Adjusting 4 PCs for WotC adentures

[Aganon]

I'm starting a campaign with 4 players (Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Cleric)

I plan on using the published modules which expects 5 players.

Instead of adjusting all the encounters, I'd rather do an adjust to make the 4 PCs as powerful as 5 PCs to run the adventures as-is.

I'd like some advice on this. I've considered giving the characters more than the 22 point buy, but I'm open to all suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Oompa]

Hmmmm i would suggest 27-28 point buy..

But the most simple thing to do is.. if an encounter is 500 xp, just delete an monster to make it 400..

In 4.0 its easier to scale encounters than characters..

 

[Dalamar]

I'm running Keep on the Shadowfell for three players, and bumping them by one level actually seems to about balance out. Keep in mind, though, that role balance is important with smaller groups. My group has a wizad that has multied as a cleric (basic feat only thus far), a paladin and a shield fighter, so while they lack a leader, they have two characters that have some capability in that area.

And they would still have been wiped out by Irontooth had I not fudged a few rolls, though that was in part due to some seriously bad rolling by the players.

 

[Starbuck_II]

I'm starting a campaign with 4 players (Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Cleric)

I plan on using the published modules which expects 5 players.

Instead of adjusting all the encounters, I'd rather do an adjust to make the 4 PCs as powerful as 5 PCs to run the adventures as-is.

I'd like some advice on this. I've considered giving the characters more than the 22 point buy, but I'm open to all suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

I used Kobold Hall:
For that idea, I turned one skirmisher into 2 minions. That reduces Exp difficulty by 50 Exp.
First encounter battle will still be tough like the original, but have more enemies in appearance. Just keep the minions away from bunching up so no AoE kills both.

Worked for me:
Granted, I just liked changing the enemies. My battle was:
These were rough estimastes I made when running;
Area (4x4) has a big pool/pit (2x4) in center. On other side is slinger (with the pet scorpion and 2 minions hiding out of sight). Waiting behind a portcullis is a slinger and skirmisher for when the party gets close.
Enemies: 2 Kobold Slingers (100), 1 Kobold skirmisher (100), Stormclaw Scorpion (100), 2 Kobold Minions (25).

Battle was 450 Xp. Tough, but beatable. Plus, I really wanted to try out a Stormclaw.


But Dalamar's suggestion about level works too.
Each level 2 PC can handle as a team 125 Xp each.
So a Level 1 team of 4 can only handle 400 XP enemies:
But a Level 2 Team of 4 can handle 500; almost as if 5 Level 1s in the team.

 

[jadrax]

I Used 3 Characters through Kobold Hall with no modifications and got a TPK on encounter three, which seemed pretty much unavoidable. Next time I think I may remove one of the Drakes and make it clear which bad-guys are Minions.

 

[keterys]

I was running KoS for three level 3s instead of five level 1s - Fighter, Cleric, Warlock. I was considering having less minions in some fights, but the fights so far have been fine. Haven't done any of the biggies like Irontooth yet, though.

 

[Dausuul]

Bump everybody up one level. That should put things almost exactly balanced for 4 players.

Standard 1st-level encounter for 5 PCs: 500 XP
Standard 2nd-level encounter for 4 PCs: 500 XP

Standard 2nd-level encounter for 5 PCs: 625 XP
Standard 3rd-level encounter for 4 PCs: 600 XP

Standard 3rd-level encounter for 5 PCs: 750 XP
Standard 4th-level encounter for 4 PCs: 700 XP

Standard 4th-level encounter for 5 PCs: 875 XP
Standard 5th-level encounter for 4 PCs: 800 XP

Standard 5th-level encounter for 5 PCs: 1,000 XP
Standard 6th-level encounter for 4 PCs: 1,000 XP

 

[Jhaelen]

Instead of adjusting all the encounters, I'd rather do an adjust to make the 4 PCs as powerful as 5 PCs to run the adventures as-is.

Why?

 

[blargney the second]

How about getting one player to run two PCs? It's not really that hard in 4e.
-blarg

 

[Obscure]

I would like to echo the suggestion to scale the encounters instead of the PCs. However, if you are determined to do it....

A party of four is missing a couple of things as compared to a party of five:

1. One more PC for the monsters to wail on
2. The actions that one more PC would take

You could try to make up for item 1 by increasing all PC hit points by 25%.

The second is the most important difference. You could try fixing it by giving out action points after every encounter instead of every second encounter, and allowing PCs to use more than one action point per encounter (but not more than one per turn).

Note that increasing stats (higher point buy) and going with higher-level characters makes the PCs better at what they do. They hit more often and get hit less often. In other words, you're increasing the quality of the PCs instead of the quantity, creating more "swingy" and potentially unbalanced encounters where the PCs might breeze through 5 goblins easily, and then get pounded hard by another encounter with the same 5 goblins.