I've been running CotCT for a few months, and my group of 4 PCs, having finished everything else in the adventure, is about to storm the hospice, but they've only just made 5th level. Escape from Old Korvosa says it's an adventure for 8th level characters... so is my group falling behind?
They've hit every encounter in the first two adventures, and even had a little more, and they'll hit sixth by the end of Seven Days, so what am I missing?
Have other groups ran into this problem?
I've been running CotCT for a few months, and my group of 4 PCs, having finished everything else in the adventure, is about to storm the hospice, but they've only just made 5th level. Escape from Old Korvosa says it's an adventure for 8th level characters... so is my group falling behind?
They've hit every encounter in the first two adventures, and even had a little more, and they'll hit sixth by the end of Seven Days, so what am I missing?
Have other groups ran into this problem?
I'd have to ask what XP method you are using and how many players you are dividing the xp with.
My group started under 3.5, and partway through Edge of Anarchy we switched to Pathfinder Fast Path ... under both of those methods, my party ended with a bit over 8000xp, well into 4th level.
Depending on how much they accomplish in Seven Days, and if you add any of the extras that are suggested, they should be 7th level at least before storming the Hospice.
I'm having Rolth go after my group with zombie derro and then Cabbagehead rebuilt as a carrion golem), doing both of the add ons (Burn Up the Dead and Merciless Way Massacre) and added a few monsters to the trip through the sewers for them to play with, so that if they accomplish everything, they'll be 6th before they face the rats, and 7th before they enter the Hospice. After they finish there, if it doesn't finish them, they'll be 8th level and pretty happy kids (if I did all my math right).
I must have missed some xp that I didn't include at some point. I'm going to go back through the first two modules and see if I can find out what I missed.
I always give out xp at the end of a session (unless they're close to leveling up at the begining of the game), and sometimes we break the game late... it's possible I didn't award a session or two's worth of xp.
That's what it seems like to me right now.
I must have missed some xp that I didn't include at some point. I'm going to go back through the first two modules and see if I can find out what I missed.
I always give out xp at the end of a session (unless they're close to leveling up at the begining of the game), and sometimes we break the game late... it's possible I didn't award a session or two's worth of xp.
That's what it seems like to me right now.
For a four player party, fast XP track, here's what I had as the XP breakdown per player (If you'd like a by mob, lemme know <G>):
1008.75 = From the Old Fishery
1300.00 = All the World's Meat
0750.00 = City Gone Mad and first Visit to Eel's End
1800.00 = Return to Eel's End
3500.00 = Dead Warrens
8358.75 = Total per player at end of CT1
My group did the Knivesies and getting the Letters on the first visit to Eel's End, but really disliked Devargo, so plotted a return to get Majenko free, no matter what :)
Haven't run into this problem, but I have a "fix" for you. Grab the Pathfinder Module Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale (W1). It takes place before CotCT, BUT you can replace the role of the King with the Queen and it'll work just fine to give your PCs an XP boost.
This is what I'm doing. We've had one session already, and it's going okay. I've just explained that nobody answer Sir Gyrad's call for adventurers the previous year, and so some of the events took place without anyone responding to them. You could even run exactly it as written, if you like. You'll just need to substitute Queen Ileosa for King Eodred II in the bits referring to the current monarch, and the king can still be the one who sent the knight out to the vale in the first place.
The scenario has some issues, but I'm working through them. I started another thread about adding the scenario to the AP, and I'd be happy to bounce ideas off anyone who wants to comment.
There's a lot of XP to be had in the hospital and beneath it. But I was aware of my PCs falling behind (what with there being five of them) and sent them on a little side-trek under the Gray district. I was inspired by the mention in a side-bar of mass graves breaking through to a warren of ghouls. In my version, a guardsman's funeral was underway, and several guards had been observed paralyzed and dragged alive into the tunnels.
My ghoul warren was a long-forgotten barrow for a Sun clan Shoanti warrior. Although his body was lost, the cremains of his faithful wife, hunting hounds and his magical spear were all to be found... as were some caryatid columns, ghost brute dogs, summon nature's ally traps and ghouls a plenty. The final encounter involved an entomber (from Libris Mortis) as the ghoul's Idiot King--the entomber could use its burrow speed and ability to exhume corpses with a touch to get the ghouls choice treats much more easily, so they humored its mad whims and gave it treasure.
There's a lot of XP to be had in the hospital and beneath it. But I was aware of my PCs falling behind (what with there being five of them) and sent them on a little side-trek under the Gray district. I was inspired by the mention in a side-bar of mass graves breaking through to a warren of ghouls. In my version, a guardsman's funeral was underway, and several guards had been observed paralyzed and dragged alive into the tunnels.
My ghoul warren was a long-forgotten barrow for a Sun clan Shoanti warrior. Although his body was lost, the cremains of his faithful wife, hunting hounds and his magical spear were all to be found... as were some caryatid columns, ghost brute dogs, summon nature's ally traps and ghouls a plenty. The final encounter involved an entomber (from Libris Mortis) as the ghoul's Idiot King--the entomber could use its burrow speed and ability to exhume corpses with a touch to get the ghouls choice treats much more easily, so they humored its mad whims and gave it treasure.
Oooh, you sir, are evil ::bows:: Me likee ::laughing:: I'm just throwing three ghasts and seven ghouls at my party, as they get to play a nasty game of tag in the graveyard :)
My ghoul warren was a long-forgotten barrow for a Sun clan Shoanti warrior. Although his body was lost, the cremains of his faithful wife, hunting hounds and his magical spear were all to be found... as were some caryatid columns, ghost brute dogs, summon nature's ally traps and ghouls a plenty. The final encounter involved an entomber (from Libris Mortis) as the ghoul's Idiot King--the entomber could use its burrow speed and ability to exhume corpses with a touch to get the ghouls choice treats much more easily, so they humored its mad whims and gave it treasure.
Nice! You don't have that written out in more detail, do you? I'd love to add it into my game.
Back to the original topic, I have had 6 players (now 5), and they made it to mid-way through 6th level by the end of Seven Days. One player dropped out, so there are now 5. Despite that, they are "Pathfinder" characters, so I upped the number of enemies in the first encounter of Escape from Old Korvosa by 50%, and they still had a fairly decent time with the encounter. They took some serious damage, but they prevailed. One or two more encounters, and they should hit 7th level. Having extra players, I'll probably keep them about 1 level behind the curve through most of the rest of the AP (with 5 players) and 1.5 levels behind the curve (with 6 players, when the other guy comes back from "paternity leave"). They are "Pathfinder" characters, so they're a little tougher than the usual, plus, I tend to give out too much magic...
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I fear I'm running into a similar problem, given that my group's a bunch of suspicious bastards, thus missing all the bonus XP from orphan-saving, and managed to avoid outright confrontation with Barsavi and the Ettercap, AND failed to nab Trinia in the Shingles race. I'm supplementing with ad-hoc sidequests from stuff in the Guide to Korvosa. Right now, they're investigating the death's surrounding Pestico's Toyshop, and should net two CR 2 murder-dolls (from the back of the first module) out of it. That, plus a couple of the random encounters in the back should bring my group up to speed.
I follow the 3.5 XP awards, but in my case, the problem is that my party is a group of 5 PC and the story is written for a 4 PC.
That to Mr Jacobs, I added an extra adventure for the PC who could be present two weeks ago(before meeting the Arkona), in order to give them more XP in a story based on the "elimination" of halflings working on the old dock by the Grey Maiden, cause the queen doesn't appreciate poor people (that reminded them the pledge and so on).
And, in fact, knowing that you are the GM, you can give them as much as XP as you wish ;-D
I follow the 3.5 XP awards, but in my case, the problem is that my party is a group of 5 PC and the story is written for a 4 PC.
That to Mr Jacobs, I added an extra adventure for the PC who could be present two weeks ago(before meeting the Arkona), in order to give them more XP in a story based on the "elimination" of halflings working on the old dock by the Grey Maiden, cause the queen doesn't appreciate poor people (that reminded them the pledge and so on).
And, in fact, knowing that you are the GM, you can give them as much as XP as you wish ;-D
Because I wanted to have my players level up at certain points in Seven Days, I wrote down all the possible xp gains, divvied them up by the players, and summed it up to see where they were at given points. Then I went in and placed my additional encounters, as well as tweaking it out for the possible addition of a fifth character.
I've found this to be a very useful little sheet (or rather three page excel file ::laughing::) for keeping track of where they are and where I want 'em to be. This way, if they bypass some part, or don't manage to take down, overcome all the possibles, I can either add some more things for them to fight, and have made notes of where to fit them best, or I can tweak later encounters to a lower level. I can also judge better where they might need a bit of a boost xp-wise if they've been doing their roleplaying as awesomely as normal, and give those rewards as well :)
I totally plan to plot out all the future adventures as well, so I know what's up and can be proactive on keeping their XP on track.
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I didn't have this severe a problem as my group of 5 is 7th leaving Days but if the ghoul warrens and alley massacre aren't enough how about the reward for finding the cure. my group is on fast track , if you're using other scales that may be the prob. as has been stated by others. you can always throw an otyough encounter or two at them (my bunch still shudders every time.... HEH HEH), in toher news you could add 1 or 2 docs to the mix as well as clerics to up the CR's.