Confused about balancing encounters.

[garadan]

This is probably really dumb, but I am just not getting the way the monster xp levels work. I feel a bit confused trying to convert the playtest adventure to two pc's instead of four and want to know if I am doing it correctly.

Two level 1 pc's is a party level of 1, so for instance, the four goblin warriors would be worth 80 XP total because they are level 0 and would count as party level -2 each. So according to the balancing rules I would remove 40 XP worth(-20 xp for each player under 4) meaning it would just be two goblin warriors instead of four?

Am I interpreting that correctly?

So does that mean for Solo monsters like the Sewer ooze I would add a weak template to even it out?

Thanks in advance for clarification.

[Storythebard]

garadan wrote:

This is probably really dumb, but I am just not getting the way the monster xp levels work. I feel a bit confused trying to convert the playtest adventure to two pc's instead of four and want to know if I am doing it correctly.

Two level 1 pc's is a party level of 1, so for instance, the four goblin warriors would be worth 80 XP total because they are level 0 and would count as party level -2 each. So according to the balancing rules I would remove 40 XP worth(-20 xp for each player under 4) meaning it would just be two goblin warriors instead of four?

Am I interpreting that correctly?

So does that mean for Solo monsters like the Sewer ooze I would add a weak template to even it out?

Thanks in advance for clarification.

Yes to the goblins question, and technically yes to the sewer ooze question although I'm going to leave the sewer ooze alone for when I run this Sunday. I think it's good to set the tone out the gate, 2v1 are good odds, and lastly the weak template is better suited in my eyes for Drakus.

[Mark Seifter]

Technically the weak template works here only because it takes the ooze from level 1 to level 0; normally a 2-player party needs a bigger reduction. Also the warning for smaller parties from the Playtestiary applies here: a 2 player party may need a bigger reduction than these numbers suggest purely from the lack of diverse options the group might have, especially depending on what two characters they bring.