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Good Afternoon Pathfinder players and GMs!
Need some advice for a problem that has cropped up in my play group. We have recently decided to start playing the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, which is an Adventure Path that I as a GM love. My players are really the "Hack and Slash" type, so presenting an adventure path where they have to think and use their skills is an excellent challenge.
Here's the problem, I only have 3 players, which is normally a challenge, but can still be doable, However there is no healer. Which makes some battles almost impossible.
I have in my group:
Paladin (Undead Scourge)
Magus
Ranger (Urban Ranger)
I like allowing my players to play any character class that they want so that they are having fun. So how should I proceed? I don't want to run a pregen with them as I dislike running "PCs". Hirelings are an option, but my group seems to forget that they can do that. They have already tried loading up on potions and wands, but even then it can get pretty challenging.
Also, teaching them a lesson by letting them TPK is not really an option. My group puts alot of effort into each character, that character death is seen as a personal insult.
So what would you do?
Hello Tierce,
Although I don't tend to run pre-generated adventures, I have been running similar games in that I have only had three players and each character's survival was crucial. In my experience, a good way to make the characters of such a small group survivable without having to pull punches is to let them have overpowered stats. Since my groups tend to be small and I don't particularly like restraining myself in what I throw at them, I often let players roll in order 6 + 3d6 drop the lowest and allow them to swap one pair of scores. On top of that I often give them maximum hit points every level. All of this combined makes the characters highly survivable.
Furthermore, I am not shy about handing out special mechanical rewards to players. For example, a powerful warrior could teach the ranger some special tricks, the deity could reward his faithful servant with a new special ability, or a powerful mage might improve one's magical abilities.
If you don't want to do that, you can allow your players to play multiple characters, such as through the use of the leadership feat. I have even done it by fiat without the leadership feat. Having said that, I think the first solution is better, as players with multiple characters may have a hard time getting into character for each of them.
Finally, you could allow your players to play 'Gestalt' characters. This means letting the player pick two classes for his character in which he advances simultaneously. The character gains the better of the two classes' hit dice, BAB, each saving throw and skill points, as well as gaining the special abilities of both classes. I haven't tried this last approach, as I like characters sticking to their own niches, but it would certainly make one stronger and more survivable.
In general I'd say your players can just deal with it if they die.
When I DM or someone else in my group does it's generally a 50% chance your character will last the game.
In the end no one cares that much especially if the character manages to go out in a particular epic way.
But if you're dead set on letting them have their way on the living thing you could always write up a cleric NPC, have them run into it, and then if they manage to pick it up as a group member tell them if they want to keep the cleric they'll have to run it as a group because you don't want to have to.
Or just straight up tell them they should hire a cleric and if not their deaths are their own fault.
What about pre-planning and scaling down the encounters in the adventure path? Reduce the monsters as per the Bestiary rules, or remove one or two of the monsters and adjuster the CR accordingly. I usually have the opposite problem (to many players) but this simple fix is what I do to keep the game challenging for them. Don't see why it would not work in reverse to make it somewhat easier.
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I actually did "dial down" the encounters that they came across after the first, but they still had some difficulty. The group is very physical damage based, and if you know about Carrion Crown, then you know alot of the encounters are undead or incorporeal.
But thanks for all the advice, will have to think on it and see what solution might work best
How do you feel about 3rd party products?
Since you have 3 players I often recommend giving them something to even things out (as compared to a 4 person party). Specifically in your case I suggest offering up free (without having to give up existing class abilities for the archetypes) Super genius archetypes found
here.
Specifically I recommend insisting one or more of them take the Wise divine archetype, which will essentially at 6 levels of divine healing/condition removal spells to one of the characters. Normally these archetypes are meant to trade out a standard set of abilities from each class, but since you have only 3 players its probably ok to just allow your players to take them. If say the magus takes it, between his spells, the paladin's lay on hands and a few wands (which all would be able to use at that point) that should be plenty of healing.