Hello, i'm new here even though i've been a long time lurker. I have a question to all the 2nd edition players, who enjoyed it, out there. I have been gaming with a group for a couple of years (we played all sorts of things, and the majority of players can be considered "good/intelligent"), and after much effort i have managed to "convince" them to play 2e (my favorite D&D ed), due to the fact that i'm quite a noob DM i decided to go with a "supposedly" easy, published campaing, "The Sword of the Dales".
So far, so good, but with 4 players (the campaing is meant to be played with 4 to 6 players, levels 1st through 4th) it was a disaster. Each encounter was a brutal test (i like difficult games, and the people i play with like them also, but this was insane, for example 2 non random encounters, 20 kobolds or 3d10 stirges against a lvl 1 party!, they survided the stirges just cause i rolled 6 in total), and after 2 sessions 1 encounter wiped them all even though they had, 2 +1 swords, magical health pots, a priest, the fact that they were full health and that i toned down the enemies in every single aspect but the damage output. I could blame the players but really it wasn't their fault, each enemy attack (2nd level human fighters) could 1 hit every one of my players but one and they did, while my players just managed to kill off one guy! I think i'm missing something, i mean, yeah i should've adjusted the encounters but i never though i would've had to adjust them so much to make them work.
So i'm asking for any tips regarding this apparent difficulty. Should i redo every encounter? Look for 2 more players? Just flat out lvl up every one of my players, to al least lvl 3? Given them EVEN better equipment? Or the problem is a "philosophical" one, we're missing something every 2nd ed players knows but we don't?
So far, so good, but with 4 players (the campaing is meant to be played with 4 to 6 players, levels 1st through 4th) it was a disaster. Each encounter was a brutal test (i like difficult games, and the people i play with like them also, but this was insane, for example 2 non random encounters, 20 kobolds or 3d10 stirges against a lvl 1 party!, they survided the stirges just cause i rolled 6 in total), and after 2 sessions 1 encounter wiped them all even though they had, 2 +1 swords, magical health pots, a priest, the fact that they were full health and that i toned down the enemies in every single aspect but the damage output. I could blame the players but really it wasn't their fault, each enemy attack (2nd level human fighters) could 1 hit every one of my players but one and they did, while my players just managed to kill off one guy! I think i'm missing something, i mean, yeah i should've adjusted the encounters but i never though i would've had to adjust them so much to make them work.
So i'm asking for any tips regarding this apparent difficulty. Should i redo every encounter? Look for 2 more players? Just flat out lvl up every one of my players, to al least lvl 3? Given them EVEN better equipment? Or the problem is a "philosophical" one, we're missing something every 2nd ed players knows but we don't?
