Comments on: Scaling 4th Edition for Six Players

By: Cam

Cam — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:55:44 +0000

Right now I’m running a 6 person game where we have 2 defenders, 2 strikers, a leader and a controller. So far just adding another creature into the encounter hasn’t been very challenging for them at all, so I am instead now taking a creature from the normal encounter and boosting him up to elite status.

By: Michael Pfaff

Michael Pfaff — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:34:58 +0000

I really like that “Unstoppable Villain” power. I think I’ll incorporate that into a few of my “Solo” big bad guys and watch my players go apeshit when the unstoppable villain still moves and attacks while he’s “dazed”.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:31:31 +0000

I have a campaign with seven characters (soon to be eight). I use a spread sheet to make sure I set my encounter difficulty correctly.

I have found more than anything keeping a tightly run enounter requires a lot of prep in advance for the DM. I use encounter cards that have wipe away surfaces on them so I can note important effects (stun, on going damage, etc).

By: Tumorseal

Tumorseal — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:45:38 +0000

I run a game that has nine players. Holy Jeebus.

It is early on, and I have no idea what I am doing, but neither do half of my players, so screw it!

By: James

James — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:15:06 +0000

I too have seven players. Forcing the party to split, mixing a puzzle or threat to something that is not the PCs directly (such as an NPC in peril) can force weaker tactical decisions which will improve threat. Forcing combat into tight quarters will control a bit of the PCs power. Powers like “swallow whole” & “dominate” can add challenge when the group is suddenly down one after already being used to 7 members. Just remember to give these players something extra to do, since combat can take so long with this many players. Recently I let a dominated player control a swinging pendulum trap to keep him occupied.

Mike, when you add the additional damage to the enemies attacks, do you add experience to the encounter to make it appropriate XP gain for the party?

By: wickedmurph

wickedmurph — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:14:39 +0000

I also have 7 players, so one of the things I’m doing to increase the overall challenge level is to string multiple encounters together, and put things like timers or victory conditions in place. In our last session the group had to fight through about 4 encounters worth of goblins, while moving through a mountain pass, in time to keep the goblins from burning an allied village.

The players had to move fast, traverse lots of difficult terrain, fight wave after wave of goblins, and do it as quickly as they could. Not being able to reset encounter powers or burn healing surges made them all really stretch their resources, and made the cleric indispensable.

Another thing I like to do is use a TON of minions – waves and waves of them. It adds a lot to the immediacy and challenge of a combat when they have do deal with really large numbers of foes.

By: newbiem

newbiem — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:43:45 +0000

I have 7 players, and I find it’s hard to get a good threat level going most of the time. Maybe these ideas will make things tougher, thanks for the tips!