Yeah, I think that was mentioned in one of the updates?

Adventures 1 and 2 of the adventure path are great, but adventure 3 has some major issues. I’ll be elaborating on these when I get the time to write a new blog post.

It’s shaping up to be a decent adventure path, still. We’ll see how long I actually use it, before getting sick of it and doing my own stuff.

I think I’ll go for the goblin cutters – I used them before with some success, as they’re easy to keep track of – they basically hit stuff and die.

I think I’m near enough ready to run this adventure now. It certainly looks a lot more interesting than the one in the starter set, with terrain stuff – the spreading fire in the bar is cool. Red marker?

Anyways, thank you so much for all your help! I’ll be keeping a log of this adventure on m’blog, in case you’re interested.

-Tahakki
http://noobdm.comuv.com

To introduce the campaign, it’s really up to you. The “Background” section is somewhat integral to the main campaign story, so I wouldn’t change it. But you don’t read that section out to the players, either, as that would give away most of the story.

To introduce the campaign to the players, I would read something along the lines of the following:

“While travelling, you stop in the town of Brindol. This area was involved in a great war against an army known as the Red Hand some years back, but has been relatively peaceful since then. As we begin, you are having a meal at the local tavern.”

Then let them go about whatever they want to do first, before the goblins attack.

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For deleveling the encounter, note that only the goblins and hobgoblins add xp to the encounter. So keep all 8 human rabble (they do little aside from cower and die).

Multiply the XP for the encounter by 2/5 (your ratio of PCs to a “standard” party), to get 232 xp as a goal for building this encounter.

If you kept both Goblin Blackblades in, they would use up 200 of that xp on their own. Since this is supposed to be more of a “mob” feel, we want more than 2 monsters. So drop that to 1 Goblin Blackblade (100 xp).

We then have 132 xp left over for Hobgoblin Grunts. We can use 3 of them (total xp = 214) or 4 of them (total xp = 252). Either works well.

Alternately, you can remove the Hobgoblin Grunts, and replace them with 5 Goblin Cutters (Monster Manual, level 1 minion, 25 xp each), for 225 xp total.

All three of these options work fine.

Remember to divide the encounter’s xp by the number of PCs when you award it.

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Ah, marking.

Flip your PHB to page 277, and never forget that page. Page 277 has all of the various conditions in the game, and what their effects are.

A marked creature takes a -2 penalty on attack rolls for attacks that do not include the creature that marked it.

So if my Fighter marks your Goblin, that goblin has two choices.
- attack my fighter, or
- attack someone else, but take a -2 penalty to the attack roll

If you use an attack that targets multiple people, however, like a fireball, then no penalty is incurred so long as the marker is one of the targets of the attack.

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Don’t worry about it, man. But like I said, feel free to contact me via email for longer stuff.

The human rabble in Bar Fight!, are they allies or enemies?
To introduce the campaign to the players, what should I do? Read the ‘Background’ section, or come up with my own intro?
Have you any suggestions for how to bring the XP total in the first encounter down to two PCs?
And can you explain marking? I can’t find it anywhere in the core rulebooks.

I understand this is probably a lot of questions, so sorry for taking up so much of your time!

But yeah, if you can bring in a third player, it might make your job easier. If not, don’t worry.

I’d recommend playing through Rivenroar as is, and judging whether you need an NPC follower for yourself after that. If so, there is a very convenient one in the next adventure, Seige on Bordrin’s Watch. Kalad the Paladin. Just remake him as a PC, and keep him with the group instead of having him leave.

If you discover that the party is REALLY having trouble while still in Rivenroar, there are two good option in one of the prisoners as well:
- Sertanian, in room 6, is an ex-soldier who might be persuaded to pick up a sword again. If you use him, make him younger than his picture suggests, and create a level 1 Human Fighter PC.
- Adronsius, in room 14, is an alchemist, but he can easily be statted as a Dwarf Rogue. While not explicitly a combatant, he is one of the most capable/coherent prisoners in Rivenroar.

I would not use both, however. One should make things easier on the party and yourself (lowering encounters to 2 PCs can be difficult).

An NPC follower is far from required, though. If you’re having fun without one, and the PCs aren’t having too much trouble, then don’t use one.

D&D isn’t terribly popular here. I live near enough in the capital city, and there’s only one game store.

Anyway, thanks for the advice re NPC followers. Hopefully some of the prisoners in Rivenroar can help? Yet another option would be to let the players have two characters each, but I’m very against that as it would start them talking to each other.

1) Brutes will be difficult, but not impossible. You don’t have as much damage as with a striker, but you have more hit points to soak it up. If he’s a Great Weapon fighter, you’ll still do decent damage, too, but just be wary when putting in brutes of a higher level than the party.

2) Minions will be difficult. You won’t have many area attacks, though Cleave (if the Fighter has it) can help.

Don’t avoid these outright, but make sure they don’t dominate the battlefield. If you have an encounter you’re deleveling, consider removing the brutes and minions first. If doing so would change the entire feel of the battle, you don’t need to, but consider them first.

I should also say here that, if the players are having trouble and need some help, it is okay to (with player permission) give them an NPC follower. In a group like this, I’d drop in a Striker (rogue, ranger, or warlock). You can either run this as a straight NPC, or allow one (or both, jointly) of the players to control his actions in battle.

But I can’t stress enough: do not do this unless the group is struggling AND you have player permission. (A much better option is to recruit another player, but I’m not sure if that is an option for you.)

In any case, a Leader/Defender team can do quite well. That’s probably the most survivable two-man team around.

According to the players handbook, this is a good thing as although there is a lack of players, I still have a Leader and a Striker.

The Kruthik Nest encounter is optional, and yes it means the players miss out on some XP, but don’t stress about XP totals that much. If you feel like the players are struggling at any point (very possible, with only two PCs), bump up the XP they recieve for a while. After a battle that’s worth 200 XP apiece, for instance, give them 300. Or 400. If they aren’t struggling, don’t worry about it.

The blog is a WordPress blog, but we have our own hosting plan. It you’re thinking about starting up your own blog, and don’t have your own hosting already, wordpress.com and blogspot.com are both good places to start out.

Now, a question for you:

What are the two players playing? What are their characters?

Knowing the characters and their individual strengths and weaknesses will go a long way to making decisions about how to build encounters.