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Greeting Hive Mind!!
I've started GMing Iron Gods for my sons and there friends (6 players). Only my eldest and his friend are experienced (PFS), 1 who's played D&D, 1 novice, 2 noobs. Because of their minimal experience I decided NOT to increase the CR's of the encounters, especially after reading about some of the tough ones throughout the AP.
So what I'm asking is should I set them on the FAST XP track to keep them level appropriate to the adventures?
Party - The Six of Sixth (6-6th)
Half-elf Paladin (Holy Gun) - Family Ties - Khonnir
Chelaxian Monk (Maneuver Master) - Stargazer
Azlanti Wizard (Arcane bomber) - Against the Tech League
Elven Ranger (Galvanic Saboteur) - Robot Slayer
Halfing Bard - Numerian Archeologist
Android Unchained Rogue - Against the Tech League
They appear to be fairly balanced, but no real stand out Tanks/Damage dealer, not at the start anyways. Since this is all of their first time playing in a "Campaign" I want to ensure they have a good time and are challenged but not to much or I suspect frustration may be an issue.
What say you kind Pathfinders?
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I've run and played in a number of APs now, and from what I've seen, there are really only 3 solutions to larger groups.
1. Run the paths as printed, and ignore the discrepancies in XP and wealth the party earns. The difference between the level of each character and what is recommended will be, at most, a level or two. This is clearly easier for the GM, but some encounters in some APs are already quite challenging based on the expected character level. Being 1 or 2 levels behind this expectation will make it even harder.
2. Scale each encounter up to match the number of characters in the group. This requires quite a bit of work from the GM, and some encounters are easier to 'level up' than others.
3. Leave the standard encounters as they are, but ensure you include a bunch of additional Random Encounters at various points. This serves the dual purpose of giving the characters extra XP and wealth, and helps to make them use more resources for each adventuring day. Some adventure paths might not work very well with this technique - mainly those that feature a 'hex crawl', where the characters are often only expected to face one or two fights a day, and so they are written to be more challenging than normal.
Your own alternative of using the Fast Track (or giving lots of extra story xp) will level the players up faster, and give them more capability, but even if their levels match the expected level of the adventure, you might find their wealth by level will be significantly lower than it should be. If you go this route, you may also need to increase the treasure you give out in some way. You might also find that, at lower levels, the characters level up faster than the adventure expects.
Good luck with it, and let us know which method you go with, and how it turns out!
I've run and played in a number of APs now, and from what I've seen, there are really only 3 solutions to larger groups.
1. Run the paths as printed, and ignore the discrepancies in XP and wealth the party earns. The difference between the level of each character and what is recommended will be, at most, a level or two. This is clearly easier for the GM, but some encounters in some APs are already quite challenging based on the expected character level. Being 1 or 2 levels behind this expectation will make it even harder.
I disagree. Given that the PCs are children - and most with limited gaming experience - having the encounters be a little easy would not be a bad thing.
For leveling, a better plan would be to ignore experience points altogether. Just level them at the points suggested in the beginning of the AP volume. This as the advantage of cutting down the paperwork you need to worry about (since you have six PCs, you need all the help you can get).
You will want to add in the extra treasure, but this will also allow you to customize specific treasure for your PCs. This will also give a little spotlight on the character - always a good thing with newbies.
Once you get a feel of how strong the group is, then you can look at adding encounters or to the CR of an encounter. (For 6pc, adding a minion or group of minions equal to the CR-3 should help balance things). Again you are not tracking Exp as much a you want to make sure that everyone has something to do. :)
Also, while you are here check out Advice for GMs starting Iron Gods and Things You Have Changed and Things You Should Have.
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Thank you both
YogoZuno and Lord Fyre.
I have read many of the suggested Iron Gods posts in preparations for their adventure and will be implementing some of those ideas. From both of your advice I will add in treasure more appropriate to the characters in the group, thus increasing there effectiveness, but not to much don't want to go all Munchkin.
XP wise I think I'll try Lord Fyre's suggestion and just go with what the AP says they should be at, as per the forward of the adventure, the kids won't know the difference.
On a side note I was impressed that the group themselves came up the a name like the "Six of Sixth", clever kids.