I know all about how the Core Rulebook says to add extra XP worth of enemies into an encounter depending on how many extras you have.
But I'm lazy, and I can't be the only lazy one out there.
Off the bat my inclination is to simply adjust HP up on all monsters according to the Elite adjustment table per each extra PC. That seems very easy, it doesn't mess with math at all, but it ought to keep the enemies in the fight a bit longer to compensate for the extra killing power of a larger party.
Thoughts? Other methods?
And a practical example using a spoiler from Fall of Plaguestone:
The first encounter in Fall of Plaguestone is 3 Mangy Wolves, 8 HP each, and a Caustic Wolf, 30 HP.
My party has 5 instead of 4 players.
Bestiary Page 6 says that the Mangy Wolves get +10 HP and the Caustic Wolf gets +15 HP making the new totals 3 Mangy Wolves at 18 HP and 1 Caustic Wolf at 45 HP.
After actually working my way through that example, I'm less sure of my proposed method. The added HP according to the chart more than doubles the HP of many lower level enemies, which seems off. But.. it's super simple, which I like...
If I'm designing the encounters from scratch I'll use the core rulebook's method, but for canned adventures when the advantage is that you don't have to do a lot of work prepping encounters.... I'm looking for a convenient solution! Perhaps just adding one "minion" type monster is the ticket??
Yea just checked the core book and adding one more of the weak creature from your example would equal the added XP for the extra player exactly.
That's a good point about the action economy.
And, it’s not quite as lazy as just adding HP, but I guess one extra minion isn’t so big a deal to add. And after a while I’m sure it will become reflexive and intuitive.
That's a good point about the action economy.
And, it’s not quite as lazy as just adding HP, but I guess one extra minion isn’t so big a deal to add. And after a while I’m sure it will become reflexive and intuitive.
It's not just adding HP for the elite adjustemnt, you also give them a +2 for all rolls.
I am going to run Plaguestone and I went through and calculated what changes would be needed for a group of 5. (Without Spoilers) The fights tend to fall into 2 main categories. Either a group of monsters (sometimes just that sometimes with a boss, but the adjustment is the same) or a single stronger monster (say level +2).
For the group I usually add another weak monster, this will usually hit your added exp need right on the nose or only be about 5 off.
For the single strong monster I add the elite adjustment. This is for two reasons: 1) it kind of break verisimilitude for me to have a giant cave bear that has a sidekick running around, and 2) it helps to preserve the feeling of the encounter as a really strong single creature.
TLDR; just add one more mook, only use elite adjustment if it's only one creature.
