D&D 5E Has Anybody Heard...

[Syntallah]

...anything, from anyone, via any medium (twitter, reddit, an owl, etc) about how altering a creature's abilities affects its CR?

If not, can one of you Twitter Warriors ask Mike Mearls about a possible Legends & Lore article addressing this issue?

In a couple of weeks I'll be putting my group through HotDQ, but they'll be 4th level by then. I don't mind tweaking/converting things, but some guidelines would be nice...

 

[rjfTrebor]

legends and lore is no longer a thing WotC does.

as for modifying monsters, you're on your own until the DMG is out. I'd probably just take abilities from appropriate CR monsters and put them on inflated versions of lower-level monsters. I'd also equip the humanoid creatures with better armor and weapons.

 

[Rune]

[MENTION=84774]surfarcher[/MENTION] touched on this in his analysis, I believe. If I recall correctly, the ability only affects CR if it deals damage or mitigates damage in some way.

 

[Tormyr]

...anything, from anyone, via any medium (twitter, reddit, an owl, etc)In a couple of weeks I'll be putting my group through HotDQ, but they'll be 4th level by then. I don't mind tweaking/converting things, but some guidelines would be nice...

Most of it should work by increasing the number of creatures in an encounter. 4 kobolds are a moderate encounter for a 4 person level 1 party. 12 would be a moderate encounter for a 4 person level 4 party. What size is your group?

In certain cases, such as the boss fight at the end of chapter 1, that will not work. In that case, you could swap him with the half dragon veteran from the monster manual. There is a note in the adventure that says dragonclaws can be changed to CR2 dragonwings by doubling their hit dice.

I have taken a 6 person level 4 party through Legacy of the Crystal Shard (a level 1 adventure), and it can be a bit annoying scaling up encounters and reskinning monsters. It works, but you will be doing it for the entire adventure.

My suggestion would be to scale up the adventures but only hand out experience for the adventure as written. (i.e. 50 for an encounter instead of the scaled up 500 or whatever). This will slow down the progression and allow the adventure to catch up to them. Otherwise, the party will always have access to better abilities which can do some serious damage to encounters and the adventure (i.e. too easy). There was a note that XP should be handed out by number of creatures versus the multiplied XP budget for the encounter. In the kobold example above, 12 kobolds are worth 300 XP total while the scaled up XP budget would be 900 XP. If each member of the party in the example above got 75XP instead of 225XP, that would allow the adventure to catch up with them. Something like this might need buy in from the players, though.

 

[mcbobbo]

I have considered doing some reverse engineering to see how it lines out. I already have all the Basic info as data so it wouldn't be too tough to see if there was a formula in use behind the scenes.

 

[Tormyr]

I have considered doing some reverse engineering to see how it lines out. I already have all the Basic info as data so it wouldn't be too tough to see if there was a formula in use behind the scenes.

You might want to look through [MENTION=84774]surfarcher[/MENTION]'s stuff before you get too involved.

 

[Syntallah]

legends and lore is no longer a thing WotC does.

Well, that's disappointing...

 

[Astrosicebear]

I wouldnt change a thing personally. The encounters are still tough. They will be Heroes, so let them feel like some. They can probably do more in the first episode without worrying about resting or healing.

You may want to buff Cyanwrath in episode 1 or change that challenge encounter a bit.

But other than that, just go for it, it will still be difficult.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Use Asmor's most excellent utility for adjusting the difficulty of the encounters. http://asmor.com/5e/monsters/#/main

 

[Evenglare]

Am I the only one that came in here expecting this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNrx2jq184