Facet of a Shard's page

Let me start with the setup. I am running Kingmaker with 3 of my friends, and we've just started RRR. One of them couldn't make it to the last session, and the other two decided to explore a hex or two while he was gone. They ended up exploring the mud hut hex with the Old Beldame.

Party makeup: Wizard/Monk 4, Fighter 4, Mikmek (npc ranger 2) and a captured Mite (No class levels)

When they approached the fence, they refused to ring the bell. The Monk had almost died during the nettles crossing encounter. Instead, he cast Detect Magic, revealing the Scarecrow to be magical. The Monk walked all the way around the fence line to the back side of the house, and hopped the fence. Then they all rolled initiative.

The Fighter got fascinated, and so the whole party had a hard time defeating the golem. They were all in bad shape when it finally went down.

Then they went in the house, to wait for whoever lived there.

The Old Beldame returned after a few hours with an attitude of Unfriendly. She demanded an answer for what may have happened. The Monk (Charisma mod of -1 and no ranks in diplomacy) Rolled a natural one, giving him a persuasion roll of 0. She turned hostile.

To be nice, I gave them a round to run like heck. The Monk cast Color Spray to try and buy everyone some time, but she made her save. Everyone ran after that, but the Monk had to wait for the next round before he could run. Unfortunately, he had a lower initiative roll and got blasted with a Burning Hands, taking him down.

We ended the session with the party running to try and get some help, and watching the Old Beldame drag the unconscious wiz/monk back into her house.

What would the Old Beldame do with him?

I'd like some advice. First, the facts:

In the Kingmaker game I'm running, we've just finished a year of kingdom building at the start of book 2. The final event roll of the year was "Visiting Celebrity" which I'd like to merge with the Founding Day Festival they have planned.

Previous to this Event roll, I had determined that the Visiting Celebrity (should it ever occur) would be a challenger to the General. He would come into town and challenge him to a duel. One problem I foresee with this is that the other 2 players will be bored while their General fights a duel.

So, I've decided to add in a couple of cronies that will jump into the ring once it's clear the challenger is losing, giving an opportunity for the other two to jump in too.

Now, the advice: I have yet to put together the challenger and the cronies.

My party consists of a 2H Fighter 4 who wields a masterwork Halberd with Cleave (the General in question), a wizard 2/monk 2 who refuses to use magic for direct damage, and an Infernal Bloodline Sorcerer 2/Fighter 2 who uses an aldori dueling sword with Weapon Finesse.

What builds would you put up against this group? I'd like to keep the encounter Martial instead of Magical.

I'm currently running a Kingmaker game, and the party is progressing quickly through character levels. I'd like them to follow the level progression outlines at the start of each AP book.

The character level chart has Slow, Med, and Fast tracks, but they're all based on changing the amount of XP needed for specific levels, not on the amount of XP gained.

This makes it very difficult to switch gears. They're all level 4 (9,000xp) and if I switch to the Slow progression, it will take way too long to hit 5th level (23,000xp).

I'd like to alter XP gain to slow down their progression rather than jump into a different XP progress bracket. I suppose I can just reduce XP awards by 25%, but I was wondering if anyone had looked into this issue in the past and what they did about it.

Has anyone made an XP gain chart that will fit my needs?