Scaling Adventures

[Blazeguard]

This may be a silly question but I was wondering how to go about scaling the adventures.

I have never DM'd before but I have played my share of computer rpgs. I would like to get my kids involved and we have tried a couple of times to play Morgansfort but since they are fairly young (12 and 8) they have only been playing one character each and their party has been decimated pretty much upon entering the Old Island Fortress.

How would I go about scaling the adventure to accomodate only 2 or maybe 4 characters?

Thanks.

Ray

[SmootRK]

I would beef up the party with a NPC or two, or perhaps give them a guard dog or two that can fight for them. Then to make things a tad easier, reduce the number of creatures in any particular area down. You can also make creatures easier to kill by reducing their Hit Points down by one or more each.

I sometimes have similar situations with my own children (who are 8 and almost 7 years old), but their characters have progressed a little bit, acquired some better equipment, and recently made it to second level. I trust that after a bit of experimentation your kids will get the hang of things quickly.

[Joe the Rat]

NPCs are a good way to go, particularly as they can fill out some holes in the party. Also gives you a mouthpiece if there's some bit of information you want them to have - or to find things they need that they'd otherwise miss. An easy way to fudge towards survivability.

[JoeCarr28]

How would I go about scaling the adventure to accomodate only 2 or maybe 4 characters?

Matching the total hit dice of the players and the monsters in any given encounter is a reasonable rule of thumb. e.g. four first level characters against four orcs, or two wolves, would be a fair fight. You can tweak the specific hit points of the monsters to adjust the difficulty level.

And don't forget the morale rules; they can be a big help, particularly to low level characters that are short on hit points.