How do you adjust printed adventures for high-powered characters?

[darthkilmor]

If this doesn't belong in rules I apoligize ahead of time.

I'm starting a Ptolus campaign soon and am going to be starting the players fairly powerful for 1st lvl chars(40 point buy, smaller skill list, a couple other house rules that end up favoring players). As this would be a "High(ly)-powered campaign", what do you do to adjust a typical CR 1 monster ? Do you just up the lvl of the encounter? max HP for them? throw higher CR monsters at them( but then they just end up getting more XP ) ?

 

[Nail]

This is "opinion", rather than rules, but:

Treat the characters as a +1 LA race. (The 40 point buy is at least a +1 ECL.) That is, they're essentially starting as 2nd level PCs.

So, adjust the CRs for the PCs up by 1 or 2.

(As for the XP: do what you feel comfortable with. IMC, I want the PCs to advance 1 level every 2 or 3 meetings. So I adjust the XP to compensate.)

 

[MadJax]

IMHO, simply give all the 'important' NPCs the same advantages you give the PCs, 40 point-buy stat arrays, as opposed to elite arrays. Then give all the 'fodder' NPCs and monsters elite arrays instead of the standard 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10.

If you want to keep the party treasure low, you can make liberal use of grafts on your NPCs to give them a boost to power, but limit the availabilty as loot to PCs.

 

[darthkilmor]

Is there a CR increase for just giving all the monsters/npc's max HP? I'd hopefully like to avoid having to rework the stats for everything they encounter.

 

[MadJax]

Is there a CR increase for just giving all the monsters/npc's max HP? I'd hopefully like to avoid having to rework the stats for everything they encounter.

in RAW, I do not believe there is anything codified to say there is. So, there is only if you want there to be.

One other way to keep the challenge up is treat all monsters as though they are their current CR-1 (with the exception of creatures at whose CR is less than 1) for exp purposes. This way the PCs level a bit slower (though maybe a bit faster than Nail's suggestion above) and the challenges are worthwhile.

 

[Chaosman]

IMHO, simply give all the 'important' NPCs the same advantages you give the PCs, 40 point-buy stat arrays, as opposed to elite arrays.

Many of the NPCs from the book actually have better stats than that...

 

[darthkilmor]

Many of the NPCs from the book actually have better stats than that...

Yeah I think it's been commented before that Ptolus didnt really seem to have alot of consistancy to the NPC's stats. :\

So I guess this is a bit off-RAW, but would ppl consider it a reasonable adjustment to simply give all NPC's max hp to balance against having high point buy/powerful characters ? Too little, Too Much, Just Right ? I guess it won't make too much difference the first few levels but once you get in the midlevels it'll start to be more noticeable.

 

[shilsen]

I run a game (see sig) for significantly powerful PCs using completely core and generally weaker enemies, and in my experience simply giving them 75% of max possible rolled hp (i.e. 75% of the hit dice + Con bonus), well-chosen feats and using smart tactics is more than enough.