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First of all, kudos to Mike, so far it has been a very fun adventure.
Regarding character advancement, I am all into the level-when-you-have-to camp, but there are no guidelines in the adventure as to what level should the characters be before each encounter.
Creative Director
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The PCs should be 4th level when they start the adventure, and before they hit the sea caves they should be 5th level. That said, the adventure itself is pretty open; the PCs can certainly attempt the encounters on Devil's Elbow in any order, but some WILL be pretty tough for 4th level characters. In fact, if the PCs are 6th level, they'll probably still have a good time in the sea caves...
but there are no guidelines in the adventure as to what level should the characters be before each encounter.
And this really needs to be rectified in future APs. I'm shocked it's not in SD, as the complaints were made as far back as RotRL.
Really, now - if a single adventure is large enough that it assumes multiple level increases during its course (as each book of an AP certainly does), then it really needs to include a note as to the expectations of the levels of the PCs at appropriate intervals.
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Creative Director
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but there are no guidelines in the adventure as to what level should the characters be before each encounter.And this really needs to be rectified in future APs. I'm shocked it's not in SD, as the complaints were made as far back as RotRL.
Really, now - if a single adventure is large enough that it assumes multiple level increases during its course (as each book of an AP certainly does), then it really needs to include a note as to the expectations of the levels of the PCs at appropriate intervals.
We've been tinkering with different methods on how to present this information; in some cases, we've included it as information at the end of the Adventure Synopsis, but starting with Pathfinder #20 it'll be in a specific sidebar at the start of each adventure, easy to spot.
The reason why we weren't including this information from the start was because of the assumption that, as long as GMs hand out XP to the PCs every session, they'll level up at approximately the right points. Also, the EL indications at the start of each adventure are meant as constant reminders to the GM as to when things start getting tougher.
That said, putting in an Advancement Track sidebar like I mention above is more clear, so starting with #20 we'll be doing that. I believe we also include the information in #19, but in the body of the text rather than in a sidebar.
That said, putting in an Advancement Track sidebar like I mention above is more clear, so starting with #20 we'll be doing that. I believe we also include the information in #19, but in the body of the text rather than in a sidebar.
Woo-hoo! Extremely good news. It's absolutely necessary, IMO, for writers of long adventures to let us know what their expectations regarding progression are in certain areas of the adventure. We DMs never know what our pesky players are going to do next...!