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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Calzone" data-source="post: 5084131" data-attributes="member: 87629">I'm currently DM'ing a campaign with 2 PCs. They are both strikers, 1 barbarian, 1 sorceror MC bard. They've been through a handful of combat encounters so far, and though there have been some tense moments, there hasn't been a TPK yet.When designing my encounters I really watch the action economy: If the enemy can bring many more actions per turn than the party, or if they can deny a lot of mobility or actions to the party, that's bad.I like to use brutes, skirmishers, and artillery for the most part, because they can hit hard but go down pretty fast too. For instance, the barbarian took a level lower elite brute to just shy of bloodied with one attack, but not before the brute had hit the barbarian for about a third of his health, too.Break large combats up into a few waves of a couple of creatures, but with no chance to rest in between. The damage output of the strikers can down the 1-2 enemies fast without taking too much damage, but the constant trickle of foes makes combat more intense.Also, objective-based combat can be a lot of fun for small groups. The encounter with the brute above also included about eight minions. The catch? The minions were trying to steal a crate the PCs were carrying with them. It was heavy, so it took several of them to move it, and the rest were playing a rear guard action to buy time to escape with the crate. Since all the monsters weren't focused on killing the PCs, the encounter was manageable, even with so many creatures.A DMPC helps make combat less swingy. I've paired the 2 strikers with a shielding swordmage DMPC for now who helps soak damage for the team.  Their last encounter with an Ochre Jelly had the barbarian hurting until the swordmage managed to pull the Jelly over to her, and her shielding kept most of the damage off the strikers (though the ongoing acid made things a bit tense <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If you build encounters near the XP budget for the group, use monsters that don't kill the action economy, and throw in a DMPC or potions, etc, for bigger fights, you'll probably be fine.</blockquote>

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