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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4755006" data-attributes="member: 710">I think the DMG describes the &quot;technicalities&quot; of adventure design pretty well - working with &quot;encounter budgets&quot; 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 &quot;solo&quot; 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 &quot;non-boring&quot; 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 &quot;sense&quot; 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 &quot;adventure day&quot;)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. ---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 &quot;sandboxes&quot; 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 &quot;Obsidian&quot; system described in the House Rules forum).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4755006, member: 710"] 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. --- 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). [/QUOTE]

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