Which advancement tract is this module built around? My group defaults to medium but I wanted to make sure.
Can anyone let me know?
Creative Director
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Modules generally don't assume any advancement track.
The only things we assume any advancement track at all is for serial adventures, like Adventure Paths or Modules intended to be run as a series... which most modules do not assume. Since most modules don't assume that you HAVE to level up at all during or after the adventure, you can run them at any track and be fine.
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Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death are meant to be run as a series, though :)
I found that for 4 or 5 characters (since the XP awards are identical on the chart), the Medium progression gets then to 2nd level at about the end of the first floor of the Crypt. They don't quite reach 3rd level by the end, but a random encounter or two on the way to the next adventure (or even on the way back to Kassen after the Crypt) can fix that.
My players took a different path than the one outlined in Masks of the Living God.. I would recommend that your PCs reach 4th level before taking on the final bosses. Again, some random encounters or a mini-adventure (I made a haunted house mini-adventure in Tamran, for example) can bridge the gap to 5th level at the end of Masks.
City of Golden Death recommends that the PCs be 5th level pretty close to the start, and to use random encounters as needed to reach that point.
For parties of 6 characters, the Fast progression should have them reaching the next level at around the same point.
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Modules generally don't assume any advancement track.
The only things we assume any advancement track at all is for serial adventures, like Adventure Paths or Modules intended to be run as a series... which most modules do not assume. Since most modules don't assume that you HAVE to level up at all during or after the adventure, you can run them at any track and be fine.
Paizo puts out a lot of product and this one was written by Jason Bulmahn a long time ago, whilst James Jacobs was busy concentrating on the Council of Thieves AP and getting ready for Kingmaker. It's not surprising he may not recall the particular details of CotE's XP point design.
While "no default XP progression is assumed" may be generally true of the designs of many Pathfinder modules, it is most certainly NOT true when it comes to Crypt of the Everflame.
Crypt of the Everflame has level advancement from 1st to 2nd level built carefully into its design, which should happen a room or two before the party descends to the second level, depending on the path chosen by the players to progress through the first level of the dungeon. This leveling event inherently assumes medium XP point progression.
If a typical party of 4 (or 5) x 1st level characters tries to play CotE using slow advancement, they are likely to experience a TPK, as the second level of the dungeon is too lethal for a typical party of 1st level characters to survive with starting equipment and ordinary luck.
And yes, the XP point breakdown in the Price of Immortality Trilogy was something we dissected at great length on Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast, the link to which is noted above.