Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Hi there, Midgardians!
So I'm going to DM this level 1 one-shot that was included in Arcana Unleashed.
The thing is, I've got several groups and in some of them there are 6 players, so I'd like to ask for some advice in order to make the dungeon challenging for 6 players (in terms of combat).
The one-shot has the following combats:
- 3 worgs.
- 6 giant wolf spiders + 4 spiders.
- 2 animated armours.
- 2 lacedon ghouls.
- 2 giant spiders.
- 3 shadows.
In what encounters should I add more enemies in order to keep the challenge for 6 level 1 players?
Thanks in advance.
Since all of those are multi-enemy encounters, it's pretty easy: just increase number of enemies by 50% (assuming it was balanced for 4. If it was balanced for 5, it's only +20%, which is harder to do).
Well, the book doesn't say for how many players it is balanced. 🥺
The default is generally 4. Looking at those encounters:
4 person budget is 200 (low), 300 (medium), 400 (high)
That looks like it's designed for 4 PCs. I would consider them individually winnable battles, though I would hope there's at least one long rest and a couple short rests assumed (also, when are the PCs expected to hit level 2? There's 2140 xp there). However, it's potentially pretty rough, so I would keep track of how parties do and adjust.
They reach level 2 at the end of the adventure. I'm not using XP to level up.
Should I allow them to have a long rest? 🤔 I don't wanna make it too easy for them. I was thinking about allowing just one short rest, but maybe I'm being too rough. 😂
You can still use XP budgeting for balancing encounters even if you use milestone advancement. You don't need to award XP for the characters for the encounter, but use it for the maths when creating encounters.
Regarding long rests, it's a matter of how challenging you want it to be. If it's a one-two hour one-shot, then the party might not even have time to consider long rests, but for a full day one-shot, you should inform the players in advance whether they have a chance for long rests or not, so they can consider their resources before the campaign.
It's gonna be a 4-5 hours one-shot. I think allowing a long rest would make the dungeon too easy...
You’re going to try and have 6 fights in a 4-5 hour session? Is this just a dungeon crawl with no role play or much exploration? Or maybe some of the fights are skippable? I know level 1 fights are pretty quick, but that seems like a really tight timeframe.
I’d maybe play by ear on the long rest. Level 1 characters are generally 1 crit away from dropping. And then they’ll only have 1 hit dice to spend during a short rest. And the cleric has only 2 spell slots for healing. If the DM hits a hot streak with die rolls, things can go bad really quickly.
Only if a lot of encounters are being skipped. Most of those fights are 'tough but winnable' for first level PCs; they almost certainly will take damage and expend resources, and first level characters just don't have a lot of resources to expend, I would expect them to be pretty well tapped out after three encounters.
Yeah, but I'm aware that it could become a double-shot, I've told the players about this. It's a dungeon crawl with some exploration and traps. There's no much room for roleplaying.
Yeah, maybe I'll allow the long rest. The alternative is giving the players healing potions throughout the dungeon.