Adjusting Dungeon Delve 7th-level Encounters (Spoiler Alert)

[Shin Okada]

Hi. Now I am running Dungeon Delve's 7th-level encounters, 1 encounter per evening. I just finished the Encounter 7-1 and will run 7-2 in the evening of November 12th in Japanese time (about 44 hours to the next session).

We are usually playing with a 5-men party but this time we have only 4 players. So I am adjusting each encounters.

For Encounter 7-1, I have replaced 3 Orcs into L5 minions. It worked, though the encounter became a little bit too easy.

Now, if you were the DM, how will you adjust encounter 7-2 and 7-3?

There are only 3 each of big monsters in those encounters and removing one is not so practical. Also, I am afraid of that lowering levels of those monsters will result in easy fight. Those 4 PCs are Ardent, Fighter, Warlord and a Wizard. Except for the wizard, 3 front-liners have fairy good AC (24-25) and most of the ogres' attacks target AC.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

For 7-2 the easiest thing is probably to downgrade the Ogre Warhulk from an elite to a standard. Half hit points, remove action point/save bonus, etc. Alternatively lowering the level of the war hulk would probably be fine here, since its higher than the PCs. If you have MM3 / DDI you could replace the warhulk with 2 Ogre Ironclads.

For 7-3 You could downgrade Kopitla from a solo to elite (Drop hit points etc, and probably Death's beckoning) and ad one more zombie hulk. Or you could minionize the zombie hulks (1 hp, minimum damage, drop zombie smash) and add 2 more of them.

 

[Shin Okada]

Thanks! I must spread out some more Xp before giving you...

Ogre Ironclads seems to be good. They are tough enough. And their job in this case is to stop PCs whole skirmishers attack.

I like the minion Zombie Brute idea, too. Considering the effect of the Monolith and the powers of Kopitla, It will work fine.

I have one question. I have DMG and DMG 2 and know that WotC has updated the monsters' damage output guidance in DMG. But there seem to be no update for the DMG2 minion guidance.

On the other hand, MM3 minions tend to inflict more damage comparing to the DMG 2 table. For example, both of the level 8 minions in MM3 (Earth Cultist and Obsidian Gargoyle) inflicts 8 damage while DMG2 table and MM example (Hobgoblin Warrior) suggests that the damage of 8th-level minion is 6.

Did they somehow released an update for minion damage?

 

[Jhaelen]

Did they somehow released an update for minion damage?

Not explicitly. But since average standard monster damage equals level + 8 and minions are supposed to deal half standard damage, using (level + 8) / 2 seems to be a good idea.

If you don't mind using something 'unofficial', I've posted a revised damage expression table including minion damage.

 

[keterys]

One easy trick for modifying encounters quickly for +/-1 PC is just to raise/lower the level of the monsters by 1.

ex: Level 7 encounter for 5 is 1500xp. Let's say that's 2 6th standards (500), 1 7th standard (300), and 1 8 elite (700xp) - for 4, you just want 1200xp, but if you drop a level off all those you end up with 2 5th standards (400), 1 6th standard (250) and 1 7 elite (600 xp)... or 1250xp. Pretty darn close.

If your PCs are particularly defense-crazy or the enemies are too high level/soldiers already, it can lead to too many misses, but the swing of -1 isn't so much that it will tend to.

The other thing to watch out for are sources of dominate. It's too easy to get too many dominates going around, and on a party of 4 it's killer.

 

[Shin Okada]

I still trying to find good way to modify the last encounter (7-3).

Making Zombie Hulks into minions may work, especially because they will gain a lot of temporally Hps (Still, I am not sure if 1hp +10 temporally hp is enough to survive even an at-will area attack power of the wizard. His Scorching Bust inflicts 1d6+7 damage, that is 10.5 in average).

Lowering monsters' level by 1 may work, too. But I found that Koptila is a strange solo. He is a Level 8 Solo with .... hp 290? Yes he is a controller. But his con is 18. As a 8th-level controller he meant to have (8 +18 +8x8)x4=360. So his hp is 70 points lower than the expected value?

 

[Shin Okada]

Yesterday, I finished the Encounter 7-2. Keeping Skirmishers as they are, and used a home-made L9 Elite Ogre instead of the Warhulk. It worked fine, I think.

Now, I am trying to adjust the final Encounter, 7-3.

At first, I tried to change 2 Zombie Hulks into 4 minions (and expanded the room a little bit). But as the party has a Wizard with Enlarge Spell, minions tend to be wiped out quite fast.

A also thought about lowering each monsters' level by one. But that 4-men party has really good AC overall (AC 25 Fighter, AC 24 Arden, AC 24 Warlord & AC 19 Wizard). So I am afraid of that lowering attack modifier result in a lot of misses. Monsters in that encounter are pre-MM3 brutes and controllers, thus has poor attack modifiers. Yet, they mainly target AC.

So now, my third-plan is to downgrade Koptila into Elite, then maybe add another Zombie Hulk or two (and/or level up the Koptila by 1-2).

But I have never actually downgraded non-dragon solo into an elite monster. So I need some advice.

1. Will you remove something from Koptila?

Aside from 1 action point and HPs, will you remove something from Koptila?

2. Koptila's HPs.

As I wrote above, Koptila's hit point total is strangely low as a 8th-level solo with Con 18. He meant to have 360 HPs but only has 290 HPs. Is it an error? Or was he designed to be somewhat fragile because the monolith tend to give him some temporally HPs?

If I downgrade Koptila into an Elite, shall I drop his HPs to 180 or 145?

 

[Shin Okada]

As a conclusion, I have decided to run the Encounter as it is and let one player play a companion character. It seems that when using Dungeon Delve, it seems to be the easiest option.

Thank you all for giving me suggestions.