First time GMing RotRL

[Diaz Ex Machina]

Hello fellow adventurers!
For the first time I am going to actually play a Pathfinder game, and I will be the GM. I was thinking to use the Rise of the Runelords AP for my party, but was thinking about one thing: how can I adapt the whole campaign to a party of 5 (or maybe even 7) players? Is there some quick trick to do it without having to tweak every single encounter?
Thank you for your help :)

[Magda Luckbender]

For your first time GMing a Pathfinder I suggest you keep the party size small. RotRL AP will work fine for 5 players. You probably don't need to adapt anything, unless your players are exceptionally skilled and create very powerful characters.

I'm just finishing the end of RotRL. Here's a thread I started asking the collective for advice.

[boring7]

Play it loose, don't worry if some fights are too easy (if the dice are hot, it doesn't matter what the encounter level is) but keep an eye on it in case it shows a trend. Read what you estimate the day's adventure is going to be twice before running it.

Have a handful of semi-random events/encounters ready. We players are stupid and will inevitably misunderstand, "go ye west to the cryptes of ages 'neath the shadow of the mountain," as "walk in circles then travel northeast to the giant freakin' statue that has literally 2 sentences written about it in the entirety of Paizo's library." It helps to have a sidequest or two that are generic enough you can slot them in, or a way to gently steer the party back onto the rails.

If players are playing off each other, remind them you aren't their parental unit and are not required to adjudicate their bullshit. Keeping the game going is a rough job, but you don't have to be perfect, goodness knows no one ELSE wants to do the job.

And take pleasure in the little things. Like when you manage (without any cheating) to make a player truly *hate* a villain.

[Saldiven]

I've run RotRL with five characters, and it wasn't too tilted in the direction of the characters. When the characters started to become powerful enough that the stock encounters were a little too easy, I balanced that out by adding a few random encounters here and there so the party was not always fully charged up when getting to the book encounters. It made everything a tad more challenging since they weren't constantly loaded for bear with every encounter.

[Douglas Muir 406]

The big issue is not number of players but experience level of players. If you have players who know the game backwards and forwards, and who build optimized characters and are cunning at tactics, they will slash through most of the AP without difficulty. If your players are noobs or nearly so, they'll be challenged.

Otherwise, my only advice is "read the first two modules in advance, and then go back and read RotRL thoroughly". Knowing the material well really helps.

Oh, and foreshadow Nualia -- have her appear as a mysterious cloaked woman down an alley in the first goblin fight, or something like that.

Doug M.

[Deadalready]

5 shouldn't be a problem, start off adding 2 goblins to each encounter (especially boss fights) and scale it up and down from there.

[Wheldrake]

In my group (in central France) we are about to begin our 4th session in RotRL. 4 players: Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian and Alchemist.

The goblins in the initial assault on Sandpoint and the Glassworks were pushovers. The Sinspawn and other critters in the Catacombs were also pushovers, though Erylium was a hard nut to crack, and she could have easily provoked a TPK if I'd played her powers to the hilt.

I would suggest, even with only 4 players, to add in some additional critters. 2 extra goblin commandos, say, for every encounter of goblins.

With 5, 6 or 7 players I would strongly suggest adding in some goblins with character levels. The goblin warchanters in chapter 1 are a good start, but you could also have a few goblin/2nd level barbarian or a goblin/4th level sorcerer here and there. And double the numbers of Sinspawn in the catacombs, and make sure that Erylium doesn't fight alone.

One of the most rewarding parts of the Sandpoint experience came from me printing out character profiles for most of the townsfolk (some dozen or so NPCs per page, x 3 pages). Roleplaying the townsfolk made the setting really come alive, and it made the players really care about what happens to them. Giving them emotional ties changes the feel of adventures. What could have been simply murderhobo killfests become high-minded stands on principles and heroic exploits in the name of community.

[UncleGeorge]

I'm running a game of RotRL with 5 PC as we speak and we're at the second chapter now. I'd say I quickly had to add a couple of goblins quite quickly to many encounters to make it more interesting, the extra action point per round does make a significant difference so yah, add a couple of minions to even things out.

Erylium was a reaaaallly hard fight at level 2, and not a fun hard fight either. If you use all of her ability and the PC aren't experienced enough to think about getting a cold-iron weapon before facing her, it's just a tedious bore as she'll heal pretty easily most of the damage they can dish out on her. I'd suggest to somehow hint at them to bring a cold-iron weapon in the Catacombs to avoid a 40 minute encounter!

However, in contrast, Nualia and her doggy didn't seem like she would be much of a challenge, what I personally did was to round up all of the main baddies that escaped from the PC grasp and add them to her encounter to make it a truly epic fight that just felt more dangerous. For example, my group managed to capture Tsuto, but because they weren't doing much damage to Erylium, she managed to escape before the killing blow. While they were trying to figure out what to do with the runewell, she helped Tsuto escape from the town jail and they both meet up with Nualia making it a much more dangerous fight but not impossible for them to do (since they'll be level 3-4 by then instead of level 2 when they first encountered these guys and they know what to expect from them)

Also, do read the whole chapter in advance, I made the mistake of reading only a section of the first chapter thinking they would follow a pretty straightforward path but they are bound to mess up your plans :p

[Malag]

Hey Diaz Ex Machina,

I played through all 6 books of RotR so I am unsure if you plan to do so also. The last book was done through sheer willpower from my side as a GM as I just wanted to finish the campaign finally be done with it.

2 points of advice if you plan to go through all the books:
a) Don't let players choose whichever item they want to buy. Use the settlement rules and adjudicate those properly.
b) After level 13-15 CR system starts going down like a crashing boat. CR although correct seems almost pointless in some situations and my players basically would have 1 shotted Karzoug himself if I left the system as it is. Feel free to rack up and add more challenge in last RotR books (if you ever reach those)

Several universal advices and notes:
- RotR is designed for suboptimal party of players to be challenging.
- RotR assumes your players will use 15 pts buy for ability scores.
- Most of fights are suboptimal in order to wear down the party before final boss.
- Adding more minions is better then making a tougher boss.
- I used Hero Point additional rules to reduce number of deaths in campaign. Players gained them after every major dungeon only and it was enough.
- After 3rd book, campaign kind of railroads you a bit but in a obvious way. Prepare some subquests like people already suggested. Don't be afraid to set up diplomatic encounters. (Not every goblin wishes to die)

That's about all universal advice that I can think of at the moment.

Adam

[Diaz Ex Machina]

Thank you all, your advice are very useful to me.