Adapting "Red Flags" for 2 Players

[Flungus]

Hello again and I am back for more advice. I am running the playtest but only have 2 players due to the rest of the group dropping out for various reasons. I am looking for advice on what to do if my players end up fighting the Kraken, I fell a cr 18 creature even it i were to apply the weak adjustments a multiple times might kill them too easily, my current thought is to replace it with a couple of Sea Serpents with the elite adjustments and was wondering if anyone had a better idea.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Edge93]

Flungus wrote:

Hello again and I am back for more advice. I am running the playtest but only have 2 players due to the rest of the group dropping out for various reasons. I am looking for advice on what to do if my players end up fighting the Kraken, I fell a cr 18 creature even it i were to apply the weak adjustments a multiple times might kill them too easily, my current thought is to replace it with a couple of Sea Serpents with the elite adjustments and was wondering if anyone had a better idea.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

The sea serpents certainly isn't a bad idea, though I wouldn't even add the elite adjustments, assuming your party isn't set beyond basic combat preparedness (+3 weapon and armor, at least 18 in attack stat) elite sea serpents might give them an undue amount of trouble, while regular sea serpents should actually work out alright.

Alternatively, if you still want the Kraken, you could apply the weak template a whopping 3 times and it should actually work. This will make him a level 15 creature, which to two players is the same as a level 17 creature (The Kraken is 18 but erratta already said to apply Weak once because he was too strong).

Also, you should apply weak to Necerion twice to take him from 15 to 13, making him the same challenge to 2 players as he normally is to 4. In doing so though you should probably remove his level 8 spells too.

[Flungus]

Good idea on Necerion he did seem very strong also

[Edge93]

Flungus wrote:

Good idea on Necerion he did seem very strong also

He didn't do much actual harm to my party (though he wa getting there) but he gave them a major runaround and they took a couple rounds to start getting decent hits in, but then someone critted a Demoralize check and he fled top speed (which included Dimension Door) into the Kraken room where the Kraken killed him in 2 rounds. XD

[Claxon]

Flungus wrote:

Hello again and I am back for more advice. I am running the playtest but only have 2 players due to the rest of the group dropping out for various reasons. I am looking for advice on what to do if my players end up fighting the Kraken, I fell a cr 18 creature even it i were to apply the weak adjustments a multiple times might kill them too easily, my current thought is to replace it with a couple of Sea Serpents with the elite adjustments and was wondering if anyone had a better idea.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

My party just played this. We "lost" combat but "won" the adventure.

Here's how!:

We didn't know the BBEG was listening to our plans, we had assumed he went into the vault and was trapped.

So we ended up having to fight the kraken and BBEG at the same time, we had initially used invisibility and stealth to get past the kraken. The fight basically proceeded by everyone getting thrased pretty well, my character getting the McGuffin and feeding it to the kraken ("If I can't have it, no one will") and then being killed by the kraken. The BBEG teleported away, the party managed to go invisible and escape the room. The BBEG came back to loot my body, he didn't know I fed the McGuffin to the kraken, and teleported away with it. The party used the mirror to make a duplicate kraken which killed the original and then waited for it to disappear and searched the the remains, securing the McGuffin.