We have a couple of threads about best group size or maximum number of players, but I'm interested specifically in people's experiences with groups of 3, just because it always seemed unfeasible to me to play with so few PCs. Now, it seems like we're going to be doing just that. I think the magic number is 4, but 5 is okay because then you can afford to be down a player, although it easily starts to be just slightly too many players.
Over the weekend, our old group got back together and tried 5e. Our previous games of six (DM+5 players) had ground to a halt due to two players (the DM and his wife) preparing to move away, followed by actually moving away. Those were the dark times, wherein there was no D&D.
We were going to get back together with the four of us who were left and a new guy, but the new guy had to cancel. We couldn't reschedule or else we wouldn't be able to play for something like three more weeks, so we just ran a one-shot with three players. My primary fears were that combat was going to be disappointing because:
1) Our team would have poor versatility and, therefore, synergy
2) We would not be able to fight many enemies at once, so it would be boring
To a lesser extent, I was afraid that having only three players would mean that interaction and roleplay would be dull due to the decreased number of personalities, story hooks, and skills.
In practice, it actually went surprisingly well. In terms of roleplay and exploration, fewer PCs meant that our individual characters and their skills were more important, and you don't need more interesting PCs as long as your DM can come up with interesting NPCs. So in terms of narrative and sharing the spotlight, 3 seems better than 5.
Combat surprised me the most, because--despite my expectations--it was very exciting, intense, and fun. We ran two encounters: one group of 5 human soldiers (and a total of 8 tiny-sized spiders who appeared in groups of 4 through the battle), and one encounter with two groups of 4 or 5 zombie kobolds each, two tall and hostile mushrooms, and one boss mushroom. The second encounter was built on a lethal XP budget, and although nobody actually went down to 0, I think that has more to do with 2/3 of our PCs being very well optimized to work together--but the player with the third PC, the sorceror, had a lot of trouble getting used to his PC's mechanics, so I think it evened out. Since this was a one-shot, the DM didn't pull punches.
Is this pretty representative of 5e combat encounters with smaller groups? I hope so, because I enjoy intense fantasy combat as much as I like the dramatics of engaging roleplay scenes. Does anyone prefer groups of 3, or has your experience shown that they do suffer in terms of survivability or versatility over the long run?
Over the weekend, our old group got back together and tried 5e. Our previous games of six (DM+5 players) had ground to a halt due to two players (the DM and his wife) preparing to move away, followed by actually moving away. Those were the dark times, wherein there was no D&D.
We were going to get back together with the four of us who were left and a new guy, but the new guy had to cancel. We couldn't reschedule or else we wouldn't be able to play for something like three more weeks, so we just ran a one-shot with three players. My primary fears were that combat was going to be disappointing because:
1) Our team would have poor versatility and, therefore, synergy
2) We would not be able to fight many enemies at once, so it would be boring
To a lesser extent, I was afraid that having only three players would mean that interaction and roleplay would be dull due to the decreased number of personalities, story hooks, and skills.
In practice, it actually went surprisingly well. In terms of roleplay and exploration, fewer PCs meant that our individual characters and their skills were more important, and you don't need more interesting PCs as long as your DM can come up with interesting NPCs. So in terms of narrative and sharing the spotlight, 3 seems better than 5.
Combat surprised me the most, because--despite my expectations--it was very exciting, intense, and fun. We ran two encounters: one group of 5 human soldiers (and a total of 8 tiny-sized spiders who appeared in groups of 4 through the battle), and one encounter with two groups of 4 or 5 zombie kobolds each, two tall and hostile mushrooms, and one boss mushroom. The second encounter was built on a lethal XP budget, and although nobody actually went down to 0, I think that has more to do with 2/3 of our PCs being very well optimized to work together--but the player with the third PC, the sorceror, had a lot of trouble getting used to his PC's mechanics, so I think it evened out. Since this was a one-shot, the DM didn't pull punches.
Is this pretty representative of 5e combat encounters with smaller groups? I hope so, because I enjoy intense fantasy combat as much as I like the dramatics of engaging roleplay scenes. Does anyone prefer groups of 3, or has your experience shown that they do suffer in terms of survivability or versatility over the long run?