Hey all,
I've been running Kingmaker for over a year now and my group's almost done with book 5 (just cleaning out the dungeons). They stuck pretty closely to the MO for books 1-3 by going out and exploring and handling all the kingdom building themselves. However, since we meet every other week for 3 hours, they were getting tired of spending an entire session or two with the actual kingdom building and exploring (and walking over every combat with ease). So part way through book 4, they decided to hire their own adventuring parties to go and explore the unclaimed lands (with a reasonable margin of death included) Going into book 5 they started off a level behind since they sat back and only participated in the major events. They also wiped out the initial army with a lone druid (wild shape + 3 diseases) and have avoided any other mass combat (they didn't like the rules particularly). So now that they're about to finish book 5 and are only level 13, I wondered what ramifications there would be for going into book 6 way under leveled. Is there any way to get them out exploring or leveled before the next turn of events? They've all focused on AC and anything that offers saves usually dies before it gets to go. I have to fudge some attacks just to give them some sense of not being invincible. As a side note, I have though about having one of their cohorts leave the party as she has been one-shot on multiple occasions and is their only arcane user.
When I was running KM for a table top group, we used the 'Advance when I say' system rather than adding up specific XP gained. I am doing the same as I run it again as an on-line game at PRoL. However, that doesn't work for you ATM.
Personally, in the circumstances you described, I would have been giving the main PCs Story line experience (after all, they just resolved the problem in a way you weren't expecting) if not the combat experience.
That said, you imply that your party have been winning / resolving issues fairly easily - so they might not be too underpowered for Book 6 anyway. However, that part of the AP starts of with a number of unrelated, almost one-off scenarios affecting the PC land. I would run those full on, make them as tough as I can. If they cope with that easily - all well and good.
If not, add in (make up) a few extra challenges on the same lines, until you think they are tough enough :)
Thanks JohnB. They just finished book 5 and I had them level to 14 for the start of book 6. I guess we'll see how well they tackle the first few encounters!
Though a little late for this game, something my friends and I have been doing in recent games is using Obsidian Portal or something similar to have someone from the group post an adventure log for every session. We then give the party an XP reward for their average level for a post. Helps keep everyone in, a good write up going and can help even out some of the xp bumps.
You can also look to simply run another module prior to the party heading out to confront the Big Bad. There are obviously fewer at that level, but it shouldn't be too hard to find something that feels appropriate to the campaign.