Firstly, you're correct that a solo wizard is less than ideal. In later levels, they can summon and use other tricks, but at low levels a solo wizard is likely to die, quickly.
As for the dwarf's current status, you could decide that a kindly npc saw the fight, and nurses the dwarf back to positive hp. Or perhaps a passing cleric casts cure light wounds.
That said, I hope your other friend can make it next time, a solo game can be challenging.
yes i we where thinking that he take one of the pregene characters and that runs to him and yell " you senile dwarf i told you not to go alone " because he is old dwarf B)..
but is the Burning hand : You create a 15-foot-long cone of fire from your hands.
Creatures in the cone take 1d4 fire damage per wizard level.
Each creature can make a Reflex saving throw to take only half
damage (DC 11 + your INT Mod).that dmg throw right 1d4+1 (wizard is level 1) or 2d4 when he is level 2?
Yeah, figuring out the survival capacity of classes in a fight is often something people learn by trying, and especially when you're just starting out it's good not to penalize experimentation.
As for the spell, it's 1d4 per level, so 1d4 at 1, 2d4 at 2, so on up to a limit of 5d4 at 5th level. It's the basic Area of Effect (AoE - or multi-target) damage spell, useful for exactly what he did, hurting multiple opponents nearby to each other, without one of your allies among them.
Thanx for answering this helped a lot B). But there is one problem now the second friends whant to know did the dwarf manake to get all the XP from the first fight ? or if its devided to him and dwarf ?
In general, if a character dies, the new character gets the xp the old one would have gotten in my group. It sucks enough to lose a character, no need to also have to be behind in xp.
If a character misses a session, I usually still grant the character the xp other members of the party got, again, because they missed out on fun of the game, no need to make that worse by putting them behind. What I do, is I divide the xp that the characters who attended get normally. Then the absent player gets an equal number (he is off doing something else gaining xp during that time). Now if someone becomes habitually absent and it becomes a problem, thats different. But if someone misses a session for a legit reason, I wouldnt penalyze them.
That said, in general solo play (one player and one dm) is VERY difficult to pull off. Even two players is going to be quite difficutl. Alot of the ways to make small games like that work are complicated. For a new group and new gm, I'd recommend in addition to your 2 friends each running characters, you add a friendly npc character to the group. The game normally functions with 4 players in the party, less then 3 is extremely dangerous. In a 4 person party if 1 player is disabled, you lose 25% of your effectiveness. Not a complete emergency, and someone can go over and heal the player, or feed him a potion or whatever, and its not so bad. If there are just 2 members in the party, they lose HALF their effectiveness, and there may or may not be someone able to help the downed player.
So yea, feel free to ask any more questions, but in general, particularly at low levels, any sinple player is extremely vulnerable, especially at low levels. But casters like the wizard (or a sorceror) are fairly puny, and need big beefy barbarians and fighters and such to stand in front of them while they cast spells.
I suggest you let the dwarf wake up loot the gobelins and drag him self to safety. 2 gobelins at level 1 is a serious risk to Many characters( and more or less all the pregens since they stink)
Only dedicatet Martial heroes will kill 2 gobbos at level 1, yes a colorspray caster May also get lucky.
A first level PC like your dwarf gives 200 xp to kill. 2 gobbos give 270. That should tell us that 2 gobbos are in the high end at level 1
Edit: but dont worry. Remember the story you make with your friends is the stuff that counts and letting the dwarf get out with that experiance May make him more careful. Or pehaps you let him be taken prisoner and let some hero rescue him rigth before the goblin chef fill him with stuffing. Then you let the hero that saves him be on some sort of mission and in need for a messenger. And wupti new story.
Inferal healing is a pretty good low lvl heal (for wizard):
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/infernal-healing
Is the dwarf 188-250 years old? if so here are aging effects:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/description
A 1st level wizard wandering alone... he's lucky he made it alive.
Only a strong warrior or maybe a cleric could hold two goblins with one bare hand. (private joke)
A rogue or a wizard is likely to get slain.
Like said, have some wandering NPC cross his path and help him after some first aid/healing potion/cure spell.
According to XP...
Logically, only the Dwarf should get any XP.
The other friend (and his character) was away, right ?
But I think just like Kolokotroni.
And I'd add than not giving full XP to every character in the party not only weakens this character, but the whole party. Because the party would count a "weak" character among the "regular" ones.
So it would be penalizing every other character, too. And the players by the way.
Especially if you've only a two-character party.
Add NPC or have every player roll two characters. (one of the two should NOT cast spells to ease character managing in-game)
Just state that the character of the missing player adventures away and gets experience, too... He still won't get the treasure share nor any found magic items.
If you really feel bad about giving full XP, give some penalty (10% or 20% less than the other characters, for example). But none at all seems unfair to me, not only for the missing player.
I used to play in a group where all PCs where always there, even those of the missing players.
Since we had a 10-player RPG club, game session with everyone being there were rather uncommon. (the GM was keeping all PC sheets for ease)
That way, the adventuring party was always at "full power".
Characters of missing player were getting full XP and treasure share, but didn't speak for magic item sharing. Sometimes they got one, but they were always "served" last.
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I am not sure how the Beginners' box is set up, but one thing that is a good tool for GMs is the concept of CR. You need to consider the challenge rating of your party when setting up an encounter. Anytime you set up an ambush that increases the challenge. I
If you only have one player, I would have probably only given him 1 goblin at first, and maybe the second goblin comes once the other one is dealt with after the first cried for help if you felt it wasn't challenging enough. That might be a way of setting up the next encounter. You can suggest he hires a guide maybe that is basically a lvl 1 fighter to help balance some things.
A summoner might be a better option for your friend if he wants to use magic. This might not be in that beginners box though, so take that for what its worth.