(I played the first Book of RoTRL with 5-6 in our group, I'm running RoTRL and CotCT currently)
IME if you run it as written and award XP as written it'll work fine, the PCs will sometimes be 1 level behind the expected level. This is what I do, I find the APs seem to work fine with 3-5 PCs (with 3 an NPC ally/cohort is nice). Pathfinder is not a tight balance game anyway.
You can also add in more mook monsters, which increases the threat level & XP awards. Don't increase BBEG level as this rapidly increases the likelihood of PC death; give them more minions. You can also give them more hit points if desired, and possibly better defences - eg more protective items, this also increases the treasure award appropriately.
I've run the entire RoTRL AP twice, once as 3.5 and once as Pathfinder. Both times my group consisted of 5-6 players. Not everyone made every session, so I had from 3-6 some sessions, but usually had the same 5 consistent players. The AP worked fine when we had only 5 players; only change I made was to give monsters max hit points to make the fights a tough enough that everyone got to participate. When there was a 6th PC I had to throw in more mooks and a side quest or three to make sure everyone was advancing at the proper rate.
We ran it with 5 players. That was fine. I think at times it was too easy and the DM complained at the end that he had to scale almost every encounter. But I think he just added more of the same minions, which was fine by us :)
Maybe he shouldn't have done the side-quest where we leveled twice...
But we all had fun.
I'm running Runelords with five players with 20ptb. Some encounters are way too easy and I usually max monsters' hit points if there's just a single opponent. With mooks I might swap a feat for something more useful. I also hold them just a little behind in levels and don't give extra loot so they need to distribute their wealth carefully.
Naturally the players and their ability to utilize their characters abilities does make a big difference. My group had very little experience when they started and now their system mastery is actually pretty decent.
We are hitting the finale of book two this evening.
So far I have killed five PC's and just one of them in the second book.
Hello,
So I will be running this with a group of 5 PC's, everyone is pretty new and inexperienced but we had tons of fun with the beginner box.
I was wondering since the AP is balanced around 4 players if adding a 5th changes anything? Should I up the monsters HP at all or just play it how it is written for 5 players?
How about experience? Should I just use the recommended level guide when they enter certain areas and advance their levels with the AP or allow them to gain exp as we go along and whatever level they are at for a particular encounter is how it happens?
Party consist of: (We rolled 4d6 and dropped lowest since its our first AP so they all have pretty nice stat rolls)
-Fighter (2hander)
-Draconic Sorcerer
-Ranger
-Good Domain Support Cleric
-Paladin (Hasnt rolled yet, unsure if they are 2hander or sword and board)Any other advice would be great!
My advice is almost always the same in such instances - max out the boss's hit points and always keep an extra 'wave' of mooks in your back pocket to send in should the fight be going too easy. Never fails form me, when it comes to a slightly-larger-than-average party.
I'm running it for 5 PCs, and I keep them a level below what is suggested in each chapter. Since your party seems to be caster-light and melee heavy, I might instead max all foes' hp instead and see how that goes. Not having an arcane caster is going to make this harder, and is a shame because there is a lot of love for PC wizards in this AP.
I scale everything. 25% more monsters, 25% more loot (I've added some cool items from later books this way). If it's a unique enemy, I give it max HP and another class level or the advanced template, plus 25% more gear if it has any. If it's the only enemy in the encounter, I add a couple of half-its-CR minions. We don't use XP, instead going by the level-up guidelines at the start of each section.
Yeah, it's work. Worked well, so far (halfway through book 6). Mostly-melee-oriented party, with the biggest threat being the paladin's +7 charisma and aura of justice.