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Hi there!


I'm DM in a group with 5 players, the story takes place in Eberron. Now at the very beginning of my story my players had to deal with a nasty bunch of Emerald Claws. It was actually just planned as a small adventure to get into the game as we had some "noobs" in the game.
Well it got pretty intensive and at the end my players kind of made the Emerald Claws their archenemy and were very dedicated to fight them wherever they might encounter them and also trying to find them is a major goal of them.
 
Thats acutally pretty perfect because this has been my "red line" throughout the whole story now with several smaller side adventures. My players are Level 6 now and will be fighting a garrison of the Claws very soon, they will probably reach level 7 before it.
Now the problem is, the out-of-the-book Emerald Claws go from Lvl 1 to Lvl 5 and I dont know how well a monster will perform if I level it up from lets say Lvl 2 to Lvl 6 or 7... if this will be interesting at all during encounters.
 
Do any of you guys have suggestions or maybe even tried something similar out? Or which monsters could I convert to Emerald Claws?

 Thx for reading and thinking with me!

Nic

Having upgraded a whole slew of monsters for Living Forgotten Realms, I can tell you that within the same tier (heroic within heroic, paragon within paragon, epic within epic) it is rarely a problem as long as you modify the damage according the new MM3 standards. Sometimes it is good to make some minor modifications, especially if you pick a creature from one of the extremes (level 1 and 2 or 9 and 10). Lower level character have fewer things to deal with dominate and daze effects, while higher level PCs can deal with more control effects. As such it might be an idea to change some at-will powers in recharge powers or even encounter powers (although I usually make it a Recharge when missed), or the other way around.

Having said that, remember that Emerald Claw as a group is associated with the Blood of Vol and the kingdom of Karnath. You could use virtually any humanoid and undead without any change. Just because the name lacks "Emerald Claw" does not mean that the wraith figment or the human slaver could not be Claw agents. You could design an Emerald Claw theme (see DMG2): making two attack and two utility powers that are the trademark of the Emerald Claw and pick one of each for the leaders and add these to the picked non-Emerald Claw specific opponents. For example, maybe using blood to empower their spells is something inherent to the group, so you give all Emerald Claw brutes the ability to sacrifice 5 hit points to deal more damage (like the frenzied werewolf from the Monster Vault).

Similarly, you can even use monsters that make no sense to be used by the Claw either as temporary allies or by refluffing the monster. Sometimes it is as simple as changing a name and a keyword, sometimes it requires a bit more, but even a constrictor snake can be turned into a human with a mancatcher in 4e: the benefit of the basic numbers being based on level and not creature.

The thing about the EC is that they are a paramilitary, if not military, organization. So, they have access to hierarchies and additional resources that may need to be thrown at the PCs.

For example, I've used stealthy Emerald Claw skirmisher-type enemies to portray an Emerald Claw "Kill Team" and undead from a "Risen Patriots" brigade to represent the resources the EC has from Karrnathi sympathizers.