Quick Question about CR/EL and Party Members

[Stomphoof]

Does any know if it will be easier to run small scale games? I know right now in 3.5 ED that the standard party is considered to be 4 people and the game is balanced around such. I prefer to run smaller games with 2-3 actual players/pc's so its a pain to actually work out how to balance encounters.

Does anyone know if it will be easier to work around the number of actual PC's in 4th Ed?

 

[Plane Sailing]

As far as we know the standard now is "1 opponent per party member" for a balanced encounter, making it easy to eyeball what is balanced, tough or easy for a group of 2 PCs or 7 PCs etc.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Stomphoof]

I am going to assume that certain monsters, like a Dragon or Giant might equal to 2 or more party members then?

 

[JohnSnow]

From what we know, a dragon (and a few others, like beholders) are solo monsters. Which means they can take on a standard party (up to 5 PCs) solo. Obviously, with substantially fewer or many more party members, you might want to adjust the dragon's level.

Other monsters (like the Pit Fiend) are "Elite." Which means they count for 2 opponents. I don't think it would be totally unreasonable for giants to be Elite.

 

[Stomphoof]

Excellent thanks. So it looks like it will be much easier to run encounters for different sized parties.

Sweeeeeeeeet

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Yup.

Solo = 4 PCs
Elite = 2 PCs
Normal = 1 PC
Minion = 1/2 a PC (or 1/4?)

So if you have 2 PCs, you can face off against one elite mob, two normal mobs, or a bunch of minions.

Pitting 2 PCs against a dragon or beholder might be tough, since they're balanced against full groups of 4-5 PCs, and therefore get tons of free actions and stuff. Plus with less than four PCs you can't have all your "roles" covered, making tough encounters that much tougher. If you want your party to fight off a dragon, you might want to toss in an NPC or two to help them out.

 

[Stomphoof]

I probebly would throw an NPC or two into the fray if I put em up against a "Solo" mob.

But this really does make things a bit easier for me to work with.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't think all dragons are solo monsters in 4E... the play tests make them sound like they've diversified their use along the various monster types.