Hey guys, I'm running an online campaign with some friends and I've decided to do Kingmaker. I've read all six chapters and am quite familiar with the first chapter but because of our varying schedules, we have up to seven players (possibly more as time goes on) playing at a time, but it's unlikely that all of them are going to show up each session. This will be run #2 of the campaign for us, as the first time we had four/five players who said they would show but in reality it averaged out to two/three. We have since doubled our numbers to the amount above so I am expecting a roughly average party size, put that could vary depending on schedules.
Anyhow, the point is that I'm not sure what to do about xp and how to challenge them. On one hand with the xp I'm unsure whether to reward players showing up by only giving xp to those who played in that session, dividing all the xp from the encounter equally amongst those present. The problem I have with that is that later in the campaign some characters might be 5th level, and some might even be 3rd, so it wouldn't be as balanced. The other option I was thinking was giving all the players the standard xp progression, regardless of the number of players present. This means that it doesn't matter if three or five players defeat an encounter, they would get xp as if they had defeated it with four people, keeping xp roughly equal. The problem I have with this option, is that I still don't know what to do about xp and characters who can't make all the sessions.
Anyways, the second problem (long post, I know, sorry) is that because of this possibly varying party size, I'm unsure how to challenge them. On one hand I could leave everything as is so that it's harder with fewer people and easier with more, which could be fun as the players would all communicate IRL to arrange times to defeat hard foes ("you HAVE to be there this weekend, we're taking down the Stag Lord!"). The other option is that I adjust the encounters based on how many players I have, with <6 players I would use the six player kingmaker conversion from the message-boards, with four to five players I would leave it as is, and with fewer players I might reduce the encounters or just not play at all. This leads back into the first problem however, as now I've changed the encounters and therefore the xp. What are your thoughts about this guys, and what do you recommend?
My GMs policy: as long as you give him 24 hours advance notice you're missing the session, you get XP. That way, he's not prepping for 6 PCs and having 4 show up, but also no one is underpowered just because they have outside obligations.
He does encourage people to write a story for what they do in their downtime, in which case they'll also get treasure.
To deal with the exp problem I find it's easiest just to remove exp from the equation and level up the entire party at the appropriate points in the AP. Another option if your group likes exp is to have party exp instead of individual exp, that way even if you have to change an encounter for more or less players they should still keep roughly on track for their expected level.
As for having varying amounts of players. I find it easiest to build for the group's total number of players and have pieces of the encounter that can simply be removed if player aren't there. Say you've got 4/7 players for an encounter against goblin miniboss and his 4 minions then you can remove two of his minions and give the miniboss a -1 to all rolls or something along those lines to hopefully balance things out.
For having to few players I find a good guideline is that if you're missing half or more of your players it's a good idea to call off the session, and maybe play a board game or something else instead.