My party consists of 8 players. They walked through tongue eater and the band of thugs and alleybashers at the lucky monkey inn. Some of the things I did were:
-had the two dinosaurs ambush the party on the road as they approuched the Luckey Monkey Inn
-double the number of thugs and alleybashers left at the inn and maxed out there hitpoints.
-added a hitdie to the baboons in the courtyard and maxed there hit points.
any advice on beefing up the assault on the Ebon Triad at the kopu ruins would be much appreciated.
It sounds like you have a hearty party of bashers and beaters. Apparently, they have no problem hitting AC and doing up damage. If this is indeed the case, your party will emerge victorious in any toe-to-toe combat... so my advice to you is this: Don't Fight Fair.
I'm not advocating stacking the deck in your favor, or killing of PCs arbitrarily, but you do want to challenge them. There are ample opportunities for that in the Kopru ruins. First and foremost, unless the party is actively sneaking down the lava tube entrance, allow listen checks from the guards in areas 3 & 4 to hear them coming. Better yet, let the guards see the illumination of the PCs lanterns or sunrods or whatever; unless the party is all dwarves and half-orcs, the party needs light to see. Once they are detected, the guards touch the Stone of Alarm at K3, and all the bad guys in the complex are on alert. This means they'll be on their toes and dressed in their armor.
Second thing, don't be ashamed to have the transport cage give way about 20-40 feet from shore. When the cage falls, the party has to contend with swimming while armored and encumbered, getting out of the sinking cage before they drown, and a hungry demon all at once. (Hey, you might even have some of the party stranded on one side of the chasm once the elevator breaks down!) This encounter can actually be extremely fatal, so don't throw this at your party unless you think they can handle it.
Traps, traps, and more traps! This place is lousy with traps! If the players aren't actively searching, they will fall into several traps throughout this adventure: pits, spikes, glyphs, and a particularly nasty illusory floor with bloodbloater swarms under water! (Since fire is the best tool against swarms, and they are underwater, this encounter is especially nasty!) Teach the party the error of their ways by allowing them to fall into each trap they don't discover; let them find them the really hard way. Also, if they make suitable noise, don't be afraid to have the Alleybashers or Triel come investigate the ruckus while the party is climbing out of a pit, or has just set off some nasty explosion....
Make sure you let the bad guys have their listen checks... If the party is moving around at normal speed, and wearing metal armor to boot, chances are at least one of the thugs in any encounter will hear the party coming. There is nothing like a surprise round of sneak attacks or poisonous spiders dropping on you to make your PCs regret not being a party of nothing but rogues and halflings. Then, after the battle's over and the party is licking their wounds, unless they change their tactics, do it again. And again. And again... etc.
Let the villains use their knowledge. They know they are being invaded. They know the layout of their lair. They know where their allies are. And they may know the PCs and what they can do, at least by reputation, and maybe more. Depends on how public their actions around Cauldron have been. But there's nothing wrong with more thugs coming around the corner to assault the party from the rear while they are mixing it up with another unit of bad guys at the front. Believe it or not, most bad guys/monsters don't just sit quietly in their rooms at the local dungeon playing checkers till some adventurers come around looking to steal their treasure. Let them move around, and come upon the party when the PCs are trying to rest, perhaps.
The whole idea here is that the encounters are pretty nasty as written, especially if you only have a party of four PCs. If you have more, like I do, then you should be beefing up the encounters anyway: more monsters, tougher bosses, better hit points, etc. As a rule of thumb, I always increase the monsters proportionally to the PCs. If I have a party of 6 PCs, 50% more than the traditional "4", then I increase the number of all monster gangs by the same percentage. For singular monsters, like the skulvyn demon, or the mud slaad, I increase their hit points a bit, or some other improvement. But for a traditional party of 4, unless they are point-raping monstrosities, you don't really need to beef up the numbers too much. Play smarter, not stronger, and the PCs will stay on their toes.
It looks like you didn't use GlassJaw's AP tweaks!!
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/shackledCity/floodSeasonTheEbo nTriadATweakHereAndATweakThere
Start with this thread. Too bad you didn't use my feralized version of Tongue-Eater.
As far as the Kopru Ruins go, I advise against just adding more mooks. There are already a ton of them in there and it bored my group to death just hacking through them. I can't stress this enough:
Put the mooks in the rooms with the BBEG's!!!
The battles with the Ebon Triad should be more climatic IMO. Triel had 4 useless mooks with her - put more!! The harpoon spider guarding Skaven was surprisingly useless. I would corral all the spiders and ettercaps into one room with Skaven instead of spreading them out. As written, the PC's will encounter Tarkilar alone in his chamber. Lame!! Give me some undead minions or something. Move the zombies into his room and add a couple more Kyuss guards or something.
My point - don't just add more baddies ad nauseum. Put them in places where they will be more effective. With a big group, it's better to have fewer large battles than a lot of small battles. Otherwise it's going to take forever to get through the Kopru Ruins.
It looks like you didn't use GlassJaw's AP tweaks!!
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/shackledCity/floodSeasonTheEbo nTriadATweakHereAndATweakThere
Start with this thread. Too bad you didn't use my feralized version of Tongue-Eater.
As far as the Kopru Ruins go, I advise against just adding more mooks. There are already a ton of them in there and it bored my group to death just hacking through them. I can't stress this enough:
Put the mooks in the rooms with the BBEG's!!!
The battles with the Ebon Triad should be more climatic IMO. Triel had 4 useless mooks with her - put more!! The harpoon spider guarding Skaven was surprisingly useless. I would corral all the spiders and ettercaps into one room with Skaven instead of spreading them out. As written, the PC's will encounter Tarkilar alone in his chamber. Lame!! Give me some undead minions or something. Move the zombies into his room and add a couple more Kyuss guards or something.
My point - don't just add more baddies ad nauseum. Put them in places where they will be more effective. With a big group, it's better to have fewer large battles than a lot of small battles. Otherwise it's going to take forever to get through the Kopru Ruins.
Listen to this man - he is an expert!
Also, remember that there are other intangibles other than bad guys and where they are...well placed traps are an easy augmentation; replace some with stronger traps (the half-complete floor trap room can be "mostly complete" or even done). Keep in mind that this is a well-defended lair - the bad guys will NOT be caught off-guard and if possible, set up ambushes to allow sneak attacks and missile fire or a prepared trap like a rock-fall.
M
thank you all for the advice. I will check out the AP tweaks by glassjaw.
much mahalo and aloha