City of Golden Death - rewards question

[Skilmar]

I'm going to be running City of Golden Death over three sessions at my local gaming store. The mod recommends that the party is 5th level before getting to the island and 6th level before getting to the third ring -- and suggests getting the party there via random encounters if they aren't otherwise. I know that these suggestions are not written with Society play in mind. That said, three of the last four encounters (CR 7, CR 7, and CR 8) will be pretty challenging for an under-leveled party -- and there isn't opportunity to rest between them. Right now, half the people signed up at the table are level 4.

I'd really love to be able to give people partial experience as they complete sessions (1 XP per session) so they could potentially level as they go along. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

- After each session, they can level as if they received 1 XP (statistically, 2/3 of the party should level over 2 sessions).
- They can't do anything that would require a city/town between sessions, since they are on the island. This would include buying, selling, spending prestige points, and acquiring new wizard spells.
- They'll receive chronicles once the adventure is complete. At that time, they can do everything normally.

This is counter to the rules for running modules in the Guide to Organized play. My concern is that without leveling during play they will have a hard time surviving -- especially in the last few encounters.

Am I worrying too much about party capabilities? Any other thoughts/suggestions for how to make this survivable?

[jjaamm]

modules are made for 4 players so if you have 6, that will bump up your APL. with that in mind, please dont blatantly break the rules cause you dont agree with it. they CAN NOT level up. Try running something else till the 4th's are 5th. What level are the other players?

[Skilmar]

Ahh. I had forgotten that the module was written for 4 players. I only know level of 5 of the 7 currently signed up (we use Warhorn). Average level for those five is 4.6 (+ 1 for more than 4 players) = 5.6 APL for a level 5 module.

This makes me more optimistic. The highest CR encounters all have only one monster, and the extra players (assuming >4 show up) will give the party significant action economy advantage.

It isn't really an option to run something else. Our tables are scheduled 1-2 months ahead of time. As GMs, we have to hope a good party mix signs up. I think this is just the nature of organized play. Gotta roll with the dice.

Thanks!

[nosig]

wow... having run a while back, I do have a lot of sympathy for you. I ran with a party of 6, all at least 5th level, with more than one 6th level. I remember it as being VERY hard for them. Long hard fights. PM me if you want to chat about it.

OH! and yeah, it would be against the rules to level them part way thru (even when the Mod says "hold the PCs at this point until they have all leveled to 6th due to random monster encounters" or something like that).