How do you cope with only 4 characters in a party?

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Wow.

We have six, down from a norm of eight. Six is a fine number; we play every other Thursday, and it isn't unusual to have one person absent. As long as it's not always the same person, that's not a problem. I'll run so long as I have a quorum of four players, although it's rare for two folks to be missing the same day.

This is basically my group. We actually have seven+DM now but we are guaranteed to have at least one player miss each week. Rarely does more than one miss though (last week four missed - that was really odd). We're all in our late 20's to mid 30's (except for one friend's "little" brother at 18) with jobs, kids, families, but we reserve every Friday night for D&D fun. And I'll keep going til its not fun for me anymore.

 

[Deset Gled]

So when my 2 players chose their characters they chose a rogue and a monk. Great! A monk! So the party has no tank, no blaster, and no healing! I invented some NPC companions to fill in. And also a bard who doesn't always go adventuring but acts as a plot device for me.

...

I'd just like to hear some opinions on how PCs cope in this brave new world.

You can also look into using Gestalt rules. IMO, this is exactly the situation they were made to cover.

If you're not familiar with Gestalt, it's basically a system where a player chooses two classes and gets the best of both worlds: whichever class has the better save, BAB, etc is what the character gets. You get all special abilities (casting, feats, etc) of both classes. Hybrid PrCs, like Arcane Trickster and Mystic Theurge, are not allowed.

Under these rules, you could turn your rogue and monk into a rogue/wizard and monk/cleric, and have all the bases covered (which leads to minimum modification of modules).

 

[CharlesRyan]

I agree with all the comments about how difficult scheduling can be, especially as you get older. To me, though, a smaller group is worse for scheduling. I'm currently playing in a four-player group, and when one person can't make it, it can mean there's no game--going from four active characters to three is too much of a hit to the party's capabilities.

On the other hand, I recently ran a game with 6 players. We rarely had to cancel because of missing players--even if 1 or 2 players couldn't make it, we had enough of a party to soldier on.

Back to the OP, I think 4 or 5 characters is ideal--everyone gets their share of the time; the party is less prone to splitting; etc. 6 is OK, but I find that more than that really degrades the experience for me, both as player and GM.

 

[Henry]

On the other hand, I recently ran a game with 6 players. We rarely had to cancel because of missing players--even if 1 or 2 players couldn't make it, we had enough of a party to soldier on.

That's our group in a nutshelll - there's 7 in the group, sometimes 8, so we have on average 5 to 7 players at any session. Most of us can make it (we schedule for Sunday afternoons, and that works for all of us), and if one or two people can't we're still good to go.

 

[mcrow]

Almost every D&D game I have played in had 3-5 players, which seems to work for me.

I have run/played in bigger games of 8-15 people before and didn't like it much, everything seems to take forever when you have that many people involved.

 

[Voadam]

When I was a lad and we played D&D, we usually had a party of 6 - two front row fighters, a cleric, a rogue, a wizard, and some sort of wacko like a monk or a bard or something - mostly there for the ride because they weren't very useful. I'm amazed that adventures are being sold these days for 4 characters. Obviously the archetypal party is a fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue, and gods have mercy on your soul if any of those should become incapacitated - that's 25% of your party strength lost. Is it really tough to survive?

So when my 2 players chose their characters they chose a rogue and a monk. Great! A monk! So the party has no tank, no blaster, and no healing! I invented some NPC companions to fill in. And also a bard who doesn't always go adventuring but acts as a plot device for me.

I'm wondering about the monk though. It seems as she goes up levels she'll become a bit of a lethal weapon, and then the tank barbarian won't be so necessary. So I'm thinking about multiclassing the barbarian to a cleric at 3rd level, and dropping the NPC cleric. The party would then be 4 characters, or 5 if the bard comes along. It worries me though that the party's cleric would have a caster level 2 below the party's level.

I see a lot of you guys have all sorts of strange class combos, so I guess unusual parties surive and prosper. But how does it work out with (say) a 5th level party having a bard 5 and a cleric 3 / sorc 2 and no wizard or cleric - they have no fireball. Isn't their blasting power seriously impaired? Are they able to keep up the healing?

I'd just like to hear some opinions on how PCs cope in this brave new world.

Fewer players the dynamics change as each player must take on more niches. A monk is great because they are durable and can fight.

Certain classes are better for solo because they can fill multiple niches, for example a paladin both fights and heals, a bard does both plus some magic though he fights less well.

You have to recognize as DM that there is less teamwork synergy and that if someone drops it is much more significant. Both because there is less party to keep going, but also because there are fewer people to recover the downed person.

Fewer people means they can handle lesser EL challenges.

It also means each player has more screen time which is positive and things can go quickly.

I like small parties and avoid having too many NPCs, it keeps things simple and focused.

I play a ranger 1 wiz 6 eldritch knight 9 in a high level solo game and it has been great. He can cast spells, fight and use cure light wound wands to heal. He is very weak in a group but does great solo.

 

[The Green Adam]

I don't often play medieval fantasy these days and to some degree that has it's benefits when it comes to scheduling and number of players. In some genres and situations, not all the players are needed ever adventure. If a group of PCs are travelling together and camp out, then next week two players can't show, their PCs are still at the campsite. This forces the GM to decide what to do with them.

My Mutants & Masterminds superhero game was set up like Justic League Unlimited. The 3 or 4 regular players were the 'Greatest Heroes on Earth'. Other players would come in and out as their schedules allowed and would essentially be 'guest stars'. They were assigned to mission when they showed and were somewhere off base when they didn't. Probably fighting crime in their hometown or something.

I ran several Star Trek ganes with a similar idea. I had a crew of 6 who were allows there and played the Captain, Engineer, Science Officer, Security Chief, Helmsman and Doctor.
One friend of my could only show up when we ran games on Sundays, which was fairly often, so he played Navigator. There were two guys who could rarely show, one a GM of his own Champoins game and one was a friend of ours whose job had terrible hours. The first guy 'guest starred' as an Ambassador who would come along on important first contact missions. The latter wanted to be a Shuttlecraft Pilot. It was hilarious because if he showed up you knew we couldn't beam down for some reason and had to take the shuttle, lol.

Player 1:" Is everyone here? Can you start?"

GM:"Not yet. I'm waiting for...*Sound of the door buzzer*. Ah!"

Player 2:"Hi guys! I can play today."

Player 1: "Hmm...Jeff's here. There seems to be an ion storm disturbance in the atmosphere. We're going to need to use the Shuttlecraft. Funny that seems to happen only when Jeff comes over..."



Also, not every actor was in every episode of each series. Once is another ST campaign, we planned a big adventure and then a snowstorm hit and only 3 players out of 8 showed up. I created an adventure on the fly in which the three players were attending an annual Robotics Conference on a planet while the rest of the ship and crew were doing a routine survey mission. Turned out to be one of my best side adventures ever.

AD

 

[bento]

Right now we have 2 players running two PCs each. Its the most PCs we have ever had. I have never had the experiance of more and cant imagine a situation where that is 'normal' and you have to 'deal' with 'only' having 4.

That's what I'd suggest as well - have your players make up an additional character each and make sure they round out the party well with proper divine & arcane MUs.

Another suggestion is using the Gestalt character option from Unearthed Arcana, which can help make the players' characters more powerful.

Another suggestion would be to ratchet back the encouters just a bit, play to their strengths, and work more to delve into their backgrounds to make your adventures more of a personal quest for them.

 

[theemrys]

I've run games with 1 person and others with 9... I find ~4 best just because you cover the basics without slowing things down too much.

When I've had small groups though I've done npcs or had each player have 2 characters... but sometimes it's nice to just have a smaller group that doesn't have all bases covered. As a DM it can be fun to change up the game a bit and tailor it to the party. You got a rogue and monk? Why not do a game based around theivery and stealth? Maybe scouts? Adding others to the group would just "slow them down". Could be fun. Throw the CR and ECL thing out the window and just make the challenges appropriate.

 

[Nifft]

I don't know why, but that just reminded me of the legend of Monkey. Sounds like fun, regardless.

It is fun! I'll see what I can do about crafting an expanding quarterstaff for my partner... and sticking hair on him...

To be fair, though, it's the game we play when only those specific people can make it. We have other games with more people, too. But even just two people can win D&D (as long as at least one of them is a Cleric.)

Cheers, -- N