Are your PCs behind in XP??? (spoilers hidden)


Council of Thieves

Scarab Sages

I have a theory.

The AP is medium advancement. The creators took that into account, BUT because the Bestiary wasn't fleshed out yet they MAY have overlooked the lowering of all the creatures' CRs.

I think the problem would be fixed if the DM increased the CR of all the monsters to 3.5 CRs.

I have a problem with PC classes being 1/2 CR anyways.

OR

They could have just assumed the DM was going to go way out of his/her way to create a bunch of extra encounters.

For example,

encounters in #25:

my PCs went through the sewers (albeit I cut it a little short because they were getting bored and it was my first time DMing a large group), rescued Arael, fought two goblin rogues, and didn't level up to 2nd level until AFTER a fight with a 3rd level Barbarian Whitechin & his 1st level cleric cohort.

It's my understanding that Pathfinder is calculating the CRs [for monsters w/o racial HD] by PC class level minus one or NPC class level minus two.

Are you also having a problem with XP, how are you dealing with it, and what are your theories as to why this is going on??


How big is your group?

Me, I had 5 players in the sewers. I tweaked several encounters to add a goblin or a skeleton or whatever, just to keep them challenging, but it didn't change the individual XP much. You know, something that would have been worth 400 (100 each) became 500 (100 each).

I also took those big story awards and divided them by 4 and gave that to each player. If I would have divided them by 5 or 6 (how big is your group, anyway?) then each player would have gotten less, and they probably would not have leveled.

(I also added a few RP encounters in the sewers of my own creation, then tacked part of their story awards onto those encounters, just because I thought a bit more RP and a bit less "free XP for nothing" would be more interesting - you can find my encounter list here on this forum in another thread if you're interested enough).

So I would say that for a party of 4, it looks like it works out just right, as long as you use every encounter including the seemingly optional ones (although I seem to recall I added it up before I began tweaking and decided that even a party of 4 might fall a little short, but now I'm not sure if I'm remembering that right or not).

As for assuming the DM will create encounters, I doubt it. Nobody in their right minds would sell a premade adventure with that assumption.

However, they did come close. There are several "optional" encounters in the AP that are not detailed in any way, just a sentence or two describing each of them - your post leaves me to believe you found them. Still, those should be optional since they are called optional, so they shouldn't be required to level at the right pace (if they are required, they should be detailed by the author, not the DM).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Actually... Pathfinder #25 was particularly a mess on the XP front. Things should get better as you get further in... but yeah, you'll probably want to boost some encounters or add in a few side treks (like those mentioned in the sidebar) during "Bastards of Erebus."

Scarab Sages

I have 4 players and count 1/2 if Janiven or Arael is fighting as well. They definately needed Arael against Whitechin.

Because the monk will be gone for the next game I'm going to delay the main battle and do a couple more side quests.

Thanks James! I was hoping I didn't have to adjust the whole adventure. I'm not experienced enough to make that work very well.

I have been keeping up with the forums here - That's where I got Whitechin


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I have 5 players and on any given friday could have as many as eight. We started out the game with four player characters and an npc rogue. We are about to game another player and have two players that have been out for a while that could come back at any time. I decided after the first session of this adventure path that I wasn't going to give out xp anymore. I level them up when they need to be leveled and they are fine with it. If I want to throw more monsters at them or if I want to keep the amount the same it doesn't really matter.


I have 3 players ready to play COT. We are just awaiting the arrival of the Core Rule book and Bestiary now. Last gaming session as our BETA game is coming to close in hopes of the core books arrival we discussed the XP progression for COT and though maybe not dealing XP might be fun. It gives me the freedom to explore other option in the city with out issues of leveling at the wrong times. My players like the idea because they feel they have more freedom to explore the city and deal with side quests by knowing they quest will be allowed.

In previous games we had issue where side quest got very interesting but had to be cut short as it would level the PCs up too much for the next part in the published adventure. In some cases I allowed that to happen but it always appeared to be compounding problem.

Now from what I've seen in COT so far is the opportunities for side quests and just getting into the fun kind of trouble is immense. I could see my group making a level or two in the down time.

The only issue I have is rewards for encounters if no XP is given. I doubt my players would even care as they like immersing themselves in the world. If I can bring the City of Westcrown alive for them they won't even notice I suspect.

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:
Actually... Pathfinder #25 was particularly a mess on the XP front. Things should get better as you get further in... but yeah, you'll probably want to boost some encounters or add in a few side treks (like those mentioned in the sidebar) during "Bastards of Erebus."

I didn't have any issue with it. Four PCs, each with about 1300 XP by the end of the sewer chase, each with about 5000 XP after defeating the Bastards. Did not run them through any of the three side treks either...


James Jacobs wrote:
Actually... Pathfinder #25 was particularly a mess on the XP front. Things should get better as you get further in... but yeah, you'll probably want to boost some encounters or add in a few side treks (like those mentioned in the sidebar) during "Bastards of Erebus."

When we do APs, we tend to make the Pc's the level it says you need to be at X pont in the adventure. So in this case we just gave them the few hundred they were missing.

(we brought arael with us into the BOE liar...which ended up being a slaughter...meaning we won pretty easily)

We also did all the sidebar adventures waiting for #26 to come out.
Wish #26 had more sidebar aswe have been waiting weeks for 27

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