I'm starting AoW with my group, which currently consists of two players. These are the two guys who make it every week without fail, and I want to run a full campaign with them. So, I'm going to need NPCs to fill out the rest of the party. I was thinking of pulling the NPCs from the fifty described in AoW Overload. I'm wondering how others have approached playing with a smaller group of players and how you might fill out the party given all the resources associated with AoW.
I'm starting AoW with my group, which currently consists of two players. These are the two guys who make it every week without fail, and I want to run a full campaign with them. So, I'm going to need NPCs to fill out the rest of the party. I was thinking of pulling the NPCs from the fifty described in AoW Overload. I'm wondering how others have approached playing with a smaller group of players and how you might fill out the party given all the resources associated with AoW.
I deal with a similar situation pretty frequently. My wife and one of her friends are the only people I can get to play on anything resembling a regular/frequent basis, so to reward that (and help them survive in my games, considering I don't fudge things for or against my players) I've experimented with several different ideas.
1) Provide frequent support and/or assistance in the form of friendly NPCs. Easiest to justify if you set up some simple but life-threatening crisis the PCs can solve for one or two NPCs at low levels.
2) Give them the Leadership feat for free at 6th level (assuming they survive that long) so that they can actually conscript help in the form of cohorts. If you've had NPCs who've helped and/or interacted with them frequently throughout the game, as in solution #1, this is fairly easy to reconcile.
3) Simply boost their characters' power. Let them roll high-powered ability scores or use high-level point-buy, depending on your preference. Let them play gestalt characters from Unearthed Arcana, play more powerful than average races, etc. Even giving them something less tangible, like political/financial influence, can make a world of difference. Plus, those sorts of things are easy (and fun) to strip away through the course of the story if they're being abused.
These are just a few of my ideas/solutions. Typically, I find that trying to run more than a couple of NPC's to fill out the group is more trouble than it's worth, and hurts the suspension of disbelief of the real players if you ever let the NPCs turn into walking arsenals/med packs/lock-picks (which is far too easy to do, IMO). Letting them run multiple characters can also detract from the amount of effort they put into fully realizing their own primary characters. So, basically, I've found that Solution #3 has been working the best for me. Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Might just let them play two characters each....will save you're own work running extras and should not be much of a problem if they are conistent. I run a similar set up most fo the time, two players and 4 Charcters...works fine....
Problem I've had with that set up is that usually roleplaying goes out the window. It becomes mighty hard to keep track of which PC is being played. Personnaly, I much prefer VidicCold's suggestions. Work's better in my experience.
Might just let them play two characters each....will save you're own work running extras and should not be much of a problem if they are conistent. I run a similar set up most fo the time, two players and 4 Charcters...works fine....Problem I've had with that set up is that usually roleplaying goes out the window. It becomes mighty hard to keep track of which PC is being played. Personnaly, I much prefer VidicCold's suggestions. Work's better in my experience.
We use the multiple characters setup from time to time, mainly with the more experienced gamers, and it works fine for us. The players have no porblem rpging the characters as individuals, to the point whewre it is not uncommon for one players characters to have a disagreement on something in the game! This makes for a fun session as we watch one player bicker with himself :D
Good times. B
Check out wormfood from Dragon issue 334. Some great NPCs to work with. After introducing a few potential NPCs, I hinted to the players that they may want extra man power on the 3FoE section and they went out and hired Gar, even though I was expecting the chief scout to be sought after.
We allow 2 PCs for each player as well when everyone can't show up. Works fine. If anything, what happens is one PC becomes dominant in the role playing while the other doesn't take so much of an active lead, but the same thing tends to happen in the group dynamic even if everyone's just running one, so it isn't that big of a deal.
I'm starting AoW with my group, which currently consists of two players. These are the two guys who make it every week without fail, and I want to run a full campaign with them. So, I'm going to need NPCs to fill out the rest of the party. I was thinking of pulling the NPCs from the fifty described in AoW Overload. I'm wondering how others have approached playing with a smaller group of players and how you might fill out the party given all the resources associated with AoW.
My group only has three players. I was running an NPC cleric along side them for a while but it was becoming a pain, so instead I gave them a cohort to run. It works for me since they are already part of an adventuring guild, so the guild just sent them someone to teach the ropes to. I'm not going to worry about the Leadership feat since they will only get tthe one cohort, but it will never be higher than 2 levels behind the lowest level member.
My group started AoW with only two players, fighter and bard. I wanted to start playing, but I feared it would be too difficult for them. The PCs use 28 point buys. I gave them three NPCs from the Eberron RPGA 25 point buy pregen characters, wizard, rogue, and cleric. The group plays them all like a troupe, with different people running the NPCs at different times. As people have joined the campaign, these NPcs have been replaced or assumed by a player.It's worked out well so far.
rooster
What are your character's classes? Tactically it would be simple enough for them to have something that offsets their abilities and gives them something they're lacking (ie: fighter/ranger give them a ranger for the skills or give them a cleric for healing) though the idea of giving them Leadership does sound good..
3) Simply boost their characters' power. Let them roll high-powered ability scores or use high-level point-buy, depending on your preference.
In my game, I ended up losing two players right after the initial encounters in TFoE, so I was suddenly left with two players, neither of which were experienced enough to play two characters each. So here's what I did.
I looked over all the encounters they'd met (including the ones in the Whispering Cairn) and figured out how they'd've gained experience if it were only two characters. This came out to the midpoint of 5th level, so I allowed them to recreate their characters at that level, and did a Reality Check™. They both made multiclassed characters to make sure they had the essential skills.
Things are a little tougher for them, because it's easier to get outnumbered, and their power-level is perhaps a little lower than they should be able to face. So far they've finished the Hextorite temple, and are about halfway through the Erythnul section without a major problem. The pair made 6th level right after dealing with Theldrick.
And, I just gained a third player who'll be joining in this evening. I made him 4th level, and included one of the PCs' cohorts, as prisoners in the chieftain's area, so the group'll be back up to four characters. The difference in levels should even out soon enough.
And they'll have a fifth when they get to the Free City, with my fiancee bringing in her favorite character.