Yes. I don't remember XP ever really being a problem in AoW modules.
Are you troubleshooting a problem in your campaign?
Well, you've got a couple little side excursions that the PCs might be drawn to. My PCs ignored the bait (rumors and hooks), so I couldn't hand out the extra XP there.
Without going into details to keep this conversation spoiler-proof, I handed out good roleplaying XP after each "course". This module was very roleplay heavy. I had a good time with it...I hope my players did as well. I rewarded them nicely for it.
I made xp really easy for AOW. And now at the almost end of the campaign I think it worked really well. Here were the simple rules:
Everyone starts and gains levels at the same time
If you die and are res'd you lose a level (gain it back after 2 levels)
If you reroll a character you start one level lower
We did some house rule stuff for XP sacrifice in magic items ect
And thats it! It is so much easier to say ok, you finished prince of redhand, you gain 2 levels!
Creative Director
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You can probably finish "Prince of Redhand" without any combat at all, really... at the very least, there's only a few combat encoutners in there. Which is why a lot of those encounters have ad hoc experience awards that the DM should hand out when certain key roleplay encounters are successfully resolved. These are indicated in the text, generally at the end of a specific encounter.
Quick question on the subject of Prince of Redhand. I have 5 PCs, 3 are 14th level, 2 are 13th (one raised and one new). Do you think the module as-is will be appropriately challenging, or will they be in over their heads? They've already started, and haven't had any combat yet. They may enter the first one tonight, but hopefully they'll work through the encounter (catacombs below Church of Blessed Deliverance) without fighting. Thanks!
Summary: I think your 5 PCs should be fine for this adventure. It's the next one they might struggle on. Run this one, then re-assess, adding something in before the LoLR if they are not tough enough (which is a combination of things, more so than their levels).
Detail:
My group consists of only 3 PC's, with an animal companion and follower. They found the combats in this module to be pretty easy, even though I doubled the number of dragons at Illthane's lair. The party wizard/druid/arcane heirophant nearly took out the ebon aspect all by herself, only calling in the fighter when she was running out of spells. In fact, this whole adventure often had a player short, so was two PC's with one animal companion - the only time we had the full party was during Illthane's lair, which was challenging with 8 dragons but not overly so.
From memory, my group were 3x15th level PC's, a 13th level follower, and a pretty powerful brown bear animal companion (although I think the bear was left behind most of the time). They pummeled the aspect easily from range, bypassed the hangman gollem altogether, killed off the dragons eventually then got the acidwraith straight after without too much concern. The dinner doesn't require any level of PC, in fact my group was missing their 'diplomacy specialist' that night but still managed to get to the end by keeping their noses clean and doing what they could without upsetting anyone too much.
I guess if the group doesn't get the CR20 at the end they could be low on XP. I actually planted Raknain at the dinner, and they tried to get him afterwards, but in the end let him escape so they got no extra XP beyond what's in the adventure, and they did gain a level each.
Your only real worry would be the next adventure, Library of Last Resort. Assuming your group all gains a level, that means you'll have 3x15th and 2x14th level PCs. This adventure has much, much more challenging combats than anything that's been thrown at them before, although a savvy party has opportunity to prepare for them before hand which can make a huge difference. I'm running it now, and it starts what I see as an exponential climb in challenge for the players. Can your group overcome these challenges? On paper I'd say no, not likely, but only you can judge that, it really comes down to what their favoured tactics are. Like do they spend the time working out what they are likely to face and prepare to their best advantage, playing in a risk-averse way? Can they sniff out a potential disaster and get out of trouble before it's too late? Do they have strong, inventive spell-casters, and are they able to cast up to 8th level spells (or at least some good 7th level ones)? And most importantly, can they learn from touch encounters and come back stronger / better?
I must say that my group, on paper, is borderline, not really strong enough to overcome the challanges, yet so far they have done well. For example they tend to like moving forward over over-preparing, backing themselves to get out of trouble when it comes. While they went into this adventure as 16th level PC's, almost 17th level, and leveled to 17th after the initial encounter with the Orcs, the spell casters are all multi-class so have only just got access to 7th level spells. They are strong in melee combat, but do not use a lot of buffing tactics. They have, wisely, avoided the Titan for now, taking on the other challanges. They are strong spell casters, by virtue of a really good player running the wizard/druid/arcane heirophant, and a decent player running the rogue/cleric/shadowbane stalker. However, they did have a death in their first tough challenge, the CR20 tree in the woods, which killed the bear with one full-round attack (and very nearly did the same to the ogre/fighter the next round), until it ran out of hit points. The random encounters they have faced, all CR16-17, have been more manageable. I think the other major encounters (especially the titan, and the cleric's group) will be similar to the one with the CR20 tree - they will find it really tough, but each time they will learn and get better, so just scrape through.
I had planned a couple of random encounters prior to the Last Resort itself, but my group by-passed them, taking the "race to beat the cleric of Vecna" hook to heart.
So my final advice is to run Prince of Redhand as-is, then after that have a good hard think about Library of Last Resort, and how hard your group will find it. Insert some kind of side-quest or other xp-gaining activities before LoLR if you think your group will find it too hard based on their levels, spell-casting powers, favoured tactics, ability to cope with really tough fights, and so on.