KotS with 4 PCs
- Thread starter Crymson
- Start date
JohnSnow
Hero
TacoSupreme said:
Offhand, that sounds like a problem caused by not having a controller, more than anything else. Without a mage, well, I'll put the rest of comments in spoiler-form to preserve the details of the adventure...
[sblock]Especially given that they survived the first two encounters no sweat, I'd say that your TPK was largely due to the lack of a mage. While it's probably totally possible to get by without a controller, I assume you'd need more players to make up for that, rather than less. You could get by with 4 PCs, but more than one striker would be pretty necessary to make up for the loss of your controller. For example, one defender, a leader and preferrably a pair of strikers would probably be able to function just fine without a controller. Since there's only 5 pre-gen characters in KotS, that means your group had only one striker - a rogue.
In other words, you had basically four melee combatants. So, they had no ranged attackers, no crowd control, and only 4 PCs. Given all that, I'm not entirely surprised they got skunked. You'd have been better to dump either the fighter or the paladin. That way, the wizard can use his area effects to toast the minions rapidly, meaning that they'd be mostly cleared out by the time Irontooth and the wyrmpriest joined the battle. [/sblock]
There's scalable and scalable. Don't let your players forget the importance of covering all the roles (or at least their effects in combat). Not having a wizard can hurt - a lot. Basically, the whole idea of having a controller is so that youcan eliminate some of your opponents without taking damage. Without a controller, that means ranged attacks - something the KotS pregens pretty much lack good options for - especially if you eliminate the wizard.
I'm running the adventure for 2 PCs over the weekend. In 3.5, they play gestalts which has worked out fairly well although they are starting to become overpowered.
My plan for 4e is sorta like this:
Instead of removing creatures from the encounters I'm going to scale the opponents down in level.
Since a 4 level difference means double xp, it seems that level 1 xp should = 2 * level -3 xp. Yeah I know level -3 is undefined, and 2 isn't exactly half of 5, but it seems like it can sort of work.
So I'll just scale down the enemies by 4 levels (giving them -4 penalties to attack & defenses, -2 damage). Hit point scaling just doesn't work below level 1, so I'll just give the bad guys 1/2 HP. The encounters will be 1/2 the usual xp, and hopefully that will work out pretty close to balanced. If not then I'll adjust my formula a bit on the fly, or have an NPC join them.
My plan for 4e is sorta like this:
Instead of removing creatures from the encounters I'm going to scale the opponents down in level.
Since a 4 level difference means double xp, it seems that level 1 xp should = 2 * level -3 xp. Yeah I know level -3 is undefined, and 2 isn't exactly half of 5, but it seems like it can sort of work.
So I'll just scale down the enemies by 4 levels (giving them -4 penalties to attack & defenses, -2 damage). Hit point scaling just doesn't work below level 1, so I'll just give the bad guys 1/2 HP. The encounters will be 1/2 the usual xp, and hopefully that will work out pretty close to balanced. If not then I'll adjust my formula a bit on the fly, or have an NPC join them.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Tallarn said:
This is the loudest I've ever laughed alone at a computer...
Fitz
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Heselbine said:
Your four 2nd Level PCs would be "worth" exactly the same as 5 first level ones.
4 x 125 = 500 vs 5 x 100 = 500
That would be a good idea. By the time you get to 4th level you should be able to get the books.
Fitz
I also have just 2 players, so will have to do some serious thinking about this adventure. It does help, though, that the players are used to me running an NPC in the party, so I'll only have to scale down to 3 players.
I know it's going to be easier if we move onto the full game (and certainly easier that 3e) for me to set up balanced encounters, but this is going to be an interesting challenge for me!
I know it's going to be easier if we move onto the full game (and certainly easier that 3e) for me to set up balanced encounters, but this is going to be an interesting challenge for me!
I have similiar problem. The method I used to balance encounters for 4 PCs:
Most encounters in the adventure have "5" monsters - about 4 monsters plus minons with total xp makes them monster number 5. So I just dump one monster from that encounter. In some encoutners there are 3 normal monsters and band of minions = 2 monsters.
If the group has 3 players you just have to discard 2 monsters from each encounters etc. It's quite easy method because it doesn't require a lot of math.
Encoutners with elites and bosses require more work.
Most encounters in the adventure have "5" monsters - about 4 monsters plus minons with total xp makes them monster number 5. So I just dump one monster from that encounter. In some encoutners there are 3 normal monsters and band of minions = 2 monsters.
If the group has 3 players you just have to discard 2 monsters from each encounters etc. It's quite easy method because it doesn't require a lot of math.
Encoutners with elites and bosses require more work.
sophrosune
First Post
3 PCs and still kicking
Just for reference.
I recently ran the game with only three PC's.
The wizard, the cleric, and the paladin.
In order to scale the adventure I figured that with the wizard and healing abilities of the other characters, I should keep the same number of monsters. What I did was just divide the hit points of the non-minion monsters by half. It sounds a little extreme but since there is no striker and only one defender I figured that the minions wouldn't be a problem (thanks to the wizard) but the named ones would get annoying if they didn't have the rouge.
It actually worked quite well and the PC's were quite challenged and almost died several times.
So I guess my advice is play the monsters smart but make sure you scale according to the parties abilities. If you don't have a controller have less minions, if you do not have a striker, reduce hit points.
Do we have any other success stories out there?
Just for reference.
I recently ran the game with only three PC's.
The wizard, the cleric, and the paladin.
In order to scale the adventure I figured that with the wizard and healing abilities of the other characters, I should keep the same number of monsters. What I did was just divide the hit points of the non-minion monsters by half. It sounds a little extreme but since there is no striker and only one defender I figured that the minions wouldn't be a problem (thanks to the wizard) but the named ones would get annoying if they didn't have the rouge.
It actually worked quite well and the PC's were quite challenged and almost died several times.
So I guess my advice is play the monsters smart but make sure you scale according to the parties abilities. If you don't have a controller have less minions, if you do not have a striker, reduce hit points.
Do we have any other success stories out there?
