Hey, guys and gals.
Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to increase the difficulty easily to accomodate 7 players? I know on some encounters I can simply increase the number of goblins/etc., but on the named encounters, I can't very well have 2 bosses. I assume I can advance them, but what is the easiest way to do so? And how far up should I advance?
Thanks,
Tigarri
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Hey, guys and gals.
Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to increase the difficulty easily to accomodate 7 players? I know on some encounters I can simply increase the number of goblins/etc., but on the named encounters, I can't very well have 2 bosses. I assume I can advance them, but what is the easiest way to do so? And how far up should I advance?
Thanks,
Tigarri
Normally I'd shoot for an EL 1 or 2 higher than presented in the books. However, one of the big problems you'll run into with 7 players is the sheer disparity in actions between the bad guys and the players for the "boss" encounters. I'd consider adding some more minions to those encounters rather than necessarily buffing the main bad guy.
Another reason for increasing minions: especially for spellcasters, you can wind up with some pretty overpowering magic in the hands of the bad guys if you bump them a level or two. This may result in getting one-hit kills against the PCs rather than just increasing challenge.
Honestly, with 3.x's focus on 4-player parties you're kinda off in the woods designing encounters for groups of 7+ players. Maybe someone else has experience in doing it and can share.
One thing for certain, with 7 players I wouldn't let any of them take Leadership...
Add a gnome to each encounter.
Seriously.
A gnome.
They were asking how to increase the difficulty, not make it more annoying.
My suggestion would be: don't alter the adventure. If you alter the difficulty now, you'll have to keep doing it the whole campaign. If you don't alter it, your PCs will get less XP per encounter, and they will quickly fall to an "appropriate" level for the adventure.
As an example, I am currently running Age of Worms AP with a 6-player group. Because they are dividing the XP 6 ways from each encounter instead of 4, the entire group's average level stays about one level lower than the listed level in the adventures (when it says "your characters should be 7th level at the start of this adventure", I know my PCs will be 6th level). The XP chart in the DMG was designed to auto-adjust to fit any group size.
This may mean that the first half of "Burnt Offerings" will seem too easy for your group. But once your 7 1st-level characters start facing challenges designed for 4 2nd-level characters things will work out just fine.
When I start the RotRL campaign in a few weeks, I will have 7 players too, so I will get a chance to put this into practice myself.
Yeah, I've explained to my 7-9 player group for the STAP that Leadership etc are a Bad Idea due to group size. One player is going to take it, for the purpose of acquiring his consiglieri and 'ladies of easy virtue' in order to have them back in Sasserine.
Others are going to buggo and want to trundle along with a small horde of henchmooks, hirethings and spewhorts. Of course, having advised them not to, if they follow through with those plans, all the toadies et al they tote along with them will perforce become critterkibble.
Think I need to tradmark critterkibble before some one beats me to it ...
Depending on the encounter, the antagonists in question and the teamwork capabilities of your players, modifications will range from not necessary to tacking on the elite array and an extra level for dealing with 7 players. GM judgement calls will be a must. One can always err on the side of caution rather than going overboard.
If nothing else, you can leave the encounters RAW 'cept for maxxing out the antagonists'/critterbeasties' hit points. Sometimes that is all it takes to tip the scales from 'cakewalk' to 'challenging'.
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3.5 is a self-leveling system. The group will earn less XP per encounter, each which will lower their level slightly over time so that the challenges become tougher....eventually. The first couple levels may be fairly easy-going but if you are running Dungeon Mag or Pathfinder stuff they can use the help, and by 3rd level they will start to be having balanced encounters. If not, try to focus on stuff that doesn't award XP, like familiars, animal companions, and summoned minions to make encounters tougher, if you use tougher creatures or more creatures you just compound the problem by giving them more XP, so remove the XP. Create environmental difficulties like areas that archers are camped out on but are really hard to get to. Challenge them with things that won't give XP. Flood a dungeon with a slightly poisonous gas that requires a save every few hours or they lose some Constitution, the CR for that should be pretty low but the effects could be pretty good.
But 3.5 should self adjust for you.
That's all I got.
FH
