I am a high school English teacher. This year I started a D&D club for my students. We currently have 8 players, with 1 more definitely coming on board. We are playing "Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden." (I also play in an Icewind Dale campaign each week.) We have had one session so far. I am trying hard not to exclude any players, which means I need to rebalance the campaign, encounters, etc for a party of 9. Can anyone give me advice on how to do this, and what changes I should consider so that I can keep the level of danger and difficulty that Icewind Dale usually has?
Often times in the book it'll state how many enemies depending on party size. Ie 1:1 or such. Not fully sure of RotFM.
I'd instigate a rule off the rip for time of turns/pre-planning their turns and such. With that many players it can really bog time down if they're not thinking of their moves.
Can also make combat a bit faster, potentially, and this is just a few suggestions: Instead of rolling for potions, make it max. Same with the extra damage from crits IE longsword instead of 2d8+str it's 1d8+str+8
Can semi speed things up with less rolling.
Not sure if you already do. but group enemies for initiatives. IE if it's all goblins, they all act at the same time.
One thing to be careful about. With that many players it’s easy for a player to be overshadowed, especially one who’s shy. Pay attention and when one player hasn’t said anything for a while ask what they’re doing.
RotFM does not scale encounters for party size (or level for that matter), at least not the first chapter encounters. It just says that thee are x amount of these creatures, y amount of hose creatures, they run away if z happens.
I'm not confident enough to give advice on it, but the OP would probably benefit from advice on how to scale. I just know that the DMG Encounter Rater is not very helpful - it tends to over-estimate the difficulty by a substantial margin, in my experience.
While I can't tell you how to adapt it, bear in mind a few things:
1. Increasing monsters increases difficulty even faster. Doubling the number of monsters more than doubles the difficulty, because they attack twice as often but also have twice the health, meaning they last approaching twice as long. Intuitively, that would be four times as powerful- although that isn't completely accurate due to area of effect spells being more effective against them, buffs and debuffs being differently effective, etc.
2. Okay, some advice I can give: You can change the stats of monsters. Keep it secret from them, and if the fight is going too well for the players, just add HP to the monsters. If the players are struggling, remove HP. You can also add and remove monsters midnight - in the form of reinforcements and some monsters panicking and fleeing respectively. Don't be afraid to thumb the scale like on dice rolls to keep the threat level up but manageable until youncan judge how many monsters they can handle.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
How optimised for battle are their characters? Because this affects how I would scale things. Less optimised characters might have more fun with an easier to hit damage sponge type enemy so they can all contribute in various ways. Conversely, optimised battle characters would probably get a better experience from an increased number of weaker monsters. For example I once ran a oneshot for 3 people with no experience in DnD so I created some optimised premade characters for them. I pitted 3 optimised level 2 characters vs 26 goblins and they came out victorious and had a lot of fun. Obviously it wasn't 26 goblins in their first battle, the 26 goblins was the climax of the one shot.
How combat minded is the group? Because if for combat minded groups, adjusting monster difficulty and numbers would work well. But for less combat minded maybe you can add other mechanics so some members can focus on the mechanics, while the others deal with the monsters
I recommend balancing the encounters as you play rather than trying to balance it before hand. I do not think it is realistic to try to balance the entire adventure by yourself, and it would be a waste of time and effort to balance a combat encounter just to have the players take a different non-confrontational approach or avoid the encounter entirely, rendering the work to balance the encounter moot.
While I can't tell you how to adapt it, bear in mind a few things:
1. Increasing monsters increases difficulty even faster. Doubling the number of monsters more than doubles the difficulty, because they attack twice as often but also have twice the health, meaning they last approaching twice as long. Intuitively, that would be four times as powerful- although that isn't completely accurate due to area of effect spells being more effective against them, buffs and debuffs being differently effective, etc.
2. Okay, some advice I can give: You can change the stats of monsters. Keep it secret from them, and if the fight is going too well for the players, just add HP to the monsters. If the players are struggling, remove HP. You can also add and remove monsters midnight - in the form of reinforcements and some monsters panicking and fleeing respectively. Don't be afraid to thumb the scale like on dice rolls to keep the threat level up but manageable until youncan judge how many monsters they can handle.
Since the party is double the size of a normal party, I think doubling weak minions and mooks is probably okay to more closesly match the party's action economy. But I do agree that you do not want to just double everything though, as doubling spellcasters is a lot more impactful than simply doubling the number of goblins or skeletons.
I also totally agree with allowing monsters to get reinforcements and retreat. Even in real life war, unless one side is backed into a corner or something, fighting until the complete annihilation of one side rarely happens and it is not really realistic nor practical. I also agree with having an ambigious/variable total HP to make balancing the encounter easier; sometimes it is just easier on the GM to have certain monsters fall at a particular moment than when damage crosses an arbitrary line.
Since the party is double the size of a normal party, I think doubling weak minions and mooks is probably okay to more closesly match the party's action economy. But I do agree that you do not want to just double everything though, as doubling spellcasters is a lot more impactful than simply doubling the number of goblins or skeletons.
Good point, I had tunnel vision and forgot to account for player action economy as well. Still, I think even in the case of straight fighters (enemies that just hit you with a club or whatever), the reality is more conditional. If the mooks are just being split up evenly between players, you're 100% correct. 1v2 is 1v2 regardless of the actual numbers involved in that case. If anything, I'd say it's easier if there are more (eg 10v10 as opposed to 5v5) - it's more likely that there'll be a player that will defeat their group earlier and start dogpiling other groups, creating a domino effect.
The problem comes if the DM is being tactical - if I were out for blood, I'd pile all the mooks I could onto individual characters. So in a 5v5 situation, one character will get dogpiled by 5 attacks per round, while in a 10v10, that's 10(ish) attacks per round. Characters are more likely to be knocked unconscious or even killed. So it depends on how the DM handles it - probably easier to not be tactical and just split them up so PCs aren't dogpiled. Much easier to scale properly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
With nine players, I would personally avoid increasing the numbers of enemies. Twenty-ish turns per round can be pretty hellish, especially since I expect sessions can't run overly long in a school club context. I'd make the monsters stronger and pay attention to spreading out their attacks, rather than adding half a dozen activations. Also definitely look into Inumiru's suggestions to minimize rolling.
I expect splitting the group might not be possible, but if that could be accomplished I'd absolutely recommend it. It'll be easier in the practical sense and it'll be less likely that some players will just not get any time to shine. If not, try to identify NPCs that will readily connect with certain players as well as challenges that certain players will gravitate towards. No needs to railroad them, but it's ok to occasionally suggest that this or that character could do try something in a specific situation or to have an NPC address a character individually. That way you can avoid the quickest and/or loudest players jumping to the front of the line all the time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Since the party is double the size of a normal party, I think doubling weak minions and mooks is probably okay to more closesly match the party's action economy. But I do agree that you do not want to just double everything though, as doubling spellcasters is a lot more impactful than simply doubling the number of goblins or skeletons.
Good point, I had tunnel vision and forgot to account for player action economy as well. Still, I think even in the case of straight fighters (enemies that just hit you with a club or whatever), the reality is more conditional. If the mooks are just being split up evenly between players, you're 100% correct. 1v2 is 1v2 regardless of the actual numbers involved in that case. If anything, I'd say it's easier if there are more (eg 10v10 as opposed to 5v5) - it's more likely that there'll be a player that will defeat their group earlier and start dogpiling other groups, creating a domino effect.
The problem comes if the DM is being tactical - if I were out for blood, I'd pile all the mooks I could onto individual characters. So in a 5v5 situation, one character will get dogpiled by 5 attacks per round, while in a 10v10, that's 10(ish) attacks per round. Characters are more likely to be knocked unconscious or even killed. So it depends on how the DM handles it - probably easier to not be tactical and just split them up so PCs aren't dogpiled. Much easier to scale properly.
That is true. Dog piling and focus fire is definitely way more realistic tactically, and that gets worse as numbers increase. I think there are ways to spread damage around with certain subclasses and magic items to lessen the impact of focus fire, but that requires quite a bit teamwork and preplanning.
With nine players, I would personally avoid increasing the numbers of enemies. Twenty-ish turns per round can be pretty hellish, especially since I expect sessions can't run overly long in a school club context. I'd make the monsters stronger and pay attention to spreading out their attacks, rather than adding half a dozen activations. Also definitely look into Inumiru's suggestions to minimize rolling.
That is a good point. I had not thought about the time constraints. However, to preserve the epicness and flavor of large numbers while still keep combat fast, I think we can borrow 4e's minion rule where weak minions have 1HP and deal fixed damage. That way, if the plot necessitates or something, the OP can throw a small army at the group while still keeping combat relatively brisk.
With nine players, I would personally avoid increasing the numbers of enemies. Twenty-ish turns per round can be pretty hellish, especially since I expect sessions can't run overly long in a school club context. I'd make the monsters stronger and pay attention to spreading out their attacks, rather than adding half a dozen activations. Also definitely look into Inumiru's suggestions to minimize rolling.
That is a good point. I had not thought about the time constraints. However, to preserve the epicness and flavor of large numbers while still keep combat fast, I think we can borrow 4e's minion rule where weak minions have 1HP and deal fixed damage. That way, if the plot necessitates or something, the OP can throw a small army at the group while still keeping combat relatively brisk.
Minions are a good option, there's less rolling at least. I'd still limit the number of activations and smooth things out as much as possible nonetheless: one or two "real" and big enemies with a small army of minions are probably still going to be more manageable than half a dozen monsters with a bunch of minions filling out the ranks, and having all minions activate on the same initiative will be faster than switching back and forth, especially since it will rarely matter what order they get activated in then. The action economy as well as control effects will be a concern, so that's something to be mindful of when creating the encounter, but I think that's a small price to pay in order not to spend most of two back-to-back sessions on a single combat encounter - which is a distinct possibility with a party that size and what I expect to be sessions capped at about 2 hours.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
You could always pull the tactic my first DM used.
Have weak Enemies like a thug for example, take there turn together on the same initiative count, but have them be a once hit they are defeated. The Barbarian swings his axe against the thug and falls, or the wizard casts burning hands on 3 thugs (they roll their saves as one and either pass together or fail together).
If combat feels easy, you can always add some weaker enemies that were merely hiding after one or two of the first wave fall.
However the most important thing is everything is having fun, including you OP.
Be ready to pull the old DM switcheroo. If the players decide to not go to the town in which you prepared the plot, you can easily move your story to another village nearby and make a couple of thematical differences. They’ll never know the difference.
Dude, you're the Grand Master. Pick two of the kids to be DMs. They meet with you before each session to plan things out. During the sessions, you move from table to table dealing with issues.
Do NOT run a table with that many kids. Teach them to fish.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am a high school English teacher. This year I started a D&D club for my students. We currently have 8 players, with 1 more definitely coming on board. We are playing "Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden." (I also play in an Icewind Dale campaign each week.) We have had one session so far. I am trying hard not to exclude any players, which means I need to rebalance the campaign, encounters, etc for a party of 9. Can anyone give me advice on how to do this, and what changes I should consider so that I can keep the level of danger and difficulty that Icewind Dale usually has?
Thanks.
Often times in the book it'll state how many enemies depending on party size. Ie 1:1 or such. Not fully sure of RotFM.
I'd instigate a rule off the rip for time of turns/pre-planning their turns and such. With that many players it can really bog time down if they're not thinking of their moves.
Can also make combat a bit faster, potentially, and this is just a few suggestions:
Instead of rolling for potions, make it max.
Same with the extra damage from crits IE longsword instead of 2d8+str it's 1d8+str+8
Can semi speed things up with less rolling.
Not sure if you already do. but group enemies for initiatives. IE if it's all goblins, they all act at the same time.
One thing to be careful about. With that many players it’s easy for a player to be overshadowed, especially one who’s shy. Pay attention and when one player hasn’t said anything for a while ask what they’re doing.
Professional computer geek
More for responders than the OP:
RotFM does not scale encounters for party size (or level for that matter), at least not the first chapter encounters. It just says that thee are x amount of these creatures, y amount of hose creatures, they run away if z happens.
I'm not confident enough to give advice on it, but the OP would probably benefit from advice on how to scale. I just know that the DMG Encounter Rater is not very helpful - it tends to over-estimate the difficulty by a substantial margin, in my experience.
While I can't tell you how to adapt it, bear in mind a few things:
1. Increasing monsters increases difficulty even faster. Doubling the number of monsters more than doubles the difficulty, because they attack twice as often but also have twice the health, meaning they last approaching twice as long. Intuitively, that would be four times as powerful- although that isn't completely accurate due to area of effect spells being more effective against them, buffs and debuffs being differently effective, etc.
2. Okay, some advice I can give: You can change the stats of monsters. Keep it secret from them, and if the fight is going too well for the players, just add HP to the monsters. If the players are struggling, remove HP. You can also add and remove monsters midnight - in the form of reinforcements and some monsters panicking and fleeing respectively. Don't be afraid to thumb the scale like on dice rolls to keep the threat level up but manageable until youncan judge how many monsters they can handle.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I recommend balancing the encounters as you play rather than trying to balance it before hand. I do not think it is realistic to try to balance the entire adventure by yourself, and it would be a waste of time and effort to balance a combat encounter just to have the players take a different non-confrontational approach or avoid the encounter entirely, rendering the work to balance the encounter moot.
Since the party is double the size of a normal party, I think doubling weak minions and mooks is probably okay to more closesly match the party's action economy. But I do agree that you do not want to just double everything though, as doubling spellcasters is a lot more impactful than simply doubling the number of goblins or skeletons.
I also totally agree with allowing monsters to get reinforcements and retreat. Even in real life war, unless one side is backed into a corner or something, fighting until the complete annihilation of one side rarely happens and it is not really realistic nor practical. I also agree with having an ambigious/variable total HP to make balancing the encounter easier; sometimes it is just easier on the GM to have certain monsters fall at a particular moment than when damage crosses an arbitrary line.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Good point, I had tunnel vision and forgot to account for player action economy as well. Still, I think even in the case of straight fighters (enemies that just hit you with a club or whatever), the reality is more conditional. If the mooks are just being split up evenly between players, you're 100% correct. 1v2 is 1v2 regardless of the actual numbers involved in that case. If anything, I'd say it's easier if there are more (eg 10v10 as opposed to 5v5) - it's more likely that there'll be a player that will defeat their group earlier and start dogpiling other groups, creating a domino effect.
The problem comes if the DM is being tactical - if I were out for blood, I'd pile all the mooks I could onto individual characters. So in a 5v5 situation, one character will get dogpiled by 5 attacks per round, while in a 10v10, that's 10(ish) attacks per round. Characters are more likely to be knocked unconscious or even killed. So it depends on how the DM handles it - probably easier to not be tactical and just split them up so PCs aren't dogpiled. Much easier to scale properly.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
With nine players, I would personally avoid increasing the numbers of enemies. Twenty-ish turns per round can be pretty hellish, especially since I expect sessions can't run overly long in a school club context. I'd make the monsters stronger and pay attention to spreading out their attacks, rather than adding half a dozen activations. Also definitely look into Inumiru's suggestions to minimize rolling.
I expect splitting the group might not be possible, but if that could be accomplished I'd absolutely recommend it. It'll be easier in the practical sense and it'll be less likely that some players will just not get any time to shine. If not, try to identify NPCs that will readily connect with certain players as well as challenges that certain players will gravitate towards. No needs to railroad them, but it's ok to occasionally suggest that this or that character could do try something in a specific situation or to have an NPC address a character individually. That way you can avoid the quickest and/or loudest players jumping to the front of the line all the time.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That is true. Dog piling and focus fire is definitely way more realistic tactically, and that gets worse as numbers increase. I think there are ways to spread damage around with certain subclasses and magic items to lessen the impact of focus fire, but that requires quite a bit teamwork and preplanning.
That is a good point. I had not thought about the time constraints. However, to preserve the epicness and flavor of large numbers while still keep combat fast, I think we can borrow 4e's minion rule where weak minions have 1HP and deal fixed damage. That way, if the plot necessitates or something, the OP can throw a small army at the group while still keeping combat relatively brisk.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Minions are a good option, there's less rolling at least. I'd still limit the number of activations and smooth things out as much as possible nonetheless: one or two "real" and big enemies with a small army of minions are probably still going to be more manageable than half a dozen monsters with a bunch of minions filling out the ranks, and having all minions activate on the same initiative will be faster than switching back and forth, especially since it will rarely matter what order they get activated in then. The action economy as well as control effects will be a concern, so that's something to be mindful of when creating the encounter, but I think that's a small price to pay in order not to spend most of two back-to-back sessions on a single combat encounter - which is a distinct possibility with a party that size and what I expect to be sessions capped at about 2 hours.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
You could always pull the tactic my first DM used.
Have weak Enemies like a thug for example, take there turn together on the same initiative count, but have them be a once hit they are defeated. The Barbarian swings his axe against the thug and falls, or the wizard casts burning hands on 3 thugs (they roll their saves as one and either pass together or fail together).
If combat feels easy, you can always add some weaker enemies that were merely hiding after one or two of the first wave fall.
However the most important thing is everything is having fun, including you OP.
Fantastic food for thought throughout this thread. Thank you all for contributing.
Be ready to pull the old DM switcheroo. If the players decide to not go to the town in which you prepared the plot, you can easily move your story to another village nearby and make a couple of thematical differences. They’ll never know the difference.
Be Excellent to one another. Rock on dude.
Dude, you're the Grand Master. Pick two of the kids to be DMs. They meet with you before each session to plan things out. During the sessions, you move from table to table dealing with issues.
Do NOT run a table with that many kids. Teach them to fish.