Playing two characters

[Breakstone]

I run a campaign with just two players.

We like it this way- Combat goes fast, experience flies, and they both feel a greater part of the game.

However, when the Half-Orc Wizard died (and was reincarnated as an elf), I realized that the campaign grew a bit weak with just one continuous character.

So I was pondering: What if each player played two characters?


Has anyone had any experience in this?

 

[JDragon]

I know at times when I and other people from my group have been short players we have played 2 characters. It does help from the surviveability side, but can have negetive effects on role playing.

I would try to see if the DM can handle an NPC party member before picking up additional characters for the players.

JDragon

 

[hong]

See the DMPC thread. In these circumstances, you could make up a few additional NPCs to help buff out the party. Get your players to play them, but make it clear that they're still NPCs, they're just under player control for the sake of convenience.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Simple. have one of the pcs take the leadership feat. You could even give it them as a bonus feat since there ARE only two of them.

 

[Mark]

Give them both a free leadership feat if it helps the game.

I'd round out the team with some NPCs and let the players take over one of them if they lose their own character. If they raise the guy that died, switch back. Keeps them in the game with no lag time. Long as it's fun, that's all that matters.

 

[Lunn]

With just 2 players, having them each run a second character could be possible without the loss of too much speed. They will find that they might have a harder time role-playing two PCs at once, the may not.

If they con't do that, the thing I would do is to have them run into NPCs that they could adventure with. You could let them control them during combat, giving them just the combat information they would need. But you would have final say of actions they would do and you control their personalities.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

So I was pondering: What if each player played two characters?

Has anyone had any experience in this?

I did this for years when I was in high school. I went to a very tiny high school (202 people in grades 9-12). There wasn't much choice.

Does it work? You bet your sweet bippy. Works just fine. Is it still fun? Absodarnlutely. Not a problem. Is it a problem for roleplaying? Er, no. Not a problem at all.

I'd say it's a definite, real choice that you should really consider.

 

[KnowTheToe]

It works great. IMHO it works better than the DM running two more NPCs. The DM has enough to do without running two more NPCs in combat. I grew up with small gameing groups and we almost always had 2 PCs. It also allows the characters to expand their roleplaying opportunities.

 

[Phanboy]

Hmmm... If your worried about role-playing value, do what I did. Play a duo one of which is mute. I played a Human Rog/sor who was mute and his buddy the half-orc bar. It was neat beacuse they developed a sort of sign language to communicate with(They had known each other for a while) and The mute ended up being a faild experiment at cloning a god!

 

[Viking Bastard]

One idea (one which I'm thinking of implementing in my campaign) is that give them a golem, a zombie or something like that to control.

It helps them, but doesn't really need to be roleplayed.