The other day I came across the post I snapped a photo of below on a board game Facebook group (can’t remember which one). I then shared it on another Facebook group because a day or two before in that group a member had asked about RPGs for kids. They had wanted to run an RPG for their kids who where now becoming old enough to play them.

A day or two later it occurred to me (I know I’m slow sometimes, old age and all that) that my small but exclusive readership might also find the information useful.

Also, because I’m a kind soul, I’ve included clickable links to the files.

“The Floating Library of Pelduin”

http://bit.ly/2IzzM3H

“The Monster Hunter Guild of Havale”

http://bit.ly/31v8Jzp

“The Sleeping Sickness of Bear Claw Village”

http://bit.ly/2MJhl1X

“Dragon’s Fortune”

http://bit.ly/2wLhLtQ

“Wizard Bonbon and the Castle of Sucre”

http://bit.ly/2I9K9vY

There are a couple of “official” adventures aimed at 6+ on the D&D website, Monster Slayers: Champions of the Elements and the original Monster Slayers: The Heroes Of Hesiod.

It might also be worth looking at the No Thank You, Evil! by Monte Cook Games. Plus there is Amazing Tales on DriveThruRPG. Not my cup of tea, but there is a My Little Pony: Tails Of Equestria RPG. And those aren’t even scratching the surface of what’s available. Google is your friend here.

I hope some people have found this post useful. Or at least started those with kids thinking.

This post was nearly titled “shit they don’t tell you in the D&D rulebooks”. Like other posts it’s based on a Matt Colville video.

In the DMG they tell you how to reskin/reuse an existing monster (I’ve done that for two major characters in my campaign). They tell you how to create a new monster from scratch using a couple of methods. But what they don’t tell you is how to take an existing monster and adjust it so that it is suitable to go up against your party.

The example given in the video (link above) is adjusting a medusa so it can be used against a third level party. But you might want to go the opposite direction also.

Why would you want to do this? Why not? Ok that’s not an answer. It opens up more options for you the DM for starters. More variety. It allows you to surprise players, especially those that “know it all”. I’ll expand on that. If a player knows the Monster Manual, and the CR rating stuff, they might be expecting only certain creatures will be used for the level the group is at for encounters. Imagine their surprise when all of a sudden a monster that has a much higher CR rating suddenly appears. Something they would only expect once their party reaches an appropriate level.

Admittedly you could still do that without adjusting the stats of the creature. But only if you wanted to murder the whole party. It’d be a bit unfair and one sided.

So in the rest of this post I’m going to summarise what Colville says in his video. Now I hope people don’t mind me doing this. This is basically me making notes for myself to refer back to, and sharing them with you. Hopefully others will find this useful as well.

Adjusting Down

In the mentioned video the medusa was used as an example. But it’s the process that is important not the creature. (I think that sums up Colville’s main reason for the video.)

So below in bullet points I present my understanding of what to look at.

• AC – This could be adjusted down to make easier to hit based on player modifiers to hit. This all falls in with a previous post about being outnumbered and in more danger than you think.
• HP – Naturally this can be reduced. Couple of ways to achieve this. Either on the fly or the old hit die times const formula based on the level you want the creature at.
• Saving throws – adjust the saving throw. In the Medusa example the target number to avoid being petrified was lowered. But you also may want to adjust the saving throws that the monster does as well.
• Attack modifiers – give it the same/similar attack modifiers to those of your party.
• Provide good intel! Make sure that you sign post, drop clues that they are about to face a nasty monster. Using the example Colville gives maybe have a garden of life like statues leading to the Medusa’s lair. This means that the players are not going in blind, can prepare, make tactics or run away.
• Possibly adjust the amount of damage an attack does if successful.

I think that sums up what to look at from the video. If I’ve missed something out, or not explained it properly, or totally missed the point let me know please.

Adjusting Up

This one is the easier to do, taking a lower level monster and making things more challenging for a party that is a higher level.

• Increase the AC of the creature! Give it armour, or better armour.
• Give the creature allies
• Add +1 or +2 to its constitution modifier
• More hit dice
• Maybe increase the DC saving throw (17 maximum)
• Make the creature legendary and all that entails

And that’s it. See you in the next post.

In this post I’m going to look at the apps I’m using to prep for the D&D campaign.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

My main device for anything is my iPad Pro. I can’t remember when I last fired up a desktop or laptop at home. The nearest I’ve come is using a Raspberry Pi a couple of times. Apart from coding and some fringe cases I can do everything I need to on an iPad.

When it comes to preparing for the campaign I’m using three main apps. Well I say three but in reality you could argue that it is really two.

I’m including the rather good WordPress app in this workflow because I’m including this post, and my other posts about my progress and such as part of my prep for the campaign.

Yes this blog is a diary. It’s not incite full, it doesn’t look deep into the human condition. It fails as a boardgaming blog. There are not reviews on here, when I play a new game I talk about what I liked and didn’t like about it. But what I say is no way as in-depth as the reviews others put out. These days I talk about Magic the Gathering, D&D and other RPGs, and gaming sessions. Stuff that interests me.

I use the prep posts particularly as notes, reminders, even just thinking aloud, milling over ideas. Which I think is an important thing to do. Hopefully some-one will find my sharing, seeing my thought process helpful. It is for me.

Ok onto the next app in my workflow.

That app is Scrivener.

Scrivener is aimed at people who write a lot of manuscripts, particularly screen writes, authors, etc. It has none of the bells and whistles of like Word. It aims to help writers focus on the writing without the distractions.

I’m using Scrivener to write the session notes. Stuff like room and character descriptions, encounters notes, etc.

I particularly like the cork board view. It allows me to play around with the structure of a session. It has some other nice features too, like keeping research notes with the project.

The nice thing for me also is I can control what gets generated as the final version of the adventure for the session.

The final app in the workflow is Good Notes.

Good Notes is a note taking app. A digital note book.

There are a lot of notebook apps for the iPad. It’s a natural thing for it to be used for. Especially with an Apple Pencil.

I particularly like this app. It has a presentation mode (useful for my day job). Plus I like being able to have custom page templates. So my notebooks in the app can be made up from several different page types. For example graph paper for some, plain for others, A3 pages instead of A4, landscape and even character sheets.

I’m using Good Notes as a digital DM’s folder. Which will be holding more than my actual DM’s folder. The physical version will have some of the pages printed, like maps, encounter stats. Basically stuff I need for the session.

In previous posts about the campaign pitch and the player sheet that introduces the campaign I did use a couple of other apps that fall under the honourable mention section if I were to have one. For the two documents just mentioned I used Word on the iPad. Word I don’t think needs any explanation. Plus the images used in those documents I edited in my go to image editor on the iPad Pixelmator.

I do intend to at the end of each session write a reflective blog post about how I thought the session went. And with those posts include the current version of the DM’s folder, and the adventure session notes.