Changing AL foes

[goatmeal]

I have an AL optimized for 5 level 1 PCs. Very short: 2 combats. The 2nd combat is a hypogryff and 8 blood Hawks: cr2 deadly. I don't like that encounter and would like icy mephitis instead. 3 ice mephits and 4 blood Hawks have the Same adjusted XP. So 2 questions:
1) is this more dangerous encouter more feasible because of the fewer encounters in the day?
2) if I change to some other encounter as I've outlined here, is it equally challenging or is there some reason I don't understand why this one isn't so bad?

[mgshamster]

I haven't seen anything that says you can trade out monsters, but it is encouraged to alter the encounter to fit the group you have.

Even though it's a deadly encounter, if you feel the players/PCs can't handle it, make it a bit easier by removing some creatures. Or drop a level of difficulty.

[goatmeal]

I'm not going to be running this as any sort of official AL game, so I'm not as concerned with whether I "can" do it or not, more with the difficulty level.

[busterswd]

A lot of the AL modules tend to be 2-4 encounters per long rest, so the difficulty tends to be a little higher.

I think the first encounter would be easier, generally. Analysis of the monsters:

Ice Mephits have low AC but 21 HP, they're immune to cold damage (in case a caster picked a cold cantrip), and they punish melee players on their death and have a breath weapon.

Blood hawks have only 7 HP and crap AC; it's likely that players with ranged options will be able to take out one with 1 or 2 attacks, and a solid AoE will easily take out several of them.

The Hippogriff is deadly, but any form of CC will shut it down, hard. Additionally, 19 HP and 11 AC isn't THAT impressive. It's basically a glass cannon mob; if it gets the jump on the players, it will take one or two out before they can down it, probably, but if they see it first, they'll have a fair chance of taking it down if they work together.



Basically, the ice mephits are durable enough and have enough unavoidable melee damage that your party is guaranteed to take damage from them. (Although if you have a source of fire damage, especially something like burning hands, they become much easier.) The hippogriff swings hard (and twice) but a decent round of damage from the players, or a caster CCing it, and it's a non issue.

So this really depends on your party makeup. Either way, I wouldn't ambush your players. There's enough damage dice in this encounter to wipe out your parties if things go remotely sour.