I'll be starting Rise of the Runelords with a group of friends soon.
Our group will consist of only 3 players (+ the GM of course), with the other two players being fairly new to Pathfinder (they've played the Beginner Box and 1-2 homebrew adventures).
I'll most certainly play a Wizard loosely based on Treantmonks guide. One of the other players will probably play a TWF Ranger. The third one has played too much Assassins Creed and will probably play some sort of Rogue.
Our GM has played a few more games than the other players, but it will be her first big adventure as GM, since she only GMed the Beginners Box before.
1) Will our group composition do well in RotRL? I'm a bit worried about the lack of in combat healing (for out of combat healing we can stick a CLW-wand on the Ranger) combined with our overall squishiness. Will this be a problem?
2) How hard/deadly is RotRL? Does our GM have to adjust things for the fact that we're only three players? Or is the AP already on the easy side?
3) Any other advice (RotRL specific or general) for our novice GM?
Thanks for your answers!
1)My group got to lvl 13 without any in combat healing and could probably have managed without it to the end. They got a cleric as a replacement character for the only PC death of the campaign. If you are worried about the Rogue being vulnerable you could see if he would like a slayer, it does most rogue stuff but is tougher and a better combatant.
2)I had to increase the difficulty but I had more players and they were more experienced. You should be ok , although there are plenty of places you can get killed by bad tactics
3) There is a lot of useful stuff for gm's in this forum particularly the user created stuff. It can save a lot of time for a gm when you find someone else has already created the maps/handouts you need.
The Slayer is actually a great idea! I don't own the Advanced Class Guide yet, so I didn't know about him.
Thank you for that!
May I ask how many players you had?
It's good to know that we'll probably manage. I suppose the increased treasure per person will aid with that after the first few levels. I'll suggest to my GM to leave it as is but keep it in mind if we run into trouble.
You'll probably be OK through the first chapter with only 3 PCs, but be wary of Thistletop.
Once the ranger gets his animal companion, that'll be kind of like a 4th player, so that'll help.
As the wizard, be sure to scribe extra scrolls and use summon monster to beef up your group whenever possible.
You might also try to hire an extra fighter, or recruit one of the Sandpoint NPCs to help. Ameiko or Shalelu would certainly help beef up your group, and there are plenty of other options once y'all get friendly with the townsfolk.
I had 5 players
Paladin/Gunslinger
Wizard Spellslinger (Weaker than the average wizard)
Wizard/Rogue/Arcane trickster (Player left campaign and I dropped the character before Book 6 as it was too much effort to NPC a Wizard on the players side)
Synthesist Summoner (Monstrously powerful I have now banned it with the agreement of all players)
Slayer (Killed by really bad dice rolls late in campaign and replaced by Cleric. He failed a Reflex save he needed a 1 for)
They had a cohort later. If it suits your group leadership can be useful to add another character slightly weaker later on
You might also try to hire an extra fighter, or recruit one of the Sandpoint NPCs to help.
Thanks for the hint! I'll probably take leadership, then. It would even fit quite nicely with my character concept of wanting to create a large open-for-all library (basically a medieval Wikipedia), since the low level followers could be scribes/librarians.
As the wizard, be sure to scribe extra scrolls and use summon monster to beef up your group whenever possible.
Since I'm already planning to focus on summoning and battlefield control, that'll be no problem.
With "extra scrolls" do you mean scrolls for additional castings of regular spells (wouldn't a wand be better for that?) or the usual scrolls for circumstantial spells?
I had 5 players
Okay, thanks! Let's see how we fare with three players then...