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one thing i would suggest:
no leadership allowed.
i have 6 players in my game, 3 of which have leadership
that means there are 9 combatants in each fight, vs. whatever i happen to be using.
now, some of the fights (especially in the earlier adventures) are meant to be overwhelming force the party can't simply hack through.
like the big ***** encounter in The Lightless Depths, or the camp on the blood shallows. or Scuttlecove itself.
my party was able to destroy each of these with limited resource loss and occasional (temporary) character death.
so, don't let them have even more characters, and you should be fine.
also: try to make sure at least 1 of them is playing a healer...without a dedicated healer (or 3 semi-healers, a la Paladins) they will be hosed towards the end of the path.
-the hamster
So, I'm about to start DMing STAP for 6 players, and I'm wondering if anyone had experience in doing this since 'scaling the adventure' sidebar scales it for characters of higher lvl, not for more players of the recommended lvl. So if anyone had a chance to DM for 6 players, any suggestions how to scale this AP are greatly appreciated.
You pretty much get two schools of thought on this depending on the DMs personal experience. One school of thought is that the system is self balancing. Once the XP is split more ways the players fall a few levels back and their once again balanced for the encounters. While each individual PC is weaker their are more of them and therefore they have more actions which allows them to take on the APs challenges.
The second school of Thought feels that the challenges posed by the AP can become too hard for a party that is weaker and that the numbers essentially don't matter in some cases. 6 PCs that all can't effectively hurt the BBEG is far weaker then 4 PCs that have can hurt the BBEG due to better BAB, spells or Saving Throws.
If you fall into the first group then you can just leave things alone ... but to be on the safe side review the monsters to make sure that there is nothing coming up next session that will slaughter your now slightly weaker PCs.
If you fall into the second group then the standard answer is to increase the number of weaker monsters in the encounter in order to keep the PCs at about the appropriate level without making the encounter to difficult.
In the Second case there are two big DON'Ts.
Don't just double the number of the big nasty creatures. An encounter with one BBEG is usually weaker then its CR indicates because one of anything tends to get pummled by the entire party and has a hard time since it has so few actions compared to the PC party. If you make say two BBEGs its often a hell of a lot more powerful then if their had only been one.
Don't just raise the BBEGs CR by advancing its level or giving it extra HD. Not only is this simply more work for you as a DM for no pay off as its basically the same thing if you let your PCs drop by two levels as it is to raise the monsters by a couple of CR. However even more problematic then the fact that its wasted work is that advancing monsters by giving them HD or levels is inherently an unbalanced activity. Its fun and worth it in many cases but monsters are not at all tested for play balance when this is done and you always have the potential to end up with some monster that is way out of whack do to some unforeseen spin off effect from the advancement. Hence your not 'rebalancing' anything by advancing a monsters CR - in fact your potentially introducing some kind of confounding effect that turns into a TPK. Since you get the same effect by just letting the players fall a couple levels back you should do that instead - Player Character Classes are fairly well balanced in a way that monster advancement is not.
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I'm running 7 though the STAP now and in general I add a few more Mooks and Minions (and boost them a little).
The Bosses are generally just about right, but need more help. My PC's always attack the nastiest thing first and leave the mooks to mop up later and in most cases its the little things that nearly kill them! Well that and splitting up the party!
But the rule of thumb for larger parties is NUMBERS not STRENGTH. You need to wear down resources before end battles so be sure to throw enough little fights before the big one.
One thing I'll say is it depends on the situation, early in the adventure path I wouldn't change in at all.
The first two adventures are tough enough without changing a thing. Six players will just mean they probably won't have as many losses, less likely to have an accidental TPK and probably won't need to rest as much. It will still be a pretty fair challenge.
If they are fighting a solo opponent, you might want to add a minion or two just to tie up a couple of players for a few rounds, but I wouldn't scale up the big bad guys, for reasons mentioned above.
Later in the campaign, Sea Wyvern's Wake and HTBM. I due to the fact there is plenty of opportunity to rest between encounters on the voyage and marching the coastal roads I found I was easily able to double the number of minions in some encounters without the players worrying, since they might only be facing one encounter a day at most. Of course you need to be careful if you do that. I think for one Gargoyle encounter I upped the number of gargoyles from three to six, and when they finished them with no trouble I had three more arrive in another wave.
I've not got on to the rest of the campaign yet so can't comment.
If this is the first time you are going to run a game I'd suggest going with things as written to start out. Once you get things rolling you can make a better judgement. The earlier suggestions to add minions is sound advice.
I'd only worry about changing creatures that you want to be memorable points in the campaign. Vanthus certainly comes to mind, possibly Olangru, Khala, and there will be others for sure. The party is supposed to be the heroes of the game, so they should win.
It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to make every encounter a life or death battle. That will wear on both the DM and the players. Let the players shine in the minor encounters and give them the life or death battles when it really matters most.
So I'd advise against increasing the difficulty of the adventure by adding levels to the enemies. Add more enemies and only alter the major villians would be my suggestions.
And one more thing, have fun, it's a great campaign to run.
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Definitely stick to adding a few minions in encounters. To play it safe raise the EL by +1 or 2 at most for 6 players. It's really all about the number of actions each side has in a round. 6-to-1 odds against BBEG's is always going to spell a quick and ignominious death and anti-climactic battle.
My recommendation is to start with the easy answer and gravitate to the ones involving more work for the DM only if the easy answer is not the correct answer for your table.
The XP system is supposed to self correct for power of the party - more players means all of them get less XP. Many groups find that this mechanic works rather well. The DM does not have to do anything for this method of balancing to work so it stands to reason that this should be initial option.
However some groups find that this is not a good answer for their table. At which point the DM must up their power by adding lots of minions to the bad guy encounters. Obviously adding minions means more work for the DM. However if thats what it takes for this to be a good campaign well so be it - its the DMs job to put in as much work as is necessary for a good game. This should be the alternative option if the easy answer of do nothing and let the system self correct is not working.
Thanks everyone for great advice!
I guess at first I'll just add a few mobs to every encounter and if that doesn't prove challenging I'll start giving them extra HD, and in order not to make them too powerful, I won't count that extra HD when I calculate the XP, although that will be my last resort, since this is the first time I'm running a campaign...
Your going to increase how hard the fights are but not give the PCs the XP?
That seems to defeat the whole point of throwing mooks into the mix in the first place. In fact its probably even more dangerous then that. What your doing here is making the fights harder but not allowing the PCs to go up in level ('cause your not giving them the XP).
If you follow this to its conclusion the PCs will drop in level compared to the monsters encountered and on top of that you'll hit them with even more baddies. Your going to end up with a string of TPKs if you do that. I don't think this is the recommendation of anyone on this thread.
Either allow them to drop in level due to the XP being split more ways without adjusting the adventure or, alternatively, throw more mooks into the mix but definitly give them the XP for the mooks. Here the PCs stay closer to the adventures recommended level while the mooks insure that the adventure remains challenging. Note that mook is not meant to mean total pushover. Just not a creature thats as nasty as whatever the BBEG is. Their main job is to threaten the mages and clerics in order to tie up PC actions.
Using either option should allow the AP to prove challenging for your players. Though in both cases you might want to keep an eye on the encounters coming up. There is an Advanced Eye of the Deep in this AP thats overpowered due to the advancing raising the save on its stunning ability to the point where no PC is going to be able to make the roll. On the other hand VV is also often considered woefully underpowered considering the climatic encounters he's involved in and and there are many recommendations on these boards for beefing him up.
That said your concerns about keeping your players challenged do make me wonder a little if your concern is that your players might be too powerful beyond just the number of PCs in the group? Do they have a really high point buy or some other advantage that makes you think their going to crush this AP? Its a tough AP and either recommendation should work to insure that it remains a challenging AP. Its only in a situation where the PCs are themselves significantly overpowered for their level that you should need to go above and beyond, such as letting them drop two levels AND adding lots of mooks (for which they don't earn XP).
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More mobs!
Stupid ones with lots of hits, clever sneaky ones, invisible ones with spiked chains, flying tiny ones with rays and touch attacks, wizardy ones with area effect spells, funky ones like Duskblades and Warlocks, nimble ones with nets and whips and stinking cloud bombs and glue bombs and Ghosttouch Caltrops coated in CON poison, weird mutant ones with boiling vomit breath weapons that blow up when you hit them, not doing much damage but there are loads of them to distract the players ...
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You may have a point... And since I'm still a noob DM, I'll listen to the advice given, and just throw in more mobs... I'm not sure what to do in boss battles, though. Any suggestions for those?
Like I said before with a Boss 6-to-1 odds will only end up with a lackluster and anticlimactic battle. Combining a fairly weak preceeding encoutner with the Boss can often bulk up the encounter without overpoering it. Against 6 players you'll need to either tie up the melee sorts or harry the casters. Mix up the Mooks a bit, use creatures with ranged attacks or good mobility to get at the spellcasters in the back ranks.
In my games the players are headhunters and always target the biggest threat first. That's obviously the boss. To discourage this you should have something that will really mess up their day if they ignore it.
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I have 6 PCs who are overpowered (all kinds of splatbook options, rolled ability scores, equipment values in the range of PCs 2 levels higher). There are still cases where the Big Bad is plenty hard - the flotsam ooze in SWW nearly had them for lunch.
I find that I can't wear them down with minions before the BBEG - they could blow through a roomful of 2 Lotus Dragons without using up any resource except valuable playing time. Instead, I combine encounters - for example, having Rowyn pull all the surviving thieves into one big ambush. The advantage here is giving all 6 PCs something to do (it can get crowded if they're all pig-piling one target!) and giving me flexibility. If I need to adjust the difficulty on the fly, I can always have more minions enter, or run away.
My players surprised me by embracing XP-less level advancement when I suggested it. They like it because they feel rewarded for advancing the story, not just racking up bodies. I like it because it makes my life easier and we can stretch out or condense sections of the adventure to suit what we enjoy without worrying that we'll miss out on needed XP. There are good threads here on how to handle no-XP leveling in the STAP.
We also use a house rule where armor converts damage to subdual damage - if you have an armor bonus of 4 (e.g. chainmail or mage armor) and get hit for 8 points, you take 4 non-lethal and 4 regular. We quickly got used to the extra bookkeeping. The players like the extra survivability (they get KO'd as often, but no one has permanently died) and I like the extra security (if I accidentally overpower an encounter, they're more likely to get captured than TPK'd). I also like that many NPC villains also are subdued instead of killed, because it's fun to turn them over to the city watch & then have them continue to play a role in the campaign from prison!
I do not believe that the Advanced Eye of the Deep is as overpowered as it would first appear.
Keep in mind that the characters should be about 15th level when they get to the Crimson Fleet's lair near Scuttlecove, even with 6 characters. The good Fort-save characters, due to lots of buffing spells, had such a high bonus that the glare was at best a 50/50 failure, usually much, much lower.
That having been said, with 6 characters, combining a weak encounter with a strong one is what it seems to take to give them a run for the money. The other trick of course is when PCs have really, really high ACs - then you have to be less direct in the combat actions in order to threaten the PCs meaningfully. This also helps to speed things up a bit as opposed to 'RAW'. Lesser critters can certainly help act as speed bumps to protect the main targets for the first round or two, hopefully providing something more substantial in the way of opposition to the characters. Remember, for example, Bull Rush (especially Improved) requires NO attack roll - merely opposed ability score checks, as an example. Freedom of Movement wouldn't stop it - you're being knocked back/down, not prevented from moving.
A lone BBEG, pretty much regardless of how it is "RAW", is hamburger waiting to happen against six characters - let alone anything they have in the way of cohorts, summonable critters, illusions and similar add-ons.
Vanthus as written is a push over imo. The first time (assault on farshore) is far less important, presuming he is encountered along with a few of the other baddies at the same time to back him up. The second time (Divided's Ire) is where he really needs the 'redo' - I cannot recommend enough that he be explicitly retooled on a per-campaign basis to really, really give the PCs a run for their money. He's supposed to be a CR 20 - make him one, by hook or by crook.
My players surprised me by embracing XP-less level advancement when I suggested it. They like it because they feel rewarded for advancing the story, not just racking up bodies. I like it because it makes my life easier and we can stretch out or condense sections of the adventure to suit what we enjoy without worrying that we'll miss out on needed XP. There are good threads here on how to handle no-XP leveling in the STAP.Where are those threads? I tried to look them up, but all I found was some info at which point during some of the adventures are the PCs supposed to level up?
Well the first 8 adventures presume about two levels each and the last four just a single level each. Advance them roughly in the middle of each adventure and again at the end. The absolute exact moment of advancement is not that critical - after all one of the benefits of going XP less is to save on hassles. Just pick a point around the middle where it will work well with the story for them to have gone up a level.
Hm, that seems to me like the best option... I don't have to worry if adjusting the encounters would get them too much XP... I think I will do just that. Thanks once again. :)
As a side bonus if the game is becoming too easy you can just skip a levelling point. If you decide afterword that this has made things too hard you can fairly easily throw it back in.
True... How do I deal with players who want to craft something? I just give them lvls later or what?
My solution was to charge them 5 gp for every 1 xp in the item cost. That works out to crafting an item costing 70% of its market price instead of 50% + some XP.
I don't know what other DMs do.
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No, no, that's not what I meant. Current crafting system is ok, I just wanted to know how to deal with players who wanted to craft (and lose xp for it of course) when we're not calculating the experience, rather I just give them lvls at some point during the adventure.
To compensate for a crafter you could give them a special Negative Level to represent they've invested some of themselves into the crafting process. You could impose the Negative Level penalties for a few encounters or a single session. Any more than that and no one will want to Craft Items themselves.
I would probably leave off the the loss of spells and -1 to effective level though.
Each negative level gives a creature the following penalties: -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks; loss of 5 hit points; and -1 to effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities). In addition, a spellcaster loses one spell or spell slot from the highest spell level castable.
No, no, that's not what I meant. Current crafting system is ok, I just wanted to know how to deal with players who wanted to craft (and lose xp for it of course) when we're not calculating the experience, rather I just give them lvls at some point during the adventure.
My point is that I think losing xp for crafting a magic item is dumb, so I just added an additional monetary surcharge. That's how I dealt with it; it seems to work O.K.
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I'm just starting a new campaign using the 3.5 rules. Before that, my gamers and I used Skills&Powers. I've done a lot of thinking considering magic item creation, and I've come to this: I'll have two means to create an item. One - standard 3.5 rules, and the other - S&P rules. For those who are unfamiliar with S&P, the catch is that you need a lot of money, exotic components and processes to create magical item. That's more time consuming (both game time and real time) nad more complicated - but can be more fun.
I'm just starting a new campaign using the 3.5 rules. Before that, my gamers and I used Skills&Powers. I've done a lot of thinking considering magic item creation, and I've come to this: I'll have two means to create an item. One - standard 3.5 rules, and the other - S&P rules. For those who are unfamiliar with S&P, the catch is that you need a lot of money, exotic components and processes to create magical item. That's more time consuming (both game time and real time) nad more complicated - but can be more fun.
The latter method is a lot of fun - if your campaign can commit to it in game time. The trick you'll find later is that very asset: time is not exactly available in large quantities...
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My group just went up to a max of 7 players, min of 4. We're at Tamoachan. Here are some critters that have been challenging for them:
- Harliss Javell, and her sister Marilee (same stats) who I introduced as captain of the Manticore, another Crimson Fleet ship gone renegade trying to get Harliss out of trouble. The PCs respect her mighty BAB, but found grapple/bull rush to be her weakness (low Str).
- The flotsam ooze. Grapple & caught them unprepared.
- The will-o-the-wisp. High AC had them scared, invisibility let me combine this critter with other encounters (wall of fire, Sutolore) that needed spice.
- A roc that came out of the AD&D DMG random encounter tables in the mountains near Ft. Blackwell. Snatch + fly + mighty grappling.
In other combats, my group has dominated. I'm happy with that - I like my D&D turned up to 11 - and it's easy to add more stuff on the fly to keep encounters a credible threat. This is meant more as a guide to what things don't need help to be challenges for a big, late-3.5-optioned-up party (and might be a TPK if they're bumped up too much).
Some things the PCs cut through remarkably easily:
- Two CR 10 martial artist complex NPCs from the DMGII, standing in for the suspended-animation monks in the original Tamoachan. I gave these guys mage armor to bring their AC up to 22 and they still never landed a hit.
- A whole boatload of lemorians on Marilee Javell's ship, above, with CRs of 5-8 pre-template. It helps that my PCs have picked up on the demon vibe and armed themselves with lots of cold iron. They also had resist fire up, so my wands of fireball for the ship's sorcerors were effectively nerfed. A few PCs couldn't beat the lemorian's resistances but were effective grapplers/bull-rushers or used spells to aid the party & affect the melee indirectly.
- Sutolore, the varrangoin. Cold iron and resist fire again.
One thing I'm exploring is upping damage - like having the wall of fire trap do 8d6 damage. I'm finding that with a big party I can do my best to drop one of 'em.