so i'm running haunting of harrowstone soon and due to a surprising amount of people wanting to play (and not working) i'm looking at a 6 or 7 player party, i was wondering what the general rule of thumb is for running a game that size.
how much do i ramp up encounters?
is it better to add templates and more class levels then more monsters?
what do i do with haunts as far as making them more difficult?.
this is the first group i've run for a party this big, most i've had was 5 (for kingmaker).
should be fun. i love what i've seen of carrion crown (only have books 1-4).
I'm currently running Carrion Crown with 6 PC's you can run as written using the fast xp track (this is what I'm doing, though I am lazy at the minute due to other commitments). As long as the party gains an extra 50% xp from encounters then you can do whatever suits the encounter type, from adding a few extra mooks or add some class levels to the big bad, the Advanced Template is very good at adding xp easily
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I've got 6 or 7 (depending on the week) players as well. I'm about 65% finished with HoH and for the most part I add 50% more foes per encounter (a little better than +1 CR) and up their hit points to maximum (unless it's incorporeal). Use the random encounter tables and Bestiary in the book to full effect! I added Alchemical Ooze swarms to the Infirmary (or the Guards Privies), Beheaded or Ectoplasmic Humans to any single monster encoutner or weak haunts (>CR 2) like the animated scythe or animated straight jacket.
I'm using Sean K Reynolds Alternative Level Advancement or The Step System. It works beautifully just give out steps when you feel they're appropriate and follow the baseline advancement suggestions in the sidebar on page pg 7 of Harrowstone.
--Vrocky Horror
I like the step system a lot as well
i do not care for the step system, everything else is great tho. i'd rather go with something i'm familiar with, nothing against the step system.
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Running CC with six players. I've adjusted some encounters to be more challenging but for most part I haven't altered too much. I'm currently running them one level behind the suggested level they should be at. Only reason I'm doing that is because of action economy. Having two more PCs adds to economy and can create a very unfair advantage to certain encounters.
Because I have a rather flexible group size (had about 7-10 for Harrowstone, and have slimmed down to a shocking 4-6 for Beast), I've been inserting side adventures and making liberal use of wandering monsters on the trip to Lepidstadt. We just finished the Kobold Quarterly #17 adventure,"The Black Goat," which works very nicely tucked into a layover in Tamrevena.