So, I'm about to start running, and I have 7 players.
One is a semi-wallflower; she participates, but only marginally, mostly there just because her husband is there.
The other is flaky about interests, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he winds up dropping. He may surprise me, though.
But. To the point; how do I run this and keep them challenged? I let them use the 25-point point buy system (20 is eh, to me, and 15 is just irritating).
I figure, with the added number of players and experience divvied up evenly, even if they're not quite at the Recommended Level for areas, they should do just fine. My biggest concern is them just blowing through all the fights/encounters.
Well, the common assumption of Paizo for APs is 4 players at 15 point-buy. So with 7 25-point buy players most of the fights, especially in the beginning when they won't be lagging much in levels *and* with early level opposition being pretty anemic in general due to Paizo wanting to avoid one-shotting 1st levels . . . yeah, it's going to be a complete snoozefest. And you can't do something simple like just doubling the monsters because most encounter areas are the size of postage stamps. So, uhh . . . good luck!
You could try maxing monsters HP, giving them the advanced template (basically +2 to everything, +4 to AC) for free, adding a few extra minions to what's normally one monster "boss" fights, but . . . 25 point-buy boosts players' power noticeably, and single monsters already have a hard time keeping up with the action economy of four players - with seven what's likely to happen is everybody will focus and blow up the boss, and then the minions you've added will flail around for a round before they get croaked too. And it only gets even *worse* if your group of seven includes a minion master like a summoner or some sort of action-denial debuffer.
I don't like being a negative nelly here, but I really don't know what advice can be offered that will offset the huge point buy and action economy advantage your players are going to have. Hopefully someone else that's more skilled at DMing Pathfinder will be able to recommend a course of action.
The problem with dividing up XP and letting players lag behind shows up with skill checks, saves, and similar rolls that aren't impacted by the player count. They get to a CR 10 trap as level 6 characters and likely the whole party is dead or dominated. A high-level spell caster lobs a 10d6 fireball at the same party and they're all near dead, some likely in the first round. Will saves in particular become a problem.
Frankly, I won't run with this many ever again. It's just too much work not only updating the battles, but also re-imagining how things play out and how much loot gets distributed - you run into the same problem as above if they fall too far behind WBL expectations, so you have to throw some extra loot in as well.
That being said, Inspectre is correct. As you get going, start adding the advanced template to bosses, up EVERY bad guy to at least a 20-point build (some are NPC basic, some are NPC heroic, some are monster levels, others are simply pick and choose). For the battles that expect at least one baddie per player, add a few mooks in to get the ratio back up. If there's a single BBEG, give him a few mooks to occupy the extra players.
One of the problems you'll run into is space. Since you're running published content, the intent is to use the provide maps. They aren't designed to handle the additional characters, so you may find yourself modifying those as well, just so your group can fit into the space provided. One advantage they'll have is with the 10'x10' pit traps. Designed to catch 4, not nearly as big of a deal when 3 PCs are standing at the ledge throwing ropes down to their buddies. Joy.
Good luck.
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I am not sure what the skill level of your players are, but if they have decent experience, then you will find that 25 point buy is going to create a snooze fest for the encounters.
My first adventure path I ran I had five very advanced players with 25 point buy. By tenth level they were dominating the fights. Even giving opponents max hit points and advanced templates, they still were not adequately challenged.
They second one I ran them with 20 point buy. Went better, but still not a serious challenge without much resigned. We are still running in that one.
My next one with that group will be done at 15 point buy.
I honestly think you should reconsider the point buy. It will make life a little easier on you, and challenge them more.
I am currently running this AP with four players of average skill level at 20 point buy. They seem to be doing okay and the fights are challenging when they are supposed to be without much alteration. The only alteration I have been making is changing rogue to unchained rogue and swapping out NPC classes for adventuring classes.
I'm with Draven on the point-build. I've given up trying to get my players to do anything less than 25. 15 is a heavy toll for MAD characters, and the difference between 20 and 25 is really only a few tweaks to the bad guys. Hero Lab makes this an easy adjustment.
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After running RotR with six players and midway through CotCT with five players using 25 point buy I will say I'll never run it again.
There are a lot of arguments as to why 25 point buy does or doesn't matter but I will simply say with players that are at the skill mine are (experienced, understand min/max but don't actively try to break the game) then it's too much.
The fault I had when deciding on attributes at the start was to look at the base attributes, I didn't add Bardic Performance, Bless, Prayer, Haste etc. to those stats and see just how quickly the numbers escalate.
As for balancing for numbers it's not easy, mostly I have learnt that more enemies is better than stronger ones. Whenever there is an encounter with 4 mooks, add enough to make it 1 per PC.
Sometimes it's also worth looking at encounters and thinking "does this need to be a hard one?" and making sure you're only challenging them when needed.
If you want I have a GoogleDoc tracking all my changes I've made to encounters. I've tried to retain true to the source as much as possible.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kr7PM8E9IQodtP7u91h7YAR6uyqq00cKd5M G_wsh1A0/edit#gid=834151223
Second tab is the encounters breakdown.
If you want I have a GoogleDoc tracking all my changes I've made to encounters. I've tried to retain true to the source as much as possible.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kr7PM8E9IQodtP7u91h7YAR6uyqq00cKd5M G_wsh1A0/edit#gid=834151223
Second tab is the encounters breakdown.
Awesome. Part of my problem is a lack of consistent group size where I play. Sometimes we get barely/not enough people, sometimes it overflows like this. I honestly meant to drop the point buy down to 20 for this one, but I forgot until it was too late. Ah well.
Also, sorry to say, the link you posted here doesn't seem to work.
Dynamically adjusting for party size gets tricky, particularly with small encounter sizes, i.e., ones where there is a single baddie.
Something I have done Draven is stat up a harder fight than the main book and judge which one to run when the PC's get there.
You could also try doing this depending on how many players you have at the time. If it's on the lower end and you've got less experienced players just run the book fight, if you're up on numbers or the group is going very strong then give them the buffed fight.
It's a bit more work in that you'll need to have some buffed version of the fights at hand but should allow you to keep the game interesting.