Hi folks,
My boys loved Pathfinder at this year's GenCon. I scheduled just two sessions on the first day, and they made me cancel and rearrange things so they could complete the whole Advanced Kids path (5 adventures), so we did 6 2-hour adventures at GenCon.
I'm starting a home campaign for them. It's going to have just two PCs, most likely a Fighter and a Wizard. The pre-generated dungeons are intended for 4 PCs, though. I was wondering:
1. Do you think it would be a good idea for me to add a 3rd party member as an NPC, probably a Cleric? She could also be played by my daughter on occasion if desired. She could also stand in as someone who divulges wisdom on occasion instead of having the GM (me) just invent knowledge the PCs knew. However, I don't know how this would play out. I'd keep her record just as if she were a PC.
2. Assuming 3 PCs, does this imply that I should just reduce all encounters by 25%? If so, should I reduce the enemy HPs by 25%, reduce the # of XP in the encounters by 25% (such as by reducing the # of monsters), or what? Where can I get more information on scaling the encounters for 4 PCs down to 3 or 2? I read that the CR is intended for a party of 4.
Thanks!
1. That's the GM-PC and it is a very common solution to this issue. Cleric is often the class of choice because healing is always an issue in small parties. She can provide some knowledge skills, fill in (amazingly uneventful) shifts in the watch schedule, heal, and bolster combat. Plus she'd be something a third person can drop in and play on occasion.
2. A little of all of the above. Usually it isn't so specific as 25%. Fewer PCs means fewer actions per round. This translates to longer fights. I'd recommend dropping the number of creatures when there are a lot of them and/or reduce HP. If you reduce the number of creatures, you should reduce the XP and treasure. If you just make them easier to kill, you don't generally touch XP.
Of course, there is some fun to keeping XP at the same and just letting things progress; it will make up for the missing players and help offset bad rolls. Plus it makes the players feel even more like heroes.
The basic guideline for CR is that a CR X is average difficulty for an average party level of X for parties of 4-5 players. If you have 3 players, subtract one from the APL (level 1 goes to APL 1/2).
There's also an interesting idea from D&D 4th edition called minions. They have 1 HP (a successful hit always kills them), they do a fixed damage instead of rolling for it, and they are worth a fraction of the XP. So you may have a horde of goblins in an encounter: 1 chieftan (CR 2), a witch doctor (CR 2), and 5 minions. It gives the feel of a big fight without too much danger as the minions can be one-shot (usually by AOEs, giving the wizard some added usefulness early on.
Thanks for the details! I decided on the cleric NPC "PC" route.
To offset some of the issue that there were just 3 characters, I let the characters be rolled with 7 4d6, choosing the best 6, and with a "mulligan" to re-roll all 7 without restriction (but without the choice to use the old one). This left the stats distinctly above average. Each character had at one 19 or 20 after the racial adjustments. Hopefully this will help a little bit.
We did the first room of "Black Fang" - with the 2 goblins who jump out from behind the "mossy wall." The rogue killed them both as everyone else missed. Note that the rogue's player is cheap and so the rogue uses darts and a club. :)
So, as to assigning XP for defeating the encounter with the two goblins, the three (N)PCs should each get 1/3rd of 135 x 2 XP, or 90 XP each, yes?
9 year olds don't think ahead. The fighter dropped his torch, drew the great axe, attacked, rolled a natural 1, which I interpreted as accidentally stepped on the torch for 1d4 (rolled 4) fire damage. :) If he hadn't rolled a 1, I would have had it catch him on fire anyway for dropping a lit torch outside right next to a mossy wall, but the 1 gave more storytelling opportunities.
Then, after the goblins were defeated, they immediately wanted to see what was behind the mossy wall. So I had the NPC cleric search the goblins and take all their possessions for herself.
Hopefully they will think in more detail in the future. :)
Next session should be tomorrow.
Any suggestions as to using the free Beginner Box Hero Lab?
Thanks!
Good stuff. I finished running a couple 10 year olds through Black Fang and had the same issue. One Rogue and one Wizard. I knew with no Cleric they would get chewed so I grabbed the pregen as a GM-PC. And yes, it is also handy if a younger sibling comes along and wants to play. I just hand them the sheet and tell them what dice to roll.
I didn't reduce any numbers and I ran the whole thing with just the three characters and they did fine. Mind you the rogue rolled a crit with Dragonsbane on Black Fang right off the bat which made that fight way easier.
The free Hero Lab works well for making chars but I found the kids were more into rolling physical dice and writing on their sheets.
With my son and his friends, the friends cannot always make the sessions, so I run anywhere from 1-3 of the characters as NPCs, so that we always have the full complement, whether Beginner Box or 4e or our Od&D games. We have been playing for almost 2 years , so these days, I run them impartially when players do not show up, but at first I used them to teach the kids good "play habits" or if they were stuck, or missed something obvious I would have the NPC help them out a bit.
Its not too difficult to handle if you are an already experienced DM or player with a lighter system like BB, but if new at this I would definitely lessen the threats and try not to handle the monsters and NPCs.