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I wouldn't recommend making any changes to for a group of new players, especially if you're starting at 1st level and sticking with the 15-point buy for their stats. This campaign can be challenging in a fun way for a non-optimized group.
Now with a party of 5 specialized in giant slaying (2 dwarves one of which is a titan mauler, 1 ranged ranger with giant favored enemy, and a mind-controlling sorcerer who loves giant minions), I've been forced to make a LOT of changes and upgrades. LOL :)
True. I'd stick to what's written for book 1. Get feedback from your group and make notes on how they brave the various encounters.
If you and your group agree it's too easy and they want a bigger challenge you could either start adding the Advanced Simple template to significant monsters or start adding one or two mooks to encounters.
Ruyan.
I don't use XP, and level them up according to where they are in the plot, and I've just kept the party 1 level behind the suggested benchmarks. Seems to work ok, but it really depends on what your party composition is.
I´d also recommend not to change anything for a start. If you notice its too easy, you can always adjust later. Even 20-point buy probably will not do much harm. It is probably a nice start for newbies if they get some easy successes at first - it will get harder anyway.
I really recommend not using XP. The campaign has spelled out the level-up points quite clearly, and it saves you a lot of bookkeeping. Works out great for me. Later on, you might consider slowing down the advancement somewhat, which can also be a balancing factor.
It depends a bit on the group composition as well. I´ve got two melee fighters and that makes a difference, as most fights are melees.
I recommend a reactionary approach. Do nothing at the start and then dial it up if necessary.
You don't need to add mooks or the advanced template to increase the challenge. Simply changing the default tactics of the monsters may be more than enough. Many NPC's and monsters have tactics along the lines of "so-and-so stays in his room when danger comes to his home." This is simple to modify - when the pc's start a fight with group A, group B in a neighboring room joins in two rounds later and so on. Don't throw all the neighbors in at once but send them in waves, as soon as your pc's are getting pressed hard, turn the spigot off. I suggest varying your approach - extra mooks some of the time, advanced template other times, converging enemies in other situations. Requires a bit of judgement to know which to use when but if you don't go overboard, you shouldn't have too much trouble. Remember easy wins are way easier to deal with than TPK's.
I would also recommend not using xp but rather level up by story milestone. Easier on you and you don't have to worry about xp getting out of whack if you do add extra monsters, etc. FYI: I've done the math for the entire AP (because I'm old and anal retentive) and if you give out xp as described in the AP per encounter, trap, etc. the pc's level up exactly where the milestones say they should.
5 pc's might get you into trouble if you have any WBL lawyers in the group - with newbies I hope this risk is small. Despite occasional posts out here to the contrary, there is definitely enough treasure to be found but that's for four pc's. For 5, it might be a bit light but that too is another balancing mechanism.
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I am running a group of 5 right now and they just finished Chapter 2. There have been a few near deaths and the pucker factor has been quite good for my inexperienced players. Now that they are getting the hang of buffs and taking advantage of their individual specialties, I will need to ramp things up on them. Bottom line, the advice given by the others is sound. Have FUN !!!
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We've had as many as five on some episodes of RotRL (just finished book 2 & Xanesha). The only changes I really needed to make were:
1) better tactics - which the players really appreciate anyway. It's more fun to fight against foes who use good tactics, and it allows clever players to go that much further to outwit them.
2) a few extra minions (goblins, goblin dogs, skeletons, ghouls, whatever is the standard baseline in a given chapter.
3) very rarely leave a nasty monster *alone* to face a group of 4 to 5 PCs. In the final fight with Xanesha, she stood alone against the PCs, but they had been worn down by previous encounters and only survived because I let them tip the angel statue over on her. Still, 2 of the 3 PCs died and had to be raised - a near TPK event (2 guys were absent that night). It was great!
4) This should really be (1b) but don't forget that good tactics often means preventing the PCs from pooling their forces. Divide and rule! When Nualia's Yeth hounds howl and 3 of 5 PCs goes running in fear, having missed their saving throw, that's good miscreant tactics. When a wooden walkway collapses, sending half the party falling to a lower level while the other face a mutant goblin with a magic sword, that's good miscreant tactics.
Group so far:
Ranger
Fighter
Barbarian (w/ plans to multi into witch)
Druid
Some sort of caster.The initial gobbos should be easy for this group (probably too easy, we'll see how the first group goes), but I think Thistletop should still be challenging, since there's lots of ways to stack encounters (as Latrecis says above) if they start cruising through it.
With three fighter types, most of the standard fights will probably be somewhat easier, especially once the PCs get decent equipment. Thistletop, especially the dungeon levels, are somewhat tight quarters, so it could reduce the effectiveness of melee types.
Skills (especially knowledge) and the "group face" seem to be somewhat weak, which might cause them some trouble later on. The Druid should probably look into the Perception skill, I found it crucial in my game. It´s a class skill for druids and the character will most probably have a decent WIS score.
Overall, the group sounds to me like coming from a more tribal background so far, seen as whole.
With 3 Full BAB classes and potentially a wildshaping melee/mook summoner, I'd consider maximizing the HP of every foe they face.
I don´t seem to recall that many traps in the AP so far - at least, my party does ok without a rogue. But don´t take that as gospel regarding traps.