So i'm unsure if I should design my maps for a lot of players, or plan for 1-3 of them to bail at the last minute. Like it's a low level one shot, got to get my feet wet somehow, i was thinking to balance it around 4-5 players but i currently have 7 people who have expressed interest. Is it better to have my maps tuned for 4-5 people (and expect some of my players to bail at the last minute) or add more enemies so that the action economy isn't too heavily favoring my players?
Design your encounters to be easily scalable, whether that means "off screen" mobs to throw at them in waves, or unlockable abilities for BBEGs. Lair and legendary actions are good for adapting combat without pulling up new statblocks.
Id agree with memnosyne about keeping them scalable. And for scaling, action economy is usually a bigger factor in difficulty than how strong the monster is, so it’s better to add a goblin, don’t make the existing ones tougher. And also, I’d expect everyone to attend the first session, with things tapering off after that. Then once it’s stable, you can start looking at boss fights with legendary/lair actions and such.
In a lot of the official modules, they account for various player group sizes by saying things like "3 Orcs for every player, and 1 Ogre. Use 2 Ogres if the party has X players or above". So basically just keep a ratio of monsters to players even. Also, keep in mind the party makeup. 3 low level magic types do not handle things the same way as 3 fighter types so you may need to adjust the scale to fit the party build.
I have been running Dragon of Icespire and they use the x # of monsters per player. It seems too powerful sometimes, but it work in the end. Trust the system. If you think its too easy, throw another handful in. If you think its too hard, have some run away when one of the monsters get killed or are low health. Nowhere does it say the monsters have to fight to the death.
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So i'm unsure if I should design my maps for a lot of players, or plan for 1-3 of them to bail at the last minute. Like it's a low level one shot, got to get my feet wet somehow, i was thinking to balance it around 4-5 players but i currently have 7 people who have expressed interest. Is it better to have my maps tuned for 4-5 people (and expect some of my players to bail at the last minute) or add more enemies so that the action economy isn't too heavily favoring my players?
Design your encounters to be easily scalable, whether that means "off screen" mobs to throw at them in waves, or unlockable abilities for BBEGs. Lair and legendary actions are good for adapting combat without pulling up new statblocks.
Id agree with memnosyne about keeping them scalable. And for scaling, action economy is usually a bigger factor in difficulty than how strong the monster is, so it’s better to add a goblin, don’t make the existing ones tougher.
And also, I’d expect everyone to attend the first session, with things tapering off after that. Then once it’s stable, you can start looking at boss fights with legendary/lair actions and such.
In a lot of the official modules, they account for various player group sizes by saying things like "3 Orcs for every player, and 1 Ogre. Use 2 Ogres if the party has X players or above". So basically just keep a ratio of monsters to players even. Also, keep in mind the party makeup. 3 low level magic types do not handle things the same way as 3 fighter types so you may need to adjust the scale to fit the party build.
I have been running Dragon of Icespire and they use the x # of monsters per player. It seems too powerful sometimes, but it work in the end. Trust the system. If you think its too easy, throw another handful in. If you think its too hard, have some run away when one of the monsters get killed or are low health. Nowhere does it say the monsters have to fight to the death.