Skyknight |
Is it possible to go through the SCAP as written, fighting all the encounters, with a party of just four characters and not have a TPK?
I've only got three players:
Dwarf Fighter
Elf Cleric of Corellon-Larethian
Half-elf Rogue
...and to round out the party, I've had to add an NPC Sorceror to the group. I haven't been pulling any punches with the encounters... I've been running them pretty much as written. But they've been doing surprisingly well. They dispatched Kazmojen and his minions with ease, as well as the were-rat assassins (they had no silver weapons) and they've resisted Drakthar's numerous attempts to dominate them while navigating through his lair. Next session, they should enter the throne room and have the final battle with him, during which he'll unleash his most powerful attacks on them alongside his animated throne.
So, my players are very much against adding new people to our game. They also seem to have a contempt for all NPCs. They are very cocky due to their good rolls so far this campaign, but I'm worried they're all going to die and be discouraged from ever playing DnD again (yes 2/3 of my players are newbies).
Being a fairly inexperienced DM, I'd like some advice on how to proceed.
Frank Steven Gimenez |
Honestly, let the dice fall where they may. And remind them that Skie has a scroll of raise dead if they need it.
Because they are only four PCs, they should have received experience points to place them one level higher than expected. In addition, they split all the phat loot four ways instead of six. So they will be more powerful than a PC in a six character team.
BTW, I also was running a four player group, and there has only been one character death. And that was from a wandering beheir. One difference is that they are all gestalted with the aristocrat NPC class, so they are a bit tougher than normal.
Tim Smith |
I'd agree that IF they survive, their xp will put them at a higher level to compensate a bit for the lack of numbers. However, they won't have the extra actions that a group of six would (as a whole) and if one goes down it will have a bigger impact on the group-potentially leading to a domino effect TPK.
My party has 4 characters (non-gestalt) and I use an action point system to allow key rerolls (this offsets lack of extra actions somewhat and stops someone falling too easily to a charm or hold spell, for example)and to reduce a crit to a normal hit. See Unearthed Arcana or Eberron or Mutants and Masterminds for action points. Personally I use the M&M one with bits of the UA thrown in.
Also, to make the PCs more resistant to death, I let them take the best of 2 rolls for hit points on levelling up and they don't die until minus con score hp are reached, rather than minus 10hp. (This is necessary in my campaign as raise dead is a 7th level spell and only the Wee Jassians can cast it in Cauldron-and of course that won't be happening as they are not fans of the PCs).
So far, this has worked well with only one death up to halfway through Zenith Trajectory. Sometimes enemy spells seem nerfed by action points (as its much easier to save) but the overall effect is fine. After all, major spellcasters have higher DCs anyway and the players only have a limited number of action points per level.
However, with 4 PCs I did feel it was necessary to reduce xp at the lower levels so they didn't shoot up levels too quickly (in any case, those skulks and creepers are worth way too many xp!) Now they are in Zenith Trajectory, I am giving out normal xp again as the hurdles for level gain are further apart, but I will be closely monitoring this as we go on.
Frank Steven Gimenez |
I also do the dead if HP are below zero minus CON score instead of -10, and after the party level was going to be two above the expected level and they were pwning every encounter, I stopped keeping track of experience and have them level at certain points of the adventure. Now they are at level and still pwning almost every encounter. Having a raging fullblade specialist as a PC has tipped the scales a bit. She did a 76 hp crit against Nabthatoron and the party took him out in one round. I kept him up just a little bit longer* so that he could kill Alek, then leave but had him fall when the rogue with Alakast crit him with her AoO. That worked out just right. At least I had him sunder the flaming bow from the archer with one of his attacks before focusing on Alek.
*note the evil hypocracy from someone who has stated to let the dice fall where they may. Please shoot me! Stop me before I DM again!
Tim Smith |
I also do the dead if HP are below zero minus CON score instead of -10, and after the party level was going to be two above the expected level and they were pwning every encounter, I stopped keeping track of experience and have them level at certain points of the adventure. Now they are at level and still pwning almost every encounter. Having a raging fullblade specialist as a PC has tipped the scales a bit. She did a 76 hp crit against Nabthatoron and the party took him out in one round. I kept him up just a little bit longer* so that he could kill Alek, then leave but had him fall when the rogue with Alakast crit him with her AoO. That worked out just right. At least I had him sunder the flaming bow from the archer with one of his attacks before focusing on Alek.
*note the evil hypocracy from someone who has stated to let the dice fall where they may. Please shoot me! Stop me before I DM again!
Hmm, a lucky crit would certainly threaten my plans for Nabthatoron, as the barbarian in my party could do a similar thing to your fullblade specialist (whatever that is ;-)) ). However, I won't be giving them Alakast quite so easily or so soon as the book does... Also, I may have to give Nabthatoron a couple of action points of his own (then he can avoid the odd crit or terrible roll) as I theoretically do for major NPCs anyway, but never really end up doing.
Craig Shannon |
Try it with just 3 :) Actualy Sean K Reynolds did a short treatise on parties of a different size from 4 at his website.
I ran Life's Bazaar from the orginal Dunegon and it looked too hard. I checked it against expected ELs and it was. So I ran Evil Unearthed first, so my 3 players where just 3rd when I started the actual AP. It worked, when I felt they weher a little bit too tough I made all the constructs undamaged to keep them challenged. I run my hobgoblins like elite praetorians anyway, so they kept them concerned from play style as opposed to bumping CRs :) Certain things to bare in mind.
1) The players may advance faster as they are splitting XP for 4 between 3 (or 6 between 4) but they will only be a level or so higher, the players will have less total HP, spells, present less targets etc than a correct sized party.
2) Ignore average treasure by level, the players will end up with more than normal as they are splitting more between less, and it does help offset their fragility from lack of numbers.
3) The players, whilst fewer, may get access to spells/abilities that "break" the module based on designer assumptions. Eg an adventure that takes 6 PCs from 6th to 8th will probably take 3 from 7th to 9th. As such the PCs may get 5th level spells, like teleport, that the adventure assumes they may not have.
Hope this helps.
Skyknight |
My four players killed Drakthar!
Having skirmished with him a couple times before, they knew he wouldn't go down easily. They systematically cleared the dungeon of goblins. Often after an encounter, Drakthar would appear to taunt them and attempt to Dominate the rogue. Each time he would fail, and each time she would give him the finger.
1st encounter: He sent four bat swarms at them, and my players had a tough time with those. While they fought the bats, Drakthar used his dominating gaze... and kept failing repeatedly. The sorceror was the powerhouse, using his wand of burning hands, and firing off as many magic missiles as he could. The swarms were defeated, and Drakthar was forced to flee and heal up.
2nd encounter: The party was so confident they decided to SLEEP in Drakthar's way. I rolled on the encounter table four times, and got nothing, nothing, nothing, Drakthar. So Drakthar shows up to see only the rogue is awake. He tries to dominate her for several rounds but she makes her will save each time. Then she wakes up the rest of the party and Drakthar leaves, deciding such tough foes need a trap set up for them.
The trap involved all the remaining goblins in the dungeon gathering in one place for a massive ambush. This included the adept and the shocker lizards. The party barely survived the ambush, and the wand of cure light wounds was used liberally.
3rd encounter: By now the party had realized Drakthar would not go down easily. They had just become level 4, but had precious few resources left. The sorceror was all out of spells/day. They devised a plan to ambush him. The cleric cast "Hide from Undead" on everyone but himself. Then he marched into the throne room, silver longsword in hand. "Drakthar, I've come to slay you." When they begin fighting, the others (still invisible to Drakthar) take up flanking positions. I had Drakthar and his animated throne stand their ground, fighting as a team. Their damage reduction was difficult for the party to get through.
It was a tough battle. By the end, everyone's HP was in the single digits. At one point the cleric went to -7 HP, but the rogue bravely administered a potion to him in the heat of battle. The wand of cure light wounds, as well as the wand of burning hands, were almost entirely used up in that fight. But they WON. And I didn't have to bend the rules for them one single bit.
Tysdaddy |
Wow. For a bunch of newbies, it sounds like they are doing a fantastic job of thinking things through and planning ahead, and you, Mr. DM, are doing a super job of making this fun and exciting for them. Keep up the great work, and do let us know how their adventures go.
And would someone explain to this old fogey what PWNing means? I saw it earlier in a post, and can sorta figure it out, but an official explanation would help. Thanks!
Skyknight |
To "pwn" someone means to defeat them so completely that it's humiliating to them. It implies that you "own" them. The weird spelling comes from a common typo that probably started in the early days of gaming over the Internet. Since then it has become a popular victory cry.
Saying "I own you!" isn't nearly as fun as yelling "PWNED!" or "j00 g0t Pwnz0r3d, n00b! L0LZ!!!111oneoneone"
Tarlane |
This is my second group running the SCAP, the first group was huge(8-9 players at various points of it) and they were repeatedly smacked around, even having having a TPK in the third chapter. With so many people tactics were difficult and it made sneaking anywhere impossible because -someone- was going to make noise. Even with the campaign as written they had a very rough time with even some of the early fights.
Now for their second time through I am running it with only 4 players and I have found that they are having a much easier time of it. At the moment the party just finished chapter 4 last night and they have only had one death thus far, a rather valiant one where the cleric tried to hold back Aushanna while the rest of the party fled to safety.
This isn't to say they haven't taken some bad hits(and close wounds from the complete divine has saved some of their lives a number of times) but tactics and teamwork have really prevailed this session.
The adventure is only going to get tougher with time though so my advice to you is to encourage the kind of ingenuity that your players have shown, whether it is with extra XP if you want them to be a bit higher level then normal, though circumstance bonuses on well thought out or planned actions, or even just leaving them in a better posistion because of their ideas. These fights are hard and they are supposed to be, thats half the thrill, but there is a certain joy that comes from knowing you walked away from a fight that could easily have killed you with barely a scratch simply because you spied on the enemy and knew when you could catch him without his armor.