Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Hammarsjkold Aug 12, 2014 5:47:38	I'll be playing the starter set. It will just be me DMing and my two kids playing, so not a big deal. But I'm wondering what you'd recommend as the most fun-preserving way to scale down the game, given that it's written for four or five players. Half HP for monsters? Half damage for monsters? Half the monsters (but what if there's just one)? Something else? What do you think?   I will probably get the Hoard of the Dragon Queen too so I'll need to know this for the future--as I know no grown-ups IRL who play...
#2 Hammarsjkold Aug 12, 2014 6:50:18	Here's another idea: maybe I could just have each kid take two characters.
#3 Rhenny Aug 12, 2014 7:40:56	For larger encounters, I'd take out 1/2 of the monsters per encounter.    Then, I'd keep 1 or 2 in my back pocket in case the PCs win too easily...(after fighting for 1 or 2 rounds, a couple more of the little buggers join in from their nap).   For small ones of 1 or 2 creatures, I'd just leave it as is.
#4 Walstafa Aug 12, 2014 7:56:12	I started my players out at level 2 to get over the initial hump. Quite handy, since the Archer got Action Surge and the Cleric got Channel Divinity to handle the greater incoming DPS. The only fight in the first scenario they truly struggled with was the cave with the six Goblins in it, so maybe you'd want to scale that one down a bit.
#5 Gronka Aug 12, 2014 15:48:50	Doing the same with my 10 yr old son and 6 year old. I threw them a potion of healing each in the wagon of supplies and Custom stat rolling that gives exceptional stats (4th re roll 1-2 throw out the lowest die). They advance faster as I'm giving the per mob exp. They have yet to get owned. We started a second campaign where one plays two characters, I play a character and the youngest plays one as well. They are shredding everything so far. I expect tougher targets like the bugbear to be rough. Due to a detour they got some exp in another locally and are level 2 before they will get to him. I expect the will continue being a bit higher level than intended because of splitting the exp between fewer players. I'm still waiting for them to finally lose a character but as of yet the 10 year old plays it smart using perception whenever he can. I too am searching for how to balance everything via CR but haven't had to make any other major adjustments yet.
#6 Xion2008 Aug 13, 2014 11:02:41	My two players are the Archer and the Cleric and they seem to have decent combat synergy. I did not want to simply reduce the number of enemies the PCs encountered because I felt that might weaken the story. Lets face it, when the PCs split up in town and one knowingly confronts a gang of bandits, it is hardly the same effect when a "gang" (4 in the adventure booklet) turns out to be a pair. My solution to this dilema of enemy damage out to player health was to give a character, proficient with brewers artisian tools, a magic vial which I have named The Mother of Healing. It is a small vile full of a magical red powder which is enough to brew 3 potions of healing. It takes about 1 hour to prepare the liquid using and another 7 hours before the liquid becomes potent as a healing potion. Over the coarse of 1 day, the vial magically refills its self with enough red powder to make 3 more potions.    Since there are only two of them, there aren't enough profiencies among my PCs' party to cover all (or most) of the skills. Because of this I try to reward the players as much as possible for creative thinking or out of the box solutions.
#7 JmanReqiem Aug 20, 2014 21:40:50	Like Rhenny said above in my group I am DMing with a Druid and a Cleric. I make sure they start with at least one healing potion. But now that they have gotten over the level 1 death wish they have done much better in combat. I still drop the number of enemies down and if they are blowing through them I throw 2 more at them mid battle.
#8 vodokar Aug 20, 2014 22:52:09	There are several options for handling this and it depends greatly on the skill, experience and capabilities of your children.     I play all the time with just my son and I.  We play full on.  He plays three characters and I DM and play 3 characters.  We've been doing this for years though, so he is very used to jugling more than one character.  We have done this with 1E, 4E and 5E.  Works great.  The best part about it is that we get to experience a lot more of the different character classes and we don't have to scale down the prewritten adventures -- actually, I often scale them up some, since they are balanced for 4 characters instead of 6, like they were in the old days.   I would advocate that if you think your children can handle it, this is the best way to play, because they get to experience the adventures as they were designed.  But, the downside would be if you are wanting to emphasize more the roleplaying aspects and identifying with a character.  It is just a bit tougher to pull that off when you have more than one character; not impossible, but tougher.