Smaller groups in Dragonmech

Medieval fantasy mechs powered by steam, magic, or the labor of a thousand slaves.

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camelon75
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Smaller groups in Dragonmech

Post by camelon75 »

Just looking to start a Dragonmech campaign with Shardsfall Quest, But with a limited amount of players.

3 in fact, plus me as GM.

just wondering how anyone out there would suggest scaling the players or adventure, I would rather have more heroic players than alter too much of the adventure.

With the purchase of Steam Warriors, and the loads of extra feats I am thinking of allowing more feats to everyone maybe 1 at first and then every even level. thus allowing another feat at second and the next at fourth. But having never done that before I am concerned about unbalancing the game.

but what about starting level etc

Any thoughts :?
mythfish
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Post by mythfish »

With only three players I think I would definitely start them at second level. My players did it just fine with only 4 first level characters, but they were smart and got lucky a few times.
Ken Hart
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Post by Ken Hart »

I agree about starting them at 2nd level. Regarding adding more feats, you could make a house rule that gives everyone an extra feat at 1st level (i.e., three feats for humans; two for everyone else) then keep the feat progression as normal: 3rd, 6th, etc. That should give the players a slightly better taste of DragonMech's feats without unbalancing things.

As for scaling down the adventure itself, a few suggestions [some SPOILERS follow, but I'll try to minimize details]:


  • Episode One: Eliminate most of the "non-essential" encounters (like the dronog and the spawn), but the skinstealer is a must-have and the elemental is just, well, cool!

    Episode Two: This should be OK, but perhaps reduce the number of ferrovores (or cut them completely if the PCs are on the ropes).

    Episode Three: Strongly encourage them to go around the worm pits! And you may want to skip the orcs entirely. Reduce NPCs in Haimler's Town by one level.

    Episode Four: This part hinges largely on the PCs making smart decisions, so I don't think you'll need to change anything here.
Alternatively, you could add an NPC to the party (perhaps a bard or a sage) to give your PCs more info and a better fighting chance, but that obviously means more in-game work for you.

--Ken
camelon75
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Post by camelon75 »

Thanks for the advice.

Mythfish I will start the guys at 2nd level but give them MAX HPs to make up for smaller numbers.

Ken, thanks for the tips on the adventure and Feats.

I think I might try the Conan feats thing, and allow there primary class levels (ie class they started as) to benefit from additional feats at 1st, 5th, 10th etc

Now to class selection only 3 players so I will try to make them as Dragonmech as possible, maybe

Human mechJockey
Dwarf Coglayer
Human Clockwork ranger (dont have books right now but I think that the class)

Any thoughts please :?
Reese
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Post by Reese »

without seeing that stats of the characters in question, i can't say anything specific, but...

your mech jockey will be spending a lot of time out of his mech, so he's going to be forced to use melee and ranged with the mediocre base attack bonus. aside from piloting a mech, about half the melee combat will fall to him

the coglayer is going to be pulling double duty as both mage and healer(assuming he builds a device for healing) until the ranger gets to the level where he can case cure spells (and, even then, the healing devices he can construct will be more powerful, even if only usable once per day)

the ranger will be be in the position of main melee combatant (unless the mech jockey fills that role) and will probably end up having to use most of the spells he has for healing once he gets to the level he can cast spells at

if your players are familiar with D&D, i would say allow them to pick thier own classes so they can pick something that suits them best, but encourage them to pick something that's dragonmech

dragonmech is a pretty magic-poor setting, outside of the L'ariel Nation, so lack of adequate healing would be something that most any party would ahve to deal with (heh, the only classes with healing spells that are uneffected by the rains are druid and ranger, so if you go with those three classes and the ranger likes playing a character as a healer, then you're halfway better off than most DM campaigns would probably be :) )
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mythfish
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Post by mythfish »

I'd say you NEED a strong fighter for the first part of the adventure, so maybe a steamborg instead of the clockwork ranger. Or even just a fighter (can use a chattersword or buzzaxe for the DragonMech flavor).
Ken Hart
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Post by Ken Hart »

I agree. A fighting-type is a must, and a ranger generally lacks the AC to be the sole front-line attacker.

Perhaps, instead of starting off one of the PCs as a mech jockey, make him/her a fighter with the Mechanized Combat Practice feat (from the core book) and a couple of cross-class skill points in Mech Pilot, so that the character can use the Magwagon later on. (Perhaps the PC was a former gunner or crewman on a Stenian Magwagon? That's not a stretch.) That'll give the PC the BAB and hit points to get through Episode One, along with the ability to pilot the mech -- although awkwardly -- in Episode Three.

As the PC (and the player) becomes more familiar with the mech (and the DragonMech setting in general), he/she may become really interested in taking levels in mech jockey.
camelon75
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Post by camelon75 »

Okay cool

The fighter with some mech skills seems cool, leaves a good mulitclass option open, The Coglayer can stay with those lovely steam weapons, and the Ranger.

thanks for all the feed back will proceed to get the guys round and make some characters up.

I will let them decide on everything else other than classes.
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