So we played a few adventures and the party is up to level 3. Now I've decided, and the players think it would be fun to run an AP (Rise of the Runelords).
So in order to not have to keep adjusting encounters over the course of the entire campaign, what should I do?
One idea I had was to give them more ability scores instead of levels. They started with point buy 15, so I could slowly move them to point buy 20 by the time they end the first chapter. I think chapter two wants the players to be level 4.
Any ideas on how I should execute this? What I'm trying to avoid is just not leveling them for a whole chapter, while raising encounter levels enough to not bore them to death.
You'd have to adjust some of the early encounters (probably by boosting the raw number of foes), and I'd skip as many sidequest encounters as possible for the first couple of books. (You could, in fact, skip everything but the final section of book 1 -- Thistletop -- which is a fairly tough dungeon).
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While I can't say much about the specific AP (you may want to post in its specific forum for that), there's usually a few "side quests" built into adventure paths that you could skip. For what you can't, in the beginning I would suggest putting the Advanced template on any monsters early on, or simply adding more enemies in any fight that there's multiples.
Advanced template (+1 CR)
Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.
Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores (except Int scores of 2 or less).
Possibly give them that ability score increase halfway through the module, and then they can level at the end of it.
(You could, in fact, skip everything but the final section of book 1 -- Thistletop -- which is a fairly tough dungeon).
I thought about this. There is a lot of fun/good stuff in that chapter though, and it subtly sets up Skinsaw and other narrative things I want them to experience.
Maybe I just RP a lot of that and head over to Thistletop.
While I can't say much about the specific AP (you may want to post in its specific forum for that), there's usually a few "side quests" built into adventure paths that you could skip. For what you can't, in the beginning I would suggest putting the Advanced template on any monsters early on, or simply adding more enemies in any fight that there's multiples.
Advanced template (+1 CR)
Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.
Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores (except Int scores of 2 or less).Possibly give them that ability score increase halfway through the module, and then they can level at the end of it.
This sounds like one of the least painful ways to do it. Skipping the combat filler, and just using the advanced template on fights I consider important to future chapters.
If you're still open to other suggestion for APs, there are quite a few that could have the first chapter excised with little issue.
Serpent's Skull springs to mind, skipping Smuggler's Shiv (leveling them up to 4 in the process) and starting with Racing to Ruin, where the main plot kicks off.
While the early stuff will be easy, the problem will mostly self correct as the characters keep leveling. Cutting out some of the side stuff will help even more.