How to cope with only 2 players

[S'mon]

increasing thier level just meant increasing the difficluty of encoutners or they get less xp

This isn't right at all.

Per RAW, 2 PCs will get twice as much XP each as a default 4-person party. So if you give them encounters EL 2 under Party Level they will get the exact same XP. Personally I'd suggest averaging encounters more like 3 or 4 under Party Level - they get 1/3 or 1/2 less XP than standard, but 3e's standard XP table awards so much XP anyway that that's unlikely to be a problem. And if it _is_ a problem just increase the XP awards you hand out! Maybe give full monster XP plus story/roleplay/goal XP on top. XP should _never_ be a problem, it's entirely in the hands of the GM unless you have a rotating GM system and an agreed XP mechanism. Even then it's easy to tweak.

I think your mistake is probably hitting them with encounters too high for their level.

Here's my guideline for you:
A 2 PC party has about 1/2 the offensive power of a 4 person party, but only about 1/4 the survivability because they lack defense in depth and the synergy effects of a good spread of classes. Thus a typical 2-man party should be treated as having Party Level roughly 3 under the actual character level of the PCs.

So a challenging encounter that's unlikely to kill PCs should be 3 ELs under Party Level. If you have 2 level 6 PCs, an EL 3 encounter like 1 Ogre or a Wight (both CR 3) will be a fair challenge. An EL 6 encounter (eg a troll) will use up 50% of party resources - in practice that could mean a dead PC - and so should be avoided except for critical combats.

Of course a 2 person party's capabilities are narrower than the standard party, and you need to use judgement in assessing CRs. A party of Cleric-6 + Wizard-6 will easily defeat a wight but might have trouble with an Ogre. A party of Ftr-6 plus Rogue-6 should handle the Ogre ok (unless the ogre crits the Rogue) but will be in severe danger from the wight.

 

[S'mon]

Here's my campaign suggestion, sticking close to standard D&D rules:

With 2 PCs, start them at 3rd level, and run scenarios designed for 1st level PCs; the challenge is about the same. Once they hit 4th, treat them as a party of level 3 under their actual level (or 2 under if they have really good stats & are powergamer types); so when they're 5th level you can run 2nd level scenarios, or 3rd level if your players are experienced powergamers. When they're 6th level, let them take the Leadership feat and get cohorts if they wish; let the players run the cohorts in combat and factor the cohort levels into the effective party level when running scenarios. So if you have 2 6th level PCs & 2 4th level cohorts you get a group that's effectively a (weak) Party Level 5, you can run 5th level scenarios if the players are powergamers but I'd recommend 4th. The 3.5 XP rule for cohorts is a bad idea, I recommend giving them a half share of the XP - but they'll earn more because they're lower level, so each PC gets 1/3 less XP but it's worth it for the added survivability.

 

[Bryon_Soulweaver]

kidnap someone and have them play.

 

[fl8m]

thanks for all the ideas. yeah it seems i was asleep when i wrote the part about the xp being wrong :\ I do beleive i will try out gestalt characters for the adventure i have planned, but the idea of having a very pc centered urban campaign is very interesting.