I am upscaling some AL adventures in terms of combat encounter difficulty. Maybe I'll review the adventures here too.
As of now writing this, I have upscaled all of the monsters and rebalanced the encounter difficulties for the first adventure in the Elemental Evil storyline: The City of Danger.
Adventure #2: Embers of Elmwood kicks off with a huge explosion which decimated the nearby settlement of Elmwood. Culkin, a noble in the city is looking for trustworthy adventurers to help investigate the calamity. By the end of the previous adventure, it should be established that Saul Freightfoot is the party's source of updates, news, happenings as well as jobs available in the city.
Saul will inform the party of Culkin's need for people that she can trust. She is willing to work with the party, seeing as they are outsiders who have little to no involvement in the politics of the city.
Afterwhich they are informed by Culkin of the mysterious female survivor who has been taken into the laypriests' care. High ranking City Watch Hawks have assigned a beefy team of guards to watch over the survivor. The party is tasked to remove the survivor from the hospital and bring her to Culkin in whatever manner they can, with the least deaths possible.
[Note that monsters presented here are mostly homebrews.]
First Potential Fight:
2 Seasoned Veterans and 2 High Guards are found watching over the girl. 2 more High Guards arrive as backup if trouble ensues.
Stronger Party: 2 High Guards & 2 Seasoned Veterans arrive as backup in the third round when trouble ensues.
Cult fanatics lay a siege on the Culkin estate! Dawson is a traitor and brings 2 Master Spies with him to ensure the survivor's retrieval. Stronger party faces 3 Master Spies. Their objective is to collect the girl, not to kill anyone. Don't be afraid to bring another 2 more Master Spies if things go south. (Challenge Rating here is Deadly.)
The opposite could happen. The party might believe Dawson and go about doing something else.
As for the rest... Fire in the manor needs to be modified. DC 18 Dex saving throw. Failure: 3d6 fire damage.
Prediction. The party might spend a stupid amount of time to try to extinguish the fire. This is allowed but the tricky part here is to not let them dwell on it too long. 1d12 Fire Snakes attack the party if they spend too much time in one area. Also, observant, intelligent or perceptive player will notice that the burning house is breaking apart and will fully collapse in 5 minutes.
Easy encounters, leave them as is. However Medium and Hard need to be changed.
Medium 10 Fire Snakes, 15 Fire Snakes for stronger party
Medium 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Fire Elemental for stronger party
Hard 4 Flameskulls, 6 Flameskulls for stronger party
Hard 3 Salamanders, 4 Salamanders for stronger party
Hard 2 Fire Elemental Myrmidons, 3 Fire Elemental Myrmidons for stronger party.
In order to make this section work, the following is crucial. Block the manor pathways with Fiery Obstacles. This will railroad the players into fighting the following. Based on my experience it only takes ~ 3 rounds for the party to beat a Hard encounter so this shouldn't take too long.
Fiery Obstacle. This area is considered difficult terrain. Once a creature enters the area, it takes 19 (3d12) fire damage and makes a DC18 Dex saving throw or take 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage from items falling from the ceiling.
As discussed earlier, if players take too long in an area, 1d12 Fire Snakes slithers towards them and attack them on sight. Bring along a sand timer to emphasise the urgency.
2ND FLOOR. Depending on the arrangement, players can either start in one area or multiple areas. (Try to encourage them to stick together.) Ravia's room is located in Room #1 on the 2nd floor and will start here. Run the scene as per the adventure module in Ravia's room.
The doors from the rooms lead straight into Fiery Obstacles. The only way out is to hack the walls into the next rooms. Doing this will eventually lead them to Culkin's chambers. The door from her chambers also lead to Fiery Obstacle however, her room is connected to her office where they will face their first Hard Encounter with Flameskulls.
The door from the office leads to a pathway that is untouched by flames and fiery obstacles. They can make their way down from here.
GROUND FLOOR. The first area available to the party that isn't burned by Fiery Obstacles is the Parlor. This is where they will encounter Salamanders setting the room ablaze. Garderobe is skippable area based on the arrangement of the map, but the room can be entered.
Next is the library where Fire Elementals roam around and seem delighted to be around paper which are extremely flammable. Finally, this will lead them to the Grand Room where they will encounter Myrmidons before escaping the house from the back door.
Soon after, the entire manor burns down.
The Final Showdown
Eventually, the players will track down the cult responsible for the tragedy. They will stumble upon a secret temple to Imix where the cultists will make one last attempt to stop our heroes.
FINAL BOSS.
After the describing the unholy birth of the Distorted Azer, Ravia reveals herself as one of the cultist and offers to destroy the party. 5 mephits spawn to aid her in battle.
(~ Medium Difficulty)
The Azer and 5 cultists stand aside to complete their ritual, leaving Ravia and the party alone. If they are provoked, the Azer and cultists join the fight.
If Ravia is bloodied and the Azer has not joined the fight yet, the Azer and whoever's left joins the fight.
(~Hard to Deadly Difficulty)
If the Azer dies and Ravia has died too, she uses her Rebirth reaction for one last attempt to finish the party.
(~Medium or lower)
STRONGER PARTY.
When a stronger party shows up, the fight is straight up deadly from the get-go. The cultists can tell that their opponents are strong and need to strike with whatever they've got. Once the last person falls, Ravia uses her reaction to cinematically rebirth herself, selling herself to Imix. 5 mephits spawns and final fight begins.
After the fight, the adventure comes to a close.
