I plan to start playing Tales from the Yawing Portal. Partly as a training for some of the players before going into the Curse of Strahd. We will go through all of them, as a sort of campaign, with every adventure starting in the Yawing Portal.
I've been DMing for over a year now, but always had at least three palyers, and for the most part five. This time though, it is different. I have two core players, and couple of people who may or may not show up from time to time. Due to that I have issues balancing the adventures. I will balance it on the fly anyway, but would like to come into this with at least a shadow of a plan. And hopefully something solid.
I was thinking about alot of different solutions, but those seem to be the best options:
- give the players DMPC/ additional NPC/s
- let the players gestalt
- nerf the adventures when there is less players and bump the difficulty when there is more of them.
However, if I let the two core players gestalt their characters, I will have to let the others do it too. And if they will play with 4 gestalt characters, it will be too easy. But, two players with normal characters is not enough to survive any of the adventures from the book.
I really don't want to DMPC on top of the NPC's that will show up in the adventures.
For two players to survive I would have to nerf the adventures to hell and back. To the point where it may not be even fun to play.
In Sunless Citadel the players will encounter NPC Meepo the kobold and Erky the gnome. Erky joins his rescuers and is fiercely loyal to them. Meepo takes a bit of decision making. That should be enough to solve your problems. And you can decide to have those 2 join after Sunless Citadel as well if need be.
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Hi,
I plan to start playing Tales from the Yawing Portal. Partly as a training for some of the players before going into the Curse of Strahd.
We will go through all of them, as a sort of campaign, with every adventure starting in the Yawing Portal.
I've been DMing for over a year now, but always had at least three palyers, and for the most part five.
This time though, it is different. I have two core players, and couple of people who may or may not show up from time to time.
Due to that I have issues balancing the adventures. I will balance it on the fly anyway,
but would like to come into this with at least a shadow of a plan. And hopefully something solid.
I was thinking about alot of different solutions, but those seem to be the best options:
- give the players DMPC/ additional NPC/s
- let the players gestalt
- nerf the adventures when there is less players and bump the difficulty when there is more of them.
However, if I let the two core players gestalt their characters,
I will have to let the others do it too. And if they will play with 4 gestalt characters,
it will be too easy. But, two players with normal characters is not enough to survive any of the adventures from the book.
I really don't want to DMPC on top of the NPC's that will show up in the adventures.
For two players to survive I would have to nerf the adventures to hell and back. To the point where it may not be even fun to play.
Any help for a friend? I'm open to ideas.
In Sunless Citadel the players will encounter NPC Meepo the kobold and Erky the gnome. Erky joins his rescuers and is fiercely loyal to them. Meepo takes a bit of decision making. That should be enough to solve your problems. And you can decide to have those 2 join after Sunless Citadel as well if need be.