Tweaking encounters from a boxed adventure

[blargney the second]

Push this group through a couple more encounters in the same level range before they take an extended rest. Now that the invoker has no surges, the party will do their best to make sure he takes no damage, which means they'll burn through their own surges at a much higher rate.

If you can do that, the next few fights will be a lot more tense for the players.
-blarg

 

[Amaroq]

Hey - in my experience, it takes a significantly larger threat than level N+1 to cause our party to feel like they're in danger of losing a fight.

In the path from L1 to L14, we've had two fights which we lost, and only two more in which we felt we were in serious danger of losing. Our DM routinely throws out N+1 to N+3 as "every day" fights, and it takes something beyond that to really threaten us, especially if we have a significant fraction of our dailies or healing surges available.

One of those highly threatening ones, for example, was an N+6 Solo.

That said, don't feel like you aren't doing your job if they don't feel like they're in danger of losing every time out. The 4e game seems to be much more about "the heroes are heroic, and are expected to fight many fights, and win many of them easily."

That mindset leaves room for the "my god, the dice were against us tonight" fight to lead to a near-TPK but stop short; if you press it up to the point where every fight feels touch and go, the "dice were against us" night can easily lead to a TPK.

From the DM's side of the screen, I've found N+1 to be a reasonable "every encounter" number, with N+2 and N+3 appropriate for named lieutenants, and N+4 to N+5 useful for the "memorable" fights.

 

[renau1g]

Yikes! n+6 solo...I usually try to keep solos around the parties level then add hazards or terrain features, or monster spawning trap or other monsters etc, etc. to add an element of challenge. That's one thing I always disliked about the word "solo". The encounters really shouldn't be with just that one enemy as they are boring. It's always more fun to bring in a few mooks, bodyguards, attendants, etc. into the battle so the BBEG doens't get locked down (although solos are significantly more fun now that OoI has been nerfed)

 

[Amaroq]

Yeah, that was the dragon I was talking about in the "Shield Feint" thread aside regarding reducing damage and healing oneself as a defender.

I'm actually with you, absolutely: as a DM, I'd rather pit the PC's against a Solo closer to their level, but give the Solo other assistance: minions, traps, terrain, etc.

 

[Skallgrim]

It also depends of the preferences of your group.

Some groups want a LOT of the fights to be real "skin of the teeth" wins, but like (or even anticipate) extended rests thereafter, or at least reliably available.

Some groups don't mind each fight to consume some party resources, but to feel a building pressure (either from resource or time scarcity).

Some groups don't mind a mix of both.

However, to my recollection, the adventures (E1-E3) are written assuming that there will be multiple encounters (possibly even more than 5) before an extended rest. I believe that they even assume that some encounters may occur before the PCs can even complete a short rest (I know that can happen in P3).

If your group prefers more individually dangerous fights (with rests thereafter), you will really have to adjust those encounters, no bones about it.

Also, and no criticism of you, you may not be running the enemies to their maximum effectiveness. You may be inexperienced with Epic level play, or unfamiliar with the capacities of the PCs in play.

You might also be playing the monsters with the tactical advice in the adventure, which is often flat out stupid. I know that in P2, it advised keeping some ranged opponents in a particular area in one fight. If I had done that, they would have been out of range of the party, and would have been no threat until all of the close opposition was wiped out.

While the adventures often give you starting locations and tactics for the opposition, I would trust your instincts over that any day.

 

[Aulirophile]

Generally speaking to challenge an epic group you need 7 encounters for a day, two easy, two medium, two hard, and one extra either medium or hard depending on how well they are doing. Actually I'd say this is true from late heroic on to 30, but....

If you want to make a single encounter challenging, just have stuff come in waves or otherwise combine encounters. This works really well with pre-written modules, actually. Just have one group scout/report, retreat back to the next room, ambush them with a double encounter. Have the artillery from a "hopeless" fight retreat and be reinforcements for the next encounter. No changing of total XP, but it becomes a lot more challenging.