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I wanted to post on this earlier but with starting a new job I haven't had the time to post here yet.
So I have a group of 7 for this group, that is broken down into the following:
Half-Orc Barbarian
Elf Rogue (plans to multi-class as ranger)
Human Fighter (plans to Multi-Class as Rogue)
Human Bard
Aasimar Cleric
Human Paladin
Human Druid
Note: this group is aware and OK with not having an arcane caster.
I decided to give the rest of the group a floating +2 to offset the advantage the Aasimar has right off the bat instead of nerfing him.
I should also note that this will be my first Pathfinder game, and the same goes for all my players. Everyone leans more towards Role-playing than combat in their style of play, so I thought this setting would be the best fit for them. I plan on developing my own content to add to this campaign as well as adding to the existing content in the AP.
Does anyone have any advice regarding this AP? I plan on linking one of the Children of Westcrown to each member of the party to give them a vested interest in their plans and a reason for Janiven to seek them out. I know that's a lot of work for footnote NPC's with such a large group, but I plan on whittling them down over the course of this adventure, either by arrested or worse by the Hellknights or by some other means of making them fade into obscurity. I'll keep one or two around maybe as contacts if I feel it's worth it or if the party keeps a strong interest in one of them, but I will mainly use them for transitioning the party into the storyline of the AP.
I'd keep the NPCs in the game. They are great resources for the party. One is black smith which I allowed my players to get cheap weapons and armor as long as they don't abuse the relationship. The woman who's family owns a jewelry shop make it easy to sell jewelry found in the adventure. My rogue has taken a liking to the gnome pimp/bartender and I use her a great source of information regarding rumors and such.
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1st tip: lose the story awards as written. there's too much xp in there for a 4 person party (divided by 7, that may be ok, but haven't done the math).
i gave up the whole "xp" thing for this AP, anyways. they level when I say they level, according to the AP write ups. in exchange, I am allowing nearly free and unlimited retraining, and access to almost all the magic items. being crafter heavy, that would have happened, anyways. our Cleric swapped into Oracle already, and i expect some others to make small changes later on.
take your time with the Children of Westcrown. They are great subjects for RP and good fodder for evil DM tricks. Our group gravitated to Yakipulio, with the Tian girl fixating on the bard, and all the martial types falling in with Job the Paladin's training regimen. the books recommend you allow for the old temple to remain safe, and i agree. with the curfew and whatnot, it's good for a low level party to rest comfortably and safely.
other than that, not much I can help you with. Power Attack on an 18 str paladin is disgusting, Color Spray is "I win" at 1st level, and expect lots of misses in the sewers.
We didn't do a full reading of the Sixfold Trials, kind of skipping through the lines and doing the combat stuff. If you don't have the flip mat for the opera house, consider getting one; pulling that out and having it match the map in the book exactly was spectacular.
if you're interested, a few Campaign Journals are up for CoT, as far as What Lies in Dust, if i'm not mistaken. Turin the Mad has quite a few nice statblocks in his posts, worth taking a look if you are planning on adding critters or bosses to your game.
-t
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1st tip: lose the story awards as written. there's too much xp in there for a 4 person party (divided by 7, that may be ok, but haven't done the math).
I've found the entirely opposite to be true. The sewers, which are fun, are already painfully long (the program that can auto-generate sewers for you places the sewers at about an average of 150 rolls long), and even though I've been granting the party the story XP, they've already been struggling to keep up with the expected XP progression.
I don't have any problem with dropping XP altogether though, something I've considered and dropped already since the group I'm running with is the kind that asks "did we go up a level?" at the end of every session.
I decided to give the rest of the group a floating +2 to offset the advantage the Aasimar has right off the bat instead of nerfing him.
It's a little late to do anything about this now, but I would have suggested handling the Assamir using the suggestions for handling Tiefling PCs. Personally, I would have either prohibited a favored class (so the penalty of no +1 HP or Skill Point), or required them to take an Assamir feat (which would have functioned like the Tiefling feat).
Why did you give the group a floating +2? The advantage gained by being an Assamir/Tiefling isn't nearly what it used to be. Now under Pathfinder everybody is given a net +2 bonus (which used to be one of the selling features of those two races). You're only offsetting their special ability and 5 points of resistance (which isn't nearly as offsetting as an additional +2 bonus to all other characters). I think you may have overcompensated there.
Does anyone have any advice regarding this AP? I plan on linking one of the Children of Westcrown to each member of the party to give them a vested interest in their plans and a reason for Janiven to seek them out. I know that's a lot of work for footnote NPC's with such a large group, but I plan on whittling them down over the course of this adventure, either by arrested or worse by the Hellknights or by some other means of making them fade into obscurity. I'll keep one or two around maybe as contacts if I feel it's worth it or if the party keeps a strong interest in one of them, but I will mainly use them for transitioning the party into the storyline of the AP.
Again it's probably too late, but the best idea I've heard to-date is (was it Turin?) the suggestion that one of the NPCs (not Janiven) recruit each of the PCs. It offers the opportunity to get a little more vested in them right away (and provides them a little more character). I will say that in my game sessions the group has gravitated to only two or three of the NPCs and one person even made the comment (dude, we need a spreadheet to remember who all these people are). I personally think there are too many NPCs, so focusing on a smaller group is absolutely a good idea.
If I recall, James specifically stated the NPCs are not needed for later modules, so do with them what you will!
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Right before the party reaches the exit in the sewers I threw in a hazard, a 40 foot deep crevasse filled with 10 feet of water at the bottom, and the bridge that crossed it had been cut on their side. They had to pull the bridge up with rope and grappling hooks, and after three of the seven fell into the water below trying to pull the bridge up, the four up top were put to sleep by some brown mold that has grown on the middle of the bridge.
In short, they nearly got killed by a bridge, and so I stand by my floating +2. After a few hours Morosino and Janiven came down and pulled them out with the rest of the Children of Westcrown and that was it for the session.
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Right before the party reaches the exit in the sewers I threw in a hazard, a 40 foot deep crevasse filled with 10 feet of water at the bottom, and the bridge that crossed it had been cut on their side. They had to pull the bridge up with rope and grappling hooks, and after three of the seven fell into the water below trying to pull the bridge up, the four up top were put to sleep by some brown mold that has grown on the middle of the bridge.
In short, they nearly got killed by a bridge, and so I stand by my floating +2. After a few hours Morosino and Janiven came down and pulled them out with the rest of the Children of Westcrown and that was it for the session.
Nifty hazard!
Sean, the writer of part 1 said the XP in sewers was screwed up. So I ran that part with the fast xp progression and doing the rest medium.
I added up all the possible XP as written in the book, story awards and all, and at the end of 'Bastards', a party of 4 will be exactly where they're supposed to be with a reasonably healthy margin. A party of 5 will be of the right level too, just with a somewhat narrow margin. The XP awards as presented I think will cause a party of 6 to lag a little bit.