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That is one hella strong party. One problem you are going to run into is that you just bumped almost everyone up a lot of levels, plus you have a whole new mix of characters. You may have to start the process of determining how hard a challenge they can face all over. At least now though they are all equal power (10th lvl) and using the same game system (I hope?).
I would make sure to include a fair amount of RP encounters, traps, puzzles, etc so everyone gets a chance to shine. Only for variety should you ever give this group challenges where all they have to do is kill everything. That will be easy. Capturing people alive and transporting them back through hostile territory, escorting nobles (good idea btw), acquiring rare animals or plants for high level mages, or even better protecting a town from an invading horde are all the type of challenges you need for a group this big. Otherwise, half the people are going to get left out. It sucks when you are the character that has a weak initiative and everything dies by the 5th players turn. :)
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That is one hella strong party. One problem you are going to run into is that you just bumped almost everyone up a lot of levels, plus you have a whole new mix of characters. You may have to start the process of determining how hard a challenge they can face all over. At least now though they are all equal power (10th lvl) and using the same game system (I hope?).
I would make sure to include a fair amount of RP encounters, traps, puzzles, etc so everyone gets a chance to shine. Only for variety should you ever give this group challenges where all they have to do is kill everything. That will be easy. Capturing people alive and transporting them back through hostile territory, escorting nobles (good idea btw), acquiring rare animals or plants for high level mages, or even better protecting a town from an invading horde are all the type of challenges you need for a group this big. Otherwise, half the people are going to get left out. It sucks when you are the character that has a weak initiative and everything dies by the 5th players turn. :)
I see what you're saying. For the challenge I threw 2 fire giants at them and about 12 hellhounds. 2 players decided to put out fires of the town (the whole being attacked by a horde is going on btw :D) to stop hellhounds from reappearing. It took a solid 6 or 7 rounds of combat and everything was about dead. I like the idea of capturing an enemy and having him be taken through hostile territory though. What kind of puzzles do you think would fit into my game, examples preferably, they're not my area of expertise sadly.
I have also found that the Barbarian (the one who played the archer) is very powerful, he rolled out in the open I saw it all, but he seems to be hitting a ton, he is an orc with a natural 24 strength and 28 while raging from the plus two from 4 and 8. Any advice with stopping a powergamer as well, because he is really over shining my others, i.e the magus and the second paladin (the old barbarian).
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That's goes straight back to what redcelt32 said.
You need to find other things other than combat for them to do.
Some sort of arcane discovery that the Magus has to sort through or figure out.
A labyrinth with moving walls that forces the party to split up.
Finding ways to split that group up will work a lot for you. You can force players to be in groups they wouldnt normaly be in. Put classes together that don't usually work well together. Make them think outside the box.
He went with the titan mauler archetype and is hitting regularly with his twin greatswords. It is a -6 penalty when using two weapon fighting and the titan mauler bonuses of using them one handed?
The new barbarian went with the titan mauler archetype and is hitting regularly with his twin greatswords. It is a -6 penalty when using two weapon fighting and the titan mauler bonuses of using them one handed?
Going to add something here:
I suspect that as the party gets larger the inidivual hp allotment of each character grows smaller. Monsters will have to be stronger to compensate for the amount of characters present and what you will get is an increase in character deaths.
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twf with greatswords sounds epic, but in reality the penalties to his main hand and offhand are huge and when you add the penalties for power attacking, and the feat tax necessary to twf at all, he should have a hard time hitting and not many feats left over to do much else with.
He does have a few barbarian feats he could use to offset, but I still don't see him hitting anything with a real ac very easy.
Add on top of that, he is losing his 1.5 times for not two handing the weapon. It basically adds up to less damage than if he was THF with a single weapon. There are threads here where folks much smarter than me break down the math if you are interested.
No. Do not use higher level monsters. Use more monsters, not stronger ones.Going to add something here:
I suspect that as the party gets larger the inidivual hp allotment of each character grows smaller. Monsters will have to be stronger to compensate for the amount of characters present and what you will get is an increase in character deaths.
Normally I would agree, but if the PCs have above average stats, hit points, and AC across the board, beefing up the monsters in the same way is not a bad idea. I do agree with more monsters, though. It allows you to tie down characters while they feel epic for cleaving through hoards of mooks.
I've run with larger, higher powered groups before, and I will offer what pointers that I can.
#1: Involve less combat. Let the characters focus on role-playing to keep them interested and interacting. This will allow for characters that see less limelight in combat to have their fair turn at the table. It will also speed up the pace of the game.
#2: As has been stated, use more monsters during combat instead of higher-powered ones. Some of your players are likely built for crowd control; don't disabuse them of this opportunity. Keep a program like Combat Manager handy to handle the initiative and some of the bookkeeping during combat. Recruit another player to help you with this if necessary.
#3: As some of your characters are focused on healing, you can use environmental effects to do low-level mass damage to keep them on their toes if you wish, but you can also focus more on status effects as opposed to direct damage if the healing keeps pace with the damage.
#4: Sometimes it's fun to have something unfortunate happen to some of your characters (like being arrested for doing something particularly unwise during a role-play encounter) and have other party members rescue them. This does exclude some of your players from play at any given time, even if the arrested group is working on a plan of escape, but it's often entertaining enough that other players don't mind sitting out for five minutes at a time. Just be sure to flip back and forth frequently to keep a good pacing structure.
#5: Problem players require tailored solutions. If your Inquisitor is still bossing the other players around, maybe it's time for new leadership. Perhaps someone else would care to challenge the Inquisitor for leadership of the group. With 10 players, there's bound to be character conflicts (which can be fun for the rest of the group to watch, not just fun for the players involved in the conflict). Of course, the Guild superiors might not like how the Inquisitor is handling things and they could replace him/her with another character from the group.
I have used the Leadership feat before in exercising who has the right to lead the party; those without it are followers (but can pick it up later if they so desire), those with it are potential leaders and the group is their cohort (though I fudge the rules for the cohort size and level in that case).
As for your Ranger, pit him against enemies with really high armour class; that way, when he lands a hit, he gets in a good one and feels rewarded, but doesn't necessarily hit everything that moves. He may seek out easier prey, but bad guys are allowed to seek him out as the "most dangerous" member of the party. Perhaps his reputation precedes him? Also, if your Ranger is landing too many critical hits, you can always ask someone to monitor his rolls. If his weapon only crits on a natural 20, then he statistically shouldn't be landing a critical hit more than 5% of the time. Something could be up.
#6: Use the terrain to control the flow of battle. If you have a lot of melee combatants, you can box them into narrow canyons or corridors where not everyone can attack at once, or where not everyone can attack the same target (or group of targets) at once. This can present different tactical challenges for your group that they might have to learn to adapt to. Sightlines become important, as does weapon range. Be creative to keep things interesting and challenging.
#7: Keep your characters close to one another in terms of power level. Having a level 4 character in a group with a level 9 character often frustrates the group; the 4th level character feels like they can't do anything and the 9th level character feels like they're doing all the work. Generally speaking, try to keep all players within 1-2 levels of each other (perhaps one level below the average for characters who don't do much or are absent a lot, one level above the average for characters who do a lot or who haven't missed a session).
#8: Keep the drama high! If your players are okay with it (and I often find that players are if they can bring in a new one with equivalent experience and loot), allow some characters to die, particularly if a player wants to play something else. Don't let them die an ignominious death if you can help it, and really let the player play up the death scene. Make sure all players understand that character death is a real risk if you're going to go this route.
#9: Remember, the characters are awesome, but they're not perfect. Just because they have the ability to stop something bad from happening to innocent people does not mean that there are not consequences to their actions. When Baron von Jerkface terrorizes the populace and your group puts him down, his sister, Baroness von Jerkface surfaces to take revenge on the poor peasants who called your party for help, and she's going to be ready for you if and when you return to save the peasants a second time. If there's a reason for your characters not to hare off into danger without a second thought, provide them with that reason. Maybe they're interfering in a bigger investigation that local authorities are pursuing. Perhaps there's more to the story than the characters know; that red dragon they're hunting might be using blood magic to subdue some dark goddess from escaping her prison, which is why it's ravaging the countryside. Actions have consequences, which can broaden the play experience for all. Perhaps that lich in the kingdom next door has heard of their exploits and now wants to unwittingly use them to rid himself of the pesky vampire-king who rules with an iron fist so that he can take power and be even worse.
#10: Present challenges that only specific players can overcome. A challenge of arms or of honour is great for your melee combatants, while a spell-duel is tailored to divine or arcane casters. Feats of skill, intrigue or lockpicking may be in store for rogues. Perhaps the only way to get everyone across the gorge is for the druid to grow a plant bridge out of the scrub growing on the cliffside. Maybe the demon is crafting a dark ritual that only Aasimar blood can spoil. Just make sure to have something for everyone, particularly if there's something in their back-stories that you can include.
Best wishes!