Pathfinder 1E Leveling and combat in Pathfinder

[Chronologist]

Mild spoilers ahead for an old AD&D module.

After running two Pathfinder sessions with 3rd level characters (using an updated version of Night of the Walking Dead from AD&D Ravenloft), the party killed a Crocodile, 3 giant frogs, and nearly a dozen ghouls. After 3 combat encounters, the party gained 1,300 xp... putting them halfway to 4th level. I remember hearing that most parties will level in 13 encounters, but it's looking to be more like 7. Is this normal? I don't mind fast leveling (in fact, I enjoy it as both a player and as a DM), but the combat so far has been pretty tame (no player's gone below 2/3 HP except the 8 Con Witch).

1) Should I slow down XP gain for the group? That feels like I'm cheating the party of their rewards, but at this rate they could get to 4th or even 5th level by the end of the module (I mean, there are over three dozen zombies at one point, usually a "run for your life" moment, but it looks like the PCs could actually take them on... and that's like, what? 4000 right there? Even split, that's a massive dose of XP).

2) Should I increase the difficulty of the fights? This would also increase XP gain, but a dozen ghouls attacked the party and did a total of about 40 damage, and not a single disease or paralysis.

Advice would be nice.

 

[frankthedm]

Should I slow down XP gain for the group? That feels like I'm cheating the party of their rewards, but at this rate they could get to 4th or even 5th level by the end of the module

Pathfinder lists three tables for XP gain and it sounds like slower level gains will work better for you. Your not cheating anyone of anything, d20 DOES normally level characters rapidly.

 

[Skeld]

...the party killed a Crocodile, 3 giant frogs, and nearly a dozen ghouls.

If it's an AD&D module that your running out-of-the-box (ie, investing no effort into converting to PF), you should no expectation that similar encounters each run in those two rulesets are going to work the same way (mechanically speaking) or be the same level of difficulty.

When you run old AD&D modules in PF (or 3.5 D&D, for that matter) you'll find individual encounters in the PF version are easier or harder than the AD&D version. At the extreme, you might find easy AD&D encounters that are tough PF encounters and vice versa. The creatures don't work the same, the encounter environment doesn't work the same, and the core rules don't work the same.

You have three possible solutions: 1) run the encounters as they are and award XP accordingly, 2) alter the encounters to fit the original difficulty level, or 3) wing it and mix the above methods.

-Skeld

 

[Chronologist]

frankthedm, that's a good idea, using the slower table. What I'll do is I'll figure out how much they got from combat, find the difference, and have the social encounters for a bit add up to that so as they don't seem to level slower at first.

Skeld, I have completely converted every single monster and character to the Pathfinder rules. So far, the only thing that was tricky was, spoiler, the master zombie at the end of the module. It has death effects at will and a "poison aura" of fear, so I ended up having to consider it a Ghast with multiple levels of Cleric spellcasting, but less spells per day, AC, HD, and saves (making it about a CR 8 creature).

I want the module to be as similar as possible to the original, though, so same mosters at the same time. I guess I'll ramp up the HD and difficulty of them, since increasing the number of Ghouls from 2 to 8 didn't really do much. I'll probably increase the CR of everything by 2, especially since none of the characters have uses per day and they have Wands of Healing ensuring full HP at every fight.

So, higher CR of enemies but slower progression of XP sounds okay.

Another question, what about GP rewards? The module has almost no rewards for PC wealth, besides a +1 longsword, 6 +1 arrows, and 3 potions of CLW. Should I put a big heap of treasure at the end of the module, or have them find small caches in several locations?

 

[frankthedm]

Another question, what about GP rewards? The module has almost no rewards for PC wealth, besides a +1 longsword, 6 +1 arrows, and 3 potions of CLW. Should I put a big heap of treasure at the end of the module, or have them find small caches in several locations?

Unfortunatly Pathfinder still uses GP rewards as a Pseudo point-buy mechanic to determine character power, you'll want to add some more treasure. Also note, slow progression also has a suggested treasure table keyed to it.

 

[Skeld]

Should I put a big heap of treasure at the end of the module, or have them find small caches in several locations?

Personally, I prefer to sprinkle it around.

-Skeld

 

[IronWolf]

1) Should I slow down XP gain for the group? That feels like I'm cheating the party of their rewards, but at this rate they could get to 4th or even 5th level by the end of the module (I mean, there are over three dozen zombies at one point, usually a "run for your life" moment, but it looks like the PCs could actually take them on... and that's like, what? 4000 right there? Even split, that's a massive dose of XP).

Another possible option would be to throw XP out the window and level them as you see appropriate. This might not work for all groups but our group has been doing it for quite awhile under different DMs. Most recently I've been doing it for our currently running Kingmaker campaign.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Another possible option would be to throw XP out the window and level them as you see appropriate. This might not work for all groups but our group has been doing it for quite awhile under different DMs. Most recently I've been doing it for our currently running Kingmaker campaign.

I've found this method to be effective in both of the AP's I run. The adventures are set up around a specific level progression anyway, so I just level 'em at appropriate places in the AP.

 

[Nebten]

So @IronWolf & @mowgil along with other DMs who "level at will" what do you do with penalties to XP such as spells, crafting and even death?

I can understand the concept, even more so in an AP since level determines how they will do at each module. I almost went this route in my WotBS game, but then I realized that people liked getting XP at the end of the game along with the treasure. I just made sure they XP was enough to get them were they needed to be

 

[IronWolf]

So @IronWolf & @mowgil along with other DMs who "level at will" what do you do with penalties to XP such as spells, crafting and even death?

Crafting doesn't require XP anymore so that helps. As for death, if you mean the negative levels from being raised or resurrected, I can still hand those out as needed.

I can understand the concept, even more so in an AP since level determines how they will do at each module. I almost went this route in my WotBS game, but then I realized that people liked getting XP at the end of the game along with the treasure. I just made sure they XP was enough to get them were they needed to be

It works pretty easily for an AP as you already have guidelines for what level people should be depending on what section you are in.

Our previous DM had already broken us of the "how much xp do I have" habit by running this way previously. So I didn't have to cross that bridge as the players were already used to doing it this way.

As a player when this was first implemented it didn't take us that long to get used to no XP assigned at the end of a session. We just sort of rolled with it. It might not be for all groups though - but it did work for ours.