KotS -- built for 5 PCs?

[Wepwawet]

I noticed in the XP table that 4pcs and 5pcs were, mostly, just a level apart.

Hey, what do you think of giving a group of 4 PCs one extra level, and keeping all the encounters unaltered?
I mean, a group of 4 2nd level PCs, is supposed to fight the same amount of XP as 5 1st level PCs. And at other levels the it's a similar amount.

So, making them 2nd level against 1st level monsters could be balanced?
It's the economy of actions versus 5% more chances to hit and less chances of getting hit.

What do you think?

Edit: I believe that it is not necessary, given careful planning and good strategy... But would it work?

 

[FungiMuncher]

hey man, how did you scale it back for 3 pcs? ... i'm worried the Irontooth fight is going to decimate them.

I've DMed several encounters so far for 4 PCs. I've dropped at least one PC in each. We've stopped just at the cave entrance to Irontooth's lair (breaking for Origins). Those earlier encounters were pretty intense, so I'm also a bit worried about the Irontooth encounter.

For help in adjusting published encounters, I made a little spreadsheet. I've attached it below. Should be mostly self-explianitory, and might be helpful to some. The cells have been protected from being overwritten, but there is no actual password, if anyone wants to edit it.

 

[Dausuul]

My party had four characters - an eladrin wizard, a half-elf Charisma warlord, an elf archer ranger, and a human fighter. Our DM scaled the Irontooth encounter by removing the two dragonshields.

I think the main reason we survived was that we made Irontooth come to us instead of going in to him. Our ranger botched his Stealth check to sneak into one of the caves on the cliffside, and we knew the kobolds were alerted to our presence (cue Vader jokes); so we set ourselves up behind the rocky area on the far side of the pool, and laid siege to the place. A couple of kobold minions peeked out from various spots, and each time one of them did, it got an arrow in the eye or a javelin through the chest.

(I would just like to interject here that javelins are teh awesome. Finally, you can be a Strength-based heavy tank with mediocre Dexterity and still have a decent ranged attack!)

Finally Irontooth got his surviving forces together and charged out at us. He put the minions in front, and he himself followed with the wyrmpriest, while the skirmishers came out of the caves on the sides to flank us. The minions took the brunt of our readied attacks; we wiped half of them out in the first round. After that, we concentrated fire on Irontooth and took him out fairly quickly, although he dished out a lot of punishment to the fighter and the warlord before we finished him.

The stragglers gave us quite a bit of trouble, especially the wyrmpriest, who took brutal advantage of our fighter's crappy Reflex defense (11). Half the party was in single digits and all of us were bloodied by the time we wiped out the last of them. I'm fairly sure that if we'd tried to go in through the waterfall and duke it out on Irontooth's turf, he'd have wiped the floor with us.

 

[Vayden]

The stragglers gave us quite a bit of trouble, especially the wyrmpriest, who took brutal advantage of our fighter's crappy Reflex defense (11). Half the party was in single digits and all of us were bloodied by the time we wiped out the last of them. I'm fairly sure that if we'd tried to go in through the waterfall and duke it out on Irontooth's turf, he'd have wiped the floor with us.

Yeah, me letting you guys pull off that whole "readied ranged attacks if they show themselves" thing helped out a lot. I thought I might have had you for a bit when the wyrmpriest rolled max damage on the breath weapon. Still, I got my payback when the fighter dropped into the pit trap later.

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, me letting you guys pull off that whole "readied ranged attacks if they show themselves" thing helped out a lot. I thought I might have had you for a bit when the wyrmpriest rolled max damage on the breath weapon. Still, I got my payback when the fighter dropped into the pit trap later.

I think our gaming group is developing a terminal phobia of rat swarms.

 

[vazanar]

How the hell did that happen Xorn. My group smashed through the kobolds, surrounded Irontooth, and still got ripped to peices. They had a Ranger, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, and Paladin. By the time the battle was over the paladin and rogue were dead.

My group had only 4 members Warlord, Rogue, Paladin, and Fighter. So, I removed a skirmisher and a minkobold. However, when the Warlord hit with the daily on Irontooth (+5 for all to hit if I remember right) he went down fast. Though he did manage to take out the dragonborn. The warlord made a huge difference, constantly moving people and setting up combat advantage (plus the +2hit +4 damage if you use an action point).

 

[Plane Sailing]

After DMing a session of KotS, and seeing two kobold fights take most of the session, I decided to review the encounter numbers. They all seem to be geared at a 5-PC party. Seeing as I only have 4 PCs (dragonborn warlord, tiefling fey warlock, human fighter and human 2-weapon ranger),...

I'm currently DMing for a party of

dragonborn paladin
dwarf cleric
half-elf warlock
eladrin warlock
tiefling warlord

The two kobold fights took most of the session for us too. I'm pretty convinced that the reason for that is largely that we don't have a wizard (although the fact that was unable to roll less than 15 on a d20 all night certainly didn't help!)

Cheers

 

[Vayden]

We usually play for 3-4 hours. First session, character meet-up, travel to Winterhaven from my starting town. Mild rp-ing at various inns and camp-sites on the way, one ambush by a Shadar-kai chain-fighter (sowing seeds for my plans after we finish KotS), then the first kobold ambush, into town, mild rp, 2nd kobold ambush on the way to kobold lair.

2nd session, started out with the fight outside the lair, then the irontooth fight. Rest, recovery, mild rp back in town, then off to Shadowfell Keep (they decided their mentor could survive for a little longer if he'd managed to survive this long). First room of Shadowfell Keep, they got beat up pretty badly, pulled off a tactical retreat. Currently holed up in the woods outside the keep.

So, roughly, 3 combat encounters a session along with some role-playing so far.

 

[ff6shadow]

Thanks, ozziewolf.

My group started well on Irontooth, but about the time he was bloodied, he started dropping the front line in a hurry with his Dual Axe and Blood Crazed. I guess that battle really is a matter of timing.

 

[IanB]

Sidenote: keeping track of all the shifty shifting of the kobolds in a pain in the @**!

What is there to track? I find remembering which goblins have used their interrupt and which haven't to be a lot more annoying. Kobolds you just do one turn at a time anyway, so it should be pretty easy to know if the guy you're activating has used his minor shift or not.