anyone else run RotRl with just 2 players?

[TerraZephyr]

It looks like I'll be running RotRl for two of my players.

I'm planning on converting the campaign to pathfinder rules as is and so the characters should be stronger than 3.5 characters but I'm wondering how strong they'd need to be in order to actually survive (but still be challenging).

I could have both player play 2 characters but I'd prefer to just have them run only 1 character each.

I'm looking at the 25 point buy for stats, starting off at level 2, and starting them off with maybe 2,000gp, but I fear that with only 2 characters that those handicaps won't be enough. Thoughts?

[Ringtail]

It will depend a lot on how experienced the players controlling the characters are. Overall, during the times I've ran RotRL's my groups have found the combat relatively easy, albeit with a few difficult fights sprinkled in (Erilyium and Xenesha notably) and even those weren't as dangerous as they were difficult to kill. A group of 3 managed to plow through the AP with no deaths as written, though admitily that was 3.5 with access to some splat. If at least one of the characters is a veristile spell caster with a practiced hand then once mid-levels roll around they should be able to get on just fine. Before that, you may want to ease the burden in some fights. I would recommend removing some enemies from combats with hordes and either knocking levels and/or hit dice off larger foes or applying the "young" template to bigger monsters. Messing with the encounter design would add more work than buffing the PC's, but would run much more smoothly. It would also mess with the XP progression, so I would recommend scrapping XP and just leveling the characters as appropriate for each book (probably keeping them just above the suggested level for lack of a well round 4 to 5 man party). Every little bit to help a small party survive will add a lot to the game; Hero Points, extra traits, maye a bonus feat or 2. Starting at both a 25 point buy and level 2 seems to make for some solid starting characters, but you may wish to either conviently place extra healing items in the treasure won or give extra HP at the start to prevent a lucky critical from ending the game.

[Old Drake]

An answer without knowing the character classes they choose is almost impossible. Your proposal would yield solid characters, but wouldn't really do anything about the lack of versatility.
A normal group should have a melee type, a healer, and an arcane caster. Without fighter, the enemies would immediately engage the healer and mage. Without healer there's nobody to keep the party alive. Without arcane spells they are limited in their options and lack abilities against multiple enemies.

Instead of high point buy and gold you might instead go for gestalten characters (gain level in two classes, take best in every categorythat overlaps [hp, saves, bab, ...]).

If they choose not to play a healer you might give them an artifact that allows one character to use divine spellcasting items freely plus a cure light stick. You'd need to specify a way to clear Foxglove Manor without cleric, though. Perhaps instead an artifact that allows channel energy as a cleric of equal level? It wouldn't allow them to use other divine items (like scrolls of restoration or raise dead), but wouldn't run out of healing powers either.

Another option would be to grant one (or both) characters the leadership feat for free; this could represent loyal family slave accompanying them or anything else that fits the characters background. Having four actions per round instead of two is a big deal.

[TerraZephyr]

Good advice and ideas so far, thanks! I'm not sure at all what the two players will choose as characters (we're just putting this together last minute now) but they are both very experienced, very smart, creative players, and very good character/party builders so I suspect that they will pick classes that will be as versatile as possible.

I'm going to think about a few thing mentioned above but I think ultimately what I'll do is sit down with both of them and just ask them how they'd like to compensate for the lack of numbers.