I have a very small group that consists of 2 players.
I am currently running Kingmaker for them and the party is made up of their characters and 2 NPCs that are managed (played) by me.
The only problem I have with this is that I tend to lose some of the NPC's personality because I am juggling them as well as the other NPCs in the world around them.
In the future, I am considering dialing it back to 1 NPC in the party.
How I would need to modify the AP so as not to be too overpowering for them? Or, would the increased XP gain from only having 3 party members offset the issue?
My advice would be to let each player have 2 PCs each. I'm GMing Kingmaker and playing in SS with my group of three and it's been very successful. As a bonus one gets to try out two different characters.
But I guess I burned myself by playing a bad GMPC in Red Hand of Doom and have refused to use one ever since.
3 PCs should be fine, although you might want to reduce the amount of enemy monsters when there are many of them.
It is incredibly difficult to play party NPCs (GMPCs) as well as the other NPCs in the world, and becomes all the more difficult as characters level, as you have to track the GMPC's abilities which become increasingly complex.
Absolutely I would cut down to 1 GMPC, and I would in fact perhaps make them a non-combatant/minimal combatant character. Perhaps an Adept who can heal and provide a little spellcasting support from the back (if that's what they need), but let the PCs carry the weight of combat duty. This will both make things much easier for you and also allow the PCs to shine without feeling like they have to rely on non-player characters to survive (I have seen people be resentful of even the most well-designed and well-played GMPCs).
With the reduced effective party size, then all you need to do is scale back your encounters appropriately. Do this by reducing group threats by 2-4 creatures (e.g., the fight with 10 bandits becomes a fight with 6 bandits), cutting two creature encounters to one creature encounters (OR make it 1 normal creature and 2 weaker ones supporting it), and applying the Young or other reduction templates to solo encounters.
If you have time, you can also re-design certain enemies with class levels to have either fewer class levels, or swap their PC class levels (if they have them) with NPC class levels (so the level 10 rogue becomes a level 10 Expert or a level 8-9 rogue).
KEEP CR AND XP AWARDS THE SAME--because everything is scaling appropriately to the encounter level of your party.
In other words, a creature labeled "CR 2" in the Bestiary is a CR 2 creature for a standardly equipped 4 person party of level 2 characters. That same creature would therefore be CR 3 or 4 to a 2-person level 2 party--ergo weakening the creature slightly returns it to a CR 2 encounter for a 2-person party. I hope that makes sense.
This should be applicable to most campaigns in general.
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I have a very small group that consists of 2 players.
I am currently running Kingmaker for them and the party is made up of their characters and 2 NPCs that are managed (played) by me.
The only problem I have with this is that I tend to lose some of the NPC's personality because I am juggling them as well as the other NPCs in the world around them.
In the future, I am considering dialing it back to 1 NPC in the party.
How I would need to modify the AP so as not to be too overpowering for them? Or, would the increased XP gain from only having 3 party members offset the issue?
My suggestion (and this is from someone who ran a large part of RotR for two players) is drop the two DMPCs, stat up NPCs throughout town (there are several worth considering) and allow the party to seek aid from NPC as wanted. For example, when the party took on the glassworks, they only had one guard who died in the first round and the party still cleared the glassworks but then got assistance from Belor and the owner of the goblin squash stables to try and clear the catacombs. The important thing is that you don't have the NPCs with the party all the time. That way developing the NPCs the party seeks assistance from is done as part of actually getting those NPCs to help the party. It also allows you to flesh out the NPCs of the world for the players who get much more involved in learning about the people they are fighting with (because those people will have their own reasons for joining the party beyond just we pay you X). While I eventually got more players to join the group, the two PC party ran quite well through most of the first and second AP.
I appreciate the feedback - thank you.
I should have been more clear though, in regards to Kingmaker.
We're 2/3 of the way through the AP, so I am not going to change this set up of 2 PCs and 2 GMPCs. What I am looking for is advice going forward - most likely for Carrion Crown.
I really do appreciate the community feedback. I want to be able to focus on the RP side of things more than managing character sheets and abilities.