AP Difficult Level?

[KarmaKollapse]

Hi all,

I've been reading up on this AP and have put it on the top of my 'to play next' list of adventures as I rather like the theme, the twists later on, and the general narrative.

One of the things I've picked up on though is that a lot of people have found the AP difficult. I'd probably be running the AP with 5-6 players, most of whom are not the type to make 'optimized' characters. What have you found to be the difficult aspects of the adventure path? Envrionmental conditions? The opponents themselves?

Thanks!

[BulgarianFirstborn]

Let's see here.
First thing that comes to mind is the cold weather. Do yourself a favor and really learn how it works. It's pretty harsh at first, but once your players get used to it, it stops being a factor.
Movement is also an issue, since the deep snow prevents a lot of fast movement, almost always acting as difficult terrain (half movement) which also rules out 5ft. steps and charging.
Visibility during the bad weather is also a factor if you have a lot of ranged characters.

Fey could be surprisingly tricky at low levels due to high AC, flying, and their DR5/Cold Iron. Expect some frustration from your players.

With 5, especially 6 players, be prepared to give most encounters, especially the more important ones, the Advanced template (basically +2 to all rolls, more HP, etc)

The first really deadly encounter is The High Sentinel's Lodge - lots of foes, a "necromancer" who turns them into undead, etc. It's a tough one to balance, but if you have 5-6 players I would give the caster in there some levels in Rogue.

One of the annoying things in running this campaign with a lot of players is the fact that there are some pretty important NPC's early on, who are significant for the storyline and the AP kind of expects you to use them as "the guide" for the party. So if you have 6 players, the party becomes a 7-person party... not counting any familiars, mounts, summoned creatures or animal companions.

[JankInTheTank]

The environmental stuff really makes the early levels harder. I am running this as the very first AP that any of my players have played in before, so I am intentionally softening up the cold weather dangers. I let them get cold weather gear very easily, and even let them buy snowshoes (which are in the players guide). It made it so that we weren't constantly doing Fort saves and having people fatigued.

The enemies themselves can be a bit hard for low level play, just because we're talking fey instead of your standard human fighter 1s running around, or goblins, spiders and orcs. flying, good AC and DR make them a bit harder. my party has a lot of magic users, so the DR was less of an issue, and they do get a cold iron longsword right off the bat, which went to the one melee player.

The lodge is often mentioned as very deadly, and has a ton of entries in the obituaries thread. my players did very well at beating it piece by piece, but it can be very hard for level 1 players. The winter portal is also tough, and is a spot where I really did play up the environment to make it harder and more climactic.

For Firstborn's point about the NPCs, it's an issue that comes up in a lot of APs. you want an NPC to hang out with the group for story reasons, but adding another activation on the PC side can really make it tough to keep things challenging.

Both of the groups I GM for right now have 5 players. for both groups, I have reworked the NPCs a bit to make them significantly weaker in combat than they could be. Really make their focus be as a story component and make them either mostly insignificant or even a liability in combat.

Take Nadya for example, the first big NPC that will be hanging out with the party for quite some time in the early books. drop one or more of her class levels to start with, and be sure to not optimize her completely. then when you get into fights, be sure to really play up her lack of fighting experience. she's a trader, not a warrior. she can defend herself ok, but working as part of a unit is hard for her. maybe she rushes in without thinking and gets surrounded sometimes. maybe in the Pale tower she lets the whole situation with her daughter get into her head and goes rushing off by herself to find the witch. maybe in the caravan she stays behind to protect her boy instead of running out to help in the encounter.

[BulgarianFirstborn]

About Nadya: She hasn't been very useful at all besides her Survival checks (even though she rolled a 1 and led the players into an ambush). She's a Rogue with 8 Wisdom, and even when she levels up at level 4, she's barely doing any damage with her handaxe and pick axe. I usually just have her jump on things like tables to get slight elevation (it has turned in to a bit of a joke) and just pling baddies. If they are low in health, I just say she misses (and she usually does - lots of broken strings due to 1's on my part...). I have her retrained as a Trapper archetype Ranger without a pet (naturally), though that's a bit useless until level 5.
I find it easier to just make the enemies sstronger by slapping on extra abilities or just the simple Advanced Template.