Carrion Crown - 2 Players

[JasnisDethas]

Guys,

I'm DMing the Carrion Crown AP. I have two players and one NPC. The Players are complaining that the encounters are too difficult. Is there a conversion pattern that should be used when playing with 2 players in an AP such as Carriorn Crown?

BAG

[Victor Zajic]

It sounds like your players don't really enjoy the horror aspect of the AP. Things are supposed to be hard, that's part of what makes it scary. If this is a bad fit for your players you might want to run something else.

[Vashti Amela]

What are they playing? What class is the npc? I ran CC with 4 Pcs and killed several.

The combat portions are no picnic and without certain resources, lethal.

My group was not min maxed combat monsters so I had minimal extra work.

A group that small WILL encounter major problems.

You have to eyeball challenges based on the capabilities of your group.

[JasnisDethas]

Thanks guys.

They are good players, and truth they might be correct (I know them from a long time, so if I thought they were just complaining I'll kick their A&* :P).

This is the first time I run an AP. I'm following the suggested leveling at the beginning of the adventure books. What I've researched is that AP are build assuming you get a 4 player team. I have 2 and an NPC. Their suggestion is to really calculate the xp (which I was slacking around), and see if they are actually a level up. Which might at the end be the solution. Nonetheless, my concern is that if they go up a level, all role playing and skill checks will become really easy. I've been thinking of suggesting Gestalt Characters. But they seem too odd. Wanted to pick your brain to see if you guys have any suggestions.

[Wyrd_Wik]

I ran HoH with 3 players. They enjoyed it but there were a couple of encounters in the jail that were a hair's breadth of toppling into a TPK.

My suggestions would be:

1. Try using action points, this can go a long way to mitigating the swinginess of low level battles.
2. Simply having the players be one level higher then they should be. I wouldn't expect this to drastically alter things. I'd also recommend simply hand-waving xp and having them level up as needed. Less bookkeeping for everyone. Haven't used xp for years and not found that I'm missing anything.
3. Failing the above two I would try gestating.

[Tinalles]

A small party faces a number of disadvantages:

1) Action economy. Fewer PCs means fewer actions. They need to make every action count.

2) Focused fire. Fewer PCs means fewer targets for Team Evil, so the damage doesn't get spread out so much.

3) Fewer resources. With fewer PCs, they're more likely to be missing an important skill or ability.

There are a several things you can do to address these.

1) Juice up the PCs.

A) You might give them very high basic ability scores -- maybe 25 point buy, or rolling two sets of 1d10+8 and take the better set. This is easiest if you haven't already started, and just generally makes for tougher PCs.

B) You might let them gestalt, proceeding in two classes at once. This could help make sure they've got access to all the skills/abilities they'll need.

C) You might give them mythic tiers. This will make them significantly tougher. It may also help with action economy; lots of the mythic abilities cost a swift or free action to use, which is a boon to classes that don't usually have many ways to make use of those (such as melee types). Downside is that it adds a whole new rule set, increasing the complexity of the game.

2) Nerf the Enemies. In encounters written with multiples of one enemy type, decrease the number -- say, 2 vampires instead of 4. Avoid using save-or-die spells; if they fail that save, that PC is flat-out dead and the other PC is in deep trouble. If the fight's looking grim, mentally subtract a few HP's from the enemies. That kind of thing.

3) Provide extra resources. Make sure they have access to information -- perhaps through libraries, or NPC experts at the University of Lepidstadt. Make sure they can buy magic items, especially consumables like healing potions and such.

It's playable with a small party -- just temper things a bit when needed.

[Joey Virtue]

I think adding Mythic could really help them

[Mikhail]

I play in CC with GM and 1 fellow player, we were build using 25 points method and we both are currently in book 3 and take leadership, it helps a little, but now ours GM thinks that 2 players with 2 cohorts are somehow full team, and started (I think) to revamp our enemies - in last session we had 5 deaths - my old character died, my friend's cohort died and was reincarnated, and finally my friend and both cohorts died and ended reincarnating once again... =___='

[dwayne germaine]

Wouldn't the simplest solution be to have each player run 2 characters?

[Level 1 Commoner]

Although it is probably too late, here are my 2 cp.

It depends on the chosen classes. A Rogue and a Fighter will have no chance. A Paladin and a Cleric of Pharasma or a Life Oracle should be able to finish it. You only need to tone down some enemies, especially the Promethean.