4 Players and Thunderspire Labyrinth

[Falstaff]

Hello fellow gamers,

I will be running Thunderspire Labyrinth for four players soon. However, the adventure is written for five players.

Do I need to concern myself with re-designing the encounters and treasure parcels for four players? Or will things balance out okay without me having to adjust things?

Any suggestions?

 

[keterys]

I ran it for four... I just had them be a level higher than suggested (if you do the math, that works out quite accurately). You could alternatively cut 1/5 off of each encounter.

As for treasure bundles, you should pretty much scrap them all and redo them anyways... or at least add some that are of interest to your group. The treasure bundles in the adventure are not tremendously interesting in my experience.

 

[Obryn]

Be sure you use the updated Duergar from MM2 or the Compendium. As-written, they are far tougher than their level should indicate.

-O

 

[Falstaff]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Tallifer]

Our party of four ran through the Keep on the Shadowfell. We found it none too difficult, nicely challenging at times. Because of dividing experience by four instead of five, we reached fifth level at the end of the adventure.

Being fifth level made us tough enough to tackle the early parts of the Thunderspire Labyrinth. Again, by dividing experince by four, we reached ninth level by the time we faced the final encounter. The last encounter was incredibly dangerous! But we had a glorious victory.

 

[burntgerbil]

I think it will be incredibly rough going with 4 4th level PC's. The game's math is tight, and if all of your players have a notion of how 4e is played, they might be fine. If you have new players or players that are newer to the system, they might work better at 5th level, since the difference between levels are a little less significant in 4e than say, in 3rd Edition.

 

[Enaloindir]

We're currently running through the Labyrinth with 4 players one level higher than normal (started at lvl 5 instead of 4). So far, everything seems quite fine...

- Enaloindir

 

[Tai]

If you're worried, you can always include an NPC to tag along with the party. They're designed to be book-keeping light, so the players can control them easily enough in fights.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

4 PCs should be OK as long as you dont make it so that it is difficult for them to take an extended rest. Even if the monsters know that the PCs are in their "lair" dont have them interupt their extended rest. Beyond that, if you have any fire or poison (?) based PCs I would take them aside and have them retrain a few powers as you dont want to have a party of 4 but an effectiveness of 3. In the same vain, hold off on the variable resistance for a round or two.

 

[swiftgoose]

We played with 6 characters and our dm reduced hp's for creatures that weren't main fights, and we still got our butts whooped. This adventure is especially dangerous if you fail one or more of the skill challenges. With four characters going in, you'll have to be very careful to back off on the opposition. That being said, what an awesome adventure this is...good luck!