What roles in a 2 person team?

[Mal Malenkirk]

At least a defender. Preferably a leader and a defender, but at least a tough defender. That is, if you intend for them to be just the two of them for most of the time.

Combat with just two PCs are a little boring if you ask me. You should often include NPCs that the players can control during a fight. Don't just create two extra NPCs that tag along for the whole campaign, though; this is a two man show so all the focus is on the two players. They should be the only regular in the serie. But commonly they could find temporary allies that are particularly suited to the theme of the adventure.

The nice thing about doing this is that the PCs can make whatever character they want. Occasionnally you can tailor fight that a wizard and an archer can survive, for example, but you can still do a grand old melee when they join force with a wandering knight and a bard, for example. Then when the bard betrays them fiendishly and assassinate the knight a few session later, you have just found a nemesis. Of course, the PCs might need some help and join force with the eerie paladin of the Raven Queen for a while... etc.

 

[Thasmodious]

I think defender + leader might be the strongest combination and the simplest to play. Any combination of the two roles will be pretty solid. Outside of that, I think two mobile strikers would be a good choice. A ranger + feylock with an emphasis on movement or a rogue + 2w ranger. The latter group could take a couple ranged powers apiece and be very effective in melee and not shut out at range. The lack of healing could be a problem but a magic item or two that lets them spend a surge and a couple heal pots and they should be good to go. They'd need good teamwork and tactics though.

 

[Metaphorazine]

Simple would be pretty good, they're 15 & 13 years old, and having only played about 4 hours of D&D so far their grasp of tactics isn't brilliant. They'd started to get the hang of flanking and buffing allies by the end of the 4 hours though.

With this in mind, would a combination of a Great Weapon Fighter and a Battle Cleric synergise fairly well and be simple to play, especially given an environment with lots of minions? I think I could find excuses to have the town guard send along a Control Wizard or a Deceptive Warlock with them at times, to take up somewhat of a Controller role.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Oh, well, if they are 13 and 15 be careful with the leader class.

The typical young teen might not be thrilled with focus on buffing and healing, in my experience.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Our group is now just the three of us. I initially DM'd an NPC defender (dumb as post low CHA Dragonborn Pal) and reduced the encounter size in the modules. But it wasn't working for us, to much time for me in the spotlight. So now the 2 players run 2 PC's, which we like. WE are not huge RP'ers and like the tactical side of 4E so this means we all get about the same amount of time in the spot. One guy runs Ftr/laser Clr the other 2-wep Rgr/Wiz giving both of them a melee and a stay back character. It also means we still get loads of monsters to fight and mix up...I don't change the module encounters much (I'll knock back the really hard ones) and if they are a bit tough cos only 4 instead of 5 PC's I don't feel bad fudging a bit

 

[Metaphorazine]

Thanks guys, you've given me some brilliant advice! I'm seeing them tonight so I'll discuss with them how they want to do this. Probably won't get a chance to start til xmas, which will give me a little time to plan out how to integrate things with the campaign as well.

 

[Revinor]

I would consider skipping leader and increasing number of healing potions available. Too many leader abilities are party-wide (and sometimes ally only) and would be wasted having only one ally.

My suggestion would be well done dpr fighter (possibly battlerager for extra hp protection) for one of the guys. It will cover both defender and close combat striker roles.

For the second person - either ranger or wizard. Ranger would bring some versitality for close/ranged fights with reasonable damage (and possibly 3rd miniature into play if beastmaster), but probably best bet would be wizard - for area attacks and, what might be more important, access to 'magic'. There is a world outside combat and having a person with access to rituals and interesting skills like arcane/religion can make it more manageable.


So, my suggestion is damage-oriented battlerager fighter (dragonborn or dwarf), non-nerfed wizard (human for versitality or eladrin for teleport) and a lot of healing potions given by DM as a balance for missing leader.

 

[Thanee]

Cleric + Paladin would make a good 2-person-team.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think there is no real optimal combination. Each setup has strength and weaknesses.

Here are some thoughts:
If you do not like long combats, do not focus too much on your Defense, nor on your healing ability. You will always come short in the damage area and that prolongs combat. Of course, this makes combat also a lot riskier, which might be of disadvantage for inexperienced players - if you make a mistake, there might be no one to countermand the effects.
If the party goes a more defensive route (maybe Defender/Leader), consider using more Minions. You don't need to hit them hard you just need to hit them at all.
if the party goes a more "strikery" (Striker/Defender) route, use less Minions. The Defender can probably always contain one of the opponents.

A general idea might be to use a little less monsters, but often to also use lower level monsters.

One thing the players might look into is multiclassing to round out the roles they have. Though I think multiclassing will be the most notable (and costly) at Paragon Level. A Fighter with Scorching Burst as an At-Will Power is seriously annoying - marking enemy groups each round. Of course, without a Leader around, he might not actually defend too much.


An entirely different route might be to allow each player to run two characters. It depends on if the players can manage to role-play two people at once, and how much this affects the non-combat parts. It might give you opportunities, too - you can actually split the party and have no player sitting around bored watching the other group doing their thing.

 

[Cryptos]

Elsewhere, there seems to be a lot of people giving weight to the idea that dealing out damage early and often, a strong offense, is possibly better resource management in 4e than defense and healing, a strong defense. How does that scale down in terms of party size? The reason I'm asking is that I'm seeing a lot of people in this thread telling the OP to play it safe with a leader and a defender... that seems counter to the way a lot of people see 4e working: favoring high damage and high mobility.

To the OP, if the one player liked the Paladin, I'd recommend a Swordmage. Swordmages are more focused stat-wise and an assault swordmage would be able to cover more ground if enemies try to divide-and-conquer the pair, leaping back to support the other character more readily. Automatic skill in Arcana and high intelligence provides the duo with magic detection and knowledge, and with a feat, access to ritual-based or alchemy-based flexibility.

For the other player, a ranger built as an "archer-thief" would probably be a good idea. Take an Eladrin or a Human for the extra bit of skill, and start out with a multiclass feat, and you can cover all the essential adventuring skills with the other part of the duo: stealth, thievery, dungeoneering, perception, acrobatics, athletics....

Alternatively, a Shielding Swordmage with a Rogue might be good, if they can agree to stick close together.