Greetings,
I really want to give 4E a try with my gaming group. They all have indicated a willingness to play/try 4E as long as I DM. I am the usual DM anyway. We are all veteran RPG-ers from back in the day and enjoy all styles of playing.
Question to all 4E players and DMs. Is it possible to play 4E with only 3 players and DM?
I'm sure it is possible in the strictest sense but after reading the 4E DMG it states the game is designed for 5 players and DM. It even states at one point that serious modification is needed if you have less than 4 players. (Page 6 of the DMG).
Has anyone ever had this experience with 4E? What problems did you encounter? Or if anyone can point me to a thread that already covers this topic that would be great also.
Thanks in advance.
MD
Definitly do able. But you might need to adjust the encounters a little. If you have no striker, the enemy critters may not be going down quick enough so lower their HP's a little. Likewise in a party without a Defender, with no tough meatshield for the group, the squishier party members might start taking some serious damage.
It's totally possible, and not nearly as hard as the books make it sound, just not nearly as easy as it is otherwise--considering how incredibly easy that is, it's not much of a step up. Since you've done DM prep work for other games, even with the added work of preparing for a larger/smaller group than "recommended," I think you're still in for a treat.
The biggest things to watch out for are:
-Party design: Strictly speaking you don't always need all the roles covered, but it does make it a lot easier for you and the players if you do. Just as in 2nd edition you wouldn't wander into a tomb with a full group of level 1 wizards, it's a good idea to have a decent mix. A defender, a leader and a striker is probably going to be the "easiest" mix (like the Fighter, Cleric, and Magic User of old, as rogues weren't really great at damage dealing back then) for everyone, and with the broad range of choices available from classes, that still leaves a huge variety of choices for your players. It also helps if you have them build their characters together and try to create some synergy, as opposed to building separately and creating three "lone wolf" type characters that happen to all be going the same place alone at the same time. ;)-Encounter design: Also not too tough. The standard encounter model is based off of having 5 players, and it's generally n-1 standard monsters of same level, where n=number of PCs. There's plenty of room for fiddling, and the inclusion of Elites and Minions (be careful with solos, they're a bit more fiddly than they seem at a glance) and being able to bring monster levels up or down a few and still have a relatively exciting encounter. With 3 players, I'd probably look for an XP budget somewhere around 2.5-3 standard critters per level, with adjustments here and there as needed. 'Standard' monsters (solos are equivalent of 4 supposedly, elites are equivalent of 2, and 4 minions make up one standard.)
-Economy design: The treasure parcel system is good,...
Its very doable. Stay within your encounter building xp limits and you should be fine. Make use of Minions and lower level monsters to make your encounters seem bigger. The lower levels make it easier for PCs to compensate for lower numbers and the monsters won't hurt as much when they do hit.
Thanks ProsSteve, RedJack and Starglyte. This gives me some direction. Definitely will have the party make characters as a group. I have a couple of the low level modules and may look into modifying those for 3 characters.
If anyone has any more ideas or suggestions they would be appreciated.
MD
I really want to give 4E a try with my gaming group. They all have indicated a willingness to play/try 4E as long as I DM. I am the usual DM anyway. We are all veteran RPG-ers from back in the day and enjoy all styles of playing.
Question to all 4E players and DMs. Is it possible to play 4E with only 3 players and DM?
I'm sure it is possible in the strictest sense but after reading the 4E DMG it states the game is designed for 5 players and DM. It even states at one point that serious modification is needed if you have less than 4 players. (Page 6 of the DMG).
Has anyone ever had this experience with 4E? What problems did you encounter? Or if anyone can point me to a thread that already covers this topic that would be great also.
The regular group I DM for is seven people, with usually 3-6 people actually showing up for a session. I don't think that serious modification is necessary for less than 4 players. I actually like it with 3, as combat flows quicker. The only thing is, as mentioned above, that you should reduce the encounters to account for the fewer players.
Don't worry too much, just play and learn. The DMG is much too strict on those things - also with the roles. I've had session with 3 players with 2 strikers and one controller, sessions with a defender, a striker and a leader, and even a session with 3 strikers. All worked nicely - it was noticeable that the the party had different strengths, but its not as if all roles are absolutely required.
Something that you may want to consider: The DMG2 provides rules for Companion Characters - essentially NPCs that are designed to accompany the adventurers and take the place of another party member. They have their own (limited) assortment of powers, healing surges, etc. It would be quite easy to create one companion character for each of your players, and allow him or her to run a PC and a companion character. You'd end up with 6 characters in total, which is close to the norm (and easy to adjust for). In fact, since companion characters tend to be slightly less powerful than normal PCs (simply because they don't have the same variety of powers that a PC does), you may just be able to run everything as-is, same as you would for a 5-character party.
Just a thought.
If I were to run a 4E game again I would use the rules for inherent bonuses.
At my table, I've often ran encounter consisting of myself (as DM) and two other players. Though I admit that I run a DMPC but it works out well for the most part and that's including published adventures in Dungeon. We just use up a lot more Healing Surges between battles when our Cleric isn't with us, lol.
If I were to run a 4E game again I would use the rules for inherent bonuses.
I'd actually tend to shy away from this more with fewer players and consider it more strongly with more players. The fewer players you have in a group the less powers overall the group has and therefore the less diversity they can handle. One way to up the number and type of powers the players have is through magic items.
Other things to consider is its probably best to shy away a little from some of the more extreme classes or builds for classes. Characters that more easily slot into a couple of roles are often helpful in this regards. So a Templar (PHB1 Cleric) can be built to do both ranged (albeit fairly short) and melee combat as well as offer the team some healing. This is a good class for the team because it fulfills many roles as needed.
A wizard may not be the best fit - while potentially quite potent the class is highly vulnerable if not adequately protected by the group and with only two other players it may be tough to protect the wizard.
A lot of classes are described as having a main role and then leaning into a secondary role. Since your going to play without one of the main roles lean toward loosing the controller and having one of the characters have Controller as a secondary role. The Controller is the main role that is most easy to live without.
A leader on the other hand is important unless multiple characters have secondary roles as leader. However don't go overboard here - a leader and two players that have a secondary role of leader is not that optimal for actual fun in playing. This is usually more of an issue with larger groups. I've heard of parties of five with two clerics and a Paladin...healing is important, but healing all the time when you can't really pump out much damage is the epitome of war of attrition...long, slow, boring war of attrition.
Make sure some one is playing a striker and I'd probably lean, here, toward a striker that does good damage versus one like the Warlock that lays down conditions. Here again I'm thinking what is likely to provide the most excitement at the table and a good high damage striker fits the bill better then some kind of stun lock build that relies on the defender and the leader to whittle away at the locked down baddies...the problem again is that there is danger here in excessively long combats. Stun lock builds work better with larger groups where there is both ways to synergize the stun locks with another striker and also where there are likely so many baddies around that the actual power of the stun lock is not so prevalent - the excitement remains high because the enemies that are not locked down are advancing around the flank or something. Here your smaller baddie encounter groups will tend to lead to more straight up fights more often.
Finally, as is usual with smaller groups, add more roleplaying to the game. The smaller the group the more time you have to spend with each of the players having them becoming crime lords or marrying the princess or what have you - Role Playing is always good but less players should mean, as a rule of thumb, less combat and more roleplay, just in general in RPGs. Similarly work to get their plots and goals more entwined for the roleplaying. Less players means its much easier for the players themselves to keep track of the other characters goals, values etc. and therefore easier for the DM to pump up the drama and emotional content level in the story. More then anything else this is the silver lining to not having a larger group at the table.
For this reason I would not start with a DMPC, to difficult to get the players to have an emotional connection to the DMPC at start. On the other hand get them involved with a caste of NPCs during the game and be unusually willing to have members of that caste participate in the story as (DMGII Companion) DMPCs....after all what better way to roleplay a growing love affair with a Princess then while fighting alongside her?
For player controlled Companions (Hence not strictly DMPCs) I'd again shy away from starting with them because your giving up good roleplaying opportunities but be very willing to introduce them during the game...make sure they have an interesting personality. You might also want to consider the rather odd element of having it so that the player that controls the companion is NOT the main player that is 'attached' to the companion. The imperious (and prone to fits of immature jealousy) baby silver dragon that hangs around the artificer may be more fun in terms of roleplaying purposes if the player of the Barbarian is assigned her to run. We avoid this in larger groups in the interests of speeding up play...but you don't have that requirement as much.
Good suggestions all around. I will probably end up using companion characters to help balance out the party.
Since this is a question I know my group will ask, what is an example of a class that has either striker or controller as a secondary role?
MD
Good suggestions all around. I will probably end up using companion characters to help balance out the party.
Just be aware that companions are an additional complexity and might easily lead to delays and longer turns if the players are new to 4e.
Since this is a question I know my group will ask, what is an example of a class that has either striker or controller as a secondary role?
Wardens (from PHB2) are defenders with a strong secondary controller role. I have one in my regular group and the player loves the class...
Good suggestions all around. I will probably end up using companion characters to help balance out the party.Just be aware that companions are an additional complexity and might easily lead to delays and longer turns if the players are new to 4e.
Another good reason not to start the group with them. Introducing them later allows the players to master the mechanics before layering on the complexity of having such characters in the party.
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Completely DM dependent. I've run 1 player + DM games and had a great time. Canned adventures may require a bit of work to adjust but in a homebrew it works 100% fine - like ANY rpg for that matter. Fine line between keeping things believable and having 'lucky' people encountered every encounter that just happen to balance out the small party. Some of the best roleplaying I have ever been in was with parties with 2-3 people. Very different experience from the formula army like 5-6 players. Less and less, just hit it, becomes a smart option. Try it with a good DM and you may find it's more rewarding DM and players than a 'normal' sized group.
S.