Arcnarenth's page

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Really simple question, but the Hero's Handbook of the Beginner's Box left me unsure. Is a new lvl 1 character's hit points set at a static value determined by class or does CON factor in at all? I ask because at level up the CON bonus is added in to the new hit point total.

In a similar situation, I let the two players each have two characters and I played one myself. It worked out well. The combat went very fast and players got confused about their guys a little, but they enjoyed running two PC's.

The only hang up I had was finding a balence between over and under playing my character. I didn't want him to be the standout because he knew all that I knew, nor did I want him to not act when someone in his position would. I did use him to provide some direction and guidance with his suggestions, and believe it or not, his(my) suggestions were not always followed.

For example, the party was almost taken out (but killed the moster) and scrambled out to get back to camp before anything else hit them. In their haste, they forgot to search the beast's lair losing out on a $62,000 item. My guy suggested that they go back and look, but they wanted to go on with the adventure. It was hard not to do more than that, since I had a stake in some of that money.

But like I said, other than situations like that, our group of 3 has fun runing 5 characters.

I can see how this strategy would work in combat situations, but does it breakdown in roleplay encounters? How well does it go in a "split personality" type situation when both of a player's characters converse with each other? I guess I've had to do something similar with NPCs as a GM, so it might not be too bad.

Another concern is simply complexity. My players are completely new to the idea of RPGs and I can see things being slow going even in normal circumstances. Would running multiple characters be much more daunting?

Also, what's the consensus on GM run PCs? Does it work without coming off as having too heavy-handed of a GM influence in the world? Does it create unsure headache and bookkeeping for the GM?

Appreciate your opunions. Thanks.

Picked up the Beginner Box for my brother's birthday and decided that I would be GM as I'm the only one with roleplaying experience. I've been GM for a handful of games back in 3.0 so my experience there is pretty limited. In those games, I averaged around 6 PCs.

The new group that wants me to GM only consists of 3 of us. Normally, one would GM and the others would be PCs. What's your take on how to handle this with a players that are new to RPGs? Obviously a party of two is lacking several of the skills and abilities available to a standard party. My brother says to just create and run a PC along with GMing. My thinking is to instead occasionally have an NPC act as a volunteer or mercenary in difficult encounters. How do you guys run games with small groups?