How many Characters?

So I have a fairly large gaming group that consists of up to at one time 7 players, 8 with the DM. I noticed in Harrowstone it actually means during the funeral that 6 could carry the coffin. In reality how many characters is Harrowstone and the rest of Carrion Crown made for? I can easily bump up the encounters to increase XP and if it is designed for 6 but play with 7 this will be easy. If it is designed for 4 it will take a little more work to blance it out.

Any suggestions on making it tougher?

Traditionally the APs have assumed 4 PCs. Carrion Crown is the first without iconic stat blocks, but I think it would still assume 4 PCs.

So I have a fairly large gaming group that consists of up to at one time 7 players, 8 with the DM. I noticed in Harrowstone it actually means during the funeral that 6 could carry the coffin. In reality how many characters is Harrowstone and the rest of Carrion Crown made for? I can easily bump up the encounters to increase XP and if it is designed for 6 but play with 7 this will be easy. If it is designed for 4 it will take a little more work to blance it out.

Any suggestions on making it tougher?

Any easy fix is too max hit points for all monsters/enemies.

Actually I am in the other end of the scale. I am getting ready to run this AP with only 3 players - is that doable. Should I boost these poor folks.

Any advice?

I am running it with 2 mythic playtest characters and it seems to be going alright but we have not yet entered harrowstone, I think they might get there butts handed to them. As for the OP I would say increase the amount of haunts in and out of Harrowstone. Even with 7 characters the final battle could be quite hard as

Also the reason I say add more haunts is from what I have found is haunts even though they can be damaged by positive energy they are not meant to be destroyed right away but more survived and you get the EXP from just surviving the haunt not destroying it. Wes Schneider says it here lower on the thread.

Actually I am in the other end of the scale. I am getting ready to run this AP with only 3 players - is that doable. Should I boost these poor folks.

Any advice?

I am running this for 2-3 people using a variant of the gestalt rules (see d20srd.org or Unearthed Arcana), which works wonders. The only limitation, at least with 2 characters, is that they are usually in more trouble if one goes down.

DickovDK wrote:

Actually I am in the other end of the scale. I am getting ready to run this AP with only 3 players - is that doable. Should I boost these poor folks.

Any advice?

I am running this for 2-3 people using a variant of the gestalt rules (see d20srd.org or Unearthed Arcana), which works wonders. The only limitation, at least with 2 characters, is that they are usually in more trouble if one goes down.

Gestalt is of course a solution - however this will be the first time these folks are really getting into PF so the combination of multiple characters might be just a step too far. But I will bring it up for the party! Thanks for the advise.

Ok. For the OP: 7-8 Characters will require a whole lot more adjustment than just bumping up hit points. The number of minions in every encounter will need to be raised by 75%-100%. Additionally, the CR of each Boss monster needs to be raised by two points via templates, advanced hit die, or levels.(A LOT of work). Finally, you will need to add 75%-100% more treasure depending on whether you have 7 players or eight. Also keep in mind, AP maps are small, so you will probably have to rework all those or between the baddies and the PCs there will not be any room to move as there will be someone in every square. (A LOT MORE work).

For DickovDK: If your players are experienced they should be able to handle the AP without adjustment. Gestalt will overpower them and make the modules a cakewalk past a milkrun, with a free tour of the fuzzy kitten factory. The only adjustment I would make would be to bump the Player Characters up to 20 point buy.

The AP's are a tremendous amount of fun, but they require signifigant investments of time to run fot six or more people.

Best of Luck,
Weslocke of Phazdaliom

For DickovDK: If your players are experienced they should be able to handle the AP without adjustment. Gestalt will overpower them and make the modules a cakewalk past a milkrun, with a free tour of the fuzzy kitten factory. The only adjustment I would make would be to bump the Player Characters up to 20 point buy.

Best of Luck,
Weslocke of Phazdaliom

Thanks - I had thought about this my self and made the fun calculation 3*20 points = 4*15 points. As for experience: they are all experienced RPers but not really in Pathfinder, therefore wont see super power builds but will no doubt have a blast. Carrion Crown calls for a black carpet, horror music and a dark night around the table - Its gonna be fun.

However I WILL tell them that a healer of some kind would be nice to have in the party but in the end its their choice not mine :)

Thanks for all the help guys

Coming from the perspective of someone who has both playing in and GMed for 7-8 player parties, my advice is as follows.

Running a big game like that is less fun for the GM, and less fun for the Players. That many players bog down combat, there really isn't time to let all the characters get a fair chance at the RP spotlight, and you will end up with players who are bored and do other things until it's their turn in combat again. It's next to impossible to get 8 players engaged in the story, and this is a very story rich AP.

Carrion crown is a Gothic Horror Adventure. Large parties make combat less scary. The entire point of the AP is for it to be scary to the characters.

I know it is difficult to say no to your friends who want to play, but you'll be doing a great dis-service to the other players if you let that many people play. So man up, pick 4 players who will both show up consistantly and have fun roleplaying, and run a great AP for them. If you have 4 more people who will show up and enjoy themselves, you could run the AP for them on a different night.

Pseudo thread necromancy here, but I will reiterate that large groups are hard and do require more work. Weslocke is correct, increasing the map size by 200% is generally required otherwise it gets bogged down to quick. For example the bad guy is supposed to run at a certain point, well tumbling through 6 squares of PCs is not going to happen so he's stuck. Victor Zajic is correct as well, although I have been able to brow beat my 9 man RotRL game to pay attention to what is going on and understand that its a PITA to tweak an AP for that many people.

I intend to run this AP with Mythic playtest rules for a group of 4 players only. I plan on giving max health on all encounters and/or increase mob count by ~25% if needed. I told them I was going to do a once a month game but I have 14 players interested, so it might turn into two weeks a month for me on this AP, while running RotRL AE once a week, and playing in Second Darkness once a week.

Leonal wrote:

DickovDK wrote:

Actually I am in the other end of the scale. I am getting ready to run this AP with only 3 players - is that doable. Should I boost these poor folks.

Any advice?

I am running this for 2-3 people using a variant of the gestalt rules (see d20srd.org or Unearthed Arcana), which works wonders. The only limitation, at least with 2 characters, is that they are usually in more trouble if one goes down.

Gestalt is of course a solution - however this will be the first time these folks are really getting into PF so the combination of multiple characters might be just a step too far. But I will bring it up for the party! Thanks for the advise.

I ran this with 2 PCs. Tips:

-TACTICS!!! Make sure your players play smart. Don't penalize them for running away and regrouping.

-Sneaking. All the time. Also, going in unconventional directions and using tactics and methods the game designers didn't plan on. Like diplomancing a troupe of ghouls by offering them food in exchange for information instead of a straight fight and flimsy deductions.

-Starting at level 2. And I kept them one level ahead of the recommended level. That meant I didn't have to change any of the CRs or encounters and even ended up giving the BBEG one extra level.

-Carefully chosen classes. I tend to suggest less 'one trick' classes like fighters and wizards and more utilitarian classes like bards and inquisitors. The more a single character can do the less you'll miss the specialist skills. There were still parts where we longed for a good fireball or a channeled energy but we just used other combinations of skills and abilities.

Greetings,

I'm playing CC with a Summoner (Synthesist) and a friend (Gunslinger), besides the GM.

We just started playing the HoH AP and managed to complete the first part, and are in the middle of part 2.

I'll try to convince my GM to give us a level ahead of the planned by the AP, but I think I will not be able to do that.

Anyway, can you give any tips for a 2 PC party, with said configuration?

Thanks

PS: I'm a Aasimar Summoner, increasing DR to my Eidolon, and planning to take the Heavenly Radiance feat route.

Retire your summoner and play a cleric.

Greetings,

I'm playing CC with a Summoner (Synthesist) and a friend (Gunslinger), besides the GM.

We just started playing the HoH AP and managed to complete the first part, and are in the middle of part 2.

I'll try to convince my GM to give us a level ahead of the planned by the AP, but I think I will not be able to do that.

Anyway, can you give any tips for a 2 PC party, with said configuration?

Thanks

PS: I'm a Aasimar Summoner, increasing DR to my Eidolon, and planning to take the Heavenly Radiance feat route.

I'm GMing this, but based on my players' success I would recommend the following: Play tactically smart, conserve resources, avoid unnecessary confrontations and run away when necessary, making sure you can carry the other should one of you fall. ^^

Greetings,

I'm playing CC with a Summoner (Synthesist) and a friend (Gunslinger), besides the GM.

We just started playing the HoH AP and managed to complete the first part, and are in the middle of part 2.

I'll try to convince my GM to give us a level ahead of the planned by the AP, but I think I will not be able to do that.

Anyway, can you give any tips for a 2 PC party, with said configuration?

Thanks

PS: I'm a Aasimar Summoner, increasing DR to my Eidolon, and planning to take the Heavenly Radiance feat route.

Use your eidolon as a frontline fighter.

Our party consisted of a summoner and an inquisitor.

You have good ranged support so you're fine there. Our summoner built a grapple-monster with a truly disturbing CMB. It allowed our summoner to focus on being the ranged support while the inquisitor provided melee support and focused on divine casting.

Your weakness looks like it's gonna be healing and divine support.

Book 1 is gonna be a difficult one. It is for everyone. Despite assertions to the contrary a cleric is not 100% necessary. Useful but not necessary. Good luck, dude, you're gonna need it.

Your next hurdles after this are gonna be the second half of book 2 and the fort saves in book 3. Just make sure your GM has contingency plans for book 3's inevitable failed fort saves.

After book 3 it gets less deadly.