Tip for runninig Revenge of the Giants for 3 players

[Coolhart]

Revenge of the Giants recomended for lvl 12–17.

I'm in a fairly new group of players around 6-7 in level in a campaign.
unfortunately a few players just don;t have the time anymore and we are cut down to an active 3 players 1 DM.

We wanted to try to make a few new characters for this premade campaign. since our DM doenst have enough time to work out a new story for us.

We found this campaign and wanted to try it out. but it's for 5 players.

Any tips for DM or players how we should balance it for smaller group, group composition. any premade characters.
Looking for a quick plug and play options with out too much effort.

[tiornys]

I think the best solution in terms of both ease of implementation and balance is to have the party create a companion character for the DM to run, and have the party start out at level 13 instead of level 12. A fight designed for 5 level N characters is roughly the same XP budget as a fight designed for 4 level (N+1) characters, and XP budget is a pretty good indicator of challenge in 4E as long as the monsters in the encounter are close to the PC's level.

Other solutions get more complex or trickier for various reasons. It's not too hard to scale fights down from "designed for 5" to "designed for 4"--typically you just remove the most redundant standard monster--but it does take some DM judgement calls and especially can be tricky for fights involving mostly "named" enemies and/or solos. That said, this is another idea to consider along with the companion character idea.

It's significantly trickier to scale fights down to "designed for 3". It didn't sound like your DM wanted this level of revision, but if they're willing to do it then you can just play with 3 characters starting at level 12 and no other issues.

It's possible to level scale based on XP budget for a 3-person party, but the level differential becomes N+3 instead of N+1 which is enough that you'll really start to feel the impact on combat math, especially in terms of hitting and missing. However, if you want to try this, then have your 3 characters start out at level 15 instead of level 12.

Another idea is to have the some or all of the players play multiple characters. It's very easy to scale an encounter up by one player--just add a standard on-level monster (or four on-level minions)--so I would recommend having each player play two characters if you want to try this. This is an obvious huge increase in complexity during play, of course.

A related idea is to dip into homebrew and build "elite" PC characters that are similar in power level to 3rd edition gestalt characters. I'd have to dig into my memory banks for exact mechanics if you're interested, but my play group tested this idea out years ago and it comes pretty close to making each PC have the power level of two normal characters.

Those suggestions cover a very wide range of possible party sizes and levels, so I'd rather hold off on suggestions for character builds until I know what path seems attractive to you.

[Coolhart]

Thanks for the quick response.

Our Dm said he could scale it for 3 PC but warned us that we should at least have a balanced party.
Apparantly the other 2 PC already made an Avenger and a Druid. Builds unknown. What makes it hard to chose a complementing class.
Was thinking of a Cleric since i doubt they will chose any healing or ranged abilities for the party.

DM did say that he preferred not using the Heroes books or the dragon mags.
Hope this narrows it down a bit. So many books to check what would be fun to play.

[Excession]

In my opinion, a balanced party of 3 would be defender, striker, and leader. With less enemies the multi-target leaning of a controller makes it the first to go. Unless the druid is using a defender-like front line build I think it's a suboptimal choice. With less PCs a leader should also be focusing more on their own damage or control than normal.

If you're having to fill both defender and leader spots, paladin is perhaps the obvious choice. The party also seems to lack anyone for social situations, so maybe Cha based, though Str has the better damaging attacks. A couple of uses a lay on hands a day, plus maybe a multi-class to leader for another heal would help. For race, Drow can make great charisma paladins, as you can hide in your Cloud of Darkness to gain CA and make enemies choose between missing you or provoking your mark.

For Str-based Half Orc is would be the best option if you had Dragon available, as the feat Blessed Strength fixes the lack of stickiness that strength paladins suffer from.

Another option would be a hybrid, like fighter|warlord or fighter|cleric.

[MwaO]

In my opinion, a balanced party of 3 would be defender, striker, and leader. With less enemies the multi-target leaning of a controller makes it the first to go. Unless the druid is using a defender-like front line build I think it's a suboptimal choice. With less PCs a leader should also be focusing more on their own damage or control than normal.

Both Avengers and Druids are relatively 'tough' members of their role. I'd actually aim to put a pure leader in there instead. And I'd also look at the following:
Can both the Avenger & Druid pull off stealth? Yes? Maybe a Dex/Cha Bard would be best in there. Get some surprise rounds in.
No? Maybe a Str/Cha Warlord would be best.

[Yakk]

5 level 12 characters have a budget of 3500 XP.
3 level 15 characters have a budget of 3600 XP.

Start with level 15 characters and play the adventure unmodified.

A defender/leader/striker would probably be ideal, with maybe one of them a controller-leaning or hybrid.

[Coolhart]

Hmm looked more into warlord.
We have an PC playing an Inspiring one on other other campaign.
Worried about doing damage and staying alive. Our warlord there goes down a lot (unconscious) and thats with a 5 man party with decent balance. So not so keen on that
Maybe another path is better? Tactical warlord?

Druid is trying to go defender as role. Not that familiar with the class noone in our group have played one.
Any other classes & Builds that would fit wel with a Avenger and Druid?

Going to look up some premade warlords builds for now.
Thanks for the tips so far.

[ThePurple]

Hmm looked more into warlord.
We have an PC playing an Inspiring one on other other campaign.
Worried about doing damage and staying alive. Our warlord there goes down a lot (unconscious) and thats with a 5 man party with decent balance. So not so keen on that
Maybe another path is better? Tactical warlord?

Warlords are easily the most powerful leaders in 4e. The secret to their success is in granting attacks to allies. If that warlord was focusing on healing or buffs, they weren't playing to their strengths. Warlords are also pretty durable when built properly (Armored Warlord is a favorite feat since it gives scale without stat requirements and an additional HS; the Battlefront Leader class feature also upgrades you from light shields to heavy shields and allows you to let an ally shift half their speed when init is rolled rather than giving everyone a +2 to Init, which I've always preferred).

I generally prefer the Resourceful Warlord to any of the others, especially since, at Paragon, you get to go with Infernal Strategist which is *disgustingly good*. Bravura is also very nice because it's high risk/high reward (which will actually pay out if you're higher level than the adventure intends because you'll be extremely accurate). The secret to building a good warlord, like so much of 4e, is going for powers that give attacks that don't use a standard action (Powerful Warning, Vengeance is Mine, etc), and, if you *do* go for a standard action attack, it needs to give more than one attack.

Druid is trying to go defender as role. Not that familiar with the class noone in our group have played one.
Any other classes & Builds that would fit wel with a Avenger and Druid?

Druids are either Controllers (Protector) or Leaders (Sentinel). They're both sub-role Defenders, but that doesn't mean that they can actually fulfill the role. It just means that they're slightly more durable than normal. Sub-roles in 4e are basically irrelevant.

A functional defender has a marking mechanism and a retributive damage mechanism. The entire point of the role is to encourage enemies to attack them even though they're harder to kill and less explicitly threatening than the other roles and they do this via their marking and retributive damage mechanisms. There's no way for Druids to get these (you can make do for a turn or so with some of the themes, but it's not quite the same).

A 3 character party with an Avenger and a Druid puts a lot of the onus for balancing the party on the third member. A leader is basically *required* and a defender is so heavily encouraged that it's nearly requisite, and the Avenger and Druid aren't likely to be bringing either of those (if the Druid is going Sentinel, they'll be a leader, but Sentinel is... problematic as a paragon tier class due to being an Essentials class, which are perfectly fine in heroic tier but rapidly fall off in paragon).

[Excession]

Warlords are easily the most powerful leaders in 4e. The secret to their success is in granting attacks to allies.

That also means they depend on other party members to do something with those attacks. How good are the melee basic attacks on the Avenger and Driud likely to be? Fighter and Barbarian, or even Warlock, can do a lot with an MBA if they optimise around it even slightly, but not all classes and builds can.

I haven't seen a Druid in play, so I'm still unsure about letting the controller play defender.

Maybe another path is better? Tactical warlord?

Bard might be another option. Use that high Cha and good skills to try and talk your way out of some fights. Or just stay at range so you can run when things go wrong

[ThePurple]

How good are the melee basic attacks on the Avenger and Driud likely to be?

As long as they get the Power of Skill feat so that they can use Overwhelming Strike as a basic attack, they're pretty capable, especially if they go full crit-fisher with it.

[Coolhart]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Update: went with a cleric. even if i did make a warlord on the side.
Group wanted to try without a warlord. since they were lacking heals and THP. there were a few custom encounters in between the normal campaign.
GM likes to keep things a bit unpredictable. Behold the cockatrice. so many bad #1 throws 2 PC's got petrified . now i'm pulling 2 statues to a small settlement to get them de-petrified.
Remove Affliction ritual and hope i don't kill either PC. or we can start over. Extra saving throws didn't mean much and we could have used more damage.

Oh well we had a ball how we ended up in this situation and i guess that matters more. i have to burn everyone's dice rolled like 12+ times a 1 during saving / attack rolls. seemed like the dice where cursed.

[Yakk]

As an aside, you might want to mention to the DM the errata that effects like petrification that occur "after X failed saving throws" only count fails from *natural* saving throws you get at the end of your turn.

Granted savings throws that fail don't turn you to stone.