aco175
Legend
@Brak ,I just wanted to say congrats for making it 15 years on the boards and posting only 3 times. I was going to welcome you, but I'll award you the Ultimate Lurker Award instead. You cannot see it, but it looks like a gnome paladin in all his glory.
To answer your question, I mostly seen in in earlier editions where you needed a party of 6-12 characters to fill rolls and fight monsters in the numbers put out in the books. By 3e/4e the party of 4-5 was set and could fill all the rolls and the books set encounters for this size. My group has one player who will play 2 PCs when needed with one being more combat and the other more 2nd tier- mostly a caster type. There is also plenty of times where a NPC joins for a while and one of the players will run it.
To answer your question, I mostly seen in in earlier editions where you needed a party of 6-12 characters to fill rolls and fight monsters in the numbers put out in the books. By 3e/4e the party of 4-5 was set and could fill all the rolls and the books set encounters for this size. My group has one player who will play 2 PCs when needed with one being more combat and the other more 2nd tier- mostly a caster type. There is also plenty of times where a NPC joins for a while and one of the players will run it.