I started playing the Shackled City Adventure path before the hardcover came out. So to beef up the characters somewhat I ran a short adventure pre-path. Basically the characters took on a bandit king for one of the outlying towns. But what this means now they have finished Jzadirune is that on average I believe they 3 1.5 levels higher than the module. So they are perfect for the Lucky Monkey but slightly over powered for Drakthar's Way.
This doesn't bother me so much but I am looking at ways to slightly increase the power of their opponents. Though on paper many of the encounters are EL 5 or 6 which I think is appropriate fro this party level (the party has one 5th level character and 4 others who are level 4). I don't want to skip the adventure since I think it will be fun for low level characters to take on a vampire. Here are my ideas I just wanted feedback from my co-DMs:
1) Give every monster max hps.
2) Advance the Worgs 1 HD.
3) Slightly modify the Silent Wolf riders so they can effectively fight from their Worgs.
4) I gave certain characters MW weapons and slightly better armour than listed (for example the wererats).
5) Replace one of the adepts with a Goblin Blue (level 3 or 4 Psion).
Even though Drakthar is "underpowered" I think his DR combined with max hps and the fact vampires are hard to kill anyway will still be an appropriate challenge to the players. Just curious if I should do more or less?
I'm in the middle of Drakthra's way, and ran into pretty much the same situation. I solved it my turning Drakthar into a full vampire (rather than a mediocre one) and give him some vampire spawn minions. To beef them up even further, you can take one or two of the elite half-orc guards from Lords of Oblivion and place them amongst the half-orcs at the end of the tunnel.
I'm also planning to do some foreshadowing with this adventure: the cagewrights are gathering mithril and adamantine to build their tree of shackled souls. The percious metal is being transported into the city through Drakthar's way. Gau Kleeoch, the minotaur cagewright is overseeing the transport into the city. I'm not sure how i'm going to handle that battle yet :-)
Don't you think a full vampire would be too much for a level 4.5 party? He could kill most of them in 2 hits (double level drain). The only other weakness I have detected is that he can't create spawns. Not really a huge weakness for combat.
Let me know how you go! I'd be keen to hear about it. Has your party meet him yet?
Thanks for the reply.
I'm sorry, I forgot to mention my party allready completed Zennith Trajectory and is currently level 8.
I posted that stats I used on the scap resources site.
My party allready confronted Drakthar, and one greater turning later, he was bugbear dust. So essentially it went pretty well for the party.