OotA for 2 fifth level PCs?

[swoop_ds]

My two players are almost done Lost Mines of Phandelver and I really like what I've read about Out of the Abyss. Anyone have any thoughts on having two, 5th level characters in OotA?

I'll either have Nezznar capture them, or afterwards narrate their capture if they kill him.

[Foxhound438]

it's probably doable, but you might want to re-balance some of the earlier encounters.

[MintyNinja]

It depends on your PC's but the early game gives you a ton of NPC's to help them out. I think it should be fine if your players are competent and aware of how they may be outclassed here and there. I'd recommend the Out of The Abyss tweaks and changes thread somewhere on this forum, as well as brushing up on the Loyalty Rules in the DMG if your players want to keep the NPC's close.

[Cespenar]

You might want to either dial up the encounters for the first third of the game, or lightly cripple the players (like them not getting any of their old stuff back). 2 level 5s are considerably more powerful than 4-5 level 1-2s.

[Mandragola]

I think it could be a bit odd really. Oota is great but if you get anywhere near the endgame with two PCs life will be tough. I guess that applies to any adventure though.

[Silfazaris]

I'm Dming an OotA campaign, it started with 4 players, but after 2 sessions of game a friend had to leave, leaving only 3 players. They had help from the followers (the prisoners from chapter 1) so it was really ok. Soon, other player had to leave and they had few or none followers to help, I just made 2 NPCs, each one of my players would control one of these NPCs. They used player character sheets. If you are comfortable with DMing for 2 players, go for it, make some NPCs and boom. But don't make the party have more than 5 characters (including followers) or you will have to deal with CR adjustments, not that is hard, but it's tedious to change everything in the book.
The group then came back to 4 players but I knew soon or later our cleric would leave because he's going to be a father, I created a cleric NPC and 2 sessions later he left. Now my group consists of 3 players and 1 NPC. It's working great.

Because of some action economy, a group of 2 players will have a hard time facing a CR 5 encounter, so just put 2 followers or 2 NPCs to make a party of 4 people. They won't have any problem fighting the monsters from chapter 1 to chapter 7. But be careful, once they reach chapter 7 they need to be around 7th-level/8th-level. So you are pretty much DMing 6 chapters where they will advance only 2 or 3 levels. Once they reach Chapter 11 they need to be 10th-level.

If you and your players don't like taking control over followers and NPC, you still can DM it, but you gonna need to change the encounters to fit their capabilities (2 players only) but since they are already 5th-level you won't change much. What I did was to see the XP Threshold and check the difficult (easy, medium, hard, deadly) and then re-arrange to fit my party and make the encounters to have the same difficult.

Go for it. OotA is awesome.

[Princess]

Strongly agree with the wise use of NPC's here. Pick whichever your favorite of the early potentially friendly NPC's you think could help out your adventurers early on, and either keep them around as long as they're useful or kick of the training wheels when they reach a city. There are a couple of them that could be re-written as spellcasters, and I'm especially fond of Eldeth, Derendil, and Jimjar as colorful helpers. Keep their personalities but rewrite backstories and stats as it suits your group and you should have no trouble. I even wrote up simplified character sheets for a couple to hand out to the players during combat after they'd earned the NPC's trust to add to the gravitas of the fight and make combats easier to run on my end. Make the Underdark Great Again!

[Silfazaris]

Strongly agree with the wise use of NPC's here. Pick whichever your favorite of the early potentially friendly NPC's you think could help out your adventurers early on, and either keep them around as long as they're useful or kick of the training wheels when they reach a city. There are a couple of them that could be re-written as spellcasters, and I'm especially fond of Eldeth, Derendil, and Jimjar as colorful helpers. Keep their personalities but rewrite backstories and stats as it suits your group and you should have no trouble. I even wrote up simplified character sheets for a couple to hand out to the players during combat after they'd earned the NPC's trust to add to the gravitas of the fight and make combats easier to run on my end. Make the Underdark Great Again!


Yeah, good idea. You could use your favorite followers as PCs (2 of them). Give them PC character sheets based on their backgrounds or even change their backgrounds (although changing Jimjar's background can possibly have an impact in the fight against Demogorgon if you plan to use him as an avatar of a deity). If your 2 players are a fighter and a cleric, use Jimjar as a rogue and maybe even change Sarith or Topsy or Turvy to be a sorcerer or the like. Or introduce a new prisoner who you are going to use as a "fixed" NPC. So, yes, you are going to use the followers to cover the abilities your PCs don't have. For example, if your group has a rogue, don't use Jimjar, instead use another follower. Or if your group doesn't have a barbarian or fighter, use Ront as a barbarian/fighter (I don't recommend though, Ront is annoying, I killed him in the very first session of my game xD)

[Mandragola]

The idea of using a couple of NPCs from the escape is a good one. For various obviously spoilery reasons, not all of them are suitable for use. I think you could use:

Ront as a fighter, barbarian (probably best fit) or maybe a cleric of Gruumsh. He could be annoying, or he could be fun to have along for you as a DM.

Eldeth as a ranger or fighter.

Jimjar as a rogue.

Shuushar as a very defensively-focussed cleric or druid, or conceivably something like a divination wizard.

I've been DMing this for three people - a drow underdark scout revised ranger, a dwarf tempest cleric and an aasimar sorceress. They have recently lost the last of their starting NPCs. Here's how that went:

Our group lost Ront during the escape, then Jimjar and Eldeth in the ancient tomb, to a wild magic surge fireball(!). Sarith made it as far as the garden of welcome in Neverlight Grove, where he had a messy end. Derendil served pretty well as a front-ranker, then also died in the garden of welcome.

Shuushar, Buppido and Stool were all successfully dropped off at their homes, though the party never found their way to Buppido's home.

Topsy and Turvy left the group after escaping the drow. I might have them reappear later on, as the group has now just arrived in Blingdenstone. And it's also possible that the Drow will have raised Ront and interrogated him as to the group's plans, so he might reappear when the drow catch up with everyone.

[Silfazaris]

The idea of using a couple of NPCs from the escape is a good one. For various obviously spoilery reasons, not all of them are suitable for use. I think you could use:

Ront as a fighter, barbarian (probably best fit) or maybe a cleric of Gruumsh. He could be annoying, or he could be fun to have along for you as a DM.

Eldeth as a ranger or fighter.

Jimjar as a rogue.

Shuushar as a very defensively-focussed cleric or druid, or conceivably something like a divination wizard.

I've been DMing this for three people - a drow underdark scout revised ranger, a dwarf tempest cleric and an aasimar sorceress. They have recently lost the last of their starting NPCs. Here's how that went:

Our group lost Ront during the escape, then Jimjar and Eldeth in the ancient tomb, to a wild magic surge fireball(!). Sarith made it as far as the garden of welcome in Neverlight Grove, where he had a messy end. Derendil served pretty well as a front-ranker, then also died in the garden of welcome.

Shuushar, Buppido and Stool were all successfully dropped off at their homes, though the party never found their way to Buppido's home.

Topsy and Turvy left the group after escaping the drow. I might have them reappear later on, as the group has now just arrived in Blingdenstone. And it's also possible that the Drow will have raised Ront and interrogated him as to the group's plans, so he might reappear when the drow catch up with everyone.


Nice story in your game. I would like to share mine.



Ront, Topsy and Turvy were given to the spiders at Velkynvelve so I'd show them the mercilessness of Ilvara and because I really didn't like Ront and the twin gnomes, I used the guidelines in the book to get rid of these three. I made Turvy to be a helpless retarded who cried desperately when thrown to the spiders so they would feel more hatred for Ilvara and her minions.

Shuushar was dropped in the kuo-toa village. Eldeth was killed by a drow warlock (a side story I created) but resurrected later. Buppido reached Gracklstugh and fled to his "shrine" in the Whorlstone Tunnels and fought the players there. Sarith met his end with the myconid party in the Whorlstone Tunnels as well.
Stool was dropped in the Neverlight Grove. Jimjar was dropped in Blingdenstone.
Eldeth and Derendil made it to the surface with the group. I tried hard but I couldn't manage to make my group kill Derendil, they just liked him so much. They left him abandoned in the Lurkwood borders when they finally saw there was no hope for Derendil's madness. (Note: They never believed that Derendil was a cursed elf).
Eldeth herself led the group to Gauntlgrym and was dropped there just to seek them later for Bruenor's call.

Now for the second part of the game they insisted to use all the companions from the factions in combat. All of them died except for a male dwarf Alliance's Guard who abandoned the group and a female human Zhentarim who now acts as whatever but a combatant, and the shield guardian of course.

They now have Zilchyn by their side stripped from his madness (I love Zilch) and the Shield Guardian.