D&D 4E 4E with a party of two?

[Revinor]

I would suggest paladin + (wizards/warlock/rogue). Paladin will cover defense and part of healing, other class will provide damage support. I would opt for wizard, as access to rituals might be quite handy, plus crowd control and AoE might be more important than extra damage versus single enemy.

 

[Starbuck_II]

I think the only difficult part is working solo monsters into the encounter. In order to fit in the XP budget for two PCs, solo monsters will have to be a couple levels lower, and the greater the disparity of levels between PC and monster, the screwier the math gets.

Nah, as long as the Solo is equal to party level: I think it is doable.

Also, a level 1 Elite for 2 party members is exactly like a level 1 Solo for 5 party members.

Should be just as hard.

Now, a Level 1 Solo + 2 Level 5 minions is perfect for a level 5 2 PC party. 600 total Exp versus 400 Xp total expected for party. Since the Level 1 is weaker this should be fine.

Now, the Solo won't hit often, but it will take a alot of abuse.

But Elites would probably be a better tool for "pretend" Solos in 2 people partys.

Instead:

Ooh, scale things back.

When you would normally fight normal goblins replace with minions.
Whe you wouldf normally fight a Elite goblin replace with normal.
When would normally fight a Solo fight a Elite.
And if need a super boss, a Solo.

 

[tgaptte]

playing two characters

I've been playing KOTSF playtest and due to lack of players two of us have been playing two characters. Here's my take:

PROs:
- You get to experiment and learn how multiple characters play

CONs:
- Can be overwhelming as none of us know 4e well enough yet (I played the Wizard and the Paladin, and mostly I forgot the Wizard's wand of accuracy and "action point surge" abilities when I REALLY could have used them! Bad die rolls...)
- Bogs the game down when you have to handle multiple characters
- Hinders roleplaying

I'd recommend you write your adventures for two players, each with one character and work on getting more players. I definitely had more fun when I only had one character to concentrate on.

 

[Logan_Bonner]

I wonder how much the DMG has about playing with smaller parties and suggestions for doing so.

You're going to want to look at pages 10 and 31.

 

[Cirex]

I'm looking forward to those pages then, since my party will be composed of 2 or 3 players, no more, since one of my friends have said "no" to 4e.

With the experience "cost" of enemies, I guess it will be easier than work around the CR. The possibility of self-healing for all classes makes it easier aswell. Hopefully one of them will be playing a defender, which I think eases things. Controller+striker or dual striker could be very risky.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Avoid multiple characters, it kills roleplaying. [1]

Defenders are the lynchpin of the party IMO, so as long as one of the two PC is a fighter or a paladin, you should be able to simply send any monster you like as long as their total XP is a match of their level (200 XP at level 1). [2]

If they have no defender, then some combination of monsters, even if they total 200 XP, will be too deadly.

You don't want to send a single Elite Brute against a ranger and a wizard, for example. Their odds of survival will become entirely dependant on the ability of the wizard to inflict a special condition on the monster every turn in order to hinder him. A few bad rolls and the Elite brute will squish the ranger who wasn't designed to hold the line against this kind of opposition and then the wizard has to run for his life. Very swingy scenario.

I agree fully on [1]

Regarding [2], I think you haven't expressed the whole problem. The fighter has very limited healing capabilities and one second wind per fight is to little. Multiclassing to cleric by one of the players, or one of the players actually playing a cleric should help a lot.

For instance a dwarven fighter multiclassed to cleric to get healing word, and a rogue should do quite well. The thing is that if you do one melee + one ranged you will never get combat advantage from flanking (at least not in your favor). That is why I would run with two melee characters.

The other alternative is to actually run two strikers. The warlock and ranger* both have powers that enable them to get the hell out of there. These abilities doesn't shine until the characters are targetted. The general strategy would be to kite like madmen in such a setup. It is a completely different game.

*especially an eladrin ranger with the 5 square teleport

 

[Khaim]

To be honest, the only sets of roles I see having inherent problems is all-Leader parties, and even then, only with a size of 1-2. Everything else seems workable- tricky, perhaps, and with rather extreme tactics, but not impossible.

 

[Wepwawet]

In a 2-player game, character builds should probably include multiclassing, so that they can cover more areas.
Maybe giving an initiate feat for free. Or some sort of gestalt aproximation.
This option would be better than limiting class choices.

 

[Irda Ranger]

In a 2-player game, character builds should probably include multiclassing, so that they can cover more areas.
Maybe giving an initiate feat for free. Or some sort of gestalt aproximation.[sic]

This makes sense from one point of view, but I find that forcing people to multiclass to fill in a gap in the lineup kills roleplaying almost as much as running two PCs does (though in a different way). I've found it best to just let people play whatever they want and then adjust accordingly.

 

[AtomicPope]

I think if you don't overtax the group with Monsters, they'll do fine. We've playtested with all Wizards (four wizards, each a different race) and did great. Ray of Frost is your friend

The game is way more balanced now. In previous editions you either needed a healer or lots of magic healing. It was also important to tack on an NPC just to spread the damage around. Now that's not the case. A party of all fighters will do just fine since their HP and AC are both very high - the highest in fact. They don't need to heal as much because they tend not to get hit. It's up to the PC's to figure out how to work together. Since they start out with more HP it's easier for them to make mistakes in the beginning. It also provides some leeway for critical hits, which for the past 3 editions have killed characters in even the most balanced low-level parties.