Party Levels, CR, and Those Wacky Stats!

[Xarlen]

My 1st party consists of 4 PCs, and an NPC mage.

They are allowed 90 point buy (1 for 1 basis), so they will have impressive stats (The Mage has 11, 16, 16, 18, 14, 15).

The paladin has a +7 to hit with 2d6+6 damage (!) (+4 str, +1 Weapon Focus, +1 Masterwork (I gave this one to him for plot reasons)). It's a greatsword, so two handed.

Should I treat their level for CR basing as 2nd level?

They're certainly more powerful then a 25 point buy party of 4 pcs.

How do I handle giving them xp, then, at a rate of a 1st level party, while still making it more Challanging because they've definetly got some kickass stats?

 

[Crothian]

you could redo all the enmies using the same 90 point stat system to even it all out

 

[Hypersmurf]

One of the techniques I use, especially at low levels with high-stat parties, is to give monsters the same freebie that PCs get - max hit points instead of average hit points for the first hit die.

After all, why should a level 1 Warrior, with a hit die twice the size of a level 1 Sorcerer, get stuck with the same number of hit points by default?

If the party is really tough, I occasionally max out all the hit dice on the monsters. Keeps 'em on their toes

-Hyp.

 

[Xarlen]

I want to avoid doing that.

The stats were given that way so they could be Heroic stats. These are a cut above the rest of people. So yeah, villains will have it. But not every single tom dick and harry. Not every monster (though I will play with its' stats), not every bandit and warrior.

So should I just treat them as a level 2 party for the purposes of determining challanges via CR, or just toughen up every challange?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

you could redo all the enmies using the same 90 point stat system to even it all out

+2 to all abilities might be easier.

Or simply +1 to all saves and +2 hit points/CR

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

To answer the question: I'd treat the characters as +1 ECL.

 

[Xarlen]

Well, the party doesn't have a lot of Save stuff. We have a Monk, Cleric, Rogue, Paladin and Party mage.

But, I have nothing against tweaking with badguy HPs.

I'm trying to decide how to do the group's HPs, anyways. Either the average for their die (d4=3, d6=4), Max HPs, or let's take a fighter: He gets 10 HP first level, then at 2nd he gets 9, 3rd he gets 8, and when he gets to the bottom of his cycle, starts rolling for them. But then that's not fair to mage types.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

So, that works out to be well over 42 points on the DMG point buy system. If you ask me, 36 points is ECL +1. I'd give 42 points ECL +1.5 or so which would mean they should be treated as a 2.5 level party.

However, here's the problem (and it's always the problem with ECL races)--your party can dish out the damage better than a lot of 2nd level characters and may be able to avoid it better than a lot of 2nd level characters but they can't take it significantly better than other first level characters. They also don't have the magical staying power of a real second level group. So, I'd suggest treating them as if they were second level but remaining very conservative with your encounters and remembering that not all EL x encounters will be equally challenging for the group. For instance, they can probably handle 8 skeletons (EL 3) with fairly little trouble but toss them up against a creature that dishes out damage quickly (such as an Ogre Ftr 1--also EL 3) and they'll go down like bowling pins.

That's why I like to keep a pretty low 25-32 DMG style weighted point buy.

Best of luck to you.

-Glyn

 

[Xarlen]

Well, there's a problem with 25-32 point buy. Mainly classes that rely on several stats (paladins, Monks mainly) suffer very badly.

The monk needs to spread himself around. Otherwise he can't be hit but he can't hit either. He can hit but he'll get hit more often. A lot of the Monk's stuff requires good things in other areas.

Not to mention, true they are 1st level, but it just doesn't Feel very heroic when your highest stat is a 14. You're a pushover. I promise you Arthur wasn't 25 point buy. I want to do some Princess Mononoke/LotR style journeying, questing, doing the Hero thing from the very Start. Not fighting rats and skeletons.

And the party will Not get access to large amounts of magic. This isn't a high-fantasy game. It isn't LOW magic, because they all Will get magic, just not in buckets; they have to adventure to 'wake' their magic, or put XP into it.

 

[Xarlen]

For those interested, you can find information on my campaign Here (Memesis, no go).