Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
Some good ideas here... I'll conduct some testing and see how we get on with it...
kaomera - that's just plain mean.
kaomera - that's just plain mean.

FWIW, I've run part one of CotSQ with 6-7 PCs, and it was far too easy. My players specifically asked me to start beefing up the encounters because the challenges simply were not enjoyable. Once you go beyond 5 PCs, you need to adapt the encounters.Endur said:Having 6-7 players instead of 4 means that there is a somewhat reduced chance of a TPK, but other than that you should be fine.
Brakkart said:My thoughts exactly. I mostly run pre-written modules and I have 6 players in my group. I don't want to give the villains extra abilities etc by pumping their levels, so I simply make them harder to knock down by maxing out their Hit Points which makes them last a little while longer and provides for less of a one-sided fight. Seems to work just fine.
Inconsequenti-AL said:I was considering running The Red Hand of Doom module.
However, I'm likely to have 6-7 PCs. Enough extra that I feel I might need to beef up some aspects of it:
Treasure will need to be increased in proportion to the number of PCs.
For encounters with large numbers of creatures, I'll keep the ratios of PCs: NPCs the same. 4 hobgoblins will simply become 6.
Single BBEGs pose more of a problem IMO. Think tacking on a level or two would make them far more lethal. Particularly the spellcasters. Leaving them as is and I think they'll be too easy.
Any thoughts or experience with this?
Very true.Joshua Randall said:In my experience, the larger the party is, the easier time it will have with a single target, (almost) regardless of the target's CR relative to the APL. The reason is that the larger party gets more actions, but the single target doesn't. And actions (standard, move, full-round) are the single most important resource in D&D combat.
Think of it this way: no matter what the initiative rolls, after the bad guy acts, the PCs get 6+ rounds' worth of actions before the bad guy can do anything. That is an overwhelming advantage for the PCs.
I strongly recommend you add additional combatants to the single-bad guy battles. Even if they are only speed bumps for the PCs, they will at least buy time for the bad guy to do something impressive.
Crothian said:Just increase their Hit points or something simple like that.
buzz said:FWIW, I've run part one of CotSQ with 6-7 PCs, and it was far too easy. My players specifically asked me to start beefing up the encounters because the challenges simply were not enjoyable. Once you go beyond 5 PCs, you need to adapt the encounters.