normally I just maximize hit points when I find that my PCs are plowing through everything. It doesn't change the encounter by adding extra creatures, and it just makes the fights last a little long. And they never know, really.
You have 8 players coming into an AP that was balanced for four players at a 15 point buy
Time to calculate your party APL and balance CRs accordingly
Double or even triple all encounters, max out HP then cry in a corner or whatever you have to do to get yourself through it, though take heart you'll most likely whittle that number down, large groups tend not to have a long shelf:-)
jeez man thats some serious devastation every round:-p
|
The antipaladin will probably never use Smite Good... enemies are mostly neutral or evil; i'd say the antipal and rogue are worth 1 PC together, so your table stands at an effective table of 6... still big, but not overwhelming.
Certain fights are against easy minions, just double those or if you're experienced give 'em all the advanced template on the fly (+2 to everything, +2 hp / HD). Certain fights are against ONE boss / Captain type... for those, double the boss (it might be cheesy but for some fight you say "2 officers stand before you" instead of "the enemy Captain stands before you")
|
|
addendum: I see you do not have a wizard or sorcerer... which will result in two or three PCs being charmed at times (just like MY group!) so you'll see half the party fight the other half at times (if they fail their opposed Cha check against the enemy caster's orders...)
PS: unless the catfolk Cleric is not battle oriented (i.e. if he's smart and uses Protection from Evil / Magic Circle vs. Evil profusely)
Keep in mind though, that a large chunk of the 1st chapter of S&S is less focused on combat and more focused on the PCs surviving their pressganged days on the Wormwood. A few of the early combats are either for one/two PCs or just plain trivial anyway.
While you'll want to balance combats, start thinking about how you'll keep 8 players involved and busy in the early goings of their roles as pressganged sailors. These early segments can easily turn into a snoozefest of waiting to roll a few dice for jobs, NPC influence, etc...especially in a big party.
Putting some forethought and planning on how to handle such a big group during that segment of the AP will go a long way to making sure that your group is still interested and having fun for the longhaul.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
They'll level up slower if you don't give them more to fight or more quests.. When they should be seven, they'll actually be four. They'll finish the campaign around 9 if you don't up the XP. Remember to add 1 to the APL because you have more than 6 PCs.
|
|
Nawtyit makes a good point. Luckily for you Ships of the Inner Sea came out two-three months ago, so you can supplement such a party with additional ship encounters from that book.
Advice: the two "easiest" encounters are listed as a challenge for level 4 and level 6 partys, but don't believe it. The Hu-Hazhong encounter (listed for level 4s) almost TPK'ed my group when I GM'ed it, and they were APL 5... don't send the Hu-Hazhong until they're level 6, and don't send the Kraken's Spite (listed as level 6 challenge) until they're level 8. If your group is well balanced (ftr, rog, clr, wiz) then maybe they can do it at the listed level, but my group is mostly non-magic warrior types...
keep in mind the OP did not say anything about how they are handling leveling or even if they are using XP
I'm just finishing up GMing the Wormwood Mutiny, with 5x 20pt characters.
As it was my first campaign, learning to deal with CR was the biggest concern:
This guide helps immensely with understanding CR.
The basic gist is:
If you have a CR3 encounter: and it's worth 800xp, divide that by 4 (the intended number of players) to get 200xp per player. Then multiply it by your actual number of players: 7.
This means you need to turn the 800xp encounter into a 1400xp encounter.
You can do this by adding extra monsters, or adding templates/extra HD/class levels to existing monsters.
There are caveats: such as don't simply pump all 1400xp into one monster, especially if the CR is already 1-2 above the average party level - it makes them a bit over-dangerous: but other than that it leaves you in a pretty good spot.
Try to learn the difference between a 'soft' way to increase the difficulty of monsters (like raising HD, which, if used sparingly adds mostly just HP, and maybe a feat) or 'hard' ways, like applying advanced templates (which adds kinda major stat increases, making the monster hit harder, more often and so on): try to run experiments with the easier encounters in the book, so by the time you have CR+1 or CR+2, you have an idea of how strong each method is.
For fine tuning after that: consider maxxing monster HP if you think you are close to the right level of difficulty, but combat is over too quickly. Just re-assess down the track, if you think combat is becoming a slog.
On the adventure path front: they actually tell you when the PCs are expected to level up. I'd actually throw XP out the door and run it that way, personally. Otherwise it will break your scaling.
I've never run a large game (this was my first one, as mentioned) but I hope your players know how to be ready for their turn, otherwise 7 players +75% 'more monster' is going to mean slow turns!