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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kerberos1976" data-source="post: 5769167" data-attributes="member: 87793">Hey everyone, thought I would report back and let you know what happened. I spoke with my buddy about the few options that we had and we decided that for the first couple sessions, we would commit to testing out how starting the PC's at level 1 and scaling back the published adventures would work out. I decided to use the "Stick In The Mud" a pre-printed Chaos Scar adventure because of the recommendations here, I had quick access to it, and the prep for the maps, etc. seemed very quick and easy. I copied the maps to some graph paper and in a fashion only a completely artistically devoid individual could, hoped that my buddy would figure out a bunch of random dots was in fact "collapsed walls and other rubble".First encounter went fairly easy for him, not much of a challenge. Then we moved on to the second encounter. Also, not incredibly difficult, but I think it was a little tougher. On the third encounter, I decided that I wouldn't remove as many monsters because he seemed to be just chewing through them. Unfortunately, I don't think I removed enough of them, or more importantly didn't make the proper modifications that I needed to. As a result, both his characters were on the path to death (1 to 2 rounds for the fighter ... the wizard was already -3 HP) when we stopped and re-analyzed everything.That being said, we both had a blast and learned a few things:1) We are both very rusty on the rules... i.e. when the wizard cast an area effect power, we only rolled one attack and one damage. I'm pretty sure we should have rolled once for damage but individually for each monster he was attacking.2) I need to more closely follow the advice here and scale back according to the rules ... I think the Chaos Scar adventure was designed much like a video game ... level 1-1 was easy 1-2 a little harder 1-3 harder still, but I saw him just steam roll through 1-1 and 1-2 so decided not to make 1-3 so easy. Unfortunately, it was already designed THAT way from the beginning. (Hope this makes sense?)3) Our combat tactics both stink. We need to think more about the concept of "roleplaying" the combat and PC's and monsters, instead of just "I move here, roll for initiative, that's a hit, 9 points damage ... who's next?" I'm going to put most of this onus on me as the DM. Next game I'm going to try to have the monster's more active. Shouting insults ... picking up a book and throwing at the PC ... better combat tactics in general and by that I mean thinking more like the monsters and not "meta gaming".4) Roleplaying has been and will continue to ever be ... ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN AWESOME. I love this game.</blockquote>

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