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OK... I'm running it.
I have 7 players. (No cleric. However the 7th player is making his char and I don't know what he will make yet.) I also have a NPC Dragon Shaman hanging the background, just to handle the party healing. (I know I can take out the shaman easily but I would like some healing in the party... and I do not like a bunch of wands/potions on all the chars.)
Party is: sorcerer, fighter, rogue, fighter, wizard, paladin, unknown, and NPC.
The encounter at the Old Fishery (almost) killed 1 PC (Giggles crit'd on the first hit (21HP damage), I fudg'd the roll to save the player - left with 2 HPs) and 1 spider on the barge almost took out the rogue. He failed 5 saves and lost 7 Str ending at 5 Str. One of the players (a wizard) stayed back with the orphans and really stayed out of the fight.
I want the party to level at a decent rate for the adventure. (I'm using the Fast chart in the Alpha rules.)
What would you suggest to increase the difficulty of the encounters?
TIA
You are fudging to save them already, and you want to make the encounters more difficult?
Heh.
There is no simple way to do this, just accept that the party is almost twice as large as a normal party, and adjust for the extra resources they will have available as needed.
For example if there are 3 thugs, make it 5 and increase all their HPs, or make it 6 and give them an extra buff.
When I run this I will have between 5 and 7 PCs total myself, though I have a pair that are undecided yet and we're still finishing up RotRLs, but I am going to be faced with a similar dilemma.
At this juncture I plan to recalculate NPC HPs up, and increase the amount of generic critters to try to maintain some kind of balance. I fully expect having to "fudge" in either direction until I get a sense of what works.
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Yeah, I know I saved that PC, but it was the first fight of the game and it was the first time he was swung at. I wouldn't have killed him no matter what the game was... that would have been lame.
I hadn't thought about increasing the HP's... increasing the number of monsters, yes. I will totally increase the HP's.
Honestly, I think some things you are just going to have to fudge, for example I totally plan to give Vreeg time enough before the PCs arrive to have activated his Robe of Bones a couple of times, and I'm going to give most NPCs full buffs in their encounters against the PCs as though they knew they were about to fight them.
Otherwise I just think it'll be a lot of anti-climactic battles.
At the same time I plan to do exactly what you did for the most part. If I get some lucky roll in combat that would kill a PC I'd simply "knock them out".
I try to minimize the impact of die rolls as much as possible, truth be told.
My advice with large parties (we usually have 6-7) is to increase the number of lower-powered opponents, not the power of the bosses--that leads to too many PC deaths. For example, if a boss is usually alone, give him 2-3 fairly weak henchmen who can run interference for him. If he already has a couple, give him 1-2 more. The party you describe is fighter-heavy enough that this should work well. (A caster-heavy party like our RotRL group just casts spells at the boss, ignoring the henchmen, and you need a different strategy.)
Also, be cautious in scaling Paizo APs, because most of them seem to contain a couple of *extremely* tough encounters, and those should be left alone, not made more difficult! (We hit the one in RotRL with a party of 5 plus two high-level NPC allies plus an unusually favorable tactical situation, and the PCs barely survived.)
Mary