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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pauper" data-source="post: 6838470" data-attributes="member: 17607">I've mentioned before the GenCon adventure where a dude playing a gnome conjuror basically trolled the entire party until one of my buddies actually threatened his character unless he played as a team player again, while convincing another buddy that he'd rather suicide his character than play out the full adventure. This would have been a lot harder to do without the benefit of the Staff of Defense from an AL-legal, but not AL-produced, adventure.This is a brilliant and elegant solution to this problem -- kudos to the DM. The practical effect will be to raise the total XP for the party (since the shield guardian doesn't get XP), but that works out well for everyone, as the group is simply more likely to reach the XP cap, which is good.Unfortunately, AL doesn't give DMs the authority to 'swap out' one monster for another in an adventure (which you'd have to do in the encounter being discussed, as there are no weaker monsters in the encounter to transition to). However, there are other things you can do even in this situation (spoiler alert, despite the entire thread basically already having a spoiler tag):- If you've prepped the mod beforehand, you can place temporary items to aid the party's tactics. For instance, describe a guttering torch with the Continual Flame spell on it in the intact shed, and have the scarecrows refuse to attack a character who carries it (both because they are afraid of the fire, and because of its connection to the rituals it had been used with). Once the scarecrows are destroyed, the magic of the torch expires and it becomes a valueless item, preserving the rule that a DM not add treasure to an AL module.- Don't have the monsters use optimal tactics. Just because a scarecrow has Multiattack doesn't mean it ever has to use it unless you decide it would. Also, give the scarecrows the ultimate case of OCD, attacking mainly at random and provoking lots of opportunity attacks -- dealing half damage is less of a problem when the party is making twice their normal number of attacks.- Make an ad-hoc ruling. The AL explicitly allows DMs to make rulings on situations the rules don't cover. Is there a penalty to a scarecrow's attack and damage rolls following a rainstorm? The rules are silent, so it's up to you to decide. (Edit: use this with caution -- if you make such an ad-hoc ruling, your regular players may expect the same ruling to be available in later modules where the reason -- helping balance an encounter for a weak party -- isn't applicable. Be prepared to explain why the ad-hoc ruling you make today might not apply in later modules.)- Guide the party away from encounters that would overwhelm them. If, after your best efforts, you just can't see the party overcoming even the weaker challenge you want to put in front of them, give them something more interesting to pursue. The scarecrows in Quelling the Horde, for instance, are in the wheat fields behind the farm buildings -- if the party never goes there, because they're more interested in following the path the ranger found that leads farther up the road, then they won't get wiped out by the powerful encounter they never had to face. Be cautious when using this approach, as it does cost XP for the party to 'skip' encounters in this way and leads to a greater likelihood of the party gaining minimum XP for the adventure, but some parties may not mind (a party of all 1st level characters, for instance, will all make 3rd level at the end of Quelling the Horde, even if they only earn minimum XP; most groups will be pretty happy about that, even if they might have liked to earn more).--Pauper</blockquote>

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