I am running what will soon amount to a campaign kind of thing for just 1 person. I have decided to "tag along" with a paladin-npc for support, because my player obviously decided to go with a wizard, which is insanely squishy for a good few levels if he were to solo the whole shabang. Now, I have purchased Tales of the Yawning Portal, and am aiming at guiding him through a good many of those dungeons while tying them in with whatever is going on in our campaign. (I aim at making him find out that he is a godchild - thanks Baldur's Gate for that idea).
My challenge is that I am unsure about when to put him through each of the dungeons in terms of him being able to cope with the challenges there without having to make a ton of changes to the inhabitants of the dungeons. Is there like a "ratio" or something in terms of recommendations? I mean the authors behind the adventures give recommendations in terms of "this adventure is suited for a party of 1st level players". I want to keep him on the edge ofcourse - to feel the pressure, and to be drained sufficiently that he will have to rest in the dungeons and not feel that he is facerolling through it. I could always just add more enemies to an encounter, but I am loathe to introduce something that I will then have to follow through on (maybe ending up killing my player's character as a result). A party of just 2 is quite vulnerable in that regard, I think.
We are currently playing through a scenario that I have virtually copy/pasted from the show, "Critical Role", in which a bunch of Gnolls are attacking a village with the intention of dragging off with a couple of villagers to be sacrificed to a Manticore. In the fight in the village, I successfully "winged it" in terms of adding a gnoll or two more, so he felt the pressure, but that seems easier to balance than a bossfight where the relative strength is harder to balance (a 1/8 or 1/4 CR monster is easier to align with the current strength of the player than a monster of CR +1 or +2 relative to the player's level). My concern is that because the manticore at CR 3 will present a big challenge to the two-character group, the dungeon in which it resides will feel "empty" because, I can't stack it with anything else for fear of creating too challenging a fight. The same thing goes for the pre-made dungeons in the "Tales of the Yawning Portal". Part of the recommendation for party size/ CR I guess also has to do with there being a number of different classes that draw on a number of different abilites and skills to overcome a challenge.
I have thought about awarding him with a (over)powerful magic item that will function as an "oh-shit-button" (necklace of fireballs etc., potions). Also, I have thought about decking out my own NPC with so much stuff that he could potentially activate, if the shit hits the fan - but I would like to be "true" to the decisions I make and not "fake" it if the going gets tough.
Am I making any sense here, I wonder?
Getting another player is not an option at this point (to eliminate that very obvious solution - I am introducing this for my nephew who is struggling with some social shit).
Doing a campaign with this few players is difficult, but you can definitely do it!
I wouldn't recommend using pre-builts for this sort of scenario, or if you do, scrapping the encounters and rebuild them to your own needs.
Part of being a DM is changing things on the fly and then pretending you didn't so your players don't get suspicious. Most of my players go for flavor so building encounters to their level can be tricky. Sometimes they destroy any monster I send at them in a couple rounds, sometimes they almost die. A small party, even if built for mid-maxing, is going to be vulnerable to these sorts of random outcomes.
Consider modifying monsters to make them less powerful. You can decrease a monster's CR by taking away some of their abilities, adjusting their damage output, decreasing their multiattack, etc. You can give more powerful weapons but that may make the encounters seem boring if your players defeat the enemies too quickly. I'd suggest upping HP or AC or Saving Throws instead of damage output. This will prolong the fights.
You mention Critical Role! If you want a good example of modifying an encounter on the fly, rewatch (or catch up to) episode 26 of the second campaign and pay close attention the the DM and damage outputs of the enemies. You'll catch some changes Matt makes while the encounter is going.
Even if there's a risk they may fail a combat encounter and die, your player will have a lot more fun if you don't "tag along" with a support NPC. It's a trueism for a reason that "the DMs character" sucks the fun out of a group. If you think they absolutely need the added firepower/utlity that an NPC will bring, consider letting the player control them instead, or using a system like this third party Companion System that treats companion NPCs more like items/abilities rather than extra characters taking their own turns. Or hey... let them play a gestalt character, taking two classes' features (and the better hit dice of the two) at each level up? :D
Rebuilding encounters is probably the easiest thing to do when modifying a published campaign, just swapping out the monsters listed with fewer/lower level alternatives is unlikely to play havock with the storyline, plot beats, npcs, quests and locations that are the real content the module is providing. Just keep in mind that it isn't really HP or damage that wins and loses fights for parties, it often comes down to action economy; parties routinely stomp single BBEGs far above their recommended encounter level, and when you're running a solo player, suddenly the reverse will be true. A group of 5 goblins would seem trivial for a party of 5th level adventurers... but for a single character that can only kill one enemy each round (if they hit), that's suddenly a 5-7 round encounter!!! Err on the side of underestimating you player, and slowly build up encounter difficulty as the game goes on and you get a better handle for what he can handle.
Thanks both for your replies! It seems that there is no easy way of correlating/ adjusting a given dungeon recommendation to a specific party size apart from adjusting on the fly. I can deffo see the adjustments you are talking about in critical role, campaign 2, episode 26 in which Matt all of a sudden rolls a ton of "12s and 13s" that do not hit the characters because they are low on HP and personnel. And yet...:-)
I guess there will just always be that element of uncertainty, not only from having to roll the dice but also from pitting the player up against new monsters whose abilities and potential for destruction is not necessarily apparent to you before you have actually seen it in full blown combat mode.
You can use the way older games were done. Parties hired people to aid them. A group of 5 players was often accompanied by 10-15 NPC's they paid to come with them. These people were Torchbearers who lit up the way with the torches. There were Hound Masters who had a small pack of dogs that could guard the camp with their advantages on smell and hearing. The party also had lower level henchman/underlings that joined them on the dungeon delves. Seeing how 5e provides players with more gold then they know what to do with... let the player hire additional aid. It also means more roleplay and exploration intensive game instead of just combat. These individuals can also be presented as a reward in case they helped a local lord or rescued someone who now pledges their service to the player.
Since you plan to run various Tales of the Portal adventures. Sunless Citadel offers the chance that the player can get the aid of Meepo the kobold as well as a captured gnome called Erky Timbers. You can adjust the kobold tribe to be a bit more sturdier. As soon as the player befriends them bump them up from regular low kobolds to CR1 Kobold Dragonshields from Volo's. Give the gnome a few additional cleric spells. Then with some roleplay the character could get some aid from the kobolds against the goblins. Getting a small group of 6 kobold warriors to aid in the big fight(s).In case of that small group it would be cool if your player also spoke draconic and thus can take proper tactical control over these "minions".
I had a cleric in my group make a flanking move with 6 kobolds in tow. While at the same time the other 3 party members were doing frontal guerilla attacks. Was really cool.
In general you do want to have that 1 player be of higher level then the advised amount for any adventure you run. Depending on what kind of mage he becomes there will be plenty of spells to play tactically. However he'll still require additional aid from others he hired to aid him.
Also later on the mage/wizard will have some really potent AoE control and damage spells. Might be smart to alter encounters to have more opponents with lower HP. With only the occasional situation where there are few sturdy brutish figures. Since those few will be the players achilles heel.
Thank you very much, Giblix for your reply as well. Loads of good suggestions in there as well! I guess that we will be sort of ok when he reaches level 7-9ish in terms of his ability to dodge major attacks and set up defensive measures while still retaining the ability to influence the big baddies whom we will eventually have to fight. Specifically, I have made the end boss from Khundrukar (second dungeon) the prime villain right now (he will escape at one point and then we will face him again in the lake area). I will setup a first encounter in Helms Hold utilising a bunch of henchmen, guards, a couple of lieutenants and the captain of the citadel in order to see what that kind of boss can do to a lot of people and thereby learn whether or not my player and me can go up against him and at what level. As you suggest, hiring a bunch of people to spread the damage around might be the way to go.
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Hi all - (very) new GM here!
I am running what will soon amount to a campaign kind of thing for just 1 person. I have decided to "tag along" with a paladin-npc for support, because my player obviously decided to go with a wizard, which is insanely squishy for a good few levels if he were to solo the whole shabang. Now, I have purchased Tales of the Yawning Portal, and am aiming at guiding him through a good many of those dungeons while tying them in with whatever is going on in our campaign. (I aim at making him find out that he is a godchild - thanks Baldur's Gate for that idea).
My challenge is that I am unsure about when to put him through each of the dungeons in terms of him being able to cope with the challenges there without having to make a ton of changes to the inhabitants of the dungeons. Is there like a "ratio" or something in terms of recommendations? I mean the authors behind the adventures give recommendations in terms of "this adventure is suited for a party of 1st level players". I want to keep him on the edge ofcourse - to feel the pressure, and to be drained sufficiently that he will have to rest in the dungeons and not feel that he is facerolling through it. I could always just add more enemies to an encounter, but I am loathe to introduce something that I will then have to follow through on (maybe ending up killing my player's character as a result). A party of just 2 is quite vulnerable in that regard, I think.
We are currently playing through a scenario that I have virtually copy/pasted from the show, "Critical Role", in which a bunch of Gnolls are attacking a village with the intention of dragging off with a couple of villagers to be sacrificed to a Manticore. In the fight in the village, I successfully "winged it" in terms of adding a gnoll or two more, so he felt the pressure, but that seems easier to balance than a bossfight where the relative strength is harder to balance (a 1/8 or 1/4 CR monster is easier to align with the current strength of the player than a monster of CR +1 or +2 relative to the player's level). My concern is that because the manticore at CR 3 will present a big challenge to the two-character group, the dungeon in which it resides will feel "empty" because, I can't stack it with anything else for fear of creating too challenging a fight. The same thing goes for the pre-made dungeons in the "Tales of the Yawning Portal". Part of the recommendation for party size/ CR I guess also has to do with there being a number of different classes that draw on a number of different abilites and skills to overcome a challenge.
I have thought about awarding him with a (over)powerful magic item that will function as an "oh-shit-button" (necklace of fireballs etc., potions). Also, I have thought about decking out my own NPC with so much stuff that he could potentially activate, if the shit hits the fan - but I would like to be "true" to the decisions I make and not "fake" it if the going gets tough.
Am I making any sense here, I wonder?
Getting another player is not an option at this point (to eliminate that very obvious solution - I am introducing this for my nephew who is struggling with some social shit).
Any thoughts or tips are most welcome!
Doing a campaign with this few players is difficult, but you can definitely do it!
I wouldn't recommend using pre-builts for this sort of scenario, or if you do, scrapping the encounters and rebuild them to your own needs.
Part of being a DM is changing things on the fly and then pretending you didn't so your players don't get suspicious. Most of my players go for flavor so building encounters to their level can be tricky. Sometimes they destroy any monster I send at them in a couple rounds, sometimes they almost die. A small party, even if built for mid-maxing, is going to be vulnerable to these sorts of random outcomes.
Consider modifying monsters to make them less powerful. You can decrease a monster's CR by taking away some of their abilities, adjusting their damage output, decreasing their multiattack, etc. You can give more powerful weapons but that may make the encounters seem boring if your players defeat the enemies too quickly. I'd suggest upping HP or AC or Saving Throws instead of damage output. This will prolong the fights.
You mention Critical Role! If you want a good example of modifying an encounter on the fly, rewatch (or catch up to) episode 26 of the second campaign and pay close attention the the DM and damage outputs of the enemies. You'll catch some changes Matt makes while the encounter is going.
If you need it, I can homebrew it.
Even if there's a risk they may fail a combat encounter and die, your player will have a lot more fun if you don't "tag along" with a support NPC. It's a trueism for a reason that "the DMs character" sucks the fun out of a group. If you think they absolutely need the added firepower/utlity that an NPC will bring, consider letting the player control them instead, or using a system like this third party Companion System that treats companion NPCs more like items/abilities rather than extra characters taking their own turns. Or hey... let them play a gestalt character, taking two classes' features (and the better hit dice of the two) at each level up? :D
Rebuilding encounters is probably the easiest thing to do when modifying a published campaign, just swapping out the monsters listed with fewer/lower level alternatives is unlikely to play havock with the storyline, plot beats, npcs, quests and locations that are the real content the module is providing. Just keep in mind that it isn't really HP or damage that wins and loses fights for parties, it often comes down to action economy; parties routinely stomp single BBEGs far above their recommended encounter level, and when you're running a solo player, suddenly the reverse will be true. A group of 5 goblins would seem trivial for a party of 5th level adventurers... but for a single character that can only kill one enemy each round (if they hit), that's suddenly a 5-7 round encounter!!! Err on the side of underestimating you player, and slowly build up encounter difficulty as the game goes on and you get a better handle for what he can handle.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Thanks both for your replies!
It seems that there is no easy way of correlating/ adjusting a given dungeon recommendation to a specific party size apart from adjusting on the fly. I can deffo see the adjustments you are talking about in critical role, campaign 2, episode 26 in which Matt all of a sudden rolls a ton of "12s and 13s" that do not hit the characters because they are low on HP and personnel. And yet...:-)
I guess there will just always be that element of uncertainty, not only from having to roll the dice but also from pitting the player up against new monsters whose abilities and potential for destruction is not necessarily apparent to you before you have actually seen it in full blown combat mode.
Thanks!
You can use the way older games were done. Parties hired people to aid them. A group of 5 players was often accompanied by 10-15 NPC's they paid to come with them. These people were Torchbearers who lit up the way with the torches. There were Hound Masters who had a small pack of dogs that could guard the camp with their advantages on smell and hearing. The party also had lower level henchman/underlings that joined them on the dungeon delves. Seeing how 5e provides players with more gold then they know what to do with... let the player hire additional aid. It also means more roleplay and exploration intensive game instead of just combat. These individuals can also be presented as a reward in case they helped a local lord or rescued someone who now pledges their service to the player.
Since you plan to run various Tales of the Portal adventures. Sunless Citadel offers the chance that the player can get the aid of Meepo the kobold as well as a captured gnome called Erky Timbers. You can adjust the kobold tribe to be a bit more sturdier. As soon as the player befriends them bump them up from regular low kobolds to CR1 Kobold Dragonshields from Volo's. Give the gnome a few additional cleric spells. Then with some roleplay the character could get some aid from the kobolds against the goblins. Getting a small group of 6 kobold warriors to aid in the big fight(s).In case of that small group it would be cool if your player also spoke draconic and thus can take proper tactical control over these "minions".
I had a cleric in my group make a flanking move with 6 kobolds in tow. While at the same time the other 3 party members were doing frontal guerilla attacks. Was really cool.
In general you do want to have that 1 player be of higher level then the advised amount for any adventure you run. Depending on what kind of mage he becomes there will be plenty of spells to play tactically. However he'll still require additional aid from others he hired to aid him.
Also later on the mage/wizard will have some really potent AoE control and damage spells. Might be smart to alter encounters to have more opponents with lower HP. With only the occasional situation where there are few sturdy brutish figures. Since those few will be the players achilles heel.
Thank you very much, Giblix for your reply as well. Loads of good suggestions in there as well! I guess that we will be sort of ok when he reaches level 7-9ish in terms of his ability to dodge major attacks and set up defensive measures while still retaining the ability to influence the big baddies whom we will eventually have to fight. Specifically, I have made the end boss from Khundrukar (second dungeon) the prime villain right now (he will escape at one point and then we will face him again in the lake area). I will setup a first encounter in Helms Hold utilising a bunch of henchmen, guards, a couple of lieutenants and the captain of the citadel in order to see what that kind of boss can do to a lot of people and thereby learn whether or not my player and me can go up against him and at what level. As you suggest, hiring a bunch of people to spread the damage around might be the way to go.