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I'd say just eliminate experience points. Instead, level up the players when the AP suggests they should be leveled up. If encounters aren't tough enough, add a class level or a hit die to an encounter.
My group enjoyed STAP, CotCT, and Second Darkness all with 6+ players, and you are correct it is a very difficult DMing act to balance encounters, rewards and spotlight time. There are plenty of options on how to balance this and I found that no single option was applicable across and entire AP. Tangent101 is correct that a narrative base leveling structure is probably the better choice over flat XP. But otherwise, keeping it all level can be a challenge.
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With a lot of players, I found it easiest to increase the number of creatures in an encounter without changing anything else about them. Obviously, that won't work for all encounters, but works reasonably well for most encounters that have multiple monsters as opponents. Plus, if one or two players can't make it, you can dial up or down by one monster in the encounter to adjust things a bit.
More and more I don't see the need for XP, especially in Pathfinder or D&D 4ed where players don't lose XP for crafting and the like. This works particularly well with groups that often have one or more players unable to make a session. When the narrative suggests a level should be gained, everyone levels. Easy Peasy.
That being said, adapting an adventure designed for 4 or 5 players to accommodate 6 players can be a bit of a challenge. Keeping the party one level below expected is fine for books 2 - 5 but won't work for book 1. Not a huge problem except that it might lead players to develop a false sense of security early on.
Adding a monster or two is often effective for those encounters featuring multiple, lower challenge monsters (and this is one thing 4ed D&D really did well imho). However when you are dealing with bigger, badder, boss type monsters, it breaks down a bit. Not to say that it can't be made to work fairly easily, just that it likely will require some work -- whether it be class levels, improved stats, an ally, etc.
They are meant for 4
I find sessions with 4 players much more satisfying than the ones with 6 or 7.
It depends on the group and how they interact. I had a group that was around six people. Before the "difficulties" it worked well. When the married couple at the core of the group started having difficulties, it fractured and wasn't nearly as good.
A group of three or four that don't get along will be as problematic as a group of six disparate people... but you can have seven good friends who don't look to stab one another in the back... and see the game flow like clockwork.
I was wondering how many characters that adventure paths are meant for. I have looked in a few of them and I was not able to find a "this adventure is made for this many characters" that you would find in many other published adventures. This thread is teaching me that it is written for four, so you have to adjust if you want more. I wish they would just state that in a paragraph that I can find.
A similar question, are they always assumed that you will start at level one in each adventure path? Perhaps is a leftover from my 2nd Edition Dark Sun days, but I like to start characters at level 3. Again, I have been unable to locate a paragraph that tells me "start with first level characters". Maybe this is in the player guide pdf?
I can see some of the adventure paths being followed by another. If they are written for level one characters, that is not possible with the same set of characters.
Several above have mentioned giving levels. This is a good idea, really, as you could earn a percentage of a level. It is not too hard to figure out what that translates into, as it is three easy steps:
1) take the xp required for next level
2) subtract the xp required for the current level
3) divide that by 100
4) better yet, track the campaign on a spreadsheet and have it tell you the values after you put in a percentile number. So if you earn 27% of a level that session, you now have a total of X amount of XP.
5) if you are doing your levels by hand (how old school!) or you are using a program that can handle it (Hero Lab cannot, as it screws up after level 20), you could just set each level at 100-xp intervals and skip the conversion altogether.
The above idea is especially good for higher level characters and multiclassing. My one issue with multiclassing is that it takes longer to get one level, even in a low-level class, when you are at a high level. Take a level 18 character that wants to take 2 levels in a different class. Those two levels cost a ton more XP than they would have at those low levels.
The only real benefit to the XP system as printed is that it allows for lower level characters to catch up to higher level characters. After a while a 100,000 XP difference is miniscule. But a GM could just give that lower level character a higher XP percentage if desired, and the GM has a lot finer control of level growth.
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They are meant for 4
I find sessions with 4 players much more satisfying than the ones with 6 or 7.
I find sessions where I don't tell some of my players to leave because I have too many much more satisfying than ones where I do.
Well, I would if I ever told players to leave because I had too many. I never do. That's kind of a douchebag thing to do.
I tend to start off my groups at level 2. That provides them with a bit more survivability without making the game overpowered. I'm thinking with my next running of an AP to start them at level 1, however, and just start them with double the maximum 1st level hit points so they can survive. (I also increase the difficulty of each encounter by +1 CR through class levels, extra foes, and the like. I don't provide them with additional treasure for that extra body, however.)
Yeah, I haven't played a game starting below 2nd in years.
A similar question, are they always assumed that you will start at level one in each adventure path? Perhaps is a leftover from my 2nd Edition Dark Sun days, but I like to start characters at level 3. Again, I have been unable to locate a paragraph that tells me "start with first level characters". Maybe this is in the player guide pdf?
The back cover of each Adventure Path volume specifies which level of characters the adventure is written for.
As for the "four characters" part, the encounter-building guidelines in the CRB says that those guidelines assume groups of four or five PCs, so it can be generally assumed that any adventure that doesn't specify otherwise would similarly be for groups of 4 or 5.
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I have 6 gamers also. Things I do to keep it interesting:
1) I don't XP (and haven't in years). I keep the party ~1 level below the level recommendation.
2) I increase the number of minions in most fights.
3) I occasionally rebuild and/or add a class level (or 20 to the named bad guys. Sometimes, it's just because I want to tinker.
-Skeld
At least some of the APs have a little blurb right near the beginning of each volume that says "this adventure is meant for 4 characters of level X. Characters should be level Y by the time they conclude the adventure." I have not read many of the APs though.
As for number of players in a group, every group is different. Its just going to depend on the people in the group and the motivation for playing. My 4ed group currently runs with 8 active players (plus DM). However, there's usually at least 2 missing due to one reason or another. It can sometimes make story flow a bit choppy, but the main reason we get together is to blow off steam after a long work week.
My Pathfinder group on the other hand, has been running at about 6 players who are fairly regular, but the sessions are not (often only 1 a month). The problem with smaller groups of course is that if even one or two people cannot make it, you may suddenly find that you have to cancel (again). It really just depends on the group imho.
I'm Dming CoCT with 6players. I also removed xp and use the Sean K. Reynold "step system" level advancment.In this way I keep their character below the expected level of the AP.
I think this can be a good idea. However, most published material is written assuming PC will have access to certain level based assests (spells/abilities, ect). Keeping PC's below that, even with an exta one or two PC's can have inadvertent side effects, so DM's have to watch this and maybe throw a bone once in awhile like a dispel magic scroll or some such.
v/r
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I'd say just eliminate experience points. Instead, level up the players when the AP suggests they should be leveled up. If encounters aren't tough enough, add a class level or a hit die to an encounter.
I've only done the actual math for this for Reign of Winter (and haven't done it yet for Rasputin Must Die), but my experience with that AP so far has shown me that an AP as written run for six players with the Fast XP progression will have them level up at the same rate (down almost to the encounter!) as an AP as written run for four players with the Medium XP progression. The PCs will find especially low-level encounters a bit easier since they'll have extra actions per round to play with, but conversely they'll find less treasure per PC. Their capabilities as a party should start to balance out with the four-member party once they start individually falling a little bit behind the curve of the "expected" magic item stat boosts.
EDIT: It occurred to me that it might be useful to show my work. This assumes that the PCs face every encounter in the printed order, and get the maximum possible XP from overcoming the challenge each encounter presents. An aside: leveling up should, in my opinion, not happen in the middle of a session. It should happen in between sessions. The guidelines at the beginnings of AP chapters should be used as ideal points to end sessions, by which point the PCs should have well exceeded the XP totals needed to level. It is thus very acceptable to me that these level-up points are usually well before the big dramatic moments in their respective chapters.
4 PCs, Medium XP|6 PCs, Fast XP
PCs start at 0 XP|PCs start at 0 XP
PCs exceed 2000 XP after defeating Rohkar in the High Sentinel Lodge|PCs exceed 1300 XP after defeating the sick bandits in the High Sentinel Lodge
PCs exceed 5000 XP after rescuing Nadya's party from the giant mantis|PCs exceed 3300 XP after rescuing Nadya's party from the giant mantis
PCs exceed 9000 XP after defeating the animated ice nymphs in the Pale Tower|PCs exceed 6000 XP after defeating the animated ice nymphs in the Pale Tower
PCs exceed 15000 XP after cleansing Ulsgaard|PCs exceed 10000 XP after cleansing Ulsgaard
PCs exceed 23000 XP after gaining access to Mortin's house|PCs exceed 15000 XP after rescuing Korgin's household from slavery
PCs exceed 35000 XP after defeating Zephimere|PCs exceed 23000 XP after defeating Elzbethe, Joliphetta, and Mari
PCs exceed 51000 XP after defeating the Cold Rider|PCs exceed 34000 XP after defeating the Cold Rider
PCs exceed 75000 XP after defeating two Andrazkus and a Frost Giant in the Mother|PCs exceed 50000 XP after defeating two Andrazkus and a Frost Giant in the Mother
PCs exceed 105000 XP after defeating Vsevolod and the Svathurim in the Eon Pit|PCs exceed 71000 XP after defeating Vsevolod and the Svathurim in the Eon Pit
PCs exceed 155000 XP after disabling/breaching Spurhorn's walls with the Drakelands siege tower|PCs exceed 105000 XP after disabling/breaching Spurhorn's walls with the Drakelands siege tower
PCs exceed 220000 XP after defeating two frost worms in the Rimekeening Crevasse|PCs exceed 145000 XP after defeating two frost worms in the Rimekeening Crevasse
PCs exceed 315000 XP after recovering the bearskin key from Yrax's hoard|PCs exceed 210000 XP after recovering the bearskin key from Yrax's hoard