Rise Of The Runelords with 7 Players

[Blue Tempest]

I started a new gaming group at my college and I didnt want to turn away people from such an exciting opportunity (seeign as im the ONLY one who's done so), so I have around 6 or 7 people to play a game meant for about 4-5. For a first group, I decided to go with a published mod (And you really can't do that much better then Runelords ;) )

Can anyone give me general advice on how to best compensate for this? How much more difficult should I make the encounters, how much more loot and XP do I give and anything else I might be missing.

For the record, I have the Anniversary edition of the adventure.

[Deadmoon]

I'm running it for 7 players and instead of awarding XP, they level up when I tell them to.

After spending way too much effort in Book 1 in a spreadsheet, I have decided to stop micromanaging loot, and assign wealth at intervals that they can spend, similar to what happens in Society play. I'm considering several methods to encourage non-cookie-cutter gearing, but haven't arrived at an optimal solution yet.

As for difficulty, I typically max health, increase everything about the monsters by 2 (saves, to-hit, AC, CMD, etc.). They still steamroll the things they are expected to steamroll, but they still get in trouble when they aren't careful. Give casters an extra spell level, let them use buffs, and be mean tactically. Use the aid another action and focus fire on the weakest PCs. But let them be heroes.

[Blue Tempest]

Even upgrade the Goblins AC in the very first fight by 2? For level 1's that'd be hard for them to hit. I mean, I figured difficulty could be done by either adding another monsters or more of the same what's in the planned encounter (Like 1 or 2 more Goblins in the first fight for example)

[Kazumetsa Raijin]

Honestly, I would bump up most of the opponents Health by some %. I want to say possibly double at most. Your players are going to tear through them if you keep it standard.

As far as AC and other stats, I don't think it's necessary to increase those.

[The Shining Fool]

If your combats are at a crawl, adding more monsters is a good way to go. 7 players wreck the action economy.

If your combats *are* too slow, stick with Deadmoon's add 2 rule. Just make sure that your damage dealers don't need more than a 15 to hit. (only hitting 25% of the time on a mook fight is too hard)

Start by erring on the side of too easy, then ratchet it up until you are in the sweet spot.

If your players are ok with gritty, then don't fear making your evil enemies *truly* evil.

[Blue Tempest]

The Shining Fool wrote:

If your combats are at a crawl, adding more monsters is a good way to go. 7 players wreck the action economy.

Im new to GMing, what is "Action Economy"?

The Shining Fool wrote:

If your combats *are* too slow, stick with Deadmoon's add 2 rule. Just make sure that your damage dealers don't need more than a 15 to hit. (only hitting 25% of the time on a mook fight is too hard)

So basically at the very least for Melee characters, they should have at least a 30% chance to hit? Or wouldn't it obviously go higher or lower based on the monster itself?

Also, as a rule of thumb, how would I know to increase the difficulty by either adding more monsters or just upping the power of the monsters already there?

[Blue Tempest]

Bump

[Necrovox]

Blue Tempest wrote:

I started a new gaming group at my college and I didnt want to turn away people from such an exciting opportunity (seeign as im the ONLY one who's done so), so I have around 6 or 7 people to play a game meant for about 4-5. For a first group, I decided to go with a published mod (And you really can't do that much better then Runelords ;) )

Can anyone give me general advice on how to best compensate for this? How much more difficult should I make the encounters, how much more loot and XP do I give and anything else I might be missing.

For the record, I have the Anniversary edition of the adventure.

So I am running ROW and we HAD 7 players for a while, I'm at 6 now with a GMPC. What I have to do is STAY on to of initiative and RPing. I'll count to thirty seconds when the group goes quiet, and then move on when RPing. In initiative we write down the list, I keep in mind: standard, move, swift. I announce what action they take as they do it, once all three are taken I call next. I also split mobs up in initiative, IE: Goblins, Goblin Dogs, and Goblin Champion. This way I can break up a massive group of mob/player actions. Also max HP, add class levels, add templates, and plan ahead. Intelligent foes (dragons, wizards etc.) should be terrifying to fight due to tactics.

[Necrovox]

Blue Tempest wrote:

Also, as a rule of thumb, how would I know to increase the difficulty by either adding more monsters or just upping the power of the monsters already there?

Always - Sorry for double post. Boss fights should be epic - I am also notorious for ALMOST killing my players (deaths and TPKs are no fun, but the horror of the tank bleeding out can create some distress)... I will add 1-2 smaller guys, and if they wreck that fight, add more next time. I make my games challenging. I don't like cakewalks as a player. If I am not thinking during a fight, I'm probably asleep. But that could be different for you.

I also level based on when the book says to level. We do enough math dealing with purchases.

[MrRed]

Also, keep in mind that more players will slow down game play. To keep up the pace of the story and have combat take up too much gametime, you might remove some "boring" encounters.

To up the challenge (as mentioned): more enemies and/ or harder enemies. We are running Legacy of Fire right now with pretty optimized characters. Our GM typically gives enemies maxed hitdice and adds templates/ charater levels to them- which can lso add some flavor. Low CR encouters are either left out or replaced by way tougher enemies.