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.