. But if you want to actually make a fight against the troll under the bridge interesting, you will need some good modifications to the encounter instead of just making him a solo.

First consider the terrain, will the battle happen under the bridge? To make it interesting I would recommend so. So now, the bridge and the sides of the "river" can become a hazard. The troll can use one of his attacks to make the planks of the bridge hit the characters. Or break the planks to dump the party into the water. If the sides of the riverbed are slick, movement can be hampered for the players but not the troll, etc. As you start looking at the environment look at ways to make it more interesting.

Second, trolls are brutes, which means that when they get made into solos, they'll have a buttload of HP, but the attacks that it has are pretty much uninteresting. To remedy this, you need to modify the troll. For example, instead of just making the troll a solo, you will need to give him some attacks that make him dangerous to 5-6 players. If not this will just be a slugfest.

A troll, living under the bridge might stink to high-heaven. What if you give him a noxious aura similar to a troglodytes? Since he's a solo he's going to need to attack a lot more often than he currently does. So you will have to give him some interrupt attacks. You might also want to give him some "control" powers to be able to shake off pesky characters.

If I was to redesign a troll to become the "Bridge Troll", I'd do it as such.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Wow...thanks for that Troll D'Karr. If you tell me you made that thru DDI, then you've just sold a subscription. I'll use that.

Thanks all for your thoughts on the matter. I think I might feel a little more comfortable making up some solos. To me that's really the only thing about 4e that rubs me a little, and I hope that future MMs will address the lack of solo critters.

Is there any other ways that 4e has changed the way you go about laying out adventures?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

For combat: Well I am simply more comfortable with running it. I was never a fan of CR and to be blunt never fully got it. So I was always nervous when running combat whether it be to hard or a cakewalk.

Another element that has changed is feeling much more comfortable adding many creatures to the mix. Sorta along the same lines is adding terrain and traps and such to combat, since they are put into the equation.

Generally: I find it much easier to run campaigns not based around combat. A silly contradiction to my above statement but in 3.5 I felt more comfortable and at ease running combat then non (even though combat isn't my preferred style of rping). This is thanks in part to the opening of the system, skill challenges, Powers, everyone having some manner of non-combat potential.

Those are my two biggest differences I would say, and really are the same too. I simply feel more at ease with running the game and taking it places.

 

[D'karr]

Wow...thanks for that Troll D'Karr. If you tell me you made that thru DDI, then you've just sold a subscription. I'll use that.

Thanks all for your thoughts on the matter. I think I might feel a little more comfortable making up some solos. To me that's really the only thing about 4e that rubs me a little, and I hope that future MMs will address the lack of solo critters.

Is there any other ways that 4e has changed the way you go about laying out adventures?

You're welcome.

DDI does not allow creation at that level yet. However, I did use DDI extensively to research, and pick and choose the stuff that I needed. I copied and pasted that to a template I use for creatures and then I modified as necessary.

So for example, most of the "troll" abilities, and basics are all from the regular 9th level troll that appears in the MM. I then used the DMG explanation for advancing it to a solo. The number of hit points in parentheses are what I would use in my game, instead of the regular amount that a solo would have. That's a "feel" based on experience, not a hard & fast rule.

For the other things, I had decided to give it some additional "features" like the noxious breath. So I used DDI to look up a trogolodyte and copied and pasted their aura. The rest of the powers, like Don't stand so close and Have a drink, I just made up using the basic damage that the troll would do and modifiying it until it "felt" right. I did that because a solo should have more interesting things to do than just the regular "boring" attacks.

 

[Badwe]

On a small tangent, until about level 22 it is generally true that the XP of a monster level n is 1/5th of a monster level n+9, so a solo is worth the same XP as a single monster 9 levels higher. Similarly, an elite of level n+5 would yield an XP total similar to a solo level n. combine this with the fact that A) monster AC/attacks are a static modifier + level and B) solos/elites tend to have 2 added to their AC (and 2 other defenses), and you can conclude that a level 10 monster as a level 1 encounter would have roughly 7 more AC than a solo of the same level. If the PCs are hitting on a ten or better against a solo, 17 or better is likely to be insurmountable. For an elite, the difference would be 5 (ignoring the +2 since one is elite and the other is solo). Needing a 15 or better to hit would be frustrating, but do-able, and would put greater emphasis on flanking/targeting the weak defense.

The stuff that others have said about designing a good solo also stands true. You can get away with less creativity with elites, but a solo really needs to be its own encounter and has to be able engage every PC in some way. There are articles out there about how the concept of the CR system being able to equally handle a single monster fight as well as lots of little monsters serving a big monsters (aka what are now solos and minions) wasn’t really true. The new system has its own set of kinks but it gives you a better idea of where you’ll land when you start tweaking.