3 PCs in KotS Help

[saywho42]

So I have 3 guys that I want to run through KotS

Dragonborn Paladin
Tiefling Warlock
and Dwarf Cleric

I know I could do the whole XP budget thing and remove some of the monsters but mostly out of laziness among other things I kind of want to keep the encounters unaltered. I was wondering if just giving my players a level or two closer to the beginning would remedy the situation.

I still want them to play a bit at the first level so I will probably alter the first couple of encounters. Beyond that does anyone have any suggestions for what might be a good level for them to go through on and when to level up beyond that if different from the normal places given in the adventure book.

Thanks

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Rebalancing encounters is not that hard and well worth it. Simply leveling up the pcs is not the same, as in larger parties the damage is spread out among more characters and there is a lot more tactical synergy to be got by the players.
With 3 players all players are likely to be engaged in close combat with the full encounters and the warlock is likely to spend a lot of time making death saves.

I releveled Rescue At Riverroar for 3 players in about an hour and then when I ran the session had 4 players and releveled again on the fly.

The earlier fights in Keep can be rebalanced by subtracting monsters but some of the later encounters would require actual tweaking of the moster stats.

 

[Dalamar]

With that blend of roles, you should be able to make do with just starting everyone at 2nd level. I started running a group of three (eladrin wizard /w cleric multi, orc shield fighter, dragonborn paladin) at 2nd, and they had the most trouble with Irontooth, as was expected. I also gave each a healing potion, which were all drank during that very fight.

Of course, my group's ability to roll well seemed to be inversely proportional to the difficulty of the encounter.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well I'll give you two suggestions here... one with regards to easily lowering the encounters to fit for 3 players... and the second with raising the character's levels. Use whichever one works best for you.

First, for point one. To do an extremely easy lowering of the encounters, use this formula. For encounters in KotS that are listed as Encounter Level 1 or 2, remove approximately 200xp worth of monsters (which will be usually two kobolds). For Encounter Levels 3 & 4, remove 300xp worth... for Levels 5 & 6 remove 400xp worth of monsters. The numbers don't work out precise for every level and every encounter (if you were to spend the time actually calculating them)... but on average, removing said monsters will do the trick nice and quick.

For point two... start them at Level 1 for the initial On The Road encounter, then let them level to 2 when they arrive in Winterhaven. Keep them level 2 through the intro encounters until they go to the Keep, at which time raise them to 3. They can be level 3 through the first floor of the Keep, then level 4 for the second floor. Finally for the last two encounters let them be level 5.

Either one should work for you.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I would suggest using fewer minions. They make wizards and dragonborn happy, but don't do much for the other classes.

 

[saywho42]

Hmm. well i think ardoughter is right. Probably gonna go the monster reduction route so my lock isn't overwhelmed. Excellent help guys thanks!