Adding new players to in-progress game

[GRiggs77]

Hello all.

It looks like I'm going to be adding two new players to my current group of four players. Not sure what they will be playing yet but I wanted to reach out for advice on a couple of points.

1) The group is moving into the final part of Burnt Offerings, after dealing with the last goblins. Any suggestions for a good point to work a couple extra characters in ?

2) I've read the thread on running the AP with larger groups but part of the reason we are adding the new player is because we are pretty regularly missing one or more players. We figured that if we need to run an absent player's character it might be easier with extra people. With that in mind and the fact that I have newer players with sub optimal builds, I don't want to go through and modify each encounter individually. I'm thinking that to account for the six man group that I will just have them hang back a level from the recommend levels for the different sections. I've been just leveling them to match with those suggestions instead of tracking XP. Does this seem like a decent option ? Any particular sticking points ?

Thanks in advance.

[Skeld]

You can have new characters show up as prisoners in Thistletop, or wait until the chapter is over and add them in prior to starting chapter two.

One of the things I did with my 6 player group (eventually, 7 players) is to have them stay about one level behind the recommendation. If you've ditched XP, this will make it much easier.

It may take you some time to get used to scaling the encounters, so the best advice I can give you there is to remain fluid in how you modify encounters.

Good luck!

-Skeld