So I've been running a Pathfinder/3.5 game since last October. Typically my table is anywhere from 5-7 players and up until this point I've been converting published adventures to accommodate their number. But now I've found my free time greatly reduced and the game prep time isn't what it used to be. So now I'm focusing on published adventures that will require little to no prep time, yet are still going to provide a challenge. So I was wondering if this is a sound way to approach the game -
Seven 5th level characters = four 7th level characters
Essentially, choose adventures that are two levels higher and run as is?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
7 5th level characters is falls somewhere between 4 6-7th level characters. Because more people means more actions per round, and you don't seem to want to make too much adjustment to encounters it is reasonable to simply treat your party as though they were two levels higher for the purposes of what encounters they can handle.
So...I would basically run the AP as published but keep the players two level behind where they should be at this point. Please note this doesn't work so well at very low level, but as they are already 5th level it should be okay. You may run into issues that they don't have plentiful access to status removing magic, and you may have to provide that in the form of scrolls or wands as necessary (alongside wands of CLW).
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If you kept the adventure the same, the exp is divided 7 ways instead of 4 and the group will fall behind in levels compared to where a 4th level party would be, keep treasure the same too, it will all even out...eventually they will regress to the sweet spot and supposedly stay there. It is an autocorrect situation that takes a couple levels to equal out and doesn't require rewriting whole swaths of an adventure.
Alternately you can start the arms race of adding in mooks, slapping on templates or levels to BBEGs, adding in treasure for a larger party...for every encounter for the rest of the game. It takes the whole point of running a published adventure away when you have to rewrite everything.
If you kept the adventure the same, the exp is divided 7 ways instead of 4 and the group will fall behind in levels compared to where a 4th level party would be, keep treasure the same too, it will all even out...eventually they will regress to the sweet spot and supposedly stay there. It is an autocorrect situation that takes a couple levels to equal out and doesn't require rewriting whole swaths of an adventure.
Alternately you can start the arms race of adding in mooks, slapping on templates or levels to BBEGs, adding in treasure for a larger party...for every encounter for the rest of the game. It takes the whole point of running a published adventure away when you have to rewrite everything.
I partially agree. I think I'd follow this advice, but the game won't really balance out completely, because of the action economy issue is stronger than class levels. it will get closer to even though, and then just throw in an extra mook or 2 here or there for balance, but provide xp as it would be if the extra mook wasnt there. Try and keep loot the same as it would've been though. Don't be afraid to Sunder something and disjunction something there! But don't overplay them either.
I also can't recommend this guide enough: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGj BMDg/edit?pli=1
I modify heavily to start with, with the simplest quirk being to add templates or levels as needed. Swapping out monsters can completely torque a game in new ways. I just ran Sunken Citadel as a Minotaur maze with a renegade 'druid' in Shambling Mound form. Despite at least 3 of the players having played the original module, none of them caught on.
Thanks for all the advice. I'll put some of this into practice. Like I said, I'm looking for the least amount of pre-work due to time. So if I run them through an adventure that was two levels higher than them, it's minor tweaking.
If you are interested in what I'm currently running and what I did to adjust it, read on -
On Wednesday nights I work at a comic book shop and we run a shop hosted game. Two tables. One runs D&D Next, I run Pathfinder/D&D 3.5. My table agreed we should play some of the adventures that made the 30th greatest adventures of all time list from the Paizo published Dungeon magazine. So since I own Forge of Fury and have maps from running it back in the day - we're into it. They started the adventure two levels higher, at 5th.
I raised the EL of every encounter by two. One for each level higher than the published starting PC level (3rd). Then I also increased the CR of most of the monsters encountered and increased their number as well.
I was initially going to run White Plume right after, since they should be level 7 by Forge's end. If I were to do that, just increase the amount of enemies?
But then I thought maybe just run a 9th level adventure and be good.
This happens in my group. There are 5 of us that are quite consistent and then a handful of others that may or may not be present. The quickest and easiest way to scale from 4 to 7 is to simply double everything in the encounter. Its almost universally better then boosting individual enemies, because the action economy is a really important element to encounter dynamics AND if you boost them too much individual enemies will be too much of a threat to individual party members.
When doubling doesnt make sense (IE you are facing the big bad wizard) throw in a simple to run (bruiser type) npc or monster of equal cr to whatever cannot be doubled that fits the general theme of the encounter. Just make sure the number and CR of the things added match whats already there. Assuming access to the npc codex and the bestiaries this all told shouldnt add more then 10 minutes of prep to the amount of time normally required to prep a published adventure.
Running higher level adventures is probably not a good idea, because often they assume the party has access to certain abilities that might not be available until certain levels. And you have that same issue of individual monsters will be too much of a threat to an individual pc.
For instance, a big bad fight for a 9th level party might be 2 CR 11 enemies (for a CR of 13 for the encounter). Those are potentially 12th level characters. Imagine what the complete attention of one 12th level character would do to a 7th level party member. The could squish them with a full attack, or smother them with a 6th level spell, when the party only has access (maybe) to 4th level spells). The disparity is too great there.
I just got raked over the coals...
I was told to point out that I 'sideboard' every encounter (not totally true), keeping a few extra mooks to fill in or be deleted as needed. The extra filler fleshes in most on action economy. Also, going from 4 to 6 spear carriers is rather easy to do, compensating for another player just by hitting the copier a couple of times more. Actually, I often have a master copy and a graph page with a column for each background thug.
After talking to the table last night, we might jump into an adventure path next - Skull and Shackles is in the lead. Like I have stated above, I was thinking of throwing them into the path two levels above their PCs level and run as published.
I'm hesitant to just double the amount of enemies. There are times where it just won't work or make sense.
So maybe I can split the difference. So, say the PCs are 5th level. Run them through a 6th level adventure and add an extra enemy or two where applicable. That way the enemies won't be too far out of bounds for the PCs when it come to damage dealt and resources needed to deal with them.