Way of the Wicked - Story based leveling

[pocketfood]

I'm going to start this off by saying I'm a fairly experienced player, but brand new to running the game. I chose Way of the Wicked for my first foray, as it pretty much holds your hand if you let it.

That being said, I have a 6-person party, meaning I've had to ramp up some of the combat to keep it challenging. Does anyone have any advice for doing story-based leveling as opposed to calculating the XP?

They are about to start Act 4: Burning Balentyne.

Thanks in advance!

[TheJid]

I ran this module with 6 players a couple months ago, and the adventure synopsys actually gives you a pretty good summary of when to level up your players.
Your players should be starting Act 4 as level 4 characters.
As my players spent a lot of time and effort planning and scheming their way into the fortress, with some initial scouting, a lot of manipulation and so on and so forth, as well as the patrol ambush, I had them level up to level 5 just before their final push. With the number of encounters they're likely to have to deal with within the fortress, they should end up as level 6 characters.

My group and I have not used XP for a couple of years now, always go with story-based leveling, which is made fairly simple by the way this Adventure Path's acts are built, especially in the next module

Hope this helps

[Aspasia de Malagant]

I personally like the Pathfinder Society version of leveling. One could adapt that system to a story based system with little effort.

[Scott_UAT]

I actually did a story based leveling system for a 12 person game I ran for a while. They had missions (they were a military squad) and when they completed them they would gain the level. It was generally every 2-3 sessions.