An 8-character Adventure/Campaign?

[Rhanta]

Hi, it's me once again.

I have a question. I've read some Adventure books, and they all talk about having five or four characters. In my circle of friends, only me and another friend knows D&D, so we have decided to divide the characters and play with 4 each, so it's less boring. Let's say we can play with 4 characters each, is playing an 8-character campaign/adventure possible? If so, can you include some pages from the Core rulebooks that says it? (I think I missed them or something). Or can the DM allow that? What are the penalties, or something?

Thanks

 

[Nebten]

Its definatly possible, but like you said, everything is geared towards a 5 person game. Why not just go with 3 PCs each, so you don't have to worry as much about adjusting things.

 

[Rhanta]

Oh yeah, that's a good idea, thanks. XD

Still, I want to hear about other people's opinions about an 8-character or more adventure. XD

 

[Dragongrief]

Is this you and your friend, with one of you acting as the DM and both playing multiple characters? Or am I misreading?

Having a party with 8 characters requires coordination, but can be done. The group I run is 6-7 players normally (other than myself), and can be up to 10 if everyone shows up. Trying to avoid drag an keep everyone's attention is the biggest concern.

Trying to PLAY 4 characters each (especially if one of you DMs) is much more difficult (mainly for the DM), due to the potential complexity of each character.

 

[Rhanta]

I'm actually the Dungeon Master. XD

So I gotta think that I don't know some info that the DM is supposed to know. And our plan is to have 8 characters, 4 for me, and 4 for my friend. XDDD

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

That seems over complicated and easy to meta game. Whatever floats your boat though.

I run a party of 8 PC's. It is difficult especially with one of them always trying to steal the limelight. It is difficult to have them feel truly challenged and threatened at times.

I haven't really found anything for a 8 party. I have made up my own campaign. If you find anything, let me know.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm actually the Dungeon Master. XD

So I gotta think that I don't know some info that the DM is supposed to know. And our plan is to have 8 characters, 4 for me, and 4 for my friend. XDDD

If you are DMing and playing... and your friend is the only other player... I'd highly suggest you cut things all the way down to 4 PCs (two for you, two for your friend). Trying to run multiple characters is tough enough... trying to do that *and* DM at the same time is folly IMHO. The game can easily be played with even just 3 PCs (as you can see by listening to the first Penny Arcade podcast), and setting up balanced encounters that don't take as long is much easier with a lower number of characters.

If you really want to play a character while DMing... I'd recommend playing a Tactical Warlord if for no other reason that you can have Commander's Strike as an at-will. That way if you ever find yourself overwhelmed with the DM side of things in certain encounters, you can put your PC on auto by just having him give your friend's characters melee masic attacks all the time. You don't have to think as much, and he gets to make more attacks. And then, once things settle down in other encounters and you can handle both the DM stuff and your PC, you can go back to having your warlord be a bit more active.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Marius Delphus]

DMing and playing 1-2 characters should be plenty.
Your friend can play 3-4 characters.
No real fiddling with encounters required.

 

[Argyle King]

It's been a little while since I have read through my 4E DMG, but I seem to remember that the XP Budget for an encounter was the XP for a standard monster multiplied by the number of players.

If I am remembering correctly, to build an encounter of a given level for a party of 8, you will find a standard monster of the encounter level you want, multiply the XP amount that monster is worth by 8, and that should give you the XP budget for an encounter of that level.

 

[Mengu]

If I am remembering correctly, to build an encounter of a given level for a party of 8, you will find a standard monster of the encounter level you want, multiply the XP amount that monster is worth by 8, and that should give you the XP budget for an encounter of that level.

While this is correct, PC's get better and better with redundancy. I find that even going to 6 players, the formula starts to break down a bit, and at 8 players, what the XP budget suggests is a hard encounter becomes a cake walk.

My recommendation for 2 people would be 1 person DM the monsters, and 1 person play 1 character and 1-2 simple to control companions. I believe this will provide the best role playing experience, and the least amount of complexity in combat. The character might be a ranger, and his companions could be a wolf and a small fey healer/guide. Optionally one of the companions (like the fey in the above example) could be comtrolled by the DM as a story element, or even be revolving door of characters. The ranger and his wolf may be helping out various people in different adventures, who would join alongside the ranger. One time it might be a faerie, another time a hag could send her willowisp as a guide, and yet another time a young lad whose sister was kidnapped may be the companion.

There are lots of solutions but, I really would not recommend 8 characters played by 2 people, that just kills all potential for a focus on personality and story. Conflict resolution will also take a lot of time. I'd say keep the cast small, the adventure big.