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Alright, we've played through shackled city and Age of worms both now, and in each of those games we've run with a five man party. We are playing savage tide next, and We have six players that want to get involved. Now, five seems to be about the magic number for these older converted 3.5 APs, what do you think? So far the party composition is...
-Hellknight Signifier Wizard (we converted the organization to be in greyhawk, and he's kinda gishy)
-Hellknight fighter (wizard's bodyguard, focusing in aid another and intimidate stuff)
-Dwarven rogue/fighter (power attacker)
-Dwarven Forgemaster (The cleric archetype)
-Human samurai (standard two-handed katana type)
our friend wants to play a sorcerer, and be the party's face. Do you think we should allow it? What we want to avoid is the GM having to scale up encounters, and also avoid the fights being too easy because of lots of people.
Well like all the AP it is writen for 4 PCs. All the adventures have advice of scaling the adventure for higher levels, so that could be useful. But honestly without amendments I think your party will be too strong.I am running it for 4 reasonable (but not completely optimised) PCs. They have not lost anyone and are rarely on negitive hps. So far half way through ToD.
Of course it depends on the build and DM style.
If you think 6 players is a concern, either add an extra 1-2 of the 'batch' encounters, or drop the augmented simple template on things you want to be harder. Keep in mind the indoor/underground areas will make 6 people a bit problematic to bring everything they have to bear due to 5' hallways and small rooms in places.
If you are using PC's with more then a 15 point buy (or higher equivalent in rolled stats) you will also want to upstat the named critters/NPC's to accomodate that as well.
I did not say it would be too strong with 5. I simply pointed out the AP is designed for 4. You have stated that you have experience of the APs with 5. Obviously you are happly with that (And that is the whole point after all)
You said that the GM did not want to amend encounters. I simply think that 6 PCs may be the point when amendments will be necessary to keep a sense of threat.
Of course as I said it depends on builds and GM style.
Rathender has some solid advice. Remember that what often kills big baddies is action economy, simply adding a few levels does not always raise the threat level enough. Adding in competent helpers/Allies so the party cannot get 6 to 1 is important.
Having 6 PCs should not be an issue if some of the encounters are adjusted.
My group started with 6 characters (who played till Tides of Dread) and I adapted the encounters just to be sure. However, not all of them. Some I left as they are and the campaign was certainly not a pushover and my players kept a healthy dose of apprehension.
Also do not forget that if you divide the XP over 6 characters, the level progression will be slower, so that, except for the first few encounters, the group level will be slightly too low for the encounters. This is the self-correcting mechanism for the campaign, and will probably compensate for the fact that there are 6 characters in the group.
Frankly, it depends upon how good the players are at stratagy and tactics. I've run this AP 3 times with 3.5 rules and once in Pathfinder.
With 5 PCs in Pathfinder it was a cakewalk in the beginning. I had to seriously modify some of the more significant encounters to make them challenging. So, if you and your fellow players are at all competent, I'd worry about having a sixth PC.
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well, three of us are qutie good. and one guy never thinks things through. one guy still has a hard time remembering how to calculate his attack bonus. and one guy is playing a spellcaster for the first time ever. so i'd almost consider each of the other three as being... half a person each. i'm also going to prevent myself from giving them too much help. I want them to sink or swim on their own without helping them too much.
The two hellknights are the best two players, the cleric is decent. the rogue is alright, but doesnt pay attention a lot of the time. the sorcerer (sixth guy) is a newb at the class and is mediocre other times, and the samurai at best knows how to roll attack rolls.
Hmm now i'm worried about agreeing to let the sixth guy play.
If using the PF rules, then I suspect that it's important to keep them at a 15 point buy (as has been suggested above).
I'll also say "+1" to giving solo bosses minions (or more of them), not just extra levels/HD. Action economy seems to be the enemy's main weak point when it comes to larger parties.
Really the more important question than party size is the level of optimization. If your party only optimizes moderately then I think a late 3.5 life cycle adventure path shouldn't be a problem with 6 players. If they tend to have pretty good rules mastery you might be in trouble.
Mind you my experience with the AP doesn't go beyond the first few chapters.
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well, we roll one set, and if you dont like it, you can do 25 point buy. most of the time, people do point buy. now, for the optimization, generally we play for a theme, and optimize the theme. the hellknight signifier is definitely not the best way you can make a wizard, but he's doing the best with the hellknight thing, if that distinction makes sense. I think the stats, while important, are important, however since we roll stats and use point-buy as a backup (standard 4d6 pick three), it's hard to standardize that. so we're not all doing optimized builds, but they are generally mostly optimized within the build. that sound ok?
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I can't stress strongly enough when "augmenting" adventures like this: put in more mooks - don't "beef up" the BBEG. Mooks, mooks, and more mooks.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Aggressive tactics by the GM can make up for a large party. I had a party of 7 who began with a generous rolled stat method that equated basically to a 50 point buy. These were all smart, experienced players.
I played the enemies ruthlessly and exploited any advantage or weakness. Some encounters they crushed, some were near TPKs. In other words, we had an appropriate range of challenges.
I only added mooks for a very few encounters. I didn't beef up the bad guys much except the general power gain from converting from 3.5 to PF.
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Currently running it with 7 players using PFS builds and rules. Only thing that I have done has been to standardize mob HPs to be on par with the party. We are currently on "The Bullywog Gambit" and Ripclaw one rounded our Lore Warden Fighter to staggered. But once the party was able to reposition themselves and apply some healing the fight went better. Still rough, but, no deaths, yet.