Besides running the first and a half adventure of RotRL i have no experience with APs. so i have a very basic question. How much will i have to alter the adventure to make up for a party of 6 instead of 4. or will the fact that they will be a lower level then they should be make up for it on its own?
The easiest solution is the increase the CR of foes by +1. You can do this with occasional uses of the Advanced Template, an additional combatant class (or two spellcasting classes), or an additional foe. Also, up the HPs of foes.
If you limit them to 15-point builds (even though I personally don't like doing that) and don't increase the treasure at all, then the +1 CR should do nicely.
I'd also consider not using XPs and just leveling up the players at set points. This compensates for the lower XP levels. But the near-doubling of HPs for most foes, plus bonus levels or HD or the like, will compensate. And you can always fudge die rolls for the monsters (extra monster HPs that you never tell the players about) so the foes die when it's interesting.
I'm running a six players group and I can say that it significantly alters the power dynamic. You might as well let them start at 20 points, which I do, since it gives them a few more character options.
That being said, things you will need to do:
- You need to up the treasure so that they all get full WBL.
- Add opponents to counter the 50% action economy advantage the group now has.
- As of about levels 9-11, the power dynamic shifts dramatically into the direction of player characters over monsters, so at this point more radical changes are necessary, like giving monsters full hitpoints, advanced templates or upping their defensive abilities.
Those changes are all necessary in every case I've seen so far. Five players is already pretty bad, but six necessitates fully committing to altering everything.
I've almost always run with six players, and I've found one of the easiest things to do is just increase the number of enemies by 50%, which is easy if they're attacking in groups, but is more difficult with solo encounters. For solo bosses, I would add weaker minions, generally several CR weaker than the main bad guy.
As for treasure, increasing any found treasure by 50% is easy enough, but enemy treasure can be tricky, it might be good to keep track of how much wealth you're giving the party so you can check against the wBL charts. Though I've heard, not sure where from, this AP is going to be above the WBL charts anyways, so it may not be a problem.
The problem with increasing the number of foes is that it increases the amount of work! ^^;; I'm lazy. I freely admit it! But also, I find longer combats can get tedious.
They KNEW it had to be an illusion. But they were far enough away and kept failing their damn savings throws so it turned the entire combat into an exercise in humor (that and it was snowing so I ruled perception penalties made it so the bandits couldn't tell from 80 feet out if their arrows just passed through the tree). The combat took entirely too long... and had us all in stitches because of the impracticality of it! ^^;;
So if you're dealing with a combat with six or more combatants on each side... you probably don't want to increase the number of foes unless you find a way to make it amusing somehow. It's easier to increase hit points and add a couple hit dice or levels.
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If Everyone that sits at our Table shows up, we have 11 players counting me.
First think i do is get rid of rolling for hp, everything and everyone has max HP.
So both the other two 3.x/pf DM's and I have been adjusting Encounters over time for past five and half years with other paths and Homebrew campaign and an Eberron campaign
2 PC - little weaker then the written
3 PC - as written
4 PC - little tougher then the written
5 PC - +3 CL
6 PC - Double written CL
7 PC - Double written CL + 3
8 PC - Triple written
9 PC - Triple writtenCL + 3
This seems to work out pretty good. PC's are a bit more powerful, but on the nights when only 2 or 3 of the Table shows up we can still continue and not worry about who is not present. We are all adults with lives so some of the crew cant make, no big deal, we game on
Its more for getting through the story and enjoying that, not so much for the oombat. We play 2e one week, 3.x/PF the next week. 4 of us show up every week, the others are random, usually 2-3 times a month.
Were deff stuck in our ways, have been playing on wednesday nights from 6p-2a for 7 years now. Usually game 1 from 6-10 and 2 from 1030-2 of whatever version were playing.
Before this we met fridays and played paladiam/warhammer games for 7 years or played 2e, at this point 3 different tables had some of us guys in all branches of the service. Not enough guys were left to play a 3 PC, 1 DM game at any of them. Tables merged. now were all in mid 30s/40s some married, some with kids, most in a couple bands, all with lives outside the Table. So for the 3x system the above is pretty handy.
We dont just add more mobs. I give the baddies more levels in stuff. In the homebrew campaign we just finished, one of the common bad foes was the Lizardmen Half Dragons with many levels in barb or war and some with just more then one level i sorc. Even had Liz Kings toss bundles of alchemist fire (did large size splash damage), one tossed barrels of black powder. Some of the mobs we do add are minions (one good thing from 4e) that only have 1hp or 9hp.
This campaign, you can see in another post i made(that i dont know how to link without linking the top of the thread) that its an interesting mix of characters that they will be playing. The mostly 2e guys just wanted to roll randomly for their characters so i made d10.. in homage to Rogue Trader.
Lower levels even with 6 watch some of the hazards and auto damage. I had a party of 7 for Skull and Shackles and almost TPK'd them without adjusting anything in the first book because of a botfly swarm and a cowardly wizard PC who ran instead of getting rid of the swarm so the fighters could get to work unhindered. All but 1 wound up unconscious or paralyzed.
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The general consensus is to increase minions & treasure by 50% and max hit points out. As for upping point buy for a larger group I'd recommend against that as it only makes them even stronger. For a group of 4 PCs 20 point buy is generous, but as APs are designed with 15 point buy in mind anything larger than a standard party should have standard points to even things out.
--Vrock & roll the bones
This is a long over due thanks for the advice. Haven't gotten all the way through the adventure but its working out great. I made the mistake of forgetting to up the monsters life to max which would help but my PCs are defiantly challenged, especially by the mongle men for some reason. Well thanks again! it was well needed advice
Keep in mind that the more extreme changes (advances templates, maxing hitpoints and combining entire encounters over just adding 50% more opponents) come into effect at the mid-game, i.e. levels 9-11.
Mythic may skew this a bit lower, but low-level characters are still more fragile, so be cautious in how you alter those encounters.
Besides running the first and a half adventure of RotRL i have no experience with APs. so i have a very basic question. How much will i have to alter the adventure to make up for a party of 6 instead of 4. or will the fact that they will be a lower level then they should be make up for it on its own?
Increase the number of mooks by 50-100% in most encounters and when there's a boss fight, max out his hit points. Those two things seem to cover larger parties more often than not. We're going to have five players and I expect that to more than take care of the challenge difficulty for them. I can't speak to their being lower level since we tend to auto-level at the predetermined points in the AP.
Keep in mind that the more extreme changes (advances templates, maxing hitpoints and combining entire encounters over just adding 50% more opponents) come into effect at the mid-game, i.e. levels 9-11.
Mythic may skew this a bit lower, but low-level characters are still more fragile, so be cautious in how you alter those encounters.
This is true. One way to hedge your bets is to have the extra mooks come in waves a round or two apart... if it looks like your party is having difficulty you can always reign it in without affecting versimilitude.
Also remember that not every encounter is meant to be a difficult or even legitimate challenge to the PC's... many encounters are simply intended to whittle down their resources, forcing them to manage their abilities and consumable gear.
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I'm going to suggest a different way than most of the posters have suggested.
Adventure paths are written from a perspective of a 4 person, 15 point buy party.
DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! If you do it will become hell because you will have to change everything if you change one thing. Keep the treasure given in the module. Keep the enemies the same. Don't change a thing, and now I will explain why.
6 people dividing up 4-person wealth will help adjust the party down to level needed to run the AP as is. 6 people dividing up 4-person experience points will do the same.
The first couple levels will be easier until they start getting auto-corrected back but by 3rd or 4th level they will be at a lower WBL threshold and have less XP and this will automagically put them at the power level needed for the Adventure path.
Adjusting anything upwards will result in adjusting everything upwards.
Just a small note about Mythic. Mythic will give the PCs an extra action per PC (usually), and only so long as they have Mythic points to burn. It also gives a couple extra hit points.
It does NOT improve to-hit bonuses, armor-class (with a couple exceptions), or the like. An example of what Mythic would do in a non-Mythic sense is if a 1st level Archer had Rapid Shot immediately (doable with a Fighter).
So really, the best method of dealing with Mythic is to increase the number of enemies on the field.
I'm going to suggest a different way than most of the posters have suggested.
Adventure paths are written from a perspective of a 4 person, 15 point buy party.
DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! If you do it will become hell because you will have to change everything if you change one thing. Keep the treasure given in the module. Keep the enemies the same. Don't change a thing, and now I will explain why.
6 people dividing up 4-person wealth will help adjust the party down to level needed to run the AP as is. 6 people dividing up 4-person experience points will do the same.
The first couple levels will be easier until they start getting auto-corrected back but by 3rd or 4th level they will be at a lower WBL threshold and have less XP and this will automagically put them at the power level needed for the Adventure path.
Adjusting anything upwards will result in adjusting everything upwards.
Do you have any practical experience with that approach or is that just theorycrafting?
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Do you have any practical experience with that approach or is that just theorycrafting?I'm going to suggest a different way than most of the posters have suggested.
Adventure paths are written from a perspective of a 4 person, 15 point buy party.
DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! If you do it will become hell because you will have to change everything if you change one thing. Keep the treasure given in the module. Keep the enemies the same. Don't change a thing, and now I will explain why.
6 people dividing up 4-person wealth will help adjust the party down to level needed to run the AP as is. 6 people dividing up 4-person experience points will do the same.
The first couple levels will be easier until they start getting auto-corrected back but by 3rd or 4th level they will be at a lower WBL threshold and have less XP and this will automagically put them at the power level needed for the Adventure path.
Adjusting anything upwards will result in adjusting everything upwards.
I'm not a fan of theorycrafting, but I've been running RotRL sort of this way (currently wrapping up Chapter 4). I've used the treasure value as provided in the book (with a few alterations here and there) and it's being split among 6 characters instead of the assumed 4. I don't use XP (instead, I keep the PCs about 1 level behind the advancement track at the beginning of each chapter). Also, I'm in the "increase minions by ~50% and add a class level or 2 to bosses" camp.
-Skeld
To be honest, I've run both my Runelords and Reign of Winter games with the assumption of the treasure remaining the same despite additional characters (GMPCs often enough). I also have the GMPCs often try to talk their way out of magic items which doesn't seem to work very well.
When I hopefully run Wrath of the Righteous I'll likely be doing a six player game and likewise won't boost treasure. Personally I don't see the need and tend to think the games have too much treasure anyway.
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Do you have any practical experience with that approach or is that just theorycrafting?I'm going to suggest a different way than most of the posters have suggested.
Adventure paths are written from a perspective of a 4 person, 15 point buy party.
DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! If you do it will become hell because you will have to change everything if you change one thing. Keep the treasure given in the module. Keep the enemies the same. Don't change a thing, and now I will explain why.
6 people dividing up 4-person wealth will help adjust the party down to level needed to run the AP as is. 6 people dividing up 4-person experience points will do the same.
The first couple levels will be easier until they start getting auto-corrected back but by 3rd or 4th level they will be at a lower WBL threshold and have less XP and this will automagically put them at the power level needed for the Adventure path.
Adjusting anything upwards will result in adjusting everything upwards.
Yes I do and it wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad until, once again, high levels (15ish). Wasn't Runelords that I did that way, my Runelords game I tried all the tricks to make it work like upping enemies, adding HP, advancing, keeping the party back a level...and it really sucked. I spent hours prepping encounters that were over in no time with no challenge to the party. I hate the idea of running an AP and reworking almost every encounter again. The way I stated may not be perfect but it does a fairly good job. Tactics make up the rest of the difference.
Yep, that is easily possible, with some of the harder encounters.
Reworking is no fun, especially since I buy the AP's because I don't want to build it up all by myself, but it's still way easier than building new characters. And, if you limit yourself to applying some advanced templates and maxing out hitpoints, quite fast, too, via Combat Manager.
It also depends on how optimized the PCs are. For optimized PCs, I'd recommend doubling all monster hp, and giving all monsters +4 to hit, and that's assuming a 4 player party.
I wouldn't increase the wealth in the adventure, WBL is a guideline not a rule.
There is a good thread/guide on developing challenging encounters
Increasing WBL also depends a lot on how you handle magic item crafting. I myself have a houserule which basically makes crafting non-profitable, so I can adjust WBL much, much easier to the point where each player character should be (and my group is still just devasting the opposition). If you are using standard magic item crafting rules, through that alone the party will gain a big advantage. Leaving the treasure as it is in the module may be a good option in that case.
I feel like Mythic characters would need more than a simple +50% monsters if the monsters they are fighting are not mythic.
They won't just be getting two extra characters.
They will be getting two extra Mythic characters.
Which just seems somewhat exponential when compared to regular mooks.
Against Mythic creatures, however, ye ole' +50% should work.
This is all assuming of course there isn't massive optimization running rampant.
It's also purely speculation and conjecture invented by myself.
Too early to really experiment with it and see if it holds true.