I am planning to run the "tide of retribution" campaign from critical role to 2 players. I don't know if this is going to be too hard and/or how to balance it.
Side question: How do I know when to level the party up?
I personally find it really hard to balance a campaign for two players. The biggest problem is action economy- even if you use weak enemies, when you have a ton of them then you encounter the dangers of a bunch of (un)lucky dice rolls possibly eliminating your party. More players gives you more buffer against RNG and it also serves to protect against party wipes. If you are going to balance for two players, remember to significantly reduce the number of creatures that your party encounters. When there are particularly strong enemies, you will need to really dial them back.
As for leveling, I don't have a solid recommendation for when running a pre-made campaign. I generally just have a feel for it- the first couple levels only take a session or two, then once you hit around level 5 it takes a couple more sessions, and from there it heavily depends on the group and what they want for progression. Obviously, that's very different for a pre-made campaign, which is balanced around certain levels. I don't know if Tide of Retribution actually tells you when to level, but I'd guess it probably has experience payouts based on encounters if it doesn't use milestone leveling. Remember that your experience rate will be somewhat different for a smaller group, because you'll have to adjust the number and difficulty of creatures.
I don't run Tides of Retribution but know a couple of Dms that run that campaign, balancing for two PCs is tough but i believe your party can tackle it, your reach level 2 on whenever they board on the Wavecrasher Ship and speak toThree Earrings
So what is your party makeup? I've run 3 spellcasters and they seems to be fine, almost tpked but survived then encounter. I would recommend adding a NPC to help you out with the fight and maybe one of the crew will jump to help your two party members!
If you need more information on how to run this campaign, we have a group of wildemount dms that already run this campaign in a discord group and they are happy to help you! I will send you a private message if your interested.
I'm definitely not experienced when it comes to balancing but here are some things that might help to give your players a better chance.
Since you only have two players it might help to let them build gestalt (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule) characters. Gestalt works like multiclass but instead of having to chose which class to level, you level both at the same time. That way you can make the team a bit more all round. I have no experience actually using it. Just read it somewhere before.
Start easy and slowly build up the difficulty to get a feel on how much you can throw at your player. As a safety net, you can also prep some backup scenario's in case things go wrong. For instance, a villager might join the fight. You can lower some of the enemy's hitpoints on the fly or make them flee if one of them gets killed. With fewer players, it can also be easier to have the element of surprise so you can help them a bit to ambush enemies.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am planning to run the "tide of retribution" campaign from critical role to 2 players. I don't know if this is going to be too hard and/or how to balance it.
Side question: How do I know when to level the party up?
I personally find it really hard to balance a campaign for two players. The biggest problem is action economy- even if you use weak enemies, when you have a ton of them then you encounter the dangers of a bunch of (un)lucky dice rolls possibly eliminating your party. More players gives you more buffer against RNG and it also serves to protect against party wipes. If you are going to balance for two players, remember to significantly reduce the number of creatures that your party encounters. When there are particularly strong enemies, you will need to really dial them back.
As for leveling, I don't have a solid recommendation for when running a pre-made campaign. I generally just have a feel for it- the first couple levels only take a session or two, then once you hit around level 5 it takes a couple more sessions, and from there it heavily depends on the group and what they want for progression. Obviously, that's very different for a pre-made campaign, which is balanced around certain levels. I don't know if Tide of Retribution actually tells you when to level, but I'd guess it probably has experience payouts based on encounters if it doesn't use milestone leveling. Remember that your experience rate will be somewhat different for a smaller group, because you'll have to adjust the number and difficulty of creatures.
I don't run Tides of Retribution but know a couple of Dms that run that campaign, balancing for two PCs is tough but i believe your party can tackle it, your reach level 2 on whenever they board on the Wavecrasher Ship and speak to Three Earrings
So what is your party makeup? I've run 3 spellcasters and they seems to be fine, almost tpked but survived then encounter. I would recommend adding a NPC to help you out with the fight and maybe one of the crew will jump to help your two party members!
If you need more information on how to run this campaign, we have a group of wildemount dms that already run this campaign in a discord group and they are happy to help you! I will send you a private message if your interested.
I'm definitely not experienced when it comes to balancing but here are some things that might help to give your players a better chance.
Since you only have two players it might help to let them build gestalt (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule) characters. Gestalt works like multiclass but instead of having to chose which class to level, you level both at the same time. That way you can make the team a bit more all round. I have no experience actually using it. Just read it somewhere before.
Start easy and slowly build up the difficulty to get a feel on how much you can throw at your player. As a safety net, you can also prep some backup scenario's in case things go wrong. For instance, a villager might join the fight. You can lower some of the enemy's hitpoints on the fly or make them flee if one of them gets killed. With fewer players, it can also be easier to have the element of surprise so you can help them a bit to ambush enemies.