I'm currently running a semi-homebrewed version of LMOP for a group of my friends. I'm using the basic module structure and story beats but am adding in and tweaking some elements here and there to make it more interesting for me and my players. To that end, my players are just coming to the end of a sort of prologue act that I set up to build some party cohesion, create some shared background with Gundren and foreshadow the appearance of the Black Spider later down the line.
I'm doing milestone levelling and I thought the end of the prologue was a good place to let my players hit level 2 based on what they have achieved together thus far. That means that they will be going into the official first act (Goblin Arrows & Cragmaw Hideout) a little more powerful than they should be.
I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts about ways I can beef up those two intial Act 1 encounters so that they present a little more challenge. I've run a couple of combat encounters in the prologue, but Cragmaw will be the first 'dungeon' so I'd like it to be a good balanced encounter. I'm thinking of maybe adding a wolf into the intial ambush to tie in with the wolves present at the Hideout but dont want to make things too deadly. For the Hideout, I was planning on bumping Klarg and his Wolf's health a little so that they stick around a round or two at least, but other than that I'd be interested to hear suggestions.
I've got 5 players: Barbarian, Bard, Warlock, Paladin & Cleric. They've got a decent amount of healing from the cleric, paladin & bard and the barbarian and warlock have been dishing out good damage, so they've had a pretty easy time with combats thus far.
Coincidently enough, I am doing literally the same thing right now, lol. My party got together back in February, and I am running them through LMOP currently, they are a few encounters ahead of you. I also ran a little prologue adventure for them to come together as a party and get a feel for the dynamics and leveled them up after. They are roughly 1-2 levels ahead of where they would be if they had gone straight in to the LMOP. So far I have been just adding a few extra enemies to the encounters, or adding a few extra hit points to klarg as well. For the goblin ambush the encounter says there are 4 goblins, I made it 6, for the hideout I added a few more extra goblins and made Yeemik another bugbear instead of a goblin. It seems to be going well so far, for the most part they aren't breezing through the encounters, so I'm planning on continuing this approach for the rest of the adventure. I did miscalculate the number of redbrands to throw against them in the first encounter with them at Sleeping Giant, I added 2 extra, and they didn't breeze through them, but they weren't exactly challenged either, so if I were to do it again I would probably add another 2 more, or up their stats a bit.
Your party has a good balance with damage dealers and magic, so can probably throw a good bit at them. My suggestion would be to use the ambush and hideout encounters as a level set to gauge how much to increase the challenge. Throw a few more goblins than you would think you should at them, and then if it seems to be going poorly and its too much for the party, just have a few of the goblins run away since they are a cowardly bunch anyway.
Starting LMoP at level 2 is common advice given, so you probably won't have to do much at all. Lots of parties don't take a very stealth approach in the cave, and wind up facing off against more than lvl 1 can handle reliably and need good dice rolls to come out of it. Being level 2 helps a lot there.
Normally during the initial ambush I do have to play the goblins a lil sub-optimally for lvl 1 char, I usually skip the surprise round part and don't focus fire. Now you can have the goblins actually try for a surprise round, and focus fire those ranged attack on a back line against lvl 2s.
I assume for milestone you'd just not level them when they get to town after the ambush and the rest plays out as normal (as you have 5 players, if you have less being a level up wouldn't be a bad thing).
Hey all,
Minor spoilers below for LMOP:
I'm currently running a semi-homebrewed version of LMOP for a group of my friends. I'm using the basic module structure and story beats but am adding in and tweaking some elements here and there to make it more interesting for me and my players. To that end, my players are just coming to the end of a sort of prologue act that I set up to build some party cohesion, create some shared background with Gundren and foreshadow the appearance of the Black Spider later down the line.
I'm doing milestone levelling and I thought the end of the prologue was a good place to let my players hit level 2 based on what they have achieved together thus far. That means that they will be going into the official first act (Goblin Arrows & Cragmaw Hideout) a little more powerful than they should be.
I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts about ways I can beef up those two intial Act 1 encounters so that they present a little more challenge. I've run a couple of combat encounters in the prologue, but Cragmaw will be the first 'dungeon' so I'd like it to be a good balanced encounter. I'm thinking of maybe adding a wolf into the intial ambush to tie in with the wolves present at the Hideout but dont want to make things too deadly. For the Hideout, I was planning on bumping Klarg and his Wolf's health a little so that they stick around a round or two at least, but other than that I'd be interested to hear suggestions.
I've got 5 players: Barbarian, Bard, Warlock, Paladin & Cleric. They've got a decent amount of healing from the cleric, paladin & bard and the barbarian and warlock have been dishing out good damage, so they've had a pretty easy time with combats thus far.
Appreciate the help
Coincidently enough, I am doing literally the same thing right now, lol. My party got together back in February, and I am running them through LMOP currently, they are a few encounters ahead of you. I also ran a little prologue adventure for them to come together as a party and get a feel for the dynamics and leveled them up after. They are roughly 1-2 levels ahead of where they would be if they had gone straight in to the LMOP. So far I have been just adding a few extra enemies to the encounters, or adding a few extra hit points to klarg as well. For the goblin ambush the encounter says there are 4 goblins, I made it 6, for the hideout I added a few more extra goblins and made Yeemik another bugbear instead of a goblin. It seems to be going well so far, for the most part they aren't breezing through the encounters, so I'm planning on continuing this approach for the rest of the adventure. I did miscalculate the number of redbrands to throw against them in the first encounter with them at Sleeping Giant, I added 2 extra, and they didn't breeze through them, but they weren't exactly challenged either, so if I were to do it again I would probably add another 2 more, or up their stats a bit.
Your party has a good balance with damage dealers and magic, so can probably throw a good bit at them. My suggestion would be to use the ambush and hideout encounters as a level set to gauge how much to increase the challenge. Throw a few more goblins than you would think you should at them, and then if it seems to be going poorly and its too much for the party, just have a few of the goblins run away since they are a cowardly bunch anyway.
Starting LMoP at level 2 is common advice given, so you probably won't have to do much at all. Lots of parties don't take a very stealth approach in the cave, and wind up facing off against more than lvl 1 can handle reliably and need good dice rolls to come out of it. Being level 2 helps a lot there.
Normally during the initial ambush I do have to play the goblins a lil sub-optimally for lvl 1 char, I usually skip the surprise round part and don't focus fire. Now you can have the goblins actually try for a surprise round, and focus fire those ranged attack on a back line against lvl 2s.
I assume for milestone you'd just not level them when they get to town after the ambush and the rest plays out as normal (as you have 5 players, if you have less being a level up wouldn't be a bad thing).
tl;dr LMoP is perfectly fine to start at level 2.