What to run for my two friends at Gen Con?

[Noumenon]

Thank you very much, Jack99. I am almost getting used to the amount of effort Enworlders will put in to make my adventures the best they can be. Since it's my first time DMing 4E, I am planning to do a dry run through the encounters with practice PCs. I will let you know how well balanced your ideas are turning out. Gotta download some monster cards and power cards first.

I am pretty disciplined about learning how to play my creatures tactically, I tend to waffle forever about the game design elements like what level to start at. So you put me ahead by like, two weeks there. Even if I tweak it, it's much easier to work off a starting point.

 

[Noumenon]

So I'm finally working on this and I thought I'd start with Nightscale and work backward, that way I will be sure to have encounters prepped all the way to the end. But it turns out you did all the encounters except for Nightscale. So what you did is take the encounters, balanced for 5 level 1's at 500 XP, and change them to around 300 XP each, right? So I should take a monster worth 875 XP and work it down to 525 XP, right?

If you're supposed to pick monsters by selecting them till they add up to the right XP, why doesn't the DMG list how much XP they're worth in the back? I'm adding that in in pencil.

Looks like a Solo is worth 5 times the XP, so if I want 525 I'd have to take the black dragon down to level 2. I think I'll go down to 1 because I think the party is going to have a lot of trouble with that cloud of darkness it generates. You need Thunderwave or something to get it out of there, and a bard-plus-paladin party can't do that.

 

[Noumenon]

On second thought, after reading http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ard-d-d-4th-edition-black-dragon-fight-2.html I think I am going to put some kind of magic Orb of Light in the adventure that the PCs can break or steal to cancel out the dragon's darkness power. Hmm... maybe tinder lying around to light up the cave? It will add some mobility to the fight too.

 

[Jack99]

So I'm finally working on this and I thought I'd start with Nightscale and work backward, that way I will be sure to have encounters prepped all the way to the end. But it turns out you did all the encounters except for Nightscale. So what you did is take the encounters, balanced for 5 level 1's at 500 XP, and change them to around 300 XP each, right? So I should take a monster worth 875 XP and work it down to 525 XP, right?

If you're supposed to pick monsters by selecting them till they add up to the right XP, why doesn't the DMG list how much XP they're worth in the back? I'm adding that in in pencil.

Looks like a Solo is worth 5 times the XP, so if I want 525 I'd have to take the black dragon down to level 2. I think I'll go down to 1 because I think the party is going to have a lot of trouble with that cloud of darkness it generates. You need Thunderwave or something to get it out of there, and a bard-plus-paladin party can't do that.

Yes about the xp, just remember that a solo below level 10 (or at any level if you follow the MM2 guidelines) is only 4*hit points etc. A level 2 solo should be 5*125=650, so I would make it level 1 as you suggest.

The DMG does have a chart that shows just that, its in chapter 4 (no books atm).

And finally, yes, you should do something about the cloud of darkness or it will 100% surely kill your party. It probably will anyway, but hey, at least they might stand a chance.