Three's a Crowd

[Nytmare]

My group recently lost one of it's players, and I'm not sure how long we're going to have to run with only three people.

I'd like to make the transition with as few speedbumps as possible, and I'm wondering what experiences other people have had running below the suggested party size.

My gut reaction at this point is to build encounters as though the group was 4 PCs, of one level lower and to stay away from elites that are more than their actual level. I'm at a loss however as to what the easy/hard boundaries are going to be.

 

[im_robertb]

Build encounters as though there were 3 PCs, since that's how many there are. The XP budget for an encounter of their level is equal to the XP for 3 standard monsters of their level. Using the DMG chart, use the '4 PCs' column, and multiply by 0.75.

 

[Turtlejay]

Over in the houserules forum there are some fixes for this. One is a gestalt or heroic PC, with extra staying power and more options. That might help you out, if you wanted to run published adventures with little or no alteration.

Jay

 

[Nytmare]

Build encounters as though there were 3 PCs, since that's how many there are.

I was under the impression that those rules broke down when you wandered outside the 4-6 person party?

[EDIT - Duh I guess maybe this is one of those situations where I should have reread through the rules before I started asking questions. Page 57 bold as day...

I'm still thinking that dropping down to 3 attacks a round should affect the number of baddies and what their maximum level should be.]

Over in the houserules forum there are some fixes for this. One is a gestalt or heroic PC, with extra staying power and more options.

I wanted to adjust things on the encounter end of things, instead of the character's. Changing what they fight'll be a lot less of a hassle over changing things between the character builder and sheets I use, and then changing things back again when we find a new 4th player.

 

[Mesh Hong]

Have you considered allowing the group to have a support character to make up the short fall?

This would be another PC effectively run by any of your players during combat, the PC could melt into the background while the group were involved in roleplaying rather than combat.

I know some people instinctively don't like this sort of approach but it might be the easiest solution for you. It would mean you wouldn't have to change anything you had already prepared and the campaign dynamic would stay the same.

In one way it might also be beneficial, if one of your PCs died in a dungeon say, then they could just take resposibility for the extra PC and the session could continue with everyone fully engaged.

Just a thought.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

We are using the "support NPC" - which boils down to one player running two characters. It's not perfect, certainly, but no solution is.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I run a campaign with 5 players, but attendance can be.... sporadic.

So, whenever I plan encounters, I plan them for 3, 4 or 5 players, basically using the same set of monsters but reducing their numbers for if I have fewer players.

To determine the appropriate XP budget for 3 players, I take the difference between that for a 4 and 5 member party, and subtract that difference from the 4 member XP budget.

Haven't really had a problem with it, other than the smaller the party size, the less diverse the encounter, as you simply can't have as many models on the table (unless you swap a monster for a bunch of minions).

As a DM, I find encounters for 5 members to be the most interesting, both because they seem more heroic (what with more monsters), more diverse monster abilities (more monsters means more different monsters) and more party synergies. As you drop players, it gets less interesting (IMHO), but its still better than not playing. They aren't any more difficult for the players, though, unless you don't reduce the XP budgets for the encounters, obviously.

Other than reducing the XP value of the encounters (either by using less monsters, or delevelling them), you don't really need to do anything different. Well, I mean, you need to be more aware of the party "holes" (no controller, for example), and adjust according, but you need to do that for any party, you are just going to get more holes with fewer players. So, no striker, don't use many solos, no controller, avoid encounters that are all/mostly minions... that kind of thing.

As for being careful fielding monsters above the players levels, no need to be any more careful than you would with any other party, so long as you keep your XP budget in mind.

 

[renau1g]

I currently run a game that only has 3 pcs. They didn't want to run a support PC (as it's their first time playing 4e) so I allowed them to roll their stats 4d6 dropping 1's. Each PC now (as expected) has much higher stats than the 22 PB. The most has 25 points over the least has 20 points over. So far we've played two encounters and they've done pretty well with the published adventures as is.

 

[babinro]

Three players can work just fine depending on the party composition.

If your party has a defender, a leader and anything else as the third...there should be no problems running typical encounters scaled for XP to 3 people.

If your party has two ranged characters and 1 melee, there will almost definitely be problems. Too many monsters would simply gang up on the 1 melee and he'd be easily overwhelmed without sufficient self healing/solid healing support. This party can work, but it is far more prone to swingy encounters...if the one melee target falls unconscious the battle swings quickly. Alternatively, if the fighter holds strong, the ranged characters can focus fire and the battles can end quickly with little drama. I recommend a stand in NPC or simply allowing a player to play 2 characters.

 

[renau1g]

I forgot to mention our group has three melee PC's. One is a brutal rogue, a goliath battlecleric of Tempus (with a greataxe), and a shifter warden (wielding a mordenkrad) so the damage is pretty sizable. The rogue gets his sneak attack almost every time and the cleric does 1d12+7 damage on his at-will, while the warden does 2d6+6 on her basic attack.