Running for Less Than Four Players

[S'mon]

Focus on the roleplay & combat ELs should average 2-3 under party level.

 

[Kid Socrates]

Focus on the roleplay & combat ELs should average 2-3 under party level.

That's been one of the things -- I love the roleplay aspect of smaller groups, and run towards that. The other GM is a combat fan, and runs really good combats, but they can overwhelm a smaller group and introducing NPCs or a power group to help make us feel like we're not really needed or useful. It doesn't help that we're hardly optimizing our characters for combat, though we've been trying to lately. He picked up Iron Heroes, if I'm thinking of the right game -- low- to no-magic, much more detailed combat stuff, simpler AoO rules, feats scaling up in level, that book. He thinks it'll really help him run for two people instead of four to six. He's making a homebrew, last I checked.

So when you do run combats for just two or three people, have you found anything that works beyond just reducing the amount of enemies? We're definitely in for combat, so I want to suggest an idea or two to him if I can come up with some.

More questions as I think of them -- I wholeheartedly agree with the storycentric approach to a game, as I've found those to be incredibly rewarding.

 

[S'mon]

So when you do run combats for just two or three people, have you found anything that works beyond just reducing the amount of enemies? .

The balance changes - enemy save or die/incapacitate spells become relatively more powerful, enemy area-effect spells become relatively less powerful. Spells like Hold Person are particularly deadly. Some Monster Manual CRs won't work for a smaller group, eg "melee brute" monsters that can quickly kill a PC are much deadlier than their CR would indicate. My experience is that the best thing is to run scenarios intended for standard groups at least 2-3 levels lower than your group, maybe 4+ levels at higher level. Try to avoid foes that can kill a PC in one round, so don't use many save-or-die spells or melee brutes (unless their CR is well under party level - trolls & ettins are suitable for 9th-10th level PCs in a 2-PC group). OTOH flexible foes with lots of powers work very well, like demons. In a regular game these often die too fast to use their abilities, a smaller party can allow for more interesting development. In a small group battles go faster, so you can use more random encounters and incidental combats without bogging the game down - again, these should usually be well under party EL, and watch out for anything that can dish out unusually large amounts of damage - a longsword armed hobgoblin is preferable to a greataxe armed orc vs low level PCs.

 

[sniffles]

I ran a very short-term campaign for 2 players. I let them each have two PCs. This only works for experienced players, in my opinion. New players have enough trouble juggling one character's abilities and attacks, unless they're very quick on the uptake.

I know of two other people in my group who are involved in campaigns with only 2 or 3 players. In one there is a regular NPC who helps out the player-characters, and the GM is planning to let the players run two characters each so she can take a break from running the NPC. In the other game, which has 3 players, the characters have several NPC droids giving them a hand (it's a Star Wars campaign).

 

[S'mon]

In general I would tend to advocate reducing the strength of opponents, not their numbers - eg, say you have 2 3rd level PCs and are using a scenario aimed at a full-size 3rd level party, if the scenario says 2 CR 3 ogres, make it 2 CR 2 bugbears or 2 CR 1 gnolls rather than 1 CR 3 ogre. 1 ogre can easily get lucky on init & to-hit and down a PC, making a TPK suddenly likely. It's less likely with a larger number of weaker foes since there are more die rolls required.

 

[the Jester]

I usually run a pretty status quo style game, but then I have that luxury as I have a group of around eight to ten players.

With a group smaller than four, I think you almost have to tailor it to them- you really have to be careful to avoid a tpk every session. So my advice would be to turn the challenges down so that the typical EL of a challenge is about (average party level) -2. Whether this is 3rd-level pcs fighting a CR 1 monster or four CR 1/4 creatures, I really think this will help.

Of course, if it was my game, as I'm a very ruthless evil lethal dm, I don't know how much of my own advice I'd follow.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Lucky You

I usually run a pretty status quo style game, but then I have that luxury as I have a group of around eight to ten players.

Damn ... that's a lot of PCs to kill.

 

[SelcSilverhand]

I am running a summer campaign with only 2 players atm. I gave them an army of 30 NPC's, but rather than risk their lower level comrades they ended up taking 1 henchman each. None of the characters they brought along on their daily adventures were healers but they made due with cure light wands and UMD.

I try to choose enemies that are 1 to 2 CR's lower than recommended and as long as the situation is in their favor they have no problem. Things can quickly get dicey though. For example, level 7 warlock wanders off on his own and encounters a Choker (MM1) and nearly died. Level 7 Sorcerer nearly died from 2 attacks by a CR5(Same deal against a CR4 now that I think of it). I found that lots of lower CR creatures make for a more controllable environment than a higher CR that could 1 round any of the players. If you want to use higher CR, change the situation. Maybe the monster had been recently wounded from another fight and hadn't healed up a bit. Knock off 10 hps and the PC's have a chance of downing it before it gets one of them.

This can make for a short fight, sometimes 1 to 2 rounds and it can be over. Try also using creatures that are weaker, but can use hit and run tactics. Meenlocks from MM3 can zap PC's from a distance using Rend Mind to drain wisdom. Phase spiders who take a single attack then shift back to the ethereal plane.
Very rarely do I use a combat brute because of the fragiliness of my PC's. Ability damage is fun through. My PC's are currently exploring some caves with Meenlocks and Mindshredders. On average they -5 points to their wisdom after clearing a cave