Party of Three
- Thread starter KingCrab
- Start date
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Chris_Nightwing said:
Easy is an interesting word...but I have also been DMing for three players in this.
1 Cleric, 1 Fighter/Rogue/Shadowdancer, 1 Sorcerer/Rogue/Arcane Trickster. Both the Cleric and the Trickster have cohorts. These are great for them, not really a problem for me.
It is very doable, as noted above I would require good party composition and encourage them to have some "help"--animal companions, cohorts, etc. But I would go to out of the way to power up, it is all to easy to overdo it.
On Experience: It should balance out. They get about 25% more, but there levels will then start to go above the ELs (which you want), until they get far enough about they are not really leveling faster. This seems to have been the case with us.
A practical point: Your big issue will be getting everybody together to play. You do have less room for somebody missing a session with a small group. I would be more worried about this then anything else.
Zaruthustran
The tingling means it’s working!
Consider this another vote for hirelings. Earlier additions of D&D had rules for hiring mercenaries and hirelings. Some of my fondest D&D memories are of adventures similar in feel to Jason and the Argonauts, or Krull, or Conan, or The Hobbit, or any of a number of other epic adventures where the heroes led a back of adventurers.
It's fun because hirelings die fairly often (they're all, at most, 1/2 the level of the PCs), which as any fan of Star Trek knows is a great way to heighten drama. Having the Big Bag guy ruthlessly slaughter a Red Shirt ensign is great way to get the players to invest themselves in the game--they'll want revenge.
Also, sometimes one of these hirelings will manage to survive. You can have them gain a level, maybe even retire. Now you've got a cool NPC contact for your PCs, complete with history. You can bet they'll be motivated to rescue the daughter of Johan, the guy that saved a PC's life back when they were exploring the Caves of Despair. Compare to the motivation to rescue some random NPC they've never met.
So: by all means, play with 3 PCs. Make sure you've got healing and arcane covered, and then just have the PCs hire out lower-level hirelings from the local adventurer's guild. Maybe even start the campaign with the PCs as hirelings of a higher-level NPC party.
Yeah, that could be cool. Have the higher level NPCs--famous adventurers, town heroes--lead the group to the Eeeevil temple, then say "you guys have done enough. We'll take it from here. You stay and watch the horses."
And then the NPCs never come back.
It's fun because hirelings die fairly often (they're all, at most, 1/2 the level of the PCs), which as any fan of Star Trek knows is a great way to heighten drama. Having the Big Bag guy ruthlessly slaughter a Red Shirt ensign is great way to get the players to invest themselves in the game--they'll want revenge.
Also, sometimes one of these hirelings will manage to survive. You can have them gain a level, maybe even retire. Now you've got a cool NPC contact for your PCs, complete with history. You can bet they'll be motivated to rescue the daughter of Johan, the guy that saved a PC's life back when they were exploring the Caves of Despair. Compare to the motivation to rescue some random NPC they've never met.
So: by all means, play with 3 PCs. Make sure you've got healing and arcane covered, and then just have the PCs hire out lower-level hirelings from the local adventurer's guild. Maybe even start the campaign with the PCs as hirelings of a higher-level NPC party.
Yeah, that could be cool. Have the higher level NPCs--famous adventurers, town heroes--lead the group to the Eeeevil temple, then say "you guys have done enough. We'll take it from here. You stay and watch the horses."
And then the NPCs never come back.
