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I will be starting LoF shortly for my friends using the PF rules. It's probably mentioned somewhere around here, but can anyone tell me which XP column I should use that will best line up with intended character advancement in this one?
I'm guessing it is the medium progression, but wanted to check in with the community.
Thanks!
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I will be starting LoF shortly for my friends using the PF rules. It's probably mentioned somewhere around here, but can anyone tell me which XP column I should use that will best line up with intended character advancement in this one?
I'm guessing it is the medium progression, but wanted to check in with the community.
Thanks!
I think it's been said that the fast progression chart is the equivalent of the 3.5 one.
I'm currently running Howl of the Carrion King using the fast progression and my PC's level advancement has followed closely the suggested advancement in the module. They almost reached the end and by that time, they should have about half the XP to reach level 6. That is after doing the Set-Piece in the module as well as the Fortress of Ghouls Set Piece posted on this forum. However, I did'nt do much random encounters.
So I guess if your planning on making the PCs explore the region quite a bit and making them fight several more encounters that are planned in the module you could choose the medium progression, but if not, the fast progression works just fine.
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I am using the Fast XP chart and it is generally following along with the stated levels in the modules. Right now we are in the middle of House of the Beast and they just made 6th level and are about to descend to the H level.
Here are the level recommendations in the books:
Level 2 near end of Part Two
Level 4 ready to enter battle market
Level 5 ready to enter crypt under church
05 - 06 House of the Beast
Level 5 at start
Level 6 lower dungeon levels and before Carrion King
07 - 08 The Jackal's Price
Level 7 at start
Level 8 By the time the PCs are on the trail of Father Jackal and their ally Rayhan has been abducted, they should be 8th level
09 - 10 The End of Eternity
Level 9 at start
Level 10 By the time the PCs decide to seek out Andrathi’s fate or are ready to move against the shaitan warlord Obherak, they should be 10th level.
11 - 12 The Impossible Eye
Level 11 at start
Level 12 The encounters on the third level of the palace and above are generally more difcult, so PCs should be at least 12th level before they begin fghting fre giants and the Keepers of the Haunted Palace
13 - 14 The Final Wish
Level 13 at start
Level 14 Davashuum in the Brazen Tower
-- david
Papa.DRB
Would you need to change from fast progression to medium if you included the campaign set pieces from the backs of the modules? Also, would this need to be modified to medium or vice versa if you had a larger party, say 6 PCs or more?
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Currently I'm using the medium advancement table, but my PCs have been doing a bunch of stuff outside the core LoF storyline -- it's more of a sandbox campaign (with sand!).
I suspect the fast advancement table may be appropriate if the characters are going to strictly adhere to the adventure path without deviation.
I'm preparing to run LoF using Pathfinder, and as part of my conversion work I went through and checked to see how well advancement would line up for 5 players. I took a "clean sweep" approach just to keep things simple -- just adding up all possible XP (story rewards and full XP for all encounters, not including any random encounters, but including all set pieces and "Fortress of the Ghouls").
I took this approach because I just wanted a baseline and figured it's always easier to add random encounters than to cut anything.
By my math, if the 5-PC party kicks over every barrel and sucks up every available XP, the party would spend the middle third of the Adventure Path about a level ahead of the curve, with this disparity growing most noticeable around "The Jackal's Price."
However, starting with "The End of Eternity" the XP intake slows down a bit. By the start of "The Impossible Eye," the recommended levels have caught up with the PCs and they stay in line right through the end of the AP.
I'm also noticing an XP progression problem after converting to Pathfinder rules.
Namely, fast progression is necessary in Howl of the Carrion King so that the PCs advance from 1st to 5th level on schedule.
In total, there's around 40,000-50,000 XP in Howl of the Carrion King, and another 9000 in The Refuge of Nethys.
However, if you continue using fast progression in House of the Beast, the PCs will be 8th level well before the start of The Jackal's Price...
However, it is unlikely that any given party will actually encounter every encounter in House of the Beast. As the adventure points out, once the Carrion King is dead, the other gnolls will start fighting amongst themselves and mostly kill themselves off, eliminating many encounters from the adventure. There's no way to predict how quickly a particular group of PCs will kill the Carrion King, and therefore no way to predict how many encounters they will miss as a result.
I'm not sure what, if anything, to do about this issue. I'm not sure I care that my PCs might be a level ahead of the expected progression going into The Jackal's Price. Do you all think it would "break" anything?
I've only just started adding up the XP in The Jackal's Price so I don't know if the disparity will continue. I don't want to switch my party to the medium progression only to have to switch back later. Ideas?
I've only just started adding up the XP in The Jackal's Price so I don't know if the disparity will continue. I don't want to switch my party to the medium progression only to have to switch back later. Ideas?
After months of prep time I'm finally starting PF Legacy of Fire next week, and the solution I've settled on (dealing with a party of 5 PCs) is to use Medium advancement. This ends up falling somewhat short of the targets, but I can fill the gap with story awards and, more importantly, random/side encounters.
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I've only just started adding up the XP in The Jackal's Price so I don't know if the disparity will continue. I don't want to switch my party to the medium progression only to have to switch back later. Ideas?After months of prep time I'm finally starting PF Legacy of Fire next week, and the solution I've settled on (dealing with a party of 5 PCs) is to use Medium advancement. This ends up falling somewhat short of the targets, but I can fill the gap with story awards and, more importantly, random/side encounters.
You might want to reconsider that, for example at lvl 15 the difference is around 200k XP - that's quite a lot !
Also, you can go with the medium chart and then award XP's for good roleplaying. My group has made me realize that it is not just the "kill count" that matters. If I had fun and the group did some interesting things, give them XP. I found my CoT group a little behind level at one point and after a night of nearly all roleplaying (one very small combat), awarded them enough XP to level up.
They appreciated that roleplaying and ingenuity was rewarded and I had a simple way to "fix" my level issue.
That sort of the problem, ultimately. If you go with Fast advancement, then the PCs spend the middle third of the AP well above the planned encounter levels (and that's before you roll even once on a random encounter table). Choose Medium advancement, and you fall far behind.
I'll probably crunch the numbers one more time before I commit, but I think I'm siding with Medium just because I find it easier/more fun to add more encounters than to try to prune anything back. (Speaking of which, I've realized I need to carefully adjust the treasure output too; Howl of the Carrion King hands out absolute buckets of loot.)
I've been using the Medium advancement for my PC's. I tend to make up the levels by giving "completion rewards." Every time they complete a main section: clearing the monestary, the battle market, etc, I give them some XP as a bonus. This has seemed to work just fine, at least, so far.
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My group has been using the Fast XP chart too and is spot on. They hit 13th level a bit before the end of the 5th book, but that would be because there are five players. We don't do every set piece also, skipped 2, 4, and 5, but the encounters seem just as challenging so far.
I recommend the Fast XP chart for any of the first four APs being done in Pathfinder.
The paizo folks have stated that pre PFRPG APs run off of the fast track, with it being the closest to 3.5 leveling system
The PFRPG are all on the medium track.
However after you've been running the APs for awhile you just start to ignore XP altogether. With the possible exception of Kingmaker, there's really no need to track XP. Just look at what level the book wants them to be at and say that the party "levels up at the speed of plot."
I mean, really, let's say the party skips a whole mess of encounters through clever roleplay or awesome planning. They would be entitled to the XP of those encounters as if defeated, right? Well, why not just skip out the middleman and have them level up at the appropriate checkpoints?
We tried doing the XP thing for awhile, but eventually we realized it was just a waste of bookkeeping time. I realize this might be blasphemy to some groups (and it was to ours at first too) but at least consider it.
It's also nice to be able to give something a little extra every now and again when a player does something amazing or awesome.
That's why action points were invented :-)
This is why I don't use XP. I award levels at appropriate points in the story.
This is why I don't use XP. I award levels at appropriate points in the story.
To quote Barbosa from POC. "Their more like Guidelines." I have in the past just free-form awarded xp based more on How vs. What. Beat the problem with something pedestrian.. get regular xp suitable for the level. Think up something workable but outside the box and make me scramble and end up with some memorable... extra points. Heck try something foolish but entertain me and everyone else... why not. In the end its all for fun, if you have fun get full credit because THAT is the point.
That said I'll probably use the fast progression, and keep the flow of xp to get them where they need to be, or I need them to be. I can edit the encounters to meet the "waypoints".