Group Composition advice and GM adjustment of difficulty


Carrion Crown


Right now, we have 6 players; 2-3 of which may prove undependable. I told them that there was going to be lots of undead in the campaign, so they constructed their PC's accordingly using Great Fortitude.

1 Wizard elf evoker.

2,3 The Cleric has a high Strength (Healing and Undead domains), as does the aasimar Bard; this was done in an attempt to cover the lack of fighting types in the party.

4 We have a goblin Knife Master Rogue (great for backstabbing).

5 A aasimar Sorcerer (Undead bloodline).

6 And a sixth player that hopefully will take a Paladin, but hasn't made her PC yet.

I was thinking that to compensate somewhat for the magic heavy group we have here I'd give them all masterwork weapons for free, or 300gp for the sorcerer and wizard.

However, I also know that the campaign is balanced for 4 players. Does anyone have ideas on how to ramp up the challenge somewhat? I was thinking of perhaps adding in some random encounters using the chart I found on page 77, Haunting of Harrowstone.

However, what should I do about adjusting treasure/gold? How much do I add in so that the PC's have enough gear?


The sixth player has officially taken an aasimar paladin of Iomedae.

Seriously folks, how do I adjust the treasure for 6 players?


As a player in Carrion Crown, I'd advise doubling the available treasure, for a couple of reasons. One, this AP is notoriously loot-poor. Two, some of what is "available" may not appeal to the party; for example in Book Two they'd have to rob the home of a noble they're intended to save, stripping it of fixtures to get much of the "treasure."

Our group of six (plus an NPC cohort and animal companions) was seriously underequipped during the early part of the AP. Our GM finally started boosting the treasure. I'm not sure by exactly how much since we're still playing it out and I can't look at the books. It remains true that we're getting a lot of the same things, so we end up selling magic items for 50% instead of being able to use them.

Our group:
1. Aasimar Cleric of Ragathiel (Rage and Leadership domains)
(cohort) Human Sorcerer
2. Human Cleric of Pharasma (Knowledge and Repose domains)
3. Human Wizard
4. Half-orc Fighter
5. Ratfolk Rogue/Monk
6. Ratfolk Ranger, favored enemies Constructs, Undead, Monstrous Humanoids
(animal companion) lion


Are you also ramping up the challenges too? Six players against an unmodified AP, which as you noted is supposedly balanced for 4, will largely be a cake walk.

If you are not ramping up challenges, I'd leave the treasure as is, except in cases where they need something to be able to resolve an upcoming encounter. And often that sort of thing can be solved by specifically nerfing the foe rather than buffing the party by treasure. Does the foe really need DR 15/adamantine or would DR 5/magic create an equivalent sense of challenge for your group?

If you are ramping up challenges, then those upgrades often bring additional treasure by default.

Disposable resources, potions, oils, scrolls placed a few encounters earlier than a troublesome encounter are good because they can get the party through the encounter without providing a permanent power boost.

The main thing is to monitor upcoming challenges and make sure the party can do something against them. This is good DMing.


I am currently at the end of Wake of the Watcher and have run a 5 person party that is heavy magic all the way.

The 5th player trivializes a lot of the encounters that involve a single foe. The action economy and hit points of the party are just too much. I have taken to enhancing almost every single creature encounter by adding 2-3 class levels or giving it a +2 or 3 CR template.

For group encounters I typically add 25% - 33% more foes so that their battlefield control isn't diminished.

Specific Details:
Almost every encounter I decided not to modify has fallen flat as a challenge to the party with the exception on the splatterman, the aberrant promethean, the tick swarm, and the color out of space.

The Vilkas, Giant tarantula, and vorktag and grine were things I didn't modify and should have.


Well, I'm pretty certain that two of the players may be erratic as to when they show up. So, I'm not going to adjust the treasure too much, perhaps I'll just ensure the Trust rating in Ravengro gets to the point where there's a discount in prices.

As for adjusting the difficulty, I was thinking I'd just add more random encounters at Harrowstone and see how that works out.

What do you guys think of my plan so far, does it need to be adjusted?

The regular players (from my Vampire campaign) are the Bard, Cleric, Paladin, and Wizard. I figure the Rogue and Sorcerer might be flakes.


I did a review for HoH a while back that included every change I made for running it for a 5 player group. That can be found here. I also did something similar for TotB.


I noted that you did your changes for 5 players, but at this point I have 6.

Aside from the difficulty change, how much treasure/gold should I add? Did I make the right choice in just ensuring Trust gets to max so that the party gets 20% off prices in town?


The 20% discount in Ravengro will be of no help after the first book. The group will be running all over Ustalav and never go back to that town.


What if I continue the 20% discount into the other books?


It really doesn't make sense to give the discount on an ongoing basis. The PCs will be all over Ustalav as Damon mentioned. You will definitely have to increase the treasure a bit, but it will be a balancing act. The module is written for 4 players. With 6 you might be okay if the amount of gear isn't up to normal levels if you don't increase the difficulty of the encounters. You can always add some disposable items on the fly during adventures if the players are lagging and the encounters are roughing them up too much. But you will need to be careful that the CR gap doesn't become too great as that can be deadly.

What I am doing is tracking the non-single use magic items and gold value that the players have and comparing it to the Wealth by Level guidelines. However, this means that I need to take a look at each encounter and buff it up a bit. Mainly I'm doing that with just applying the Advanced Template and using a higher average number for the hit dice for HP. It mainly works. I've gotten a number of PCs close to death although I haven't killed anyone... yet. :)

I also did two things which helped them out a lot. First, I delayed giving them the information that kicks off book 3. This game them some downtime in a city to sell and also to either find or have items created for them. If the PCs have played their cards right, they will have at least one contact in that city that can help them making all of the right connections quickly.

Second, I included the Carrion Hill module into the AP upgraded based on a thread here. I also plan on a little downtime for them in this city but not nearly as much. They will at least be able to dump items on the market and look for items that may be already available (which is why I created and posted the stat block for that city). I may make changes to the plot for before and after for book 5 when I get there.

You could also do it old school and change treasures to seed items that are used by your PCs. Of course when the players find the magic gnomish hook hammer they will know that it was you...


How much should I increase the treasure by with 6 players? 20%? 25%?

I agree I should monitor the treasure using the wealth by level guideline.

What if I only have 5 players, then how much do I need to increase the treasure?

I figure I should increase the hp of the bosses, perhaps give them the maximum amount possible for their hit dice. Are you sure the Advanced template isn't too much? I've heard it can be overwhelming at times.

I don't have the Carrion Hill module. Where would I get a physical copy? What level of party is it for?


It's for 5th level, check Amazon first, your local game stores second.


captain yesterday wrote:
It's for 5th level, check Amazon first, your local game stores second.

I just checked ebay. Bought it for approx $14.

Now, about my treasure/xp adjustment problem...?


That I can't help with, I've never had to adjust, 3 players and a GM :-)


If I throw in the Carrion Hill module, would I need to adjust xp/treasure at all in the Carrion Crown campaign? I'm going to have 5 players, as one of them just dropped out.

My party now consists of a Paladin, Cleric, Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard. I am going to try to convince the player of the Bard to take over the Rogue, since we need a skilled warrior/skill monkey more than extra spells (especially since we've got a magic heavy group as it is).

Right now, I'm figuring that I should adjust costs by 25% downward (in all cities the party goes to) so that party treasure stretches out more, and I will increase the HP of the bosses to max possible as well as include more random encounters. What do you guys think? Have I altered things enough?


How often do I check for random encounters (using the chart on page 77 of Haunting of Harrowstone)? Do I just check for Harrowstone itself, or do I have to do it for the other locales as well?


Well, we now have a Paladin, Rogue, Cleric, Sorcerer, and Wizard in the party.

I am going to run the Carrion Hill adventure right after Haunting at Harrowstone. I realize the party will only be 4th level or so, but I figure having 5 party members should balance things out somewhat. This should help add in some treasure into the campaign, as well as some xp.

I am going to run the Harrowstone adventure as is, but I am worried that Trust isn't going to work without some tweaking to allow for more earned Trust points. Will max out the hp of the bosses, and use random encounters but I don't know how often to have them.

I figure I should use the WBL guidelines to monitor party treasure. I don't know what else to do. Haven't been getting any responses to this thread.


1) Carrion Hill is really good, but you'll need to rewrite a couple things geographically if you are using it at 5th level. If you use at it at 9th level along with the conversion notes on this board, it fits better story wise (and makes more sense based on the map of Ustalav.

2)I did very little treasure adjustment, even for 5 players. I think I added 20% more to any charged item, pile of gold, and what not. I've seen a lot of DMs swap out the treasure in the modules to fit their party composition. I feel that a low treasure scenario helps really reinforce the horror aspect of the game, especially in the first two modules. As others have done in Trial of the Beast, I added a significant reward from the count, but beyond that did little else. It should be noted that my party dropped to four players halfway through the third book, so that ceased to be an issue for me. IIRC, the total wealth sum of the treasure of Harrowstone is about 10-12K, so adding another +1 weapon to the pile wouldn't be that big of a deal. If you add in Carrion Hill, it should balance out nicely. The wealth problem really only persists in the first three modules; after the fourth one, you're getting staves, Mi-Go technology, and the like. I wouldn't give a blanket discount on magic items for the entire AP; this will come back to bite you in modules 5 and 6.

3)With a couple of extremely brutal exceptions in Module 2, trapfinding is not essential in the AP at all. (I think besides the second module, there's an average of one trap per module) In fact, the bard would probably be more useful to the party due to the sheer amount of Knowledge rolls throughout the modules, specifically the first one. Our party had a rogue who died in the second module, to be replaced by a bard. The player has had way more fun playing a bard and feels that they contribute a lot better (She is playing the Dirgesinger and Soun- striker archetypes.)

4)As far as random encounters... Don't. Let the atmosphere and environment of the module evolve naturally. The fact that the first floor is so deserted makes it that much more creepy, making the haunts and few creatures on the ground floor that much scarier. You're probably gonna find that there's no need to throw them at your PCs anyways; Harrowstone is paced well enough that the storytelling and action is pretty continuous. Furthermore, combining a random wandering monster with some of the harder fights could be quite lethal (Old Ember Maw, The Lopper, and what-not). Only do this if your PCS are foolish enough to rest in the place. Let random encounters happen on the road for the most part where they belong.

5) As for the rest of the AP, let it evolve naturally. The best time to compensate for missing XP or treasure are the long journeys that occur between modules and the big one during module 3. Myself and others have written detailed sidequests, and you can easily insert whatever thematically to help flush out backstory of characters, history of Ustalav, or the machinations of the WW.

Sorry it took a bit to respond (Busy writing up high-level haunts detailing the Fall of the Grey Friar and the Rise of Renchurch.)


1) I figure I can just gloss over the distance involved where Carrion Hill is concerned. Not worried.

2) I know that the Paladin uses a longsword and the Rogue uses daggers, and there's a nice +1 keen longsword plus a +1 mithral dagger in the treasure list for Harrowstone already. So, what sort of gear should I plant for the Sorcerer (undead bloodline) and Wizard (evoker)? I know the Wizard wants a Blessed Book (but this is really expensive) and a Ring of Sustenance (which isn't)....

I figure the 20% discount in Harrowstone's Ravengro should help somewhat the party treasure, as will the selling of all those stupid enchanted arrows. What more should I do for the first adventure?

As for Trial of the Beast, I figure I am going to have the Count "forgive" the players for looting his place, and instead have that amount be the reward for saving his butt. Do you think that will be enough?

What amount should I plant in the Broken Moon adventure to get the treasure up, if any? I still plan on using Carrion Hill at 4-5th level though. They're a tough bunch, and they plan on pumping up their saves and buying armor in the first module anyway so they'll be upping their defenses.

3) The thing is, after doing the math, the Knife Master Goblin Rogue is going to be a lot better for dishing out damage than the Bard with her high Strength ever was in the long run. That, and the extra skill points the Rogue has will come in handy. So I still think the Rogue is a better choice than the Bard, especially since the Wizard has the Knowledges covered already. Also, the player in question tried a Bard a while back, and felt helpless in a fight because Bards suck on offense and end up just playing their lousy music for the +1 to hit.

4) How long of a trip is it from the town of Ravengro to Harrowstone? I didn't think it was long enough to have random encounters. Thus, I was thinking of having random encounters in Harrowstone, so I can keep up the pressure when they try resting or thoroughly searching the cursed place.


Thought I should update: The Wizard PC is going to be heavily into magic item crafting, starting with Craft Wondrous. Gonna take the Valet archetype for his familiar. He's looking into a Pseudodragon, but may take a Faerie Dragon instead.

I also figured I'd plant a low end magic item somewhere in Harrowstone for each of the players. The Paladin and Rogue are already good, since there's enchanted weapons. The Wizard shall get a Ring of Sustenance so he has an extra 6hrs a day to craft his magic items. As for the Sorcerer and Cleric, I figured I'd plant a Circlet of Charisma and another of Wisdom.


-Rings of Spell Knowledge are a really good sorcerer item, especially if the spell that it gives is one that you select to foreshadow an upcoming portion of the module. I also recommend on the lower end of rods lesser versions of extend spell and reach spell. Both are fairly useful and don't really break the game as well as being in line closer to a +1 sword than a lot of other comparable items. A wand with a 2nd level spell would skirt the upper end of that limit but would also be useful for a sorcerer.

-For the Wizard, I recommend scrolls, confiscated items from the Splatter Man. These should be cherry-picked by you and merge the line between the Splatterman's spells and your PC's interests. The aforementioned rods or a few useful but slot-consuming spells stored in wands, like Mount, Floating Disk, Alarm, and what-not would also prove valuable.

-Keep in mind that for the Rogue, he's not going to be able to do much to the number of incorporeal opponents, the ooze, the rat swarm, and a number of other opponents in the next module. Encourage him to raise his UMD so he has options other than trying to Sneak Attack. In my opinion, the damage output that a bard provides across multiple characters in all combat encounters outweighs the situational damage that a Rogue provides. To be fair, a Rogue with the right support can be brutal, and he'll really have a chance to shine in parts if the second module and lots of the third and fourth ones. He's going to hate the sixth module unless he eventually invests in ghost-touch weapons.

- I didn't use random encounters at all, and instead used the following, which got my players to 4th level after defeating the Splatterman, which included the extra experience received from the research performed and restoring Vesorianna's power.
1) My Expanded Prisoner Haunts.
2)The Haunted Well Quest
3) A Sidequest involving investigating vampiric cattle mutilations. My PCs encountered and defeated a pack of dogs with rabies and a Vampiric Mist responsible for the mutilations.
4)My additions for 5 players
I was using the XP system at the time, which I eventually changed to event-dependent leveling by about the third module, so beyond that I encourage you to develop your encounters and utilizing some of the DM material lying around these boards as well as your own to get your players to the appropriate levels. Hope that helps.


Well, the Rogue can easily just use the 10 (instead of 6) Haunt Siphons with the rest of the party to damage haunts, so I'm not worried about that. Dunno about the ooze, rat swarm et al. I was going to poke the Rogue into enchanting Warden Hawkran's +1 mithral dagger with Ghost Touch anyway. She already has the highest Use Magic Device I can possibly swing short of enchanted items to boost Charisma based skill checks.

In case you were wondering, I am going to poke the Paladin into taking Outflank and Precise Strike with the Rogue so that they can flank like masters.

I am changing the +1 keen longsword into a +1 mithral Ghost Touch longsword for the Paladin. It counts as both silver and magic so it can damage vampires, and doesn't really cost much more than the standard steel.

A Lesser Rod of Extend metamagic sounds like a great gift for the Wizard (at only 3k gp), since he and the Sorcerer are dependent on Mage Armor for their AC. Good idea. I'll have it be a gift from The Unfurling Scroll's Alendru Ghroven upon the defeat of Splatter Man, and include it as party treasure. I'm going to add Summon Monster II to the Splatter Man's rotted spellbook so the Wizard can copy it.

As for the Sorcerer, I was going to plant a Circlet of Charisma +2 in Warden Hawkran's confiscated gear. Couldn't think of anything else that both Hawkran and my sorcerer would want.

My main malfunction is trying to figure out a good magic item for the Cleric of Pharasma. It can't be a weapon since Raven's Head is a present for him later on in the adventure path. Got any recommendations?

I've decided I'll award 1 Trust per townsfolk rescued from the big fire. That should allow the party to go from Loathed (from Harrowstone's 1 pt loss per day and slightly more than 2 weeks of research time expended) all the way to Admired, since there's 60+ townspeople attending the council meeting.

As for xp, I dunno what to do. I could pump up the Harrowstone encounters somewhat with random encounters, or have random encounters along the road to Lepidstadt to get them up to 4th level. The party has succeeded in imprisoning Gibs, so the Splatter Man is kinda screwed into starting over from scratch. This means the party has plenty of time, based on what I've read.

However, most of your tips on expanding the adventure didn't seem to trigger links, so I have no idea about them aside from their names.


If you use more random encounters instead of beefing the existing encounters your going to have a lot of boring fights. You need appropriate CR encounters to challenge the party.

I would strongly advise against starving the party of wealth as a means to increase the difficultly of encounters. Character wealth is core to character progression and development in pathfinder.


GrimSpider wrote:
If you use more random encounters instead of beefing the existing encounters your going to have a lot of boring fights. You need appropriate CR encounters to challenge the party.

Using CR4 beasties like in the random encounter chart seems appropriate.

GrimSpider wrote:


I would strongly advise against starving the party of wealth as a means to increase the difficultly of encounters. Character wealth is core to character progression and development in pathfinder.

I'm not the sort to do that. If you check this thread, you'll note that I'm actually planning on INCREASING the treasure quite a bit in an effort to compensate for the 5th party member.


For extra treasure for your cleric, the one item I saw that struck me were Ghostsight Gloves from Ultimate Equipment. They're four grand but do a number of cool effects that could be useful all the way to the end of the campaign. Besides that, the aforementioned Rods, 1st and 2nd level wands (with weird spells he normally wouldn't want to devote a slot to) or even a 1/4 charged 3rd level wand (like Searing Light) would be good treasure.

Which links didn't work for you? The Expanding The Harrowstone Prisoners link works when I link on it. Besides that, the other alterations I have listed are in the review. With everything mentioned above, I ran it without random encounters and everyone had enough experience to level to 4 at the module's conclusion.

As for the road from Ravengro to Lepistatd, what I did is detailed near the bottom of this thread. Hope that helps and good luck putting the fear into your players!


The links that didn't work for me were:
"2)The Haunted Well Quest
3) A Sidequest involving investigating vampiric cattle mutilations. My PCs encountered and defeated a pack of dogs with rabies and a Vampiric Mist responsible for the mutilations.
4)My additions for 5 players"

Review? What review?

I like these Ghostvision Gloves. I just hope my player does as well. He talked about wanting something to boost his Charisma, since he wanted more channeling attempts. Perhaps I'll make the Gloves a parting gift from the Temple of Pharasma in Ravengro. I wouldn't ordinarily be so generous, but there isn't much in this adventure for Clerics, unlike the fancy enchanted longsword for warrior types and the mithral dagger in Splatter Man's treasure.

As a side note, the dagger that the Crooked Kin give to the PC's really should be silver, or mithral. After all, it's intended to slay werewolves!

I'm wary of giving out charged items, as they're not as much fun, nor are they usually as useful as permanent ones.


Here.
The review has the expansion for five players. The haunted well quest is lumped into a really awesome addition someone else did, I believe it was something like "Expanded Trust System", which had tons of details on each townsfolk and different sidequests they enable. I will try and find the link when I get home from work tonight. (I did not create it).
The vampiric cattle mutilations will require a similar explanation since I didn't really have anything printed for it other than the details in the review.


Piccolo wrote:
As a side note, the dagger that the Crooked Kin give to the PC's really should be silver, or mithral. After all, it's intended to slay werewolves!

It doesn't need to be. As a bane weapon, it acts as a +3 weapon against shapeshifters. A +3 weapon will bypass Silver and Cold Iron DR.


Griffyn Maddocks wrote:
Piccolo wrote:
As a side note, the dagger that the Crooked Kin give to the PC's really should be silver, or mithral. After all, it's intended to slay werewolves!

It doesn't need to be. As a bane weapon, it acts as a +3 weapon against shapeshifters. A +3 weapon will bypass Silver and Cold Iron DR.

True, but it would be more thematically appropriate, don't you think?

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