In a previous thread I had asked if anyone had foreshadowed Skinsaw Murders in the middle of Burnt Offerings. Many people commented that they ran some side quests between those adventures.
My question is, if I run a couple of side quests, won't the PCs level at a rate higher than is called for in the adventure path? If I run something in Sandpoint or something not directly related to the path, won't the players then start to level faster than the pace the adventure path sets?
I figure you could probably run some really short side quests that don't pour out any more than small chunks of experience points but any adventures that last for more than a session or two would award too much experience.
I'm very interested in how this has worked for some of you.
I don't award EXP. I have found them to be a nightmare in the APs, especially if the number of PCs is different from what's expected. I just award levels at the rate the adventure requires.
This screws up the magic item creation system, the results of Raise Dead and other forms of level loss, and the EXP costs for certain spells, but for me those are less important than the maddening difficulty of keeping the PCs the right level by giving out EXP. I also found that giving EXP forced us into playing out combats that the PCs, the player, and the GM all preferred to avoid.
If you are going to award EXP, you'll want to check frequently to see how many the PCs have and whether their total is high or low. If it's low, the side adventures are no problem, and in fact will help keep your game working. If it's high, you'll need to look for low-EXP side adventures. Riddles and puzzles, roleplaying interactions, and interesting travel work well for this. A Sandpoint intermediate adventure with no EXP might involve helping Ameiko get the Glassworks running again, discouraging the Scarnettis from muscling in on her, perhaps travelling to Magnimar to recruit some glass experts, etc. Or a side trip to Windsong Abbey to learn more about the Catacombs of Wrath, with a few interesting character interactions en route.
Mary
In a previous thread I had asked if anyone had foreshadowed Skinsaw Murders in the middle of Burnt Offerings. Many people commented that they ran some side quests between those adventures.
My question is, if I run a couple of side quests, won't the PCs level at a rate higher than is called for in the adventure path? If I run something in Sandpoint or something not directly related to the path, won't the players then start to level faster than the pace the adventure path sets?
I figure you could probably run some really short side quests that don't pour out any more than small chunks of experience points but any adventures that last for more than a session or two would award too much experience.
I'm very interested in how this has worked for some of you.
It may not really be much of a problem even if they are getting some excess XP. It would depend on how lethal you want the AP to be really. If your not really trying to kill your players then having them a little high on XP is not really a problem, they'll drop back down after a bit as the XP table self corrects.
However if keeping the challenge the PCs face high is important then your probably best off giving out less XP in general if you plan to include side quests. Multiply the XP by 90% or 50% or even 25%. Whatever is required to get you PCs advancing at the rate you'd like them to advance at.
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Yes you'll level up faster, but one thing you can do is make the encounters in the AP harder, it's not really difficult IMHO.
I have to options you could go with for making the encounters harder...
1) Add one more creature to the encounter. Sometimes you can even get away with 2 creatures. This does add to the CR, but the DMG has a helpful chart to figure out the new CR if you go with more then 1 or 2 creatures.
2) Give the creatures more HP. 3E creature design is stupid. The designers came up with a system that if a creature was going to have this, it had to have all of this too. Later they realized they couldn't give a low level creature a lot of HP without giving it a bunch of other things, like better saves, and thus ruined a lot of creatures.
I suggest giving them either a quarter or half more HP then what they already have. Sure technically the CR on the creature increases, but what your PCs don't know, doesn't hurt the adventure. If you leak into extra HP and the PCs do get in trouble, the next hit can kill the creature. My advice would be to wait until the creature is nearing death to decide if you want to go into extra HP or not. Invest in some Post-its and and insert the new figures ahead of time just so you have them if you want them.
Option 2 works particularly well for 1 creature encounters. ;)
Agreed. I'm itching to give Karzoug a twenty-first level, and maybe dabble a little with epic spellcasting. Letting the PCs have a bit more experience would help me justify this.
For this path I'm not giving out XPs as normal. I only have 3 PCs, and I've already figured out where they would be XP wise after major chapters in the adventure. This way, I can add a few level appropriate encounters and not really worry about if it is going to throw off the balance in the game. At certain points in the adventure, I just tell them that they have X amount of points total.
This also allows me to add a few encounters using the new monsters. I just won't give XPs for them. In the end, it saves me work, and my players really don't care. It is not a race for us to get to a certain level.
Agreed. I'm itching to give Karzoug a twenty-first level, and maybe dabble a little with epic spellcasting. Letting the PCs have a bit more experience would help me justify this.
By the way, this is really tempting. Just for me, it defeats the reason why I bought a premade adventure. I've told myself that I need a break from creating everything from scratch as I did for my homebrew.
By the way, this is really tempting. Just for me, it defeats the reason why I bought a premade adventure. I've told myself that I need a break from creating everything from scratch as I did for my homebrew.
My players have giantkin goblin PCs, so while on the one hand I'm running the events of the AP as written, on the other hand I'm having to do huge amounts of writing along the way. I've fleshed out the Birdcruncher band to the point where we have not only names but family trees that cover every goblin there, and we have lesser amounts of data for the other four Hinterlands bands (which is still much more than is provided in Burnt Offerings). I've also developed the Hornhead band, which is the southernmost of the bands north of the Hinterlands.
I expect I'll continue to have to do a lot o development work, regardless of tweaking hit dice and levels, simply because my players are really into the roleplaying and NPC interactions. I can't get away with just saying that there are a dozen full-time watchmen, for example. The PCs are interacting with them sufficiently that I'm fleshing them out with names, personalities, and background stories.
So for me the reason for buying the path is completely different from yours. I'm happy to put as much time and creativity into this as it takes. We're playing Rise of the Runelords because we want to have experienced it (albeit backwards, considering their choice of race), not because I want to take a break.
I'd offer to just do the twenty-first level now and post it for you, but I've never created an epic-level NPC and suspect that my first time will take quite a while. How soon do you need it?
So for me the reason for buying the path is completely different from yours. I'm happy to put as much time and creativity into this as it takes. We're playing Rise of the Runelords because we want to have experienced it (albeit backwards, considering their choice of race), not because I want to take a break.
I'd offer to just do the twenty-first level now and post it for you, but I've never created an epic-level NPC and suspect that my first time will take quite a while. How soon do you need it?
Thanks for the offer, but you really don't have to work Karzoug up just for me. And I'm definately not in a rush. At the pace we are going, we may not even finish this AP until August. Chances are I will most likely run him as is, and also stay to the modules advancement rate just to we can start CotCT before the end of the year.
I'm also glad you took my post the right way. By "tempting", I meant your idea sounds like a fun thing to try out. I've really been fighting the urge to rewrite and tweak stuff myself. I like to do that, and I'd guess that most DM's enjoy some aspect of NPC creation. However, I initially picked up Pathfinder to save myself from all the time I spent writing up my own adventures. It seems a little odd/ironic that I find myself tweaking everything anyway.
It sounds like you have a great game going. I hope you eventually post how it turns out.
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My group seems to be lagging behind in level. They did pretty much everything there is to do thus far in Skinsaw murders (and even had a side quest to get them up to par for Skinsaw murders) but they're still only about level 6 (thankfully three of the 4 took leadership) and getting ready to go against Xanesha. After they almost TPKd on the golem I have serious doubts on if they can handle her, they retreated and rested for the night after that scarecrow (granted the heaviest hitter in the group is the Warlock, who was utterly useless against the Scarecrow)
It sounds like you have a great game going. I hope you eventually post how it turns out.
By "tempting", I meant your idea sounds like a fun thing to try out. I've really been fighting the urge to rewrite and tweak stuff myself. I like to do that, and I'd guess that most DM's enjoy some aspect of NPC creation. However, I initially picked up Pathfinder to save myself from all the time I spent writing up my own adventures. It seems a little odd/ironic that I find myself tweaking everything anyway.
I may yet do this. Just one more level and Karzoug can cast Mass Frog, and what kind of epic-level transmuter wouldn't want to do that?
It sounds like you have a great game going. I hope you eventually post how it turns out.Your wish is my command.
Thanks. That does sound like fun. Now I have to keep up with that thread too. :)
It looks like adding a twenty-first level to Karzoug isn't as tough as a feared. It's just these changes:
hp +9
+1 epic attack bonus
feat: epic spellcasting
skills: concentration +1, craft (alchemy) +1, knowledge (arcana) +1, knowledge (architecture & engineering) +1, knowledge (geography) +3, knowledge (nobility) +1, knowledge (religion) +3, knowledge (the planes) +1, spellcraft +1
epic spell: mass frog
Plus he gets two new spells, and I'm thinking that Touch of Gold and Thunderous Concatenation do nicely.
Did I miss anything?
It seems to me that A little overleveling (maybe to right under before a 2nd level higher than suggested) isn't much of a problem in this AP. At worst that will make some combats a bit faster with luck, but most of the baddies have some pretty nasty tactics along the way. My group is on the verge of overleveling with side quests, and I'm pretty sure the only reason the group has survived thus far is because it includes a Knight class character (is it just me or are the PHB. II classes broken? They sure are pretty cool though). Even a bit overleveled it looks to me as If any given battle could go either way....
Of course, if the challenge is lacking, there's all the great ideas above to keep things appropriately tough. Personally, I like to add an enemy or replace a given one with something with another fighting style(provided I can find an appropriate creature for the encounter, of course), to keep the party worrying about their tactics...