Arcnarenth's page

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.

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?