D&D 4E Help with SOLO 4e encounter

[Nebulous]

So, i'm probably running a 3rd level solo adventure this week. In past editions it wouldn't be a big deal to tweak it, but with the new ruleset, i'm not so sure what is a fair, balanced encounter that doesn't come off too easy or too hard. There will be one PC fighter 3 and one NPC rogue 3.

I want them to fight a bugbear and two goblin blackblades, so it's a brute and two lurkers, and that's a Level 5 monster and two level 1's. Just glancing at the hitpoints of the bugbear, it's around 76 hp which seems way too much, The goblins have hit points in the 20's. I thinking about knocking hp off the baddies but keeping their other stats the same.

Any suggestions? The DMG doesn't offer anything in the way of scaling this drastically.

 

[OakwoodDM]

There shouldn't be much if any work required. In my experience, making adventures for groups less than the default number is several times easier in 4e than it ever was in 3rd. I've run several fights for a group of 2 characters at 1st level (some testing in the first session and a 5 fight mini-adventure in the second) and with one notable exception (Needlefang Drake Swarm) simply sticking to the XP count works fine.

So, with your group of 2, any fight of around 300XP should be relatively unproblematic for them. 350 - 400 ish should be doable, if challenging, and anything 450 and above should be avoided or saved for a fight where they are fully rested and have a chance to get some favourable conditions working for them.

Don't worry about the hit points. If the rogue can get Combat Advantage, they'll disappear very quickly.

 

[Nebulous]

Okay, thanks for the reply. I'll take a closer look at the XP totals. Yeah, i do agree that a Sneak Attacking rogue can whittle away hp pretty fast.