[PF] Rise of the Runelords general survival tips

[Bovine Colonel]

Hey guys,
So I'm currently playing Rise of the Runelords in a Pathfinder group. We're level 2, we've spent the last 2-hour session storming Thistletop, and holy crap everything is deadly. The party consists of:
A human paladin, my character: a lance, Power Attack, a horse that never sees action because of all the 5 foot corridors, the works. Planning to take the rest of my levels in Synthesist.
A human battle cleric (Evangelist archetype) of Gorum (and the largest ham in existence I swear)
An elven illusionist wizard
An archer ranger who hasn't quite gotten off the ground feats/build-wise and who has notoriously bad luck with dice rolls
A samsaran oracle (played by a quite good roleplayer)

I'm the only person in the group who's deliberately attempted to make an optimized character, though I'm certainly not the only person who's overshadowed the rest of the party on occasion. That being said, we've had a total party kill prevented only by DM fiat (this was a bit of a fluke - we slept in a 5-foot corridor with one exit and a guy came along that kept rolling near-maximum damage and one-round recharges for his line breath weapon, for which we kept failing the saves), the fight against Gogmurt did very heavy damage to every PC, and now there's a quite real chance of us losing to Ripnugget (though we've taken out his mount and two of his guards are incapacitated for now; my character and the oracle are also down).

Without going into spoilers or metagaming, can you guys recommend some basic survival tactics so we don't get near-wiped by every named NPC we fight?

[Keneth]

First off, an evangelist... of Gorum? Huh? :smallconfused:

Now that that's out of the way, Thistletop is deadly. I usually kill a couple of players in the maze, and possibly the rest on their way to the bottom. The easiest way to deal with Ripnugget, is to disable him with mind-affecting effects, or disarm him as he's useless without his sword. After disposing of the gecko, which you've already done. The warchanter is also pretty annoying, but I imagine it shouldn't be much of a problem for your party.

Also, you should have reached third level by now. Usually by the time you finish the maze, unless you skipped some content.

[nobodez]

Here's a tip. If you find a unique magic item, keep it. Don't sell it, even if it seems like it's of limited use, or too valuable to not sell. I won't tell you what it is, I won't tell you what it does, but I will tell you that it'll be useful later. Not essential, since my party got by without it, but it would have been really nice to have in the later chapters.

[Bhaakon]

Ditching mounted combat would be my first bit of advice, but it looks like you're going that way already. Actually, I'd give that advice for every AP I'm familiar with save Kingmaker. Paizo puts a lot of effort into make pretty maps (which is good), but they're usually cramped and maze-like so that they can fit on a printed page (which is not so good for mounted PCs).

As Keneth mentioned, you're a level light for your spot in the AP.

One of the problems with the first module of RotRL is that it's fairly easy to go straight for Thistletop and bypass a major section of the AP. In fact, the story of the module motivates the players to do just that.

[Blyte]

use the halls and doors.. buff protection from evil, shield of faith, and (when permitting) enlarge person. be the champion up front since you have the great saving throws.

if you already have good physical stats, don't go synthesis.. immunity to fear at 3rd will serve you well. PF pally is pretty strong, and with swift LoH you can take a real beating. You should save your smite evils for the named bosses, and perhaps invest in extra smite feats, since evil lieutenants abound.

[EvilJames]

I think my group was level 4 before we entered Thistletop and Ripnugget gave us very little trouble (we took him alive) The druid in the maze gave us fits for a bit though. We did miss a few things in there though and bypassed a few areas that I wish we hadn't. :smallfrown:
Our group was a
a Human General cleric of the pantheon of gods
A human ninja
An elven fighter
Half elf witch (who made several boss fights a cake walk)
and my half orc summoner.
The only real advice I have is to make sure everyone communicates well in character as that cost us a few times when the cleric kept stepping in the path of my eidelon.