WotBS Running WOTBS for 3 players

[Guillaume_Bergevin]

Hello, this is my first post on the EN World forums, yay for me!

Now, to the point:
I'm not a super experienced DM and the only players (we thought of more, but they wouldn't play seriously or wouldn't try to understand the games and rule and all) were 3 of my friends / collegues from school. I'll have an archer ranger, a paladin with a bid badass sword and a witch. It's gonna be in pathfinder (so using 3.5 ed with modifications)

From what i understood, an adventure is normally aimed at a group of four or five players in order to be balanced.

So far, my 2 choices would either be to modify most of the encounters for a groupe of 3 by removing monsters or lowering stats a lil bit for solos,
or
playing a DMPC, like playing Torrent with them or just having a DMPC and having Torrent stay as an NPC.

I have never personally seen a DMPC and was wondering how players react to these (of course if i am to use a DMPC, he wont be much in the spotlight and all, mostly gonne be there to help them and be kinda simple minded as to let them decide stuff and he's gonna follow)

Soooo, how hard is it to balance encounters for less, or how are DMPC liked/hated by players?

 

[gideonpepys]

Torrent is a cleric, so give her a lot of buff spells. Players love buffs, and anyone who provides them. Play her as a support/leader cleric, not a front-line fighter.

One tactic I considered using when I was planning to run WotBS with a large group was to have Torrent seem brave and more than capable when the PCs first meet her. But then she takes a nasty injury during the events of the first adventure, and can no longer hack it on the front line. So she comes along for story reasons and to provide buffs.