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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Randomthoughts" data-source="post: 5767628" data-attributes="member: 6681248">Modifying Encounters: To follow up on Zaran's comment, I'm looking at pages 56-57 of the DMG. Your encounter budget = # of PCs/NPCs in party * XP value of monsters of the encounter's level. A typical encounter ends up with 1 standard monster for each party member, or you "trade in" 1 standard monster for 4 minions (which are the same as the standard monster but with only 1 hp). You choose the encounter level, where encounters of standard difficulty are +0 or +1 con. You probably want to stick with this difficulty level, or perhaps lower (-3 to -1 level) or higher (if the PC has a good build for example) to mix things up.  Dungeon Delves: If you're up for some light preparation, there is a 4e book called Dungeon Delves. A delve is a short adventure with only 3 encounters in a "dungeon crawl" format (its in a tower, a temple or actual mini-dungeon). You can start with wrapping a story around a delve or using the one already provided. For example, Delve 1 is Coppernight Hold, a mine delve. It has a short paragraph on background, or you can create your own, say tying the PC to it.  Each delve has 3 encounters, so you can keep as is or modify them with less/more/different monsters or add traps/terrain. You can add more story elements to each encounter like adding a slave pen in one, giving the PC a choice of freeing them or not. Think an adventure with only 3 encounters is too short? Well, you can string two delves together, say starting with a temple delve that has a secret door to a dungeon delve. Or you could break up the 3 encounters with skill challenges. For example, take a simple, 3-room dungeon delve. Kill monsters in room 1, go to room 2 then 3. Pretty boring right? Well, add a skill challenge after the room 1. Say there is an underground river that has to be crossed (and you create a skill challenge to that effect). Once the PCs overcome that, they reach room 2. After room 2, they have to cross a massive chasm where stirges attack them (skill challenge #2 or perhaps a SC and combat). After that, they finally reach room 3. That's plenty of encounters for a 3-4 hour session. Hope that helps. Good luck and welcome back to gaming! EDIT: Making Your Own Adventures: If the Reply If You Love 4e thread (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/315671-reply-if-you-love-d-d-4th-edition.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/315671-reply-if-you-love-d-d-4th-edition.html</a>) is any indication, 4e makes it incredibly easy to create or customize your own adventures. Now, I subscribe to DDi and use MB extensively , since I customize or create from scratch each and every encounter. But I am blown away with how easy it is. I'm an experienced GM so I tend to know what I want out of an encounter. I modify or create new monsters all the time, so I do that through MB and import the text to Word/Excel. I'd estimate it takes an hour - tops - to finish all the crunch aspects for an 8-hour adventure. Amazing, really.</blockquote>

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