Tweaks to make the game work better with fewer players

[Garthanos]

It occurred to me that some of my house rules may be geared around the fact that I tend to play with somewhat fewer players, for instance my not wanting the fighting man to have fewer skills than other classes seems like it might be not just a rebellion against the stupid fighter/jock stereotype but also a to make sure the party has broad skill coverage for skill challenge situations.

What thoughts about rule adjustments for party size can you think of?

 

[Mandrakon]

Hi, from what you are saying, I am not sure if You are talking about an Essentials line - but back to the topic at hand: If You are looking for any advices on how to run a game fo, let's say, 2-3 people, there is a set of tips in original DMG 1 for 4E explaining how to run a party without one or more of the four core roles - defender, striker, controller and leader. From my experience (I am on my 2nd session with a 2-player group) You don't really need a dedicated controller - just be sure that some of the characters have some, or at least single - AoE abilities. THe second thing I've done is I've managed to run an NPC alongside the party in combat that fulfills the third role - here a leader, since I am running for Paladin and Warlock - and that, up until now, was able to cover any combat challenges that I set for them. The thing looks a little bit different with social encounters - here it would be good to have at least Diplomacy and Insight trained (or a high base) in any of the PCs, since that is a thing that NPC can't really do for them. If we are talking about combat encounters, just use the rules provided in DMG for creating ones, and I am talking about the experience budget here - can't really go wrong with that. As for skills training - in my experience, as long as You have someone with high Diplomacy and someone with high Insight (largely due to the way 4E scales your bonuses as you level up), much can change for the better. Besides, some utility powers at later levels can provide skill bonuses when needed.

 

[Garthanos]

Hi, from what you are saying, I am not sure if You are talking about an Essentials line - but back to the topic at hand: If You are looking for any advices on how to run a game fo, let's say, 2-3 people, there is a set of tips in original DMG 1 for 4E explaining how to run a party without one or more of the four core roles - defender, striker, controller and leader. From my experience (I am on my 2nd session with a 2-player group) You don't really need a dedicated controller - just be sure that some of the characters have some, or at least single - AoE abilities. THe second thing I've done is I've managed to run an NPC alongside the party in combat that fulfills the third role - here a leader, since I am running for Paladin and Warlock

Yes I typically use an NPC leader unless a PC has a leader then its been a striker, I do not find that works as well as a leader companion.

- and that, up until now, was able to cover any combat challenges that I set for them. The thing looks a little bit different with social encounters - here it would be good to have at least Diplomacy and Insight trained (or a high base) in any of the PCs, since that is a thing that NPC can't really do for them.

I would say those are far from guaranteed with a small party size

If we are talking about combat encounters, just use the rules provided in DMG for creating ones, and I am talking about the experience budget here - can't really go wrong with that.

Enemies that have disabling effects can be problematic... so that leader being able to manage the shrugging off those seems extra important with small party size.

 

[Mandrakon]

Enemies that have disabling effects can be problematic... so that leader being able to manage the shrugging off those seems extra important with small party size.

Yea, I guess Inspiring Warlord with Inspired Recovery feat or Dwarf Warlord with Bolstering Inspiration feat will be the best choices here for the long run, personally I use the former.

And as for far from guaranteed skill usefullness, nothing in D&D is guaranteed, really. But if that becomes a problem, i suggest tailoring skill challenges to what your players tend to succeed in.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I tend to go with a CC leader type that can have a 'condition buster' power and one or two other things (a heal and a 'push stuff around to give the party an advantage' type of thing work well, plus a decent MBA).

 

[Garthanos]

And as for far from guaranteed skill usefullness, nothing in D&D is guaranteed, really. But if that becomes a problem, i suggest tailoring skill challenges to what your players tend to succeed in.

The concept of upping player skill diversity in response to fewer players was to largely enable a broader set of skill challenges.

I also have ideas that improve controller elements in the Warlord so he is better able to function independent of ally abilities, for instance if the warlord is better at inducing friendly fire he can do interesting things even if isolated from the party and the like.

 

[D'karr]

You could make all skills class skills and let the players select what they have training on. Then give them each 2 or 3 skill focus feats for free. If they ever take a feat that gives them training in one of the skills they focused on they can reassign the skill focus to something else.

As far as encounters go I would stick with encounters of LEVEL-1 (at most) until they are more survivable, then you can take it to LEVEL. Never have encounters with more than 4 creatures.

Change Second Wind to be a minor or move action rather than Standard if they do not have leaders with them. After every 2 milestones they may recover 1-2 healing surges on a roll of 5+ on a D6 (5=1HS, 6=2HS), they can exchange 2 healing surges gained this way for recovery of one Daily.

 

[Mandrakon]

The concept of upping player skill diversity in response to fewer players was to largely enable a broader set of skill challenges.

I also have ideas that improve controller elements in the Warlord so he is better able to function independent of ally abilities, for instance if the warlord is better at inducing friendly fire he can do interesting things even if isolated from the party and the like.

Oh, now I think I understand where You are coming from Then yes, seems like You have two options, really: either houserule in some kind of free training, much like the one D'karr suggested already, or, if You want to do everything by the book - encourage multiclassing. IIRC, that would allow the characters the training in class-specified skills with no real "profanity of the ruleset"
As for the new aspects of the Warlord, I don't feel like it is needed as much, when you can - yes, you guessed correctly - multiclass him!
That should help at least a little bit, we don't want to unbalance our NPC in relation to PCs, so if they were like jack-of-all-trades, I feel like it could cause some problems (or how I like to call it - Batman syndrome) and we want our PCs to have the most fun in killing stuff 'n' taking names

 

[Mandrakon]

As far as encounters go I would stick with encounters of LEVEL-1 (at most) until they are more survivable, then you can take it to LEVEL. Never have encounters with more than 4 creatures.

Change Second Wind to be a minor or move action rather than Standard if they do not have leaders with them. After every 2 milestones they may recover 1-2 healing surges on a roll of 5+ on a D6 (5=1HS, 6=2HS), they can exchange 2 healing surges gained this way for recovery of one Daily.

I agree with you in terms of houseruling training skills, but that is as far as it goes for that - I feel like encounter levels should be kept vanilla - the same level for easy ones, 2-3 lvls higher for tougher ones. Especially at early levels, I found that same-level encounters don't even necessary need for healers to burn their encounter heals. If that is not the case - just do what I do for levels 1-5 encounters - damage calculation from Monster Manual 1 and (based on MM1 math) creature's HP gets lowered by 4 HP x creature level (but that calculation begins at level 3, earlier feels unnecessary).
As for changing Second Wind mechanics - your proposed rules would make Dwarves almost obsolete in that regard, since that is considered an ability special just to them as of PHB1 I would rather give them for free the feat where after using a healing surge your defenses go up by 2 or 3 (don't remember anymore) until the beginning of your next turn - could be more useful, especially since it does not interfere with action economy

 

[Garthanos]

Oh, now I think I understand where You are coming from Then yes, seems like You have two options, really: either houserule in some kind of free training, much like the one D'karr suggested already, or, if You want to do everything by the book - encourage multiclassing. IIRC, that would allow the characters the training in class-specified skills with no real "profanity of the ruleset"
As for the new aspects of the Warlord, I don't feel like it is needed as much, when you can - yes, you guessed correctly - multiclass him!

Like a dose of sword mage or fighter eh ... I actually considered making multi-class a free level 1 feat ... I can even hack Character Builder so by the book isnt totally necessary as long as the changes have a predicted and planned effect, I can be fine with it. Honestly multiclassing feats are very nice anyone vaguely wanting diverse skill set in 4e basically needs to be taking them.

That should help at least a little bit, we don't want to unbalance our NPC in relation to PCs, so if they were like jack-of-all-trades, I feel like it could cause some problems (or how I like to call it - Batman syndrome) and we want our PCs to have the most fun in killing stuff 'n' taking names

Yeh keeping batman as NOT a NPC seems a necessary. Alternatively there is having intermittent NPCs so one adventure they pick up this tag along thief and the next have to guard that princess who is handy at inspiring and so on. This can feel contrived if they fit the needs of the story too well also.

 

[Garthanos]

You could make all skills class skills and let the players select what they have training on. Then give them each 2 or 3 skill focus feats for free. If they ever take a feat that gives them training in one of the skills they focused on they can reassign the skill focus to something else.

As far as encounters go I would stick with encounters of LEVEL-1 (at most) until they are more survivable, then you can take it to LEVEL. Never have encounters with more than 4 creatures.

Change Second Wind to be a minor or move action rather than Standard if they do not have leaders with them. After every 2 milestones they may recover 1-2 healing surges on a roll of 5+ on a D6 (5=1HS, 6=2HS), they can exchange 2 healing surges gained this way for recovery of one Daily.

I like some of those ideas and making Second Wind a better tool for recovery seems intriguing.

I like minion clearing on occasion and also have some fleeing adversaries cutting down on the challenge (my players aren't the hunt em down and slaughter everything types) .

 

[D'karr]

I feel like encounter levels should be kept vanilla - the same level for easy ones, 2-3 lvls higher for tougher ones. Especially at early levels, I found that same-level encounters don't even necessary need for healers to burn their encounter heals.

I guess this is a case of "different strokes for different folks", but I couldn't disagree more.

The base assumption in 4e is 4 PCs. Everything in the game is geared to support and interact within this assumption. When you have less PCs the party is gimped. If you have 2 PCs, as an example, they have half of the assumed actions in a round - be they attacks, moves or recovery. Missing on attacks becomes even more mathematically significant with less players. I'll use levels 1-3, IMO the most vulnerable levels, to illustrate.

The base XP budget for 1st level is 400 XP, which would equal, as a baseline, 4 standard 1st level monsters, or up to 16 minions. These can be exchanged for 2 elites or 1 Solo. At first level you cannot use LEVEL-anything monsters because they do not exist. XP budget for 2nd level is 500 - 5 standard 1st level monsters or up to 20 minions. XP budget for 3rd level is 600 - 6 standard 1st level monsters of up to 24 minions. You can also replace these for elites and solos based on XP budget.

Based on these numbers you start to see the disadvantage of keeping encounter levels "vanilla" when you have small parties. At first level budget your action economy would be at a ratio of 1:2 for standard or 1:8 for minions, only being at 1:1 if you use elites. At second level budget the action economy worsens to 1:2.5, 1:10, and still possibly 1:1 only for elites. Third Level budget 1:6, 1:12 or 1:1.5 if elites.

Detractors of 4e used to say that it was impossible to kill PCs in 4e. From levels 1-5, I have TPKd more PC parties in 4e than all other editions combined.

If you mean keeping LEVELs vanilla, but are decreasing XP budgets to match, then you are pretty much doing what I'm advocating but from a different angle.

2 player XP budgets become:
1st-200XP
2nd-250XP
3rd-300XP

As for changing Second Wind mechanics - your proposed rules would make Dwarves almost obsolete in that regard, since that is considered an ability special just to them as of PHB1

You are right in assuming it would take away the specialness of dwarves. You can simply make the dwarves racial ability a free action instead of a minor. Same effect, same balance.

All of these are some of the examples that showcase how powerful 4e can be in the hands of an experienced DM that works within the framework. The game is extremely malleable.

 

[Garthanos]

I guess this is a case of "different strokes for different folks", but I couldn't disagree more.

The base assumption in 4e is 4 PCs. Everything in the game is geared to support and interact within this assumption. When you have less PCs the party is gimped. If you have 2 PCs, as an example, they have half of the assumed actions in a round - be they attacks, moves or recovery. Missing on attacks becomes even more mathematically significant with less players. I'll use levels 1-3, IMO the most vulnerable levels, to illustrate.

One of my motivations for making "controllerish" multi-target (minion clearing) like monkish flurries (and maybe barbarian cleavings) more common is because of that, the other is I just like the tropes and find it impressive when the martial type does an awesome. Heck its not always damage A rogue who can do a controller move like a multi-hamstring on the run.

You are right in assuming it would take away the specialness of dwarves. You can simply make the dwarves racial ability a free action instead of a minor. Same effect, same balance.

Perfect

 

[Mandrakon]

D'karr, I think You misunderstood me a little By saying I would keep encounter levels vanilla, I meant that I would still scale them to party size - so 2 PCS + 1 NPC would equal 3 normal enemies, 1 normal and 1 elite or 1 elite and 4 minions for that matter. Wouldn't really try to use other mixes - but treating 3-man or 2-man team as 4-man team is not what I had in mind at all I assumed that when in DMG1 there is a written rule for adjusting exp budgets to pary sizes, weall are talking about equal encounters in terms of levels (as i said - 3 heroes = 3 enemies), so I wanted to clarify that

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

D'karr, I think You misunderstood me a little By saying I would keep encounter levels vanilla, I meant that I would still scale them to party size - so 2 PCS + 1 NPC would equal 3 normal enemies, 1 normal and 1 elite or 1 elite and 4 minions for that matter. Wouldn't really try to use other mixes - but treating 3-man or 2-man team as 4-man team is not what I had in mind at all I assumed that when in DMG1 there is a written rule for adjusting exp budgets to pary sizes, weall are talking about equal encounters in terms of levels (as i said - 3 heroes = 3 enemies), so I wanted to clarify that

Well, DMG1 considers the 'standard' party to be 5 PCs. The XP budget chart thus shows 500XP as the budget for a level 1 encounter (5 standard level 1 monsters). It also shows XP budgets for 4 and 6 PC parties. The XP budget roughly doubles every 4 levels from then on. That means a level 5 monster is worth 2 level 1s, and a level 5 encounter is 2x the XP of a level 1 encounter. I think you could bend the curve a little for small parties based on their lesser synergies. This is probably why they don't list XP budgets for 3 or fewer, or 7 or more, PCs. The scaling just isn't all that linear with party size.

In other words, at higher levels, you might want to include a fraction less XP in the budget, maybe replacing a standard with a minion of a couple levels higher, or reducing an elite to a Level+2 Standard. I think at levels 1-5 you can just go with the standard budget though.

Overall I think the key is going to be to provide scenarios that make sense for a couple of characters working together as a two-being team to handle. Perhaps most combats are telegraphed more and happen in less out-of-the-way places. Or you focus a little more on a type of challenges the PCs are well-suited for. If you have a pair of rangers that scout for the army, well, then let them take on wilderness survival, tracking, and trapping sorts of missions. You can always throw in 'off' elements here and there that push outside their core skill set. As with combat encounters, the complexity of challenges for this group to face should be a bit lower, so that they are likely to have enough skills to pull off the number of secondary checks that will usually bring success.