So I’m about to start a Jade Regent game on Saturday, and I want to use the caravan rules mostly as written for my group because they seem to like them. My only big concern is that I know that combat with the caravan is very bad and that most encounters in book 3 and on can destroy the entire caravan with little effort. So, to fix this I have 2 relatively simple ideas that I was wondering if it would be enough to at least alleviate most of the issue with combat.
First: for damage I was thinking of leaving of adding the level of the caravan to damage alone, but also upping the dice by adding 1d6 to damage at level 3 and then an additional 1d6 every two levels after.
Second: for AC, I was thinking I could add half (or maybe even all) of the caravan’s level to AC, just to give it a bit more padding.
I know that this doesn’t fully fix the system, but will it be at least enough to get them to Minkai in mostly one piece?
You should be fine. I have seen people add 1d6 every odd level and +1 every even level. I had the PCs use the NPCs alongside caravan combat. Caravan fights caravan monster stat, while NPCs fight caravan monster but using the bestiary stats. Caravan combat ends when the NPCs win or caravan wins, whichever comes first.
I have the party level up the npcs usually staying within the character concept and theme. That stops any grumbling that the PCs are babysitting the caravan and NPCs. Then you save yourself from leveling NPCs for a specific scenario or side quests.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I added 1d6 to caravan damage every level up, in addition to handing out a stat point every level, and even then every fight was a nailbiter up until a random encounter in book 4 full-on destroyed the caravan. Seems to be the advancement curve the encounters are actually balanced against. Also, much as your instincts would tell you otherwise, don't track HP separately for each wagon. Past a certain point you may as well not track HP with that route because you are more or less certain to lose one each round, and all the non-critical NPCs on board.
There's also a lot to be said for just throwing the caravan combat rules out entirely and replacing them with standard encounters, scaled up to account for all the NPCs being in there. High stakes combat with really no tactical considerations of any kind really dampers the novelty of using an alternate system.
Fun AP otherwise, but that particular ball was dropped pretty badly.
I am considering making the caravans attack bonus also their damage bonus, thoughts on this?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The caravan stats for monsters are built around the monster design rules for appropriate challenge vs CR. So the reason the PCs are doomed is because average CR assumes 4 PCs to face a foe of said CR.
That means every monster is listed as about 3 Challenge Ratings too low, because the caravan only gets one action.
So go HERE
Now when you roll a random encounter. Let's say: The Bandit Ambush (CR 2), go three lines further up the CR Table: The lowest is CR 1/2 so we'll go with that and reduce the numbers a little further to get CR 1/3
So the correct Bandit Ambush stats are
Bandit Ambush (CR 2) AC 10; hp 5; Attack:+0; Damage 1d4
That's closer to the correct challenge rules for only having a single action in a caravan.