Yes folks I had 9 players. I was doing my whole "journey up the river on a barge/flat bottom boat" when after the combat with a river nymph/fey, some fey-ish encounters and finally the river pirates...it dawned on me.
9 players is just TOO damn unwieldy.
So now I have two groups.
My only question is this: Should I put in more encounters or dial it back to normal if the PCs are now each 5 members?
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4-5 players doesn't require any adjustments. The XP stays the same (using the quick-n-dirty XP awards section in the CRB), while the somewhat reduced loot-per-PC balances out the 5th character.
So keep it normal. Right then. No more River Pirates!
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Since it sounds like you were really excited about river pirates, one thing you could do is add in one or in at Stag Fort negotiating with the Stag Lord to use his fort as a port of call. He could represent a much larger pirate presence in the River Kingdoms, and one that could become bigger once the party starts clearing out everything and settling the area.
Well I am considering that, mostly because I think River Pirates are cool. ;)
But yeah I think maybe I'll have them own like a small port nearby.
I'd play it by the book for a session or so and see how your players are handling the challenge level. Then you can start making adjustments to the scripted encounters or adding more as you see fit.
How optimized your players characters are and whether or not they work together using effective tactics has a massive impact on how challenging the "as written" encounters are.
Also, if the encounter is the only one they are likely to fight that day I like to up the difficulty a bit.
You could swap out the Candlemere threat as written for a pirate base...?
I could do that...
I'd play it by the book for a session or so and see how your players are handling the challenge level. Then you can start making adjustments to the scripted encounters or adding more as you see fit.How optimized your players characters are and whether or not they work together using effective tactics has a massive impact on how challenging the "as written" encounters are.
Also, if the encounter is the only one they are likely to fight that day I like to up the difficulty a bit.
Well I've already had two sessions. But I will definitely play it by the book when they actually start out at Oleg's Trading post.
I'm pretty sure the first group (the male tielfling sorcerer, the male half orc gunslinger, the male human alchemist, the female gnome cavalier, and the male human fighter) are more optimized than the other half atm.