What boon for 3 PCs to bring them up to the power of 4?

[blargney the second]

An extra character brings to the party:
1) More hps
2) More skills/feats/spells
3) Extra actions
4) An extra body for tactics

Here's how I would spread those out over three PCs:
1) Give all PCs +1 hp/level and Toughness as a bonus feat.
2) Give +1 skill point/level and +4 at first level. Distribute an occasional extra feat. Provide them with some 1/day spell-like abilities.
3) It's a little out there, but you can create a Teamwork Benefit for them that gives a pool of standard and move actions that can be used by a player with the consensus of the whole group.
4) Give someone an extra AoO per round. Give another one the ability to flank from an adjacent square. Give the other one an extra +2 bonus when using Aid Another.

That should cover a lot of it, I think.

 

[Jdvn1]

Hmm, although logical at some level, I am not sure it works that way. The increase in power appears to be exponential with level, rather than merely linear. The EL of an encounter, for example, increases by 2 for every doubling of the creatures present.

EL and APL are calculated fairly differently. Of course, there isn't going to be a perfect solution, so it'll probably take some playing with before you find a solution that fits your game.

 

[Black_Swan]

Don't adjust the party, adjust the opposition.

Just weaken the enemy a little bit. This way it's transparent. They don't see the fix to the game and you get to throw them up against what you want, just a little weaker.

 

[takasi]

A 3 man party with 40 point buy should do it. Can be much more powerful than a 4 man party with 25 points each, IMO.

Also, are you letting them take classes and feats from non-core books?

It's really more about the players than the characters. Plus, if you're the DM, just scale everything back a little bit.

Or don't and let the dice fall where they may.

 

[Lorgrom]

How about increasing the HD type they earn each level. As well as allowing them to choose one poor save and turn it into a good save.

 

[Croesus]

Some random ideas:

1. Allow the characters to take a race with a +1 LA for free.
2. All clerics! (only partly tongue-in-cheek...)
3. As others have said, very good stats.
4. Extra action points.
5. Make dying harder (increase the number of negative hit points before death, change save-or-die to save-or-disabled). This allows the opponents to capture rather than kill the party in a TPK situation.
6. Fewer opponents. It's easier to beat one slightly more powerful opponent than a horde of slightly weaker opponents.

As has been said, the two main consequences of fewer characters are that they have fewer actions, and that they are more fragile (not just hit points, but saves - it's more likely that three characters could all blow an important save than four). If you don't want to add an npc, you'll have to try to balance for those two effects.

 

[brehobit]

As has been said, the two main consequences of fewer characters are that they have fewer actions, and that they are more fragile (not just hit points, but saves - it's more likely that three characters could all blow an important save than four). If you don't want to add an npc, you'll have to try to balance for those two effects.

Agreed on all counts.

I'd recommend a higher point-buy and agressive granting of action points. Used well, action points make a huge difference at low level. I'd also just grant an extra feat at 1st level. It can help a lot.

The action points are useful for saves (which as noted by Croesus are a huge issue with a group of 3). They can also let the PCs have a chance when the dice are starting to go bad, which is something else that is common with a group of three (same reason as the saves, the law of large numbers is playing a smaller role.)

Mark

 

[Master of the Game]

I ran a group of three (Beguiler, Ranger, Paladin) who needed a bit of healing help, so I gave them a flag with their group symbol, and had them tie it to their group bond (the teamwork stuff from DMG2). It functioned as a cleric equal to the average party level, minus one for each person in the group after the first. It only had access to the healing domain, and a character who wanted to order it to cast a spell had to give up a standard action.

That way, the group had the healing of a level 5 cleric (they were 7 at the time I believe), but when our group grew and it was needed less, it slowly got phased out.

Basically, at sun-up it got back all of its spells back.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Nah, please no NPCs and preferably not turning the characters into Gestalts (though if nothing else works this might...). Ideally, I would prefer to grant the three characters some inherent boon that would boost their power sufficiently to balance them with a 4 PC party.

If you are going to do a gestalt, rule it can only be done with NPC classes.
Option 2: Higher stats.

 

[pawsplay]

Just use fewer and weaker opponents. The game will essentially run the same, and the extra XP for a smaller group should approximately make up for the lower CRs and fewer opponents.