...to play a Pathfinder adventure (specifically Second Darkness, Children of the Void?)
I ask because our group is converting to Pathfinder at 4th level in our current campaign. The module says it is for 4th level characters; should I assume it's for 4 of them?...
Base assumption is 4 players, yes. Good luck!
Yes, but be aware that Second Darkness is the second installment of a continuing series, and may require a lot of extra setup compared to something from the Modules line (which are more episodic in nature).
Thanks for all the input! I've looked over CotV and I have some hooks that should make it work.
Coming from someone who has GM'd pre-written material for both less and more players than the recommended amount (and sometimes with greater point buys or using rolled stats), my advice is to do a lot of planning and to play a lot of stuff by ear, because you want to have an idea of how hard things are going to become, but you never want to overwhelm/underwhelm your party simply because you have enough friends wanting in on the action.
Depending on your experience, you might get to where you can modify an encounter in the planning stage to suit your party, but that can be tricky, and it's better to just be willing to alter a few numbers during a fight in order to provide a more interesting game.
It's always good to plan for reserve NPCs if your opposition proves anti-climactic!
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I am running it with 6 now on PbP using 25 point buy. I just run the encounters as-is and give all the monsters max hit points for their level, except for the last area because of the party make up. The last area is kind of rough. The currenty party I have running is Warlord (Tome of Secrets], Monk/wererat (currently infected by a wererat, and progressing in the wererat class from Kobold Quarterly issue), Ranger/Wizard, Cleric/Sorcerer, Alchemist, Cleric.
Also note that this module has a very large lack of experience to gain. This has been noted by the designers. You will need arbitrary level check points or add some encounters or obsticles to overcome. They have to be at 6th for the final area. They should be 7th after the last battle, even though the module says it takes 4th level characters to 6th. The 3rd book assumes a party of 7th level.
The last part I did not modify for party size due to the mechanical differences between 3.5 clerics and PF clerics. The negative channeling will have a huge impact on the current party I have running. That area may wreck them
Thanks for all the advice! My mext question regards sourcebooks. I noticed the first few monsters mentioned use the "MM" notation. Is this actually the 3.5 Monster Manual or the Pathfinder Beastiary?...
I'm fairly certain Second Darkness was released before the official CRB for Pathfinder was released (so far as I know, Council of Thieves was the first AP released under the finalized CRB), so MM most likely refers to 3.5 Monster Manual rather than the PF Bestiary.
A majority of the monsters in the MM are in the Bestiary - part of your pre-game planning should be writing down the page numbers of the enemies that are in the Bestiary. Careful, though, because some things have changed names (Like.. I believe the MM has Chain Devil, listed under D, and the Bestiary just uses the Kyton name under K).
You'll want to use the Bestiary over the MM in most cases, unless there has been a substantial change in CR.
Graet! I'll pick up the Bestiary then!
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d20pfsrfd.com has a great compilation of conversions for the 3.5 adventure paths (Runelords, Crimson Throne, Second Darkness). Very handy since I am running all three of those on PbP at the same time. Most of the unique named creatures are there. Watch the unique creatures with class levels. Some are on a higher power level than they were in 3.5