Late Start to AP

[magispitt]

So basically I'm the GM for my group and wasn't sure what they wanted to play so I've used a module for the last two sessions. Now the PCs are all third level, and because there were only three of them I let them choose between gestalt and a GMPC (they chose gestalt). They asked if we can play Carrion Crown, or at least the first book before deciding to continue with the AP or move onto home-brew. My question is what I should do for the AP, as it's designed to serve first level characters. My ideas:

XP Progression:

As they're roughly at 3k experience points and were on the fast track (they don't like playing level one characters as much and wanted to go up a few levels quickly) I thought of putting them on the slow xp progression until the extra xp didn't make much of a difference, at which point I could switch to medium.

Encounter Changes:

Another option was to simply double the amount of xp for each encounter as that raises the CR by two (the number of levels they're ahead). This approach might be coupled with the other approach, giving them harder fights but still slowing their progression until they match the story.

No Change:

The final option I thought of was to not change anything, they'd steamroll over the initial encounters and level fairly quickly, but after a few levels 3k xp wouldn't make as much of a difference so it might simply resolve itself.

What are your thoughts? If you have any advice I'd greatly appreciate it - thanks in advance! :)

[magispitt]

Bumping this, if it should be posted elsewhere though please tell me

[Jaunt]

In my opinion, Harrowstone is too awesome to steamroll. I did it with a party of 2 and it was as brutal as it was amazing. With a full party, I imagine it's quite handleable, and at level 3 it'll just be bad.

Make everything tougher, award less xp until the AP catches up with them. That's my vote.

[Oddman80]

Can you hand wave them back to level 1?
Come up with an Encounter that they all nearly die in - the manage to escape with their lives but permanently lose two levels... And then somehow, tie it into whatever sets off the begibinning sequence of Cartion Crown?

[magispitt]

Jaunt wrote:

In my opinion, Harrowstone is too awesome to steamroll. I did it with a party of 2 and it was as brutal as it was amazing. With a full party, I imagine it's quite handleable, and at level 3 it'll just be bad.

Make everything tougher, award less xp until the AP catches up with them. That's my vote.

Alright, so you're saying that in the spirit of the AP I should keep things challenging and that I should employ both of my ideas. Seeing as they're two levels higher should I increase the CR of everything by two then and award them xp from the original challenge so that the extra challenges don't escalate and cause them to gain too many levels?

Oddman80 wrote:

Can you hand wave them back to level 1?

Come up with an Encounter that they all nearly die in - the manage to escape with their lives but permanently lose two levels... And then somehow, tie it into whatever sets off the begibinning sequence of Cartion Crown?

Technically seeing as I'm the GM I could, although the players might not like it. I thought I mentioned it above but it seems I didn't so that's my fault: the reason my players are 3rd level is because they don't like playing first level as much (because it's more swingy) so they wanted to get to their favourite levels (3rd-5th). Hand waving them back would defeat the purpose, and they'd still have substantially more equipment than a 1st level character unless I removed that from them as well. It's defiantly an idea though, thanks for leaving a suggestion :) (I'd rather refute suggestions than stare at a blank post).

Edit: Two of my players want to change characters, considering what I said do you think it's feasible to have them start at a lower level?

This brings up another question I had actually, what do you guys do about your players wanting to make new characters, or character death (I guess new PC's in general). Do you start them from level one and if not then from which level? Also regarding equipment do you allow them to bring purchased equipment and magic items straight from their wealth by level table?

[Jaunt]

Yep, that's basically what I'm saying.

New PCs come in at party level and with standard WBL. Old PCs take all their gear with them, or it's subtracted from the new guy's WBL. If someone wants to change PCs more than once in a very long time, I tell them to cut it out.

[GeneticDrift]

Encounter a haunt that gives out a negative level. Make it memorable and tied to the plot.

Leave the gear alone and make sure they get enough bonus gold to remove the neg. levels.

Add a few weak creatures to the early encounters. If they are packed for anti undead encourage them to over use their holy water and such early in the AP so they want the stockpile.

[Oddman80]

Most of my players like seeing their characters grow over the course of a long campaign... They like ha Inc the shared background. However I do have one player who I know gets bored with his characters and is always looking towards what his next character will be. So, I pretty much encorporated his character swaps I to logical places so that it flows with the story. It is almost like handing over an NPC.. I'll usually tell him he has free reign with the character except for X, Y, and Z.
I'll usually feed him some info during the initial meet up with the rest of the party, help make it so that the party WANTS this guy to joint them as the go about with A, B & C.
But he'll be a local - so when the PC's are ready to move on, he stays behind - a new local hero, or whatever.

[Valandil Ancalime]

I did something similar with Jade Regent. I did 2 things,
1- modified some of the more important npc's
2- put them on the clock. Tell them, the haunts will escape in 24hrs if they aren't stopped.

[Oddman80]

wow... I apparently shouldn;t write that late at night... SOOOOO many typos.