How do you cope with only 4 characters in a party?

[Friendless]

When I was a lad and we played D&D, we usually had a party of 6 - two front row fighters, a cleric, a rogue, a wizard, and some sort of wacko like a monk or a bard or something - mostly there for the ride because they weren't very useful. I'm amazed that adventures are being sold these days for 4 characters. Obviously the archetypal party is a fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue, and gods have mercy on your soul if any of those should become incapacitated - that's 25% of your party strength lost. Is it really tough to survive?

So when my 2 players chose their characters they chose a rogue and a monk. Great! A monk! So the party has no tank, no blaster, and no healing! I invented some NPC companions to fill in. And also a bard who doesn't always go adventuring but acts as a plot device for me.

I'm wondering about the monk though. It seems as she goes up levels she'll become a bit of a lethal weapon, and then the tank barbarian won't be so necessary. So I'm thinking about multiclassing the barbarian to a cleric at 3rd level, and dropping the NPC cleric. The party would then be 4 characters, or 5 if the bard comes along. It worries me though that the party's cleric would have a caster level 2 below the party's level.

I see a lot of you guys have all sorts of strange class combos, so I guess unusual parties surive and prosper. But how does it work out with (say) a 5th level party having a bard 5 and a cleric 3 / sorc 2 and no wizard or cleric - they have no fireball. Isn't their blasting power seriously impaired? Are they able to keep up the healing?

I'd just like to hear some opinions on how PCs cope in this brave new world.

 

[Nifft]

How do you schedule a game for that many people?

My group has three players right now, and it's tough enough for us four to meet.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Angerland]

my current party is 4 players. We have me, a shifter Druid 4. A Shifter Warblade 3, A Warforged Duskblade 3, and a Changeling Rog1/Wiz3. We have done pretty well so far with no blasting and very little healing. We just bought a wand of Lesser Vigor and one of CLW when we left town during our last session.

I think pre generated adventures, or modules for us old timers, have evolved a bit now. While still having plenty of fights and puzzles there are quite a bit more role playing opportunities these days. Or at least that has been my experience.

 

[STARP_Social_Officer]

Got to agree with that one. The more players you have (once high school finishes - we learned that one the hard way), the harder it is to get together. Most of our campaigns have 4 players, and in fact we pretty much ruled out going any higher than five ages ago, since it's just too hard to manage. The "mix" of the party doesn't matter, and it's up to the DM that design adventures to fit. If the party consists of a sorcerer, a rogue, a monk and a cleric, with no front-line fighter, it will get absolutely massacred in a big fight. So don't give them a big fight. Tailor adventures away from combat or whatever else the party may be lacking.
My current campaign has four players who are all arcane spellcasters - a bard, a wizard, a cleric/sorcerer and a warmage. No fighters, no rogues, and they were lucky to get a cleric. They manage. I avoid deliberately putting them in toe-to-toe fights and they avoid getting into them themselves and use the talents they do have.
It's all about tailoring. You can tailor a campaign for just two PCs if you want to. I've done it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Four player characters are just fine if they cover the basic archetypes -- fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief -- or if they make smart choices with multiclassing, feats and spell selection. They might have to hire a few flunkies as well at times.

The Midwood campaign split into two small groups like this (right at the point being told right now in my Story Hour, in fact) and while there were some bumps in the road (one half of the campaign has multiple clerics, the other half has zero healers), it's worked out OK with time.

 

[Jacob the Impaler]

Usually if there's a weird party, the DM would always work off of our strengths. We usually ended up with a bunch of fighters, so he threw a bunch of grunts for us to cleave, with the occasional magical or stealthy enemy to challenge us. I ran a large party with only a druid for a healer, so I upped the number of potions they got and allowed for long rests between encounters to recover strength.

Basically, just look at the party's strengths and weaknesses and give them different kinds of challenges. Even little changes can go a long way.

 

[Lanefan]

I have a hard time imagining a 4-PC party as well...just too vulnerable if one of the four goes down, gets captured, or whatever.

But then, I cut my teeth on and still play in/DM parties averaging around 8-10 at a time...usually 4 or 5 players, some running two PCs each and with an NPC or two thrown in for good measure.

Lanefan

 

[The Lost Muse]

My preferred party size is actually 3 player characters... but that's just me I guess.

 

[Stalker0]

I like 5 players. With 4 you can cover all your bases...and since it seems there's always that 1 person who can't make it 4 is still good. I don't like more than 5, dms time always seems to divided and I get bored.

 

[The Green Adam]

While I like and have always been pretty good at larger groups, these days it's hard to get more then 3 or 4 people together at once. How do you cope? Less bad guys I would suppose. lol

Ahh...I remember the good old days of our gaming groups...Our Star Wars and Star Trek games had 7-8 and my friend's Champions game had anywhere from 6 to 12 players at once.