Would you say that you need to make a lot more adjustments than for every other AP (which you realistically should adjust quite a bit for play-by-post and for characters in general, IMO)?
Like many early APs, KM suffers from the fact that most of the material people want to use was not a part of the game when the campaign was written. The more character options you have, the more it becomes possible to optimize, so you do have to accommodate that. Some people handle this by making "core only" games. I don't like that as a solution, but then it means you have to ramp up the difficulty a bit.
I know that baseline wrath is just a stomp. Rise of the Runelords is supposed to be a bit all-over-the-map for difficulty. I don't know how much my DM has changed for Reign of Winter, though, so can't comment on that. :)
I haven't played WoR but I have heard the mythic rules create an imbalance that is not really fixable. I am running RotRL and I can say that most of the AP needs to be ramped up in difficulty, as the party tends to face enemies whose base attack bonus is too low to land hits or whose AC is too low to avoid being hit. There are a few tough spots but for the most part the party faces enemies that are too low CR for the party.
I don't know about RoW but it is more recent and so theoretically should have a bit better balance.
I am running a very loose KM game using outcasts and so forth.
So seeing a normal one run would be fun.
But Reign of Winter seems to have some interesting fluff involved. Honestly I would love to see someone run a Yeti through a RoW
My vote goes to KM, with RoW coming in a close second :)
All of the APs are balanced for 'people who don't optimize too well' because that's the average. Once you start playing online, they all feel a bit 'easy' because the players online tend to think more critically about the game bits. It's usually easy enough to fix up the cinematic moments and it's not awful to have a bunch of monsters that aren't likely to do serious damage to the party - remember the party is supposed to be winning, the APs losing. As long as you keep the plot moving and everyone engaged, having numerically 'bad' bad guys won't matter.
If you really want to buff things, it's usually more interesting to add more things for the party to overcome than to make any singular npc scarier. "Defeating a horde of orcs" is more impressive than "Defeating thok, king of the orcs" in most games. (There's always someone who'd rather fight thok, but you get my point).
You don't actually have to buff an AP to run it and have fun with it.
I suggest using the "simple advanced template" for BBEGs in the game. +2 on all checks made. and +2 AC
leave plebs the way they are
RoW for me, followed by RotRL.
I'd run your chosen AP as vanilla game - avoid gestalt (my opinion) and vet 3PP. Am currently playing in a Shackled City pbp that the GM has limited to Core and a few other paizo books - its pretty refreshing to be honest.
Anyways that's my 2 runes worth
I think Quick Build rules are +4 to AC and +2 to all rolls including damage and attack.
I think Quick Build rules are +4 to AC and +2 to all rolls including damage and attack.
my bad, thought it was +2 AC. +4 is also good :P or bad... depends who you ask :P
Retract my vote, Gestalt play just isn't really my thing.
So now with a couple new votes, and one vote retracted for KM, RoW is in the lead 14 vs KM 13
With Cap and Jess both retracting their votes I think we are even again.
Jesse's vote was already included in the previous post.
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I'll remove my vote for kingmaker as I just got into that one, making it just Rise and Wrath.
I think most people didn't account for gestalt when they voted. Personally I would love gestalt, but I know I'm in the minority.
I think you are better off just running what you want to play. There will be enough people applying regardless.
Gestalt makes things a lot harder or the GM as you have to modify things much heavier or end up with no challenges at all. I'm sure you are aware of that when choosing what yo play though.
I love Gestalt.
I like gestalt too =^^=
Can't say I've ever tried gestalt before...
Would love to play in either game. I want to play a Hobgoblin
Voting is over with Reign of Winter at 14 votes, to Lingmakers 12. I'll start recruitment shortly.
Alrighty then--I'll start putting my character together in the meantime.
Sweet I finally get to use the Tribalistic race trait.
Super in.
Kingmaker or Reign of Winter. Kingmaker looks interesting.
Voting is over with Reign of Winter at 14 votes, to Lingmakers 12. I'll start recruitment shortly.
Ah, well... have to pass on Reign of Winter. But thanks anyway and have fun!