Small Party in the War of the Burning Sky

[Sobran]

I've finally managed to introduce my girlfriend to D&D and it seems like she may well like it. We've worked our way up from the Ascension card game, to Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and finally to D&D4E. So here's my dilemma:

I plan on running the War of the Burning Sky campaign, primarily due to a lack of time; school and work are pretty demanding, so I don't have time to design my own adventures. It will be a small party, by necessity, consisting only of my girlfriend, a DMPC, a simple Companion character (as per DMG2), and possibly one more character (details below). She has created a Druid because she loves animals. Unfortunately, I thought the Druid still had access to healing spells, like previous editions, which is apparently not the case.

I will be creating a character to fill out the ranks. The idea was for my DMPC to be a strong, stoic type who served as silent protector, forcing her to take the reins when it came to negotiating--i.e. roleplaying. This has morphed somewhat, as it now appears he should be a Leader as opposed to a Defender. Luckily, the Druid does lend itself well to a thematically appropriate Companion character. I plan on handing her a Wolf Companion, which I will have to find creative ways to level up, as I seriously doubt she'll want to trade out her canine companion at any point.

She loves dogs. That's... really not relevant. Moving on.

Now, there may or may not be a third PC, depending on whether or not my brother can work out some conflicting scheduling issues. If he can, there will be very little issue, as we'll have four characters (sort of). If he can't, then we'll be stuck with three and things get tricky. So how would you handle this?

1) I plan on having each character begin at Level 2. This will help some, but the first encounter of the campaign still looks pretty challenging. I don't want to go any higher than that so as to reduce complexity while she's learning the system. Can you think of any other "character-level" adjustments that can be made? Should the characters start with a low-level magic item? Again, complexity is a concern here.

2) Can you think of any interesting ways to level up the wolf down the road? This is less of a concern, as I'm sure I can think of something, but group brainstorming is always helpful. One thought I've had is that the wolf may "turn out" to be a dire wolf at some later point.

3) I've largely abandoned the original plan for the silent DMPC to be a Defender, as it seems healing is probably more important in such a small party. Is this accurate? I've only played a little of 4th Edition so far. How much can healing be supplemented? For example, creating a Shaman instead of a Cleric seems tempting, both for thematic reasons (primal power source), and because he can serve a secondary Striker role. However, a Shaman's healing capability looks far lower than a Cleric's. Experienced 4th Edition DMs: how much would this difference concern you? How much of the difference could be mitigated?

4) Obviously all of this is being done at the character level instead of the campaign level. This is because I have some time available now, but I foresee even less in the future. That means that as the campaign goes on, I will have less time to tweak encounters, so I'm trying to keep that to a minimum. This would be less an issue if I still had access to the Adventure Tools, but with WotC's broken promises on that front, I couldn't justify the continued expenditure. So adjusting encounters on the fly has to be kept to fairly easy fixes: swapping out a scout or two for more minions in the first encounter, for example. Am I overlooking something? Is there an easier way to "de-level" the encounters that wouldn't be time consuming or damage the feel of the encounter? I don't want to simply remove monsters whole-sale if I can avoid it, as that could change the entire feel of an encounter.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer. I'm experienced with D&D, but 4th Edition is relatively new to me.

--Sobran

PS: Holy crap that was longer than I intended. Sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Quickleaf]

First off, I suggest reading this blog on 1-DM-1-player games: http://newbiedm.com/2010/11/29/the-smallest-of-gaming-groups-dm1/

Really the whole focus of the game should be her Druid PC. The story and what sorts of challenges she faces should all be focused on the PC (as opposed to a top-down story, for example).

1. As far as character adjustments, I wouldn't make any.

2. Yes, lots. She could see thru the wolf's eyes. You could use any of the d20 SRD advancement options for animal companions or familiars. You could increase the wolf's baseline stats to a dire wolf around level 7.

3. If you want to do a DMPC, I'd go with a knight of the Aquiline Cross who opposes the Ragesian invasion. Build him like a paladin, so principally a defender with lay on hands capability. Remember also that the "Leader" tactical role has nothing to do with the character being the dominant voice in negotiation or decision-making.

4. Yes, there are several quick ways to de-level an encounter:
* Reducing enemies or swapping out for minions (highly recommended for 1 player games)
* Reducing enemy's level -1 attack, defense, checks, and -10 HP per level reduced
* Remove hazardous terrain or other enemy advantages
* Give the PC an advantage, such as surprise, choosing how the battlemap is set up, or a terrain power which deals massive damage

 

[Truename]

WotBS is excellent. The 4e conversion... not so much. The encounters are poorly designed and it has has questionable additions to the adventures. But my (4e) group is still having a great time. We've been playing it for about two years.

Our secret? Play the 3.5e version and build my own encounters. It's not as time consuming as you fear: encounter building is amazingly easy in 4e. Just decide how hard you want it to be, look up the matching encounter budget, then pick some monsters that are "close enough" and reflavor them to match the adventure. I do this before every game and it works great. Takes me about 30 minutes using the DDI Compendium... 15 minutes if I'm in a rush. (Then there's additional time for reviewing the adventure, drawing battle maps... normal DM stuff.)

3 PCs (your wife, the DMPC, and a companion character) isn't a problem at all if you do this. My group currently has 3 PCs due to some newborn babies.

To pull this off, you do need a DDI subscription or some monster books. But it lets you sidestep the question of "how do I make the combat work" by letting you just decide how combat works.

 

[Sobran]

First off, I suggest reading this blog on 1-DM-1-player games: http://newbiedm.com/2010/11/29/the-smallest-of-gaming-groups-dm1/

Really the whole focus of the game should be her Druid PC. The story and what sorts of challenges she faces should all be focused on the PC (as opposed to a top-down story, for example).

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, if I had more time on my hands, this would be "The Adventures of Luna the Druid and Grr the Wolf", a sandbox game. I am going to incorporate as much of that as I can, but time limitations are going to require some compromise. She will be the one making all the decisions however, so I can certainly work some of this in.

1. As far as character adjustments, I wouldn't make any.

Fair enough. I couldn't think of any adjustments beyond a 1-level bump that wouldn't add unnecessary complexity.

2. Yes, lots. She could see thru the wolf's eyes. You could use any of the d20 SRD advancement options for animal companions or familiars. You could increase the wolf's baseline stats to a dire wolf around level 7.

For some reason I hadn't thought of looking at the familiar rules. I appreciate your input.

3. If you want to do a DMPC, I'd go with a knight of the Aquiline Cross who opposes the Ragesian invasion. Build him like a paladin, so principally a defender with lay on hands capability. Remember also that the "Leader" tactical role has nothing to do with the character being the dominant voice in negotiation or decision-making.

I seem to have muddled my thoughts a bit in this section. The bit about the Leader tactical role was merely my concern that healing might be needed with such a small "party" rather than his role in the roleplaying. I intend to keep him in the background, a fact I felt compelled to mention as DMPC is such a dirty word--for reasons I largely agree with. I muddled the roleplaying and mechanical thinking though.

I take it from what you state here that you don't feel healing will be as much of an issue as I feared. Is this the case? A Paladin is actually what I initially planned, as the Defender aspect is handy and a little healing helps balance the party. Are you of the opinion that the healing will be sufficient and that Defender/Healing will be of more value than Healing/Striking (as with a Shaman)?

This is where my inexperience with this edition shows.

4. Yes, there are several quick ways to de-level an encounter:
* Reducing enemies or swapping out for minions (highly recommended for 1 player games)
* Reducing enemy's level -1 attack, defense, checks, and -10 HP per level reduced
* Remove hazardous terrain or other enemy advantages
* Give the PC an advantage, such as surprise, choosing how the battlemap is set up, or a terrain power which deals massive damage

This is actually what I was hoping for. I know I read this somewhere, but when I went looking for it I couldn't find it. Do you have a page reference for the leveling/de-leveling thing? I should bookmark that.

 

[Quickleaf]

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, if I had more time on my hands, this would be "The Adventures of Luna the Druid and Grr the Wolf", a sandbox game. I am going to incorporate as much of that as I can, but time limitations are going to require some compromise. She will be the one making all the decisions however, so I can certainly work some of this in.

Gotcha. I'm going to recommend checking out my DM cheat sheet - with a little experience with 4e, you could use that to run an entirely free form game barely referencing any rulebooks (at least during play).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/307923-4e-dm-cheat-sheet.html

Alternately, you might ditch the rules altogether or choose a lighter system. Just a thought.

I take it from what you state here that you don't feel healing will be as much of an issue as I feared. Is this the case? A Paladin is actually what I initially planned, as the Defender aspect is handy and a little healing helps balance the party. Are you of the opinion that the healing will be sufficient and that Defender/Healing will be of more value than Healing/Striking (as with a Shaman)?

4e is not designed in any way to be run solo, so you're going to be doing a lot of tweaking on the fly. In general, 4e monster damage output assumes a potent amount of healing. You can always adapt and add in more healing via temples, potions, et cetera if she's getting pummeled by monsters.

This is actually what I was hoping for. I know I read this somewhere, but when I went looking for it I couldn't find it. Do you have a page reference for the leveling/de-leveling thing? I should bookmark that.

It was this one by Chris Perkins:

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dmxp/20110317

 

[Sobran]

WotBS is excellent. The 4e conversion... not so much. The encounters are poorly designed and it has has questionable additions to the adventures. But my (4e) group is still having a great time. We've been playing it for about two years.

Our secret? Play the 3.5e version and build my own encounters. It's not as time consuming as you fear: encounter building is amazingly easy in 4e. Just decide how hard you want it to be, look up the matching encounter budget, then pick some monsters that are "close enough" and reflavor them to match the adventure. I do this before every game and it works great. Takes me about 30 minutes using the DDI Compendium... 15 minutes if I'm in a rush. (Then there's additional time for reviewing the adventure, drawing battle maps... normal DM stuff.)

3 PCs (your wife, the DMPC, and a companion character) isn't a problem at all if you do this. My group currently has 3 PCs due to some newborn babies.

To pull this off, you do need a DDI subscription or some monster books. But it lets you sidestep the question of "how do I make the combat work" by letting you just decide how combat works.

Unfortunately, the DDI Subscription is out. Money is tight and I can't justify the price anymore. (I used to have a sub.)

On the WotBS 4e front: is this a common feeling? Was the conversion poorly done? I do still have a EN World sub, so I could download the 3e version and do a conversion, I guess... That does sort of defeat the purpose of saving time by using the campaign. How poorly done are the encounters? I don't have the experience to simply eye-ball them yet.

 

[Sobran]

<snip>

4e is not designed in any way to be run solo, so you're going to be doing a lot of tweaking on the fly. In general, 4e monster damage output assumes a potent amount of healing. You can always adapt and add in more healing via temples, potions, et cetera if she's getting pummeled by monsters.

<snip>

This quote actually gets to the core of my concerns. What ways are there to supplement healing in 4th Edition? How valuable is that compared to say, a Defender, when considering a limited party? I can minimize fights and do other nifty things that are appropriate in a single-player scenario, but the fact is that I wanted to try 4th Edition because I think the tactical aspect will appeal to her.

 

[RangerWickett]

Even we at E.N. Pub acknowledge that our conversion, especially of the early adventures, was done without as much system experience as we'd like. Consider that WotBS was made originally for 3.5, 7 years into the life cycle of 3rd edition, whereas the conversion was started in the first few months of 4e. In our defense, the design conceits for 3e and 4e are kinda different.

With ZEITGEIST, our new adventure path, we've got a clearer sense of what works in each system, so we're able to produce adventures that work for both 4e and Pathfinder. But yeah, as much as I loved working on WotBS, at least at low level the 4e conversion doesn't work that well with 4e rules.

 

[Sobran]

Even we at E.N. Pub acknowledge that our conversion, especially of the early adventures, was done without as much system experience as we'd like. Consider that WotBS was made originally for 3.5, 7 years into the life cycle of 3rd edition, whereas the conversion was started in the first few months of 4e. In our defense, the design conceits for 3e and 4e are kinda different.

With ZEITGEIST, our new adventure path, we've got a clearer sense of what works in each system, so we're able to produce adventures that work for both 4e and Pathfinder. But yeah, as much as I loved working on WotBS, at least at low level the 4e conversion doesn't work that well with 4e rules.

Well that's unfortunate. I don't blame you or anyone else involved on the project of course. Your experience with the system at the time is roughly comparable to my own experience with it now. Honestly, I thought Zeitgeist looked awesome and would be running that instead, but the girlfriend desires a more traditional fantasy setting.

EDIT: I've been checking the monster math using the revised numbers from MM3 and so far they seem to be spot-on. Did the early adventures get fixed at some point? The point about filler fights still seems to be an issue, but the monster math doesn't seem to suffer from any errors I have seen so far.

EDIT2: Aaaaaand nevermind. I spoke too soon. Anything above level 1 appears to have incorrect damage, though everything else is okay.

 

[Quickleaf]

This quote actually gets to the core of my concerns. What ways are there to supplement healing in 4th Edition? How valuable is that compared to say, a Defender, when considering a limited party? I can minimize fights and do other nifty things that are appropriate in a single-player scenario, but the fact is that I wanted to try 4th Edition because I think the tactical aspect will appeal to her.

I suggested paladin for a reason: primarily defender with backup healing. A defender can make a huge difference, especially an essentials cavalier, since their defender mechanic (same as the knight's) relies on opportunity attacks. You get one opp attack per enemy per turn, so if you have, say, 3 goblins attacking her PC while adjacent to the cavalier, he'd get a swing at each one! If you use lots of minions and, say, cut monter HP by half (a common house rule), many attacks might never cause any damage to her.

Compared to 3e, there are fewer consumable healing potions/wands in 4e (at least if you follow the recommended treasure guidelines), but in 4e most character classes have some self-healing powers, usually but not always utility powers. A solo PC would be wise to pick at least one of those up. I'm not as familiar with the Druid, but I'm sure between HotFK and PHB2 you'll find some self-healing for her.