I’m in the midst of converting a 1e adventure called “Valley of the Earth Mother” from Dragon 102, and while it’s great that 5e has built-in looks (NPC Descriptions) that are literally drag and drop, I’m stuck on one part…
The PC come upon a group of 5 “priests” chanting in fromt of a statue of Arawn, and I figured that the best conversion for them would be the Cult Fanatic.
The problem I have is mostly in my own head. In the original adventure, Tactics wise, two attack the PCs, two cast control spells (command, spiritual hammer) and the final casts sanctuary to escape (to warn the others in the complex)
If I change the spell list of the cult fanatic, the MM states it may change the difficulty of the monster. (PG 10 I believe, I use the Beyond app)
My question is, do I just swap out a spell? How do you approach this?
edit to add: I see acolyte has Sanctuary, but is a CR 1/4 creature instead, perhaps adding it to the mix solves the problem, but as written, the adventure seems to initially only have 4 priests fighting the party…)
I just swap out the spells for any creature that has a class. Half the time the spells were chosen randomly, not intelligently. Creatures should not change spells, that can radically change the CR, mainly because they have so few.
But for class based casters, it should not matter, and the CR is not based on the spells there.
While swapping out the spells on a prepared caster can change encounter difficulty, in practice it tends to be noise level -- encounter difficulty already varies by quite a bit at the same experience budget so you're unlikely to wind up radically out of line unless you do something like removing all the combat spells from a spellcaster.
The one casting Sanctuary and running away won’t even be part of the combat unless the PCs focus it down really quickly, so it won’t affect anything at all. As for the others, as long as you don’t give them all something like fireball or something it really shouldn’t matter much. Just swap them out.
Thank you for the feedback! You all know how to help a guy out. :)
looking at it, as written swapping out 5 x lvl 4 priests for 5 x Cult Fanatic is too much for the party. In the end, I put 2 cult fanatics, and 3 acolytes. The encounter is still medium difficulty (the encounter happens in the 3rd room of the dungeon) and keeps with the 1st ed feel.
that said, for the future I am glad that for a spellcasting creature it will be okay to swap out spells to tailor to the flavour of the encounter.
How challenging the encounter is will depend on the composition of the party, how you choose to play the NPCs, and luck.
If your party is level 5 and get initiative then it could be a trivial encounter. The acolytes have 10 AC, 9 hit points, and no offensive spells except sacred flame. If your party is lower level then it could be a bit more challenging but level 5 characters typically have a significant boost to their ability to deal damage.
In terms of the cult fanatics, their real threat is the inflict wounds spell. If an acolyte gets a chance to bless them, they both get to attack and both hit then they will do an average of 16.5 damage (or 22 if using a 2nd level slot). That still won't take down a typical level 4 or 5 character but it will make the combat more interesting. However, with most parties, AC is typically pretty high, the cult fanatic only has +3 to hit with inflict wounds and it is a touch range spell. It probably means at best a 50% chance to land the spell.
So, the overall odds are that the encounter will be very easy for the party but if they are unlucky (PCs miss, NPCs hit for a couple of rounds, it could be rough).
This is why changing the spells for casters is usually not a big factor unless you significantly increase the damage potential of the NPC.
Finally, in terms of running the encounter, although a lot is dependent on the luck of the initiative roll and to hit rolls, one tactic the acolytes could use is to cast sanctuary on the fanatics while casting sacred flame on the party. This makes it harder for the party to focus attacks on the fanatics and increases their chances of landing attacks with their spells. (However, if a PC has 18 AC from chain+shield then the +3 on to hit means they still only hit about 25% of the time ... which means that fairly often they might not even get in one successful attack).
I find that spellcasters can make for some interesting encounters but they can tend to make the encounter a bit more unpredictable in terms of balance, leaving the DM to balance things during the encounter by either having the option for waves of reinforcements or having the NPCs make less optimal combat choices (like attacking with a weapon vs a spell depending on the circumstances).
The party are in the middle of the level 4 slog, so I think I will need to be careful like you are saying. In terms of tactics, they are my old buddies from high school (we played 2e/3.5 back in the day) so I’ll need to be extra vigilant.
The adventure is set up more of a 1st ed feel, where the players are encouraged to run in, do damage, gtfot, then rinse and repeat.
Plus, I don’t know if it’s because I finally looked at the MM description on my laptop, but it states there that the change in spells should not make much difference if the change is the same level. I missed that because I pretty much use mobile exclusively to play/DM over Discord.
Good morning all.
I’m in the midst of converting a 1e adventure called “Valley of the Earth Mother” from Dragon 102, and while it’s great that 5e has built-in looks (NPC Descriptions) that are literally drag and drop, I’m stuck on one part…
The PC come upon a group of 5 “priests” chanting in fromt of a statue of Arawn, and I figured that the best conversion for them would be the Cult Fanatic.
The problem I have is mostly in my own head. In the original adventure, Tactics wise, two attack the PCs, two cast control spells (command, spiritual hammer) and the final casts sanctuary to escape (to warn the others in the complex)
If I change the spell list of the cult fanatic, the MM states it may change the difficulty of the monster. (PG 10 I believe, I use the Beyond app)
My question is, do I just swap out a spell? How do you approach this?
edit to add: I see acolyte has Sanctuary, but is a CR 1/4 creature instead, perhaps adding it to the mix solves the problem, but as written, the adventure seems to initially only have 4 priests fighting the party…)
I just swap out the spells for any creature that has a class. Half the time the spells were chosen randomly, not intelligently. Creatures should not change spells, that can radically change the CR, mainly because they have so few.
But for class based casters, it should not matter, and the CR is not based on the spells there.
While swapping out the spells on a prepared caster can change encounter difficulty, in practice it tends to be noise level -- encounter difficulty already varies by quite a bit at the same experience budget so you're unlikely to wind up radically out of line unless you do something like removing all the combat spells from a spellcaster.
The one casting Sanctuary and running away won’t even be part of the combat unless the PCs focus it down really quickly, so it won’t affect anything at all. As for the others, as long as you don’t give them all something like fireball or something it really shouldn’t matter much. Just swap them out.
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Thank you for the feedback! You all know how to help a guy out. :)
looking at it, as written swapping out 5 x lvl 4 priests for 5 x Cult Fanatic is too much for the party. In the end, I put 2 cult fanatics, and 3 acolytes. The encounter is still medium difficulty (the encounter happens in the 3rd room of the dungeon) and keeps with the 1st ed feel.
that said, for the future I am glad that for a spellcasting creature it will be okay to swap out spells to tailor to the flavour of the encounter.
How challenging the encounter is will depend on the composition of the party, how you choose to play the NPCs, and luck.
If your party is level 5 and get initiative then it could be a trivial encounter. The acolytes have 10 AC, 9 hit points, and no offensive spells except sacred flame. If your party is lower level then it could be a bit more challenging but level 5 characters typically have a significant boost to their ability to deal damage.
In terms of the cult fanatics, their real threat is the inflict wounds spell. If an acolyte gets a chance to bless them, they both get to attack and both hit then they will do an average of 16.5 damage (or 22 if using a 2nd level slot). That still won't take down a typical level 4 or 5 character but it will make the combat more interesting. However, with most parties, AC is typically pretty high, the cult fanatic only has +3 to hit with inflict wounds and it is a touch range spell. It probably means at best a 50% chance to land the spell.
So, the overall odds are that the encounter will be very easy for the party but if they are unlucky (PCs miss, NPCs hit for a couple of rounds, it could be rough).
This is why changing the spells for casters is usually not a big factor unless you significantly increase the damage potential of the NPC.
Finally, in terms of running the encounter, although a lot is dependent on the luck of the initiative roll and to hit rolls, one tactic the acolytes could use is to cast sanctuary on the fanatics while casting sacred flame on the party. This makes it harder for the party to focus attacks on the fanatics and increases their chances of landing attacks with their spells. (However, if a PC has 18 AC from chain+shield then the +3 on to hit means they still only hit about 25% of the time ... which means that fairly often they might not even get in one successful attack).
I find that spellcasters can make for some interesting encounters but they can tend to make the encounter a bit more unpredictable in terms of balance, leaving the DM to balance things during the encounter by either having the option for waves of reinforcements or having the NPCs make less optimal combat choices (like attacking with a weapon vs a spell depending on the circumstances).
Very nice insight!
The party are in the middle of the level 4 slog, so I think I will need to be careful like you are saying. In terms of tactics, they are my old buddies from high school (we played 2e/3.5 back in the day) so I’ll need to be extra vigilant.
The adventure is set up more of a 1st ed feel, where the players are encouraged to run in, do damage, gtfot, then rinse and repeat.
Plus, I don’t know if it’s because I finally looked at the MM description on my laptop, but it states there that the change in spells should not make much difference if the change is the same level. I missed that because I pretty much use mobile exclusively to play/DM over Discord.
edit to add: Thank you so much!