Crypt of the Everflame Adjustment Question

[Silent Saturn]

Next week I'll be GMing for the very first time, and I've chosen CotE as my debut. My group has three players. Here's my problem-- since one of them lives in constant fear of the RNG, I suggested using the "Heroic" stat rolling procedure suggested in the Core book (2d6+6). Since that would make above-average characters, I also suggested that as a trade-off, they had to multiclass. My group is convinced multiclassing makes you ineffective at two things instead of good at one, but I disagree-- I just think they're doing it wrong. But in order to enforce that requirement, I'll likely have to let them start at lv2, with one level of each of their two classes.

So now, instead of four lv1's, I'll have three multiclassed lv2's with Heroic stats. How should I adjust the CR to compensate? I have no qualms against thumbing through the Bestiary to find some new challenges-- one of my group outright admitted that he's already read CotE and I'd like to surprise him if possible-- but what CR is too high?

Spoiler:

For the first combat encounter, with the illusionary orcs, my first thought was to simply add more orcs, and switch their greataxes for orc double axes, so they'd each attack twice and the PC's would get double the Will saves. I'd hope that encounter would give me a feel for how to adjust the rest of the encounter, but I'm not confident in that strategy's effectiveness.

Any suggestions? I'll take whatever I can get.

[Steel_Wind]

While this does not respond to your question directly, I think it addresses the principal issue that you will face in this module and anything which follows it.

In short, I urge you to reconsider your decision on multi-classing and increasing the level of the party. It may work in this module (it may not too, I have not tried it) but it creates questions and issues that you don't need to face. In my business (the law), we refer to these strategic choices as needlessly setting up ducks for the purpose of knocking them down. By doing so, you then inherently create the possibility of failure, whereas other competing choices available to you avoid adding the possibility of failure you are now introducing.

Instead, I think that a NPC of "unusual loyalty" to the players is a better choice. You can play this as a "GM PC" if you like, or more often, simply as a NPC that one or more of your players can control each round in combat, as needed. Make this NPC the brother or sister of one of the PCs so the reason they are there (and so steadfastly loyal) is well explained and grounded in the campaign. Give your relative NPC some personality quirks and develop the persona of the NPC over time.

Then, you simply start all PCs at first level. No enforced multi-classing, no extra hit points and BAB introduced into the module, no experience point issues which crop up by dividing XP awards by three instead of four PCs. You can also have the relative NPC be whatever class the party is lacking (typically a cleric, but maybe not) so that the party is well-rounded.

This choice, to me, is a far better bet in both the short run -- and particularly in the long run.

You are buying yourself a whole lot of trouble, needlessly, imo. Let them keep their heroic stats at level one and just add the relative NPC to the mix and run your module. You and your players will be happier that way.

[Space Titanium]

If you want to buff up your players for the adventure, you could instead let them a level of an NPC class. It would help represent their careers before they became adventurers while giving them a bit of a boost but not as large of one as a base class (plus they wouldn't have to split their attentions if they don't want to).

Now, if your players are so afraid of going down, why not just leave the encounters as they are? Maybe they lack the lethality they once did, but some groups like to feel like big fish. Doubling the damage each round, though, is not the best idea for boosting the difficulty.

[Laithoron]

I ran this module just last month when I reassembled a local group again so as to show a new player the ropes.

This is probably the first and ONLY time I've every actually started everyone at 1st level and used a 15-point buy. I was surprised how much easier it was to GM than my PbP which has 40-pt buy Gestalts.

Even with one of the players being completely new to the game and this being the first Pathfinder experience for two existing 3.5 players, I still had to make the final fight a bit tougher. I think that Steel Wind's advice really would be for the best. Send along a somewhat tougher NPC if you must, but try to resist setting a power creep precedent.