Hey paizo community,
I'm about to start a campaign for two people and I wanted to hear experiences and advice for dealing with small parties. First, I'll give you some info on the campaign and modifications I've done already. Right now we are using the gestalt rules and both players have quick draw, toughness, and improved initiative for free. I am increasing spells/extracts per day, doubling their starting hit points from their HD, and using a modified version of the hero points system as well.
The players are playing a fighter/cleric gestalt and a rogue/alchemist getstalt. A ranger (favored enemy: undead) will be aiding them for the first portion of the adventure at least. It will be an undead heavy campaign.
Specific questions:
1) Do you think these measures be enough to allow me to build encounters roughly similar to a four person party?
2) How should hit points increase as they level up?
3) How much should I increase per-day abilities? Right now I have the first level spells/extracts doubled, but that seems excessive at higher levels.
Any other general advice is appreciated. Also, I want to avoid using mythic if possible because it just doesn't fit the tone of the campaign.
Thanks everyone! :)
I'm currently doing a 2 person campaign as well. I havent done any major adjustments, so I think you might be going a bit over-the top in trying to ajust. A few notes however:
a) I'm fairly improvisational; while I do have general plans for encounters, I'm more likely to "wing it" in determining appropriate CR. Thus, I havent had any problems challenging them.
b) The action economy is very critical: while give players access to more powers is nice, the fact that they are 2 players (rather than 4) will always be an issue. Be wary of fighting large groups.
c) To allow a bit more diversity in problem solving, I'm allowing my players same-level cohorts built for support; a chirurgeon alchemist & an archivist bard. This will allow the main PCs shine, while still allowing a larger toolbox.
Good luck! For me, playing with a smaller group is more relaxed, and allows more attention to be given to each player. It's fun.
Good points. I should have explained that the reason I'm wanting to make encounters that are usable for 4 person groups is that I want to get some practice with adventure design and I'm writing out a lot of the encounters beforehand.
We'll see. I'll probably end up improvising more than I think. Thanks for the feedback!