It's pretty easy to trim back encounters, just put out fewer or give them less hit points. Ramping up is harder. You can put out more monsters but at the same time you want the fight to remain interesting - 5 more goblins aren't necessarily going to make am encounter more engaging.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Ramping up is more complicated, but not super hard keeping it interesting.
Jumping 3 goblins to 5 goblins isn't that interesting, but putting the 3 goblins on the ground, in a swamp ( rough terrain ), 4 Kobolds archers in the trees jumping from tree-to-tree ( out of reach of melee and in half-cover ), and have a couple of swamp gas pockets which will ignite ( 1d4 fire damage if someone goes into them with a torch ), and the combat isn't so dull anymore, even thought it's the same combat XP as 5 goblins.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
It went pretty bad, my players literally left the dungeon (that their backstories are tied to, no less) because there wasn't a big enough treasure chest. And one of them IRL went to sleep, and i spent forever stuttering and looking up monsters. Great first session. I am seriously considering quitting.
OK shhhhh...one way to keep a party engaged is to take one of them out (0hp not dead). Focus fire.
Another thing you can do is have the next npc they encounter know something about the cave/dungeon. "My cousin went in there once, he told me saw a <insert something sparkly and appealing> but the <something not so scary> chased him off before he could nab it!"
Gives them a small hint that they should go back because maybe they missed something. Then make the not so scary thing SCARY - it's ben years, the thing grew up.
thanks, but they sent the town gaurd to deal w/ it, 12 went, 7 came back and gave a 10 percent cut of the profits to the pcs. But they couldn't deal with the actual threat, so maybe the boss of the dungeon brings the fight to them.
i scaled my adventure for 4 players, but one isn’t coming, and I can’t stall any longer!!!!!! 40 minutes to the session (1 eastern time)
I did NOT eat those hikers.
I assume you mean combat. Scale down monster hit points. If multiple monsters, drop one.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
So how did it go?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I am curious as well.
It's pretty easy to trim back encounters, just put out fewer or give them less hit points. Ramping up is harder. You can put out more monsters but at the same time you want the fight to remain interesting - 5 more goblins aren't necessarily going to make am encounter more engaging.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Ramping up is more complicated, but not super hard keeping it interesting.
Jumping 3 goblins to 5 goblins isn't that interesting, but putting the 3 goblins on the ground, in a swamp ( rough terrain ), 4 Kobolds archers in the trees jumping from tree-to-tree ( out of reach of melee and in half-cover ), and have a couple of swamp gas pockets which will ignite ( 1d4 fire damage if someone goes into them with a torch ), and the combat isn't so dull anymore, even thought it's the same combat XP as 5 goblins.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
It went pretty bad, my players literally left the dungeon (that their backstories are tied to, no less) because there wasn't a big enough treasure chest. And one of them IRL went to sleep, and i spent forever stuttering and looking up monsters. Great first session. I am seriously considering quitting.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
OK shhhhh...one way to keep a party engaged is to take one of them out (0hp not dead). Focus fire.
Another thing you can do is have the next npc they encounter know something about the cave/dungeon. "My cousin went in there once, he told me saw a <insert something sparkly and appealing> but the <something not so scary> chased him off before he could nab it!"
Gives them a small hint that they should go back because maybe they missed something. Then make the not so scary thing SCARY - it's ben years, the thing grew up.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
thanks, but they sent the town gaurd to deal w/ it, 12 went, 7 came back and gave a 10 percent cut of the profits to the pcs. But they couldn't deal with the actual threat, so maybe the boss of the dungeon brings the fight to them.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
btw the boss is marask the ravager, a general of an evil warlord (see the arctic d&d thread)
I did NOT eat those hikers.
Sounds like an opening for Marask to ravage the town in revenge. Burn down the PCs favorite tavern or whatever.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
oh...my...gosh! burn down their tavern! gold! one of my PCs is constantly drunk! GOLD!
I did NOT eat those hikers.