Asmor
First Post
The short story: You want to run an adventure designed for 5 characters of level N, but you don't have 5 players.
If you've got 1 player, increase his level by 9. So a level 1 adventure would need a single level 10 character, and a level 21 adventure would need a single level 30 character.
2 players: Increase level by 5.
3 players: Increase level by 3.
4 players: Increase level by 1.
6 players: Decrease level by 1.
7 players: Decrease level by 2.
8 players: Decrease level by 3.
I don't know if the exp will work out so that they'll level in the same spots, though I've got a gut feeling it might, or at least close enough. But anyways, that should work. Obviously, the more extreme the level conversion the more likely the system will be broken. Theoretically it should work, though.
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The long story: I got these numbers by the following process.
First, I took the exp for a single monster of a particular level. Let's call this the base exp. Multiply that by 5 to get the target exp for that level. This target exp is the number which adventure writers are supposed to focus on, though of course it will fluctuate up and down a bit and they'll also have both higher and lower level encounters, but if this works right it should get the same effect on your converted characters.
Next, I took the target exp, and divided by the number of players. This is how much exp each player should be "worth." For example, running 4 players through a level 1 encounter (target exp of 500) means that the 4 players should each be worth 500/4=125 exp. 125 exp is the base value of a level 2 monster, so the 4 players should each be level 2.
This formula does not match up every time, however it does match up very frequently. For example, levels 5, 10, 14 and 18 (base exp 200, 500, 1000, 2000 respectively) all show up exactly quite frequently. More importantly, every time they show up, there are EXACTLY 4 spots between the level 5 and 10 value, for example, meaning levels 6, 7, 8, and 9 fill those spots well even if they're not exact matches. In addition, if I set level 30 as the highest level at which your player's worth is 19,000 or fewer exp, it all syncs up perfectly. Thus I feel these numbers should work well.
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There's still one major problem, though: treasure. I'm not really sure what to do about it; my gut instinct is to leave the treasure untouched. Since the treasure is not adjusted for level, it will act as a "dampener," making higher level characters slightly less powerful and lower level characters slightly more powerful. My biggest concern with this system is that, particularly with only 1 or 2 players, the numbers may be so out of whack that the monsters need to roll a 17 or 18 to hit and the players only need a 3 or a 4; reducing the enhancement bonus of armor and weapons serves as a nice safety valve, then, to keep those numbers a bit more in check.
What do you think?
If you've got 1 player, increase his level by 9. So a level 1 adventure would need a single level 10 character, and a level 21 adventure would need a single level 30 character.
2 players: Increase level by 5.
3 players: Increase level by 3.
4 players: Increase level by 1.
6 players: Decrease level by 1.
7 players: Decrease level by 2.
8 players: Decrease level by 3.
I don't know if the exp will work out so that they'll level in the same spots, though I've got a gut feeling it might, or at least close enough. But anyways, that should work. Obviously, the more extreme the level conversion the more likely the system will be broken. Theoretically it should work, though.
---------------------
The long story: I got these numbers by the following process.
First, I took the exp for a single monster of a particular level. Let's call this the base exp. Multiply that by 5 to get the target exp for that level. This target exp is the number which adventure writers are supposed to focus on, though of course it will fluctuate up and down a bit and they'll also have both higher and lower level encounters, but if this works right it should get the same effect on your converted characters.
Next, I took the target exp, and divided by the number of players. This is how much exp each player should be "worth." For example, running 4 players through a level 1 encounter (target exp of 500) means that the 4 players should each be worth 500/4=125 exp. 125 exp is the base value of a level 2 monster, so the 4 players should each be level 2.
This formula does not match up every time, however it does match up very frequently. For example, levels 5, 10, 14 and 18 (base exp 200, 500, 1000, 2000 respectively) all show up exactly quite frequently. More importantly, every time they show up, there are EXACTLY 4 spots between the level 5 and 10 value, for example, meaning levels 6, 7, 8, and 9 fill those spots well even if they're not exact matches. In addition, if I set level 30 as the highest level at which your player's worth is 19,000 or fewer exp, it all syncs up perfectly. Thus I feel these numbers should work well.
-----------------------
There's still one major problem, though: treasure. I'm not really sure what to do about it; my gut instinct is to leave the treasure untouched. Since the treasure is not adjusted for level, it will act as a "dampener," making higher level characters slightly less powerful and lower level characters slightly more powerful. My biggest concern with this system is that, particularly with only 1 or 2 players, the numbers may be so out of whack that the monsters need to roll a 17 or 18 to hit and the players only need a 3 or a 4; reducing the enhancement bonus of armor and weapons serves as a nice safety valve, then, to keep those numbers a bit more in check.
What do you think?
