So, I'm starting COT with a party of six characters that will have already completed the classic 3.0 module The Sunless Citadel (converted for PF). By the time we get around to starting Bastards, I anticipate that the party will be close to level 3. I don't want to skip Bastards entirely, because it sets up the AP very well, but my goal here is to avoid having to scale the entire Adventure Path by having them start Sixfold Trial as close to level 3 as possible (and definitely to finish Sixfold Trial on par at level 5).
My plan, therefore, is to shorten Bastards and speed them through it, removing some of the encounters. Roughly, this is what I have in mind:
- The characters find themselves in Westcrown and are contacted by Janiven
- Part 1: The Westcrown Rebels, the secret meeting is interrupted by the teenaged messenger with the bad news that Arael has been taken (no hellknights interrupt, no sewer chase); Janiven is distraught and suggests lying low for a few days and then meeting at the safehouse to plan the next move
(Part 2 removed)
- Part 3: The Rebel Hideout, meeting the Children of Westcrown, planning the rescue of Arael
- Part 4: A Dramatic Rescue (possibly scaled up a bit to provide a challenge)
(Part 5 removed, Arael urges a strike on the bastards ASAP after he is rescued)
- Part 6: Temple of Bastards (again, possibly scaled up a bit)
-> Move on to The Sixfold Trial as normal
The idea is that by removing some of the earlier encounters (not to mention splitting the XP six ways, given the large party) they should remain pretty early in level 3 by the end of the adventure, and everything will be more or less synced up by the end of Sixfold Trial.
Any other suggestions? Is this crazy/impossible? In a way I wish I had just started with Council of Thieves off the bat, but I've got two new players and two relatively inexperienced players in the group and I wanted to start them off with a classic dungeon crawl to learn the mechanics and get a taste of the generic D&D style before throwing something more sophisticated at them.
I have to say, having gone through CoT as a player, not DM (though I've read all the AP's, now), I think it would be amazing to start the campaign at Level 3! The conversion would be fairly significant, and is entirely dependent on the amount of work you, as the DM, want to put into it. But, the only part of Bastards that I didn't really love, was the fact that you were up against the Hellknight's farm-team-scrub-practice-squad. And it was obvious that's what you were facing. Starting at a higher level could mitigate a lot of that.
If you're up to it, I would just up the encounters for everything, scale back the xp somewhat, and run them through the whole thing. If they finish at 4, or even 5, don't worry. So much of the early and mid parts of Sixfold Trial are non-combat (and AWESOME!) that with some fudging of story xp, you could easily finish with them at 6, which is about where they're supposed to be.
My plan, therefore, is to shorten Bastards and speed them through it, removing some of the encounters. Roughly, this is what I have in mind:
That should work pretty well. I found the first book to be pretty light on XP, so I actually ran Crypt of the Everflame between parts 4 and 5. I ran a few encounters in the sewers so they could tangle with some Hellknights-in-training, but didn't spend much time there. After the rescue, they did the Crypt as a side-quest as part of a PCs backstory, and were more than happy to leave town for awhile. Worked great, and XP was right by the time they were done.
I think you could get by with running the works if they are coming in shy of 3rd level. Dividing by 6 and keeping story awards small, they'll be mid-3rd level by the time they start the 2nd book. You'll want to bump the bosses at each level though to account for more, and more experienced, PCs.
Thanks for the suggestions. From what you're saying, it sounds like it's fine if they players are part of the way through level 3 at the beginning of the Sixfold Trial.
I suppose the other thing I could do is just say that they don't level up to 3 until the end of Bastards (which should roughly add up with what I outlined above). The only thing about that is it sort of sucks for the players not to advance for a whole adventure. The truncated version, though, should only take a couple of sessions, and I'm using the Hero Points optional rule, so those can function as story awards etc.