So our current GM was unprepared today and I volunteered to start RoW as we were all leaning that route anyway. Needless to say we didn't get far today after character creation. Our group only has three players, so I am looking for suggestions for ways to improve survivability and possible warnings about potential TPKs.
Our group consists of
Standard Dwarven Druid(Auroch Animal Companion)
Human Sorceror Fire Elemental Bloodline(He has been warned!)
Invulnerable Rager Barbarian
As it is only the three of them I gave them 25 pt buy. I typically don't like making myself a PC in these since I feel awkward doing so, as I know whats coming up and want to avoid spoilers. Any tips or suggestions would be helpful.
Thief. Specifically, a thief with the rogue talent Trap Spotter (or whatever the thief talent is for detecting traps within 10 feet). As thieves tend to be underpowered according to many people, he'll not impact the group tremendously, but it gives them some trap-detecting abilities. And to ensure the thief isn't even in their league, have him be a 15-point build that isn't optimized (maybe go with Dex of 14 and Wis of 14 before racial adjustments).
That said, the 25-point build will help them a little bit, especially if you don't adjust the monsters and strictly follow tactics for the monsters and antagonists (especially for Rokhar). And allow them to use Hero Points... and probably allow them to burn only one point to prevent death. Those two alone would probably allow you to avoid running a GMPC.
One other thing you could consider is allowing the players to become Mythic upon gaining the Mantle of the Black Rider rather than a +2 to a stat. You don't even need to have them gain any other Mythic abilities after that point - just one Tier will give them an extra attack or action and increase their survivability. That should help them in combat.
I am not very familiar with the mythic rules. Are you sure that wouldn't make them to powerful?
Two Mythic Tiers are the equivalence of one level. So one Tier would make them about half a level higher effectively... and seeing they're down by one character, that (and 25-point builds) will compensate for the fourth player. (And seeing that they have a Mythic Power pool of 5 points, they're only able to gain that extra attack or mythic ability five times a day.)
Also note, the Mantle normally gives +2 to any one stat. You're replacing that with Mythic, so the group should not be overpowered. If they DO start breezing through things, just add a couple mooks to encounters to compensate.
Here's an overview: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/mythic/mythic-heroes#TOC-Base-Mythic-Abilities
I'll have to give it a try with the caveat of possible removal. Any other tips or suggestions as we progress through?
Don't be afraid to fudge dice if you're overwhelming them?
I can't really say. I'm rewriting the encounters already because I started a higher-level group through this (switched campaigns but kept the same characters) so I'm already rewriting things.
Oh, here's one thing. If you think an encounter might be too lethal, do a test run before the game using the characters. Seeing that you only have three players, they probably should be level 2 before hitting the Lodge in any event; toss in a couple random encounters to make sure they're higher level.
Well we had out second session. I ran all the encounters as the book mentioned. They wiped at the lodge. They captured one of the three on the trail. Another ran off to the lodge. The one they caught intentionally tripped the alarm. They were warned by ten penny about the evil boss. Didn't catch the clues. Went upstairs left the animal companion downstairs who was then murdered by zombies. Then they subsequently all died in the main room fighting the horde. Needless to say some new adventurers are going to find said lodge later. I knew it would be bad when the barbarian earlier said no one traps a snowman.
You can always do an alternative: Tell them you're retconning the attack on the Lodge and letting them do it again starting from when the alarm was sprung. Part of the problem is they're just three people even with an animal companion. (Also consider having them at level 2 at this juncture - just level them up and have the XPs catch up later.)
That way they don't need to slog through all that stuff again or rebuild characters.
Yeah I made them lvl 2 before. I also gave them the option to either make new characters or they would continue the ones they had although captured. They chose new guys.
I won't make them slug through the whole bit again.
When you get to book 2 it's pretty easy just have the NPC Nadya permanently join the party.
Near the portal at the end of book 1, I would not send all the bad guys at them all at once, have the party find them where they are so they can fight them one at a time.