Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 KaliRA73 May 26, 2015 16:00:52	SPOILERS AHEAD! If you plan on playing the Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign you probably should not read this.   I ran a group through the Mines campaign and we did some side missions and now we are talking about moving on to the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. HotDQ is made to start with characters that are level one but now we have a level 6 fighter, level 6 cleric, level 3 rogue and level 3 wizard.   I am looking for tips on how to up the difficulty for this party.   The first episode in Greenest has them fighting small groups of kobolds, cultists, ambush drakes and the such. At this point the players would just one shot everything. I need to mix in some tougher baddies without messing up the story. I don't know the D&D world too well. What do you guys think?
#2 BRJN May 26, 2015 19:16:29	- Put a few groups of Mercenaries on their Encounter Chart, replacing some Kobolds. - They see Langdredosa and his bodyguards from a distance; he is clearly giving orders to others - The dragon makes a few random Breath Attacks on the town ... which just happen to hit near the PCs - A group of Kobolds (or Urds?) shadows the PCs rather than fights them - Replace an Acolyte in a group with L3 Wiz / Sorc / Cleric - somebody who can cast a Spell. - Run them into a treasure wagon instead of plunderers: they have to break it without alerting the whole raiding force - Just give all enemies x3 HP - Some kobold runs away and raises the hue-and-cry, leading into a longer drawn-out battle (if the PCs pursue) or a swarm of hunters looking for them (if they don't) - Langdredosa offers his Challenge to a Duel to the PCs personally, not to the man in charge of the Keep.
#3 KaliRA73 May 27, 2015 9:33:35	Thanks. I am pretty new to world of D&D. I didn't know if I could mess with the HPs of standard bad guys like Kobolds and whatnot. I didn't want to do something that people would be like "In D&D that wouldn't happen"
#4 Xaspian May 27, 2015 10:43:42	I ran for a group in a similar situation*. I upped the challenge of Chapter 1 by running multiple events at the same time. For example, I ran the Dragon Attack at the same time as the the Sally Port was attacked, meaning the party had to either choose which to deal with or split up to deal with both.   I also changed the town govenor from the book to fill in the role of Evil Baron from the background of a PC with the Folk Hero background. Having an antagonistic NPC in the keep that they needed to work around certainly made things more challenging - especially when he ordered archers to take down both the Hero and Cyanwrath during the duel! (The PC was winning pretty easily due to extra attack+ magic items + a multitude of buff spells, so you might want to boost Cyanwrath if you want him to be as overwhelming as the adventure expects him to be.)     In Chapter 2, rather than trying to disguise their way into the camp, the party decided to just to a smash and run rescue attempt on the prisoners, so they weren't as well informed as they might have been, but they were a lot more efficient. By the time they ventured into Chapter 3 they smashed their way through most of the enemies, even Cyanwrath's beserker guards, until the roper nearly destroyed them. They took it as a lesson on the perils of overconfidence and not taking short rests.   Overall, it shouldn't matter too much if the party do blast through several encounters without too much difficulty, as long as their having fun. As a DM, knowing they could handle themselves allowed me more flexibility to throw multiple threats at them without worrying too much. By the time they reach Naerytar or Skyreach they should be back to appropriate level again.   *Clarifying Edit: The party was all at level 5 after completing LMoP.
#5 Noctaem May 27, 2015 11:21:40	http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder   That link was posted elsewhere but seems to contain a very nice calculator for doing basically what you're trying to do.  You can select monsters and then scale them up to the appropriate level or find more appropriate monsters for a specific CR range.   Enjoy.
#6 BRJN May 28, 2015 18:18:50	Another thought: if the PCs can beat off the raid on the town in Ep1, following the (defeated) raiders back to their camp means they watch the Leaders decide to get outta Dodge NOW.  If the PCs do not somehow interfere with the mass migration, you get to the situation expected for Ep3.