Advice on starting Kingmaker with higher level characters?

[Secane]

Hi everyone, I need some advice on starting Kingmaker with characters of level 2 to 3.

I'm running a homebrew, where players play members of an adventuring company, and they take part in some adventures before starting off on Kingmaker. They will be at lv 2 or higher before starting off at Kingmaker.

Having played Kingmaker once as a player starting at level 1, I'm a little concern that my players may find the first book too easy for them, and would steamroll over the enemy encounters.

Should I tweak the encounters in book one to be harder? Increase save DCs? Etc?
Any and all advice is welcomed.

[Thrund]

I'd probably look at using the six-player conversions from this forum. They're designed to pitch the encounters at a larger party but should work just as well against a higher-level party, and the commensurate increases in XP and treasure are also appropriate.

[pennywit]

What Thrund said. You might also consider scanning the Kingmaker board for other improvements people have used. One of my favorites was somebody who established an NPC as the Stag Lord's hunt master. Three other thoughts:

1) If your players are into it, you can emphasize the diplomatic and RP aspects of the module over the straight combat aspects. These tend to have a similar difficulty whether you're first level or second level.

2) You might profit from making the bandits more active. As written, the Stag Lord and his officers more or less wait in the Keep for your players to come kill them. In addition to upping their levels to compensate for higher-level characters, you could also have Akiros, Auchs, and Dovan leading raids against merchants and such throughout the Greenbelt.

3) Have you considered starting at the tail end of Stolen Lands? In this storyline, a previous group of adventurers explored the northern Greenbelt, but the Stag Lord slaughtered them. Instead of ambushing Haps Bydon at Oleg's, the players start by helping a hard-pressed Kesten Garess fend off a fairly major attack. This leads into the SL end game, and then the players move directly into Rivers Run Red.

[Chuckbab]

It's hard to know if it can fit your plan, but how about running the adventures pre-Kingmaker without having the characters gaining levels?

I know some gaming groups are really by-the-book when it comes to Xp reward and such, but there are tons of other ways of rewarding players: gold, minor magic items, a bonus feat (free choice or a fixed feat relevant with the adventure they just finished)...

And upon receiving the charter from Restov, you can then call that the "true adventure" has begun, and thus return to your normal XP reward system.

[Orthos]

I start every game at 2nd - I hate playing at 1st and I hate GMing for 1st-level characters - and as Thrund said I relied heavily on the 6-player conversion for my party being a level ahead. By the time they were done with the first chapter they were close enough to the normal expected level rate that I didn't need to do much for the transition to chapter two.

[Secane]

Thank you all for the advices.

Some extra info on my party. I could use any further advice on giving this party a good time.

1) Characters are made using a flexible-variable pointbuy system using a total of 35(CP) points. These points are used to purchase Race(RP) and Ability(AP) scores (up to 25AP)

So a Human(9RP) character would start with a 25 pointbuy, but an Aasimar (15RP) would only have a 20 pointbuy.

Players can make custom races like a human half-dragon, with the Dragon race type added to a Human base for a 19RP custom race, with only 16 pointbuy.

2) Characters all originate from another world controlled by guilds. They have to pick a guild to originate from. The guilds have a hidden presence in Golarion and the party are active members of these guilds.

3) Current party members are:

-1- A Judge-Paladin of Ragathiel. LG

-2- A Half-Elven Ranger, Bounty Hunter. NG

-3- A Half-Dragon Sage/Draconic Sorcerer. N

-4- A Rogue heading into Arcane Trickster.

-5- A Lady Samurai.

No Evil or CN characters allowed.

---------------------
@Thrund, Orthos,
I'm looking at the 6 player conversion now. With more enemies and challengers, equals more xp. I will be having only 5 players in my game.

For example, if I follow pennywit's advice, I may send out some of the bandit leaders with bandit followers out to "hunt" the party. If I up the number of bandits... that would mean more xp at the end of battles.

(?)How do I prevent the players from being "over-leveled" for the adventure path? Especially if I include "extra" adventures on the side?
Should I drop the players into the slower XP track? Or stick with the standard track?

-
BTW, Does anyone have any thought on using pure XP to determine levels or would it better to have a GM controlled, "everyone level up now"?
-

@Chuckbab,
You read my mind, Chuckbab, the ideal was to ease them into Kingmaker by getting them on other missions first. With Kingmaker being the Real Adventure.

However, Like Orthos said, I don't want the players to feel like they are stuck at lv 1 forever... hence leveling them to lv 2 before starting them on Kingmaker.

@ pennywit,
Thanks for the advice. I remembered my own playthrough as being pretty tame with the party tricking our way into the keep... I think I will make the bandits be more active in taking the fight to players. :D

[Thrund]

I have been using XP for two books and I'm getting fed up with it. On the other hand, fixed level up points are tricky when the PCs can take things on in any order and/or skip some entirely. So from now on I'm going to tag the most important encounters and side quests as 'achievements', and level up after every three achievements.

[Orthos]

I'm dealing with the players being overleveled because I'm rebuilding almost everything anyway to make use of Mythic - my players are just about to enter Vordakai's lair and are Level 12/Mythic 2.

But I'm very much starting to get on board with the people who don't use XP and just level up when the plot says so/after completing a certain amount of achievements or quests, and am strongly considering doing such for my next campaign.

[pennywit]

Hmm. Interesting. I'm using the 6-player conversion for most things in RRR. My players are level 4/MR 2 ... and the converted tendriculous and Old Crackjaw nearly killed one PC in each outing. Of course, the tendriculus had a significant advantage because nearly everybody failed their Fort saves against noxious swamp gas ...

[Orthos]

The overleveling is also somewhat my fault, I expanded some of the one-off side-quests in KM like Candlemere and a few other things into full-on dungeons, which got the PCs a lot more XP than the game normally allotted for those areas, which in turn leveled them up quite a few times before the as-written plot intended.

[Secane]

Hummm..... I chatted with some of my players, and they are onboard with using the slower experience progression path after reaching lv 2.

I do want to give them the "traditional" feel of leveling up via exp. Most of them started playing Pathfinder as PFS players and I want to give them the whole Homebrew experience.

In any case with more exp needed to level, I can afford to squeeze any number of advantures into the Kingmaker campaign.

(!) I notice you all post the use of Mystic levels in Kingmaker. Is it good? Does it works well with the Kingmaker campaign? Or is there a need to rework all the enemies and encounters?

[pennywit]

Secane wrote:

In any case with more exp needed to level, I can afford to squeeze any number of advantures into the Kingmaker campaign.

There are a lot of great scenarios on these boards. Pay particular attention to anything by Dudemeister or Redcelt.

Secane wrote:

(!) I notice you all post the use of Mystic levels in Kingmaker. Is it good? Does it works well with the Kingmaker campaign? Or is there a need to rework all the enemies and encounters?

I've introduced Mythic to my campaign as well. I've automatically used the six-player conversions for my five-player group. The key for most fights is to keep them challenging, but to recognize that not everything is a mythic trial. My rule is that if a particular enemy is built up as a major enemy, I'm turning it into a mythic trial. This has had somewhat mixed results so far:

Tuskgutter, while I was still considering the mythic rules, became an even bigger dire boar, but my players had battlefield advantage because they found his den while he was away. My players had a fairly memorable battle with him.

Sometime after first tangling with my players, but before my players ascended to mythic status, Tartuk became a mythic summoner. He tormented my players by proxy for a couple sessions, then he tried to invade Oleg's with an army. He was a tough little bugger.

The Stag Lord was a mythic ranger but, alas, his alcoholism was his undoing. As he was asleep in a drunken stupor, a rogue ran him through with a scimitar.

As far as the player fun goes, my players are still getting used to it. The less rules-oriented players are still trying to figure out how everything works. Meanwhile, the wizard's in full Tim Allen mode ("MORE POWER!!") and the barbarian/champion and alchemist/marshal have discovered the benefits of teamwork. (Barbarian: "I attack!! I use sudden attack to hit again!!" Alchemist/marshal: "Decisive strike. The barbarian hits again!!")

[Orthos]

Secane wrote:

(!) I notice you all post the use of Mystic levels in Kingmaker. Is it good? Does it works well with the Kingmaker campaign? Or is there a need to rework all the enemies and encounters?

It has been fun, but in my case there has been a lot of reworking and rebuilding yes. You might be able to do it with the normal game without much rewriting if your party is a level or two (or more, as they gain more tiers) behind the curve, or if there's a small amount of them (3 person party or less).

[Philip Knowsley]

Hiya, just another thought re the 6 player conversion.
I too have used it at times (my campaign has dodged in & out of anywhere
from 4-6 players...)
To be honest - I find it simpler to the the enemies full hit points.
It provides you with the same amount of XP, whilst making the encounter
tougher. (Just so long as everyone is at the same/similar CR, you then
don't have people being too easy/hard to hit, gear worth more etc etc etc...

[Secane]

@Philip,

Give full HP? As in say a 4d10 + 8 mon getting the max 48 hitpoints?

That's interesting. I kinda like that ideal for the bosses.
But what about the minions? Won't giving full HP make fights drag out much longer?

[pennywit]

One thing you might do with the bandits (and which I wish I had done): Play up the Stag Lord as lethal, but completely bonkers. His bandits (which he calls "the Stag's men") don't just wear ordinary traveler's gear. Their clothing and armor is shabby, mismatched uniform pieces from three different River Kingdoms. Haps Bydon, Dovan, Akiros, and Auchs aren't his lieutenants or his bullies. They're his "knights." And each of them travels with a "herald" (Perform [wind] +0) who blows a fanfare before they attack somebody. Haps doesn't demand valuables from Oleg and Svetlana. He seeks "rightful taxes to fund important works and preserve the Stag Lord's Peace." (Make sure he speaks in capital letters when he says that).

The bandits could buy into this to varying degrees.

As far as attacking behavior, somebody else on the board suggested having them act like bandits. That is, they strike hard, but they run away when they know they're losing. If your PCs are higher level, then the bandits are going to realize this in short order and change over to harassment tactics. Arrows from the dark, enticing wild animals to attach the PCs, distraction attacks (i.e., one group of bandits ambushes the PCs, gets them to give chase, the second group wrecks the campsite and steals the horses.

Trust me. Your players would love that one.

[Philip Knowsley]

Secane wrote:

@Philip,

Give full HP? As in say a 4d10 + 8 mon getting the max 48 hitpoints?

That's interesting. I kinda like that ideal for the bosses.
But what about the minions? Won't giving full HP make fights drag out much longer?

Yes & no -

Yes, exactly that.

No - as if your PCs are higher level, they're going to do more damage (even
if it's just because they hit more often). Not only that, but you have 5
PCs & encounters are geared towards 4...which means that your PCs are
going to take out any encounter faster than they're supposed to on
average anyway...
Easy step - max out the Hp of the enemy...simple & elegant. I've used
it & seen others on these boards say that they have also. It works.

Don't get me wrong - I've used the 6 player conversion & I think it's
great, but when I DM I also need things to be fun for me...& sometimes
that equates to 'easy' which giving full Hp is... ;-p

Whatever you decide - good luck.

[Secane]

@Philip,

Got it!
It would make the battles much easier with lesser creatures to control. And as a GM, I know that my weak spot is the battles. All my mons have very low IQ... its all "See PCs! Kill PCs! :P

I think I will go with the 6/5 player conversion for non-combat XP, but with more HP in battles.

Thank you for this advice!