fast advancement in APs

[freyar]

I'm planning to run one of the adventure paths for my wife (2 PCs and 2 DMPCs), and she likes to level up fairly quickly. Does anyone have any experience with how to run APs using the fast advancement track as opposed to the default medium? Does it work as-is, or should I drop some encounters so the characters gain the same number of levels as usual by the end of each adventure?

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I ran Jade Regent at fast progression previously. The PCs end up able to effortlessly roll through a majority of encounters. They got TPK'd mostly due to bad rolls on crucial saves, and also from a fair bit of bad planning. Certainly wasn't from a lack of PC power or anything.

Also, at least as far as Jade Regent went, the gaps between levelling up don't take too long at medium progression. The AP sends more and more enemies (or more and more powerful enemies) at the PCs as they level, and even though each level takes more xp, it doesn't particularly take more time than the last one.

 

[freeAgent]

The pre-Pathfinder APs (eg, Second Darkness which I'm running now) must be run on fast progression in order to work, so you may just want to go that route. Of course, you also have to do some minor tweaking to make them Pathfinder-compatible (Spot -> Perception, etc).

You would definitely have to make adjustments to the post-Pathfinder APs to make them more difficult. I haven't tried it.

 

[freyar]

Actually, what I am thinking is that my wife really just prefers making progress quickly and doesn't like getting bogged down in a lot of combat. So I think I will just remove a number of the smaller, less plot-important encounters. That way she can level up quickly and still stay on-course according to the plot.

 

[Crothian]

What AP are you going to run? I think you can get better advice as each has its on flow and pacing.

 

[freeAgent]

If you do take out encounters, you may want to also just scrap XP altogether and figure out when characters need to level up regardless of how much XP they have. I think all the APs tell you what levels are appropriate.