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In a recent game in one of the encounters in an AP I changed the encounter from the party needing to kill the creature to freeing it. As it could have been a TPK or close to it. What they encountered was bound by a Plansr Binding and it was either they defeat or defeated by it.
No option given to free it or at least written in the AP , the particular creature used hated the NPC that bound it and before combat is very helpful and an alignment opposed by the binder.
So I created on the spot puzzle for them to use and free it. Anyone else do the same.
I reworked pretty much every single encounter in Kingmaker. Mostly to increase difficulty, but quite a bit of story-driven changes... a lot of things have to be changed when the party is super deadly/efficient, but they aren't murderhobos.
A semi-optimized party with good teamwork will mop the floor with most encounters in most AP's. Double the number of minions in every encounter, and gestalt all the named NPC's that you want to last 3+ rounds in combat. Easy-peasy.
Now the party wants to redeem their enemies? Show mercy to those they could destroy in 2 rounds flat? You have adjust the story for that. It's deeper, more involved, greater reprecussions...
my group has 6 players, all highly experienced, and even when not purposely optimizing character, they are still above average. We also play 20+ point builds, so the party is quite easily APL+3, so all encounters get rebuilt.
The Combat Manager can make this partially easy on the fly, since it can add the Advanced Template to the bad guys instantly. I find that this take care of most of the issue. Named Bad guys usually get entered into HeroLab and levels are added so that the CR is raised to match the party.
Aside from that, most encounters work as written. (I have seen some with major problems however)
I always tweak the monsters in the APs to suit my needs. It is a rare day when I don't do so.
I usually tweak the encounters, even if its just tweaking gear/optimizing spell lists.
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Paizo has often said (I believe) that their APs are more like guidelines, it's never intended to be the "definitive" product. I've played and GM'ed several APs, and I believe that if you follow an AP by the letter, you're going to have an inferior time. Not because they're bad (although some are definitely better than others), but because that way, there's no room for customisation. Adventures become better when you put something of yourself in them, or when you adapt them to your party's needs.
Way too many combats have tactics such as "they fight to the death," which can be seen as lazy adventure writing, but it also means that you're free to stray off that path. If every combat is critical to the adventure, and something happens to them, the whole adventure can go awry. But this leaves room for improvisation. If the party doesn't want to murder that whole Goblin village, they might need to relocate them, which can be a whole arc in itself. Conversely, if the adventure assumes the party doesn't want to kill them, but they do, that's a whole level's worth of adventuring out the window.
(Most adventure assume the party basically kills everything they come across. Whether that's prescriptive or descriptive is a whole thing of itself, but it's basically the easiest thing to do and prepare for, that's what matters. The author can't envision all the possible outcomes, so they have to write for the most common denominator and have the GM figure out the rest.)
Adjusting APs, be that changing encounters, swapping out whole bits of adventure, or simply replacing a single NPC, is what makes APs fun, IMHO. You have an adventure handed to you, but you make it your own. It's making a mediocre thing good, or a good thing great. It's the perfect middle ground between a custom campaign and a prewritten adventure.
I will try to not modify the Crimson Throne encounters. Told my players "this AP is not that difficult, it's rather about the story, relax and build something fun", and at least my most ambitious optimizer seems to roll with it. So hopefully the mechanics (feats, spells, equipment, templates etc.) won't need a change.
Opponents not using perfect tactics is actually a boon IMO, since it provides a more varied experience, gives players the chance to feel superior and emphasize the occasional tactic genius opponent.
Finally, the AP's authors added decent flavor to the encounters, so I guess there is no need for change here either.
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yes.
every time I run an AP I always alter the encounters generally after the first book to keep with themes and in some cases enemies learning more about the PC's and start trying to develop methods for dealing with them.
The hard part is generally keeping it within reason to make those Epic battles still winnable.