D&D General Honey, I shrunk the party!

[R_J_K75]

The 2E adventure Maddgoth's Castle is based on this too. I read parts of it, but decided before I finished that I didn't think it would be a module I'd like to run, or the players would want to play. The effects of changing size seemed it would force too many adjustments that I think would've bogged the game down. I never ran it so can't attest if it's any good.

Madgoth's Castle

 

[mellored]

Humblewood is a campaign setting for rodents. You play as pidgins, hedgehog and mice, battling snakes and cats and such.

Here's some free adventure for them. Not sure what level, but your could shrink down and join them.

Humblewood Resources

 

[Staffan]

One of the adventures in the Strength of Thousands adventure path for Pathfinder 2 (either part 5 or 6) has the PCs miniaturized, but it's basically an excuse to place them in a sandbox setting that's actually a table with weird stuff on it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I have a vague recollection of an adventure in Imagine, White Dwarf, or early Dragon called 'Down the plughole' or similar. The PCs are shrunk by a wizard and sent into his plumbing system.

There was one in White Dwarf in the early 80s in which the shrunken party became involved in the affairs of a nest of sentient social insects.

 

[aco175]

One of the adventures in the Strength of Thousands adventure path for Pathfinder 2 (either part 5 or 6) has the PCs miniaturized, but it's basically an excuse to place them in a sandbox setting that's actually a table with weird stuff on it.

I'm not sure if my players would like this when I told them that we're goin to be playing in a sandbox series of adventures.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm reminded of Shining Force 2 on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Partway through the game, you're shrunk and left on a table next to a chessboard. To proceed, you must step onto the chessboard and fight the enemy pieces, who are animated constructs.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I did this to a first level party. They were all the size of mice and had to fight mites?(I think that’s what they were called). They had to go into a hollow tree and get something for a pixie.

All HD stayed the same and so did spell effects. Weapons scaled slightly, the party did 1,2 or 3 damage and most creatures had a few hit points. Because magic didn’t change, when the wizard cast sleep, he put every creature, including themselves to sleep.

The boss fight was the King mite riding a badger.

 

[el-remmen]

The Dungeon adventure "Chadranther's Bane" in issue #18 is based on this exact scenario. I included a similar one in the 5e 2024 campaign that I'm currently working on. Note that changing one's size that much creates some weird impacts due to the height-mass discrepancy, but I sort of hand-wave that because it's "magic." Here are the game effects I used:

• Subjective scale is reduced to one eighth of normal; distances are calculated based on the characters' new size
• Falling damage is halved
• The short and long ranges of ranged weapons is halved (spell ranges are unaffected).
• Any magic that would change a character's size does not function

This adventure is in Fantasy Grounds, so it was easy to create a duplicate of the map and alter the scale. The foes were jermlaine and their pet rats; basically they became ogres and dire wolves respectively after the shift takes effect. Borrowing from "Chadranther's Bane," I had the effect radiate from a crystal in the jermlaine leader's room that the party has to destroy to reverse the effect.

I was coming to mention this one. I ran it back in 2E days but plan to run it again for 5e.

I also always wanted to do a sequel where every thing is giant sized.

 

[the Jester]

A classic trope is when our plucky adventurers are shrunk to fun size and must deal with the consequences.

Have you ever shrunk the party? How has it changed the dynamics? Who does it in DND (and which editions do it best?), and what monsters would you throw at them and how?

I reduced the party to microscopic size back in 2e. There was an old issue of Dragon that had stats for all kinds of microscopic monsters, and I used the heck out of it. Eventually, they got restored to normal size. It was pretty fun.

Haven't done it in any other editions, and I don't have those monsters converted- they're pretty niche!- so I'm not sure how I would do it in 5e (or other editions post-2e).

 

[Oofta]

I reduced the party to microscopic size back in 2e. There was an old issue of Dragon that had stats for all kinds of microscopic monsters, and I used the heck out of it. Eventually, they got restored to normal size. It was pretty fun.

Haven't done it in any other editions, and I don't have those monsters converted- they're pretty niche!- so I'm not sure how I would do it in 5e (or other editions post-2e).

I'd likely look at oozes and slimes for inspiration. Which that gives me an idea now ... the bumbling wizard accidentally shrinks them down to the point where they're fighting spiders and other creepy crawlies and they have to get to the wizard to reverse it. Then the wizard goofs again and shrinks them down even further.

I'll have to put some thought into it.