I'm starting up a new campaign - just did a session zero with three players. One is experienced (dwarf cleric), 2 are brand new (halfling fighter, high elf wizard). After our first session building characters and running them through a easy dungeon to get them familiar with the rules, we decided to play Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
At that point, I hadn't really looked into the content of the book, and now as I'm starting to go through it, I'm wondering.... Are three players enough?
So for anyone that's run through it before, do you think it's possible to run Ghosts of Saltmarsh without having to scale everything back a ton?
The adventure says it is meant for 4-6 first level characters, but I think that some of the encounters in it are really brutal for first level characters. Swarms are resistant to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage and do 4d4 damage (above half health) on hit and there is one encounter that could have them fight 2 swarms at the same time. The giant centipedes can also be pretty brutal if they fail their con save.
Thank you both. I had looked for the recommended number of players, but couldn't find it. It was probably right under my nose. >.<
After looking through it a bit, it was looking pretty brutal and I didn't want to make things impossible. I think the best course of action would be to try to recruit a couple other people to play.
I’m running Ghosts right now and on days when the entire party isn’t there so there are less than 4 PCs I make their opponents weaker by dropping the bonuses to their damage. Instead of 1d6+3 damage their opponents do 1d6 for example. Its working out pretty well, it’s weakening the encounters just enough to let a smaller party face them successfully while still keeping them challenging.
I'm starting up a new campaign - just did a session zero with three players. One is experienced (dwarf cleric), 2 are brand new (halfling fighter, high elf wizard). After our first session building characters and running them through a easy dungeon to get them familiar with the rules, we decided to play Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
At that point, I hadn't really looked into the content of the book, and now as I'm starting to go through it, I'm wondering.... Are three players enough?
So for anyone that's run through it before, do you think it's possible to run Ghosts of Saltmarsh without having to scale everything back a ton?
Thanks!
The adventures are meant for four to six players, so it would be appropriate to scale encounters back some.
What you could do is provide the players a sidekick on their first adventuring day and not adjust encounter difficulty:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/doip/sidekicks
The adventure says it is meant for 4-6 first level characters, but I think that some of the encounters in it are really brutal for first level characters. Swarms are resistant to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage and do 4d4 damage (above half health) on hit and there is one encounter that could have them fight 2 swarms at the same time. The giant centipedes can also be pretty brutal if they fail their con save.
Thank you both. I had looked for the recommended number of players, but couldn't find it. It was probably right under my nose. >.<
After looking through it a bit, it was looking pretty brutal and I didn't want to make things impossible. I think the best course of action would be to try to recruit a couple other people to play.
I’m running Ghosts right now and on days when the entire party isn’t there so there are less than 4 PCs I make their opponents weaker by dropping the bonuses to their damage. Instead of 1d6+3 damage their opponents do 1d6 for example. Its working out pretty well, it’s weakening the encounters just enough to let a smaller party face them successfully while still keeping them challenging.
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