My wife and kids played it at a convention recently at high tier. From what they mentioned, it gets to be a grind at times.
Remember that chamber with the 3 spiders? At 10-11 there are 12 of them. They are exactly the same as the 7-8 spiders, just 4 times as many. If you don't have a lot of AoE in the party it can get tedious.
The chill touch spell on his hand does no damage to an undead target but forces a DC 15 Will save for each hit or the target is panicked for 1d4+9 rounds.
As everyone is gathering together after the battle, Lurgh will cast and extended fly spell on himself and if he has time and extended bull's strength as well.
If feasible, in addition to healing, Lurgh would cast fly, bull's strength and enlarge person on himself in that order. Each would last 9 minutes or 18 if he uses his rods to extend them.
Lurgh taps into his draconic potential, growing sharp claws and a toothy maw and attempts to tear into the one that attacked him. The claws burst into flames as he lashes out.
"If you are unsure of the bridge I could fly the other end of the rope there. Or for that matter I could probably carry each of you across while I fly."
"A golem, could be bad news. I'll try to fend him off while you prepare."
Lurgh moves forward drawing a stick, which glows with a command word as a plane of force springs into existence around him. He assumes a fighting stance.
Move (drawing wand), Standard (activate wand of shield), Swift (dragon style stance)
If it messed up our APL, I can drop out before we start real combat. Zaarah/Noral just told me you guys could use an extra PC and the only PC I have 9 or above is functionally retired. I have a seeker, but he is level 14, so thats out of the range.
I think we're fine with you here. You are either changing nothing (but adding an extra body) or making the scenario a bit easier.
Our PC levels are 11, 10, 8, 8, 7, 7. Playing up when 2/3 of the party are low subtier seems like a bad idea at best.
That's for designing your own encounters for Pathfinder. The core rules assume parties of 4 players. But PFS assumes parties of 6 and adjusts down for 4 players (The base encounters in the scenarios are already 1 CR higher). Adding 1 to the APL is not Part of the Pathfinder Society rules.
Where are you getting that? I don't see anything in the guide that says you add 1 to the APL for having six players. The adventures after season 3 were written assuming 6 players.
DETERMINING AVERAGE PARTY LEVEL:
In order to determine which subtier a mixed-level group of PCs must play in, calculate the group’s Average Party Level (APL).
APL = sum of character levels/number of characters
Divide the total number of character levels by the number of characters in the party, rounding to the nearest whole number. If the result of the Average Party Level calculation ends with 0.5, the players should decide whether to round up or down.
The selection of pregenerated characters might affect the APL. In some cases, there is one pregenerated character level that is clearly more fitting to the PCs’ levels, such as when all or most of the PCs fall in the same subtier. In corner cases, the GM should choose the level of pregenerated characters to provide a fun and fair experience for her table.
Scenarios in Seasons 0 through 3 were designed for four characters. For these scenarios, if the APL is between subtiers, a party of six or seven characters must play the higher subtier. Parties with four or five characters must play the lower subtier.
Starting with Season 4, scenarios were designed for six characters and contained methods to adjust for tables with four players. When the APL of a table is between two subtiers (like APL 3 for a Tier 1–5 scenario), a party of four characters must play the lower tier without any adjustments for party size. A party of five to seven characters whose APL falls between two subtiers must play the higher tier with the four-character adjustments found throughout the scenario.
In the fringe case where there are no PCs that are high enough level to have reached the subtier level (such as a party of six 3rd-level characters), the group can decide to play the lower subtier.
"I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to rescue you Hrethnar. I was on another mission at the time. Captain, do we have any time to acquire supplies for this mission?"
A half-orc enters wearing a robe of purple. The gold embroidery continually unravels and reweaves itself into patterns of war over which dragons fly in the air as humanoids march with axes drawn. Besides this nothing is immediately visible except for his face and hands, the skin around his temples down to his cheeks and the back of his palms are more ruddy than the rest of his complexion.
I think the issue is with the scenario itself. You have two fights back to back with no chance of resting and healing up in between and you are put in a situation where it is almost guaranteed to split the party as someone is bound to fail that save.
With it clear that they cannot match the harpies, Lurgh will try to flee, flying away as fast as he can while trying to keep some terrain between him and the harpies.
Not sure what the area off the map is like. But I can double move 120 or run 240. Each casting of fly would last 9 minutes and I can cast 2 more times today.
I don't know what tricks the rest of you have, but for Lurgh, I don't see him making it another round if he stays to fight. The setup and tactics for this encounter are a bit brutal for a 4 player table.
Total defense gives you a dodge bonus to AC which you lose due to the blinded condition. Unless you have a way to retain dex to AC when blinded, total defense is useless.
