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Hello Guru's,
I am currently running an AP for a group of 7 players. The AP was written for 4. Should I increase the amount of treasure for the increased number of players?
If yes, just coins or weapons too? what about magic items?
The table in the core rule book pg 399 table 12=4 mentions that players should have XX wealth at specified levels. I am taking that with a grain of salt but if I do not increase the treasure they will be no where near the number in the table.
The AP is the Mummy's Mask which I, and they are enjoying immensely.
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Some arguments for (+) and against (-) sticking with the current state:
+ Three more PCs is already a huge boost for them, thanks to additional abilities and especially actions in combat
+ Some items scale quickly with power (+1 weapon costs 2k, +2 already 8k), so roughly halved wealth can still mean much more than half power from items
+ More PCs means a (slightly) higher chance someone will find a piece of loot useful
+ No additional effort for you
- Party might be short on expected gear in a few encounters (weapons with sufficient enhancement, ability to fly for everyone etc.)
- Equipment-dependent classes (mainly melee) suffer more, changing party balance
- Players might feel underprivileged when they figure it out
A compromise would be to watch how they fare in encounters. If they get into trouble consistently at some point, you can still double loot. It might be a tad weird to always find pairs of the same magic item, but balance can be more important than immersion. If you don't mind the time spent, you can modify or exchange the second item, to avoid the damage to immersion and give them more interesting choices.
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The assumption in the book is based on a party of 4. When you have a group that is twice that size it really changes the balance of the game. Having your players, a little under equipped is going to reduce the increase power the group has and bring it closer to the assumption of the game. With that large of a group the party will still probably be more powerful than normal.
As long as all the characters get the equipment, they need to function you should be fine. What I mean by equipment needed to function is things like having magic weapon when the opponents have DR that requires magic to overcome. If the treasure in the AP path includes a lot of lower powered magic items that the party is supposed to sell to afford what they want, you are probably fine. If not, you may need to increase the treasure slightly to achieve that. You will probably have to increase the number of opponents and that might be all that needs to be done.
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The party might also be lower level than the adventure expects/requires. Each PC should be getting a cut of the xp. With the party being nearly double the size of a normal adventure party, they should be getting about half the xp.
Looking at the xp chart (table 3-1 of the core rulebook), I would expect the characters to be 2 levels behind where they would be if they were a 4 man party. This means they will be 1 whole spell level behind on spells. You should be ready to include a few scrolls of the spells they are missing so they can recover after battle, or have the proper tools to deal with monsters and traps.
I feel just the opposite of this. Don't use XP, use milestone levelling, keep the characters on par with the adventure, but ramp up the bad guys. give them max HP, an advancement or 2 and include more than the AP says. Players enjoy levelling up, having them level less often takes some of the fun out of the game, so have them level up as often as the adventure expects them too.
Combat Manager makes it super easy to advance monsters on the fly. As long as the party is challenged, you should be good. It's also easy to adjust the encounter on the spot in case some of your players can't make that game session.