So . . . launching this soon and we had a character generation session this week. I let everyone roll stats (best of 4d6 method). I have since learned through these forums that this AP (all APs?) is balanced for 15pt buy PCs. Did this change with the anniversary edition? Of the 5 players, 3 ended up with the equivalent of a 20/21 pt buy, but a couple got really lucky and are well above that.
I hate to tell everyone "You're OP! Re-roll!" But will that ultimately be more fun? Incidentally, it will be unusual for us to have all 5 pcs present.
The equivalent of a 20 PB is fine (many groups routinely use 20 PB for Paizo APs). You'll probably not have any problems, even with the two lucky players, considering RotRL is fairly lethal in places.
With five players all average or above, you might ant to boost the encounters from time to time - perhaps throwing in a few more mooks here, dropping an Advanced template there, but that's about it.
To be honest, its more about how well their characters are built and how well they are played. If you're not running a group of optimizers I wouldn't really worry about it at all - from what I've read the AP is pretty tough already.
Depends on how optimized the chars are. I did a 20 point buy and my players are optimizers. That was kinda of a mistake. Not huge mind you and not a biggie. If your players are inexperienced than yeah a 20 point buy or similar is fine
Depends on how well they synergize and how well their characters are built: a one-trick poney SAD at 20 pts or a monk at 55 pts are about equivalent ;-)
