I've been running my group through Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition and quite frankly we've become demoralized about how much of a meat-grinder this campaign is. We're just finishing The Skinsaw Murders and so far we've had near-TPKs against Erylium, Gogmurt, Nualia, Foxglove Manor, Justice Ironbriar and most recently Xanesha.
At the beginning all the characters were made with 15 point-buy that I later bumped to 20 and then 25 to help them succeed. They've also had some side-adventures in Riddleport making them about half a level above what's expected. There are 5 players of which at least 4 tend to be present at each game. Everyone is on at least their second character while most are on their third, fourth or fifth.
Any idea where we might be going wrong? The adventure is supposed to be doable with 4 characters and 15 point-buy. I don't particularly feel like re-writing the monsters to make the adventure easier - we'd rather just start a fresh campaign if that's the solution.