Party of 9! What to do?


Rise of the Runelords


My party size has grown WAAAAY to big. I have 9 PC (plus 1 animal companion. Im about to run the Misgivings haunt chapter. Most of these rooms only have 4-6 squares so any battles will leave 3-4 characters outside the rooms. Not to mention the CL increase i have to do.
I have run 6 before and up the CL a bit, but never this many. Anybody have any ideas? Recommendations?


Some ideas to speed up combat encounters.
All companions, familiars, eidolons, cohorts and followers act on the initiative of respective PC that they are tied to.
Suggest to go even further, and make 3-4 groups from PC. Each one rolls for its own initiative, and PCs in them act when the group's round comes (who's first to act in group - up to them).


Hm. Double the size of all rooms? Wait, wait. Story behind it could be that V created some kind of demi-plane before his wife succeeded in destroying his phylactery: the mansion. While his original plans were much grander, now it only works like it's bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.

Otherwise: have the party split (the entrance door is some kind of portal which dumps them individually and randomly--aka GM's whim so as you create two equally strong parties--in different rooms/different but identical versions of the house) and run them individually, regrouping for the final fight which should then take place in a much larger cave/room and increase A's CR and give him underlings (ghast versions of the ones they encounter with Judge I?

Ruyan.


Thanks i like both of these. WE already have a house rule where we roll initiative and highest goes first, then whoever is directly to the right or left of that person that has the higher roll is the way we rotate so it always goes around the table clockwise or counterclockwise.

I really like the portal idea.

Here is what i have. Everyone is level 5

human paladin
gnome cleric
gnome sorcerer
teifling rouge
half elf monk
elf druid w/ companion
half orc druid w/ domain
half orc fighter
gnome bard

Suggestions on how to group?

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

If you want to keep all those PCs together in one party, you're going to have to make the rooms bigger.

Personally, I'd have a houserule that says "No Animal Companions" if I had 9 PCs. For the Druids, I'd let them choose a nature domain (as a Cleric) in place of an Animal Companion. Also, I'd limit summon spells to one summonsepll and one creature. There's no reason to further clog the battlefield with pets.

I'd also get a timer. At the beginning of each player's turn, I'd start the timer for 1 minute and that would be how long each player had to perform all their actions before we move on to the next player in the initiative.

-Skeld


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Two parties of four and an extra GM.

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Sissyl wrote:
Two parties of four and an extra GM.

Honestly, that's the best solution.

However, I assume he's made the decision to keep everyone together and wants to now "now what?" That's understandable; I'd hate to have to pick 4 people out of my 7 players and tell the other 3, "sorry guys."

-Skeld


I like the timer idea. at the time the druid rolled up we only had 5. the bard, druid, fighter, and cleric are newer players that are still learning. I like the idea of teaching new people the game.

For party split im thinking as follows

druid with companion
sorcerer
rogue
paladin

monk
cleric
bard
fighter
druid domain

This gets them at 5 each and gives both groups healers.


You could check out Useplanb's RotRL Campaign Thread. He had an 8 person party, so the solutions you need might be on there.


Sissyl wrote:
Two parties of four and an extra GM.

Seriously, that's the only solution I would consider.


Sissyl wrote:
Two parties of four and an extra GM.

This is what we're doing at the moment. In a shared world type affair where the players actions can have effects across both games. It requires a little bit of shenanigans and hand-waving, as both teams go through all of the encounters, but all the players are on board.

(Example 1: as far as the rest of town are concerned a group of people went up to the glassworks and sorted it out en masse)

(Example 2: if in one game Tsuto escapes, but in the other he dies, he's deemed to have escaped and the second groups Tsuto was a clever ploy. As one player put it "what do you mean his ears fell off?!")

Grand Lodge

Double the size of the maps, max health all the NPCs and give them the advanced template. Keep them around a level behind where they should be for their location (I started that around level 7 or so). I also outlawed the Summoner and asked to keep summon spells to a minimum. Be ready for multiple day fights.

Seriously though, my group was 9 at the start, not including me. Just make sure everyone has fun really.


Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:
Sissyl wrote:
Two parties of four and an extra GM.
Seriously, that's the only solution I would consider.

Yes. I would make the same suggestion: Break the groups up into two separate groups and run them separately.

I ran Runelords with 6 PCs, and that was hard enough. (It got a lot easier when one player resigned, and we continued with 5 PCs.) Honestly, I won't run a group larger than 6.

If you really want to run a campaign with 9 players, AND you have plenty of time to game, AND you're feeling particularly ambitious, here's a thought...

Split the party, and run two separate and parallel adventure paths.

They're all together at the start for Goblin Day, so they all get the initial hook. Then, the party finds two separate leads.

Half the group chases down Lead #1, and the other half Lead #2. Each has their own series of adventures. After both series are over, you run a single session with all the PCs together, where they compare notes and learn the next two leads. That gives the PCs a chance to send two groups after the two leads again. It also allows the players to mix it up, so that the two new sub-parties could be made up of a different combination of PCs/players.

That means you'd be running two adventure paths-- one Rise of the Runelords, and one other. The other could be of your own design, or it could be a complimentary AP... I would suggest "Shattered Star," as the themes are similar.

Spoilers for Runelords and Shattered Star:

So, for example, in "Burnt Offerings," the PCs find two clues about what may have happened to Ameiko: One leads them to investigate Tsuto and the Glassworks, and one has them head to Magnimar to look for a half-Sczarni rogue named Natalya Vancaskerkin. Group 1 plays the rest of Burnt Offerings, while Group 2 starts Shards of Sin.

You'll need to do some of your own writing to tie the plots together. You'd also need to write a few adventures that bring both parties back together from time to time to combine forces.


Dynas wrote:

My party size has grown WAAAAY to big. I have 9 PC (plus 1 animal companion. Im about to run the Misgivings haunt chapter. Most of these rooms only have 4-6 squares so any battles will leave 3-4 characters outside the rooms. Not to mention the CL increase i have to do.

I have run 6 before and up the CL a bit, but never this many. Anybody have any ideas? Recommendations?

Sounds like the perfect opportunity to run two 4-man groups through separate campaigns to me.


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If you have a huge party, just do the following, its what I do, but you need to put it in a program like roll20 or something

Let's say you have a CR 10 encounter with 3 CR 7 creatures in a map that is 1000x1000 pixels ( for the purposes of this quick guide. I'll use 9 characters as the thing to convert to

1. Find out how much experience the encounter is (9600)
2. Find out how much Exp each individual member should have (2400 each)
3. Multiply that by the number of players you have to determine the total experience of the adjusted encounter (2400x9=21600)
4. Determine the % of a 4 player party your party is (9/4=2.25 225%)
5. Increase the number of monsters in the encounter by that amount (2.25*3=6.75, so 6 or 7 creatures)
6. Add monsters to the encounter that will make it equal the new exp total and the new number of creatures we determined [6 CR7 (19200)+ 1 CR 6 (2400) = 21600 exp for the encounter]
7. Increase the dimensions of the map by the percent increase (1000*2.25=2250 so 2250pix2250pi)

So by the end of it, the encounter becomes CR 12.5ish with 6 CR7 and 1 CR6 monsters, in a new map that is 2250x2250.

Of course, this means that all your boss battles that have one creature in them will now have 2-3 creatures in it. But you'll need it because single creatures will be stomped by parties of 9 players


Lots of great advice here. Really Appreciate it everyone.


Mavrickindigo wrote:

If you have a huge party, just do the following, its what I do, but you need to put it in a program like roll20 or something

Let's say you have a CR 10 encounter with 3 CR 7 creatures in a map that is 1000x1000 pixels ( for the purposes of this quick guide. I'll use 9 characters as the thing to convert to

1. Find out how much experience the encounter is (9600)
2. Find out how much Exp each individual member should have (2400 each)
3. Multiply that by the number of players you have to determine the total experience of the adjusted encounter (2400x9=21600)
4. Determine the % of a 4 player party your party is (9/4=2.25 225%)
5. Increase the number of monsters in the encounter by that amount (2.25*3=6.75, so 6 or 7 creatures)
6. Add monsters to the encounter that will make it equal the new exp total and the new number of creatures we determined [6 CR7 (19200)+ 1 CR 6 (2400) = 21600 exp for the encounter]
7. Increase the dimensions of the map by the percent increase (1000*2.25=2250 so 2250pix2250pi)

So by the end of it, the encounter becomes CR 12.5ish with 6 CR7 and 1 CR6 monsters, in a new map that is 2250x2250.

Of course, this means that all your boss battles that have one creature in them will now have 2-3 creatures in it. But you'll need it because single creatures will be stomped by parties of 9 players

This process is both beautiful and frightening.

The furniture will become enormous!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

An assistant GM is vital.

In a PC party of 5-7, an assistant GM is a luxury.
In a PC party of 8+, an assistant GM is vital.


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Our DM once ran his 2 groups together for one giant campaign, we dubbed it the Megaparty. The party had an artifact that each session would suck up a "random" amount of people into it and put them in suspended animation, some weeks it would even be 0. Basically if someone missed a session for whatever reason, their character would go into the artifact, and if a character stayed inside the artifact for 3 straight sessions (basically if they missed 3 straight weeks) then they were consumed by it.

We had 10 people in that. The rule was no summoners, animal companions, or familiars, and summoning magic was to be used for storyline purposes only, no canon fodder.

I dont know if you ever have an attendance problem with your large party (that many schedules can be hard to coordinate), but there's an idea just in case.


I do something very similar to this. Basically I try to end every session at a natural break in the story so they can go back to Ameiko's Inn (aka there HQ) and pick the new party members for the next mission.


Got to agree with two parties of four and an extra GM if you can manage it. Works well, but it's a bit of a shame not to be able to discuss everything with the other table. We've actually grown to two parties of five.

The tricky thing, and I think it takes quite a lot of work from the GMs, is co-ordinating timelines.

We tend to have two or three short pauses per session so they can compare notes. We can guess how the other party is doing by the noises they make, but can't quite overhear what they're saying (as if we cared). They're rivals, with similar goals, but rivals nonetheless. The glory must be ours, and they must not usurp us.

To be fair to them we got TPK'd a couple of weeks back and had to create new characters, so they definitely have the moral high ground on heroism front at the moment.

We play on adjacent tables beside a weekly MtG tournament, and by the amount of noise and laughter we produce, I reckon we're having a much better time than the card players.

Scarab Sages

Rocks fall, five people die.

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