an interesting idea. would like feedback.

[blelliot]

I've been itching to run the final part of the savage tide adventure path (Prince of Demons, Dungeon 150) for the longest time, but due to various circumstances, the different groups I've had that have attempted to run the entire adventure path have fizzled. Now I've been gettin the itch again and I got an interesting idea. Skip to the end. I was thinking of using the final part of the path as a short mini campaign. Now what I would like feed back on is this: I have four players and I've always thought the
"traditional" idea of a group of warrior, mage, thief, and priest would be cool to run. So. Iwas going to pregenerate the charachters at level 30 (since the final boss is CR 33 without a few side quests earlier in the campaign) and only use the following: ph1, dmg and epic level handbook. So how crazy do I sound? This is going to be a surprise for my players and that's why I'm pregenerating the charachters. And yes I know that the module will need level adjusting for it to be a worthy challenge to a quartet of level 30 pcs. Let me hear what you gotta say people!

[GreenETC]

Well, if you're set on using level 30 PCs, then pre-generating them is the way to go, because allowing epic spellcasting at all will basically turn the game to garbage in a second and make it all unplayable.

Honestly, I feel you could just use the downgraded version of Demogorgon instead of the normal one and let the game go from there at level 20. A CR 21-25 creature is an acceptable endgame boss for a group of level 20's. It would be much easier than scaling the adventure up for 10 more levels and then into epic.

Your biggest issue is going to be making your "Mage" and "Priest" characters to understand how their powers work, since the game assumes they have full control, while also making the "Warrior" and "Thief" be good enough at what they do to make up for the difference that spells and the bosses will do. For instance, if your "Thief" is anything with Sneak Attack, half the monsters in the end of that game are basically immune to it.

On top of this, if you pre-generate characters, you run into the problem that you are basically playing with yourself, as it were, since many of the monsters have set DCs for their special abilities and attack bonuses, so how much YOU decide their saves or AC should be will dictate how their character will be able to handle something, since it's either everyone is pretty much maxed out and has no problem or isn't and then has to deal with it because you made it that way.

But overall, I think it's a fun idea. I hope it goes well for you, and I'm sure they'll enjoy it.