So I'm going to be in a pathfinder game with just two PC's pretty soon, and my GM and I were wondering how exactly you would plan out battles for just two characters.
If I remember correctly CR is given assuming a four man party, which makes it a bit harder when you're missing half the party.
We have a level 10 bard and a level 10 assassin (5 levels of rogue)and both are mythic rank 2 at the moment.
The campaign is probably going to focus a lot more on stealth and assassinations than straight up fighting, but how would you guys go about picking CR's and determining battles?
CR system is based around 4 man party. CR of a 4 man party is APL+4 (level 1 party of 4 people = CR 5) so if you adjust for the CR of only two people it becomes CR +2 or CR 3
So, simply reduce the danger of the encounters by 2 CR and it should, roughly be good. So treat them as a full level 8 party.
Should work, but who knows.
Watch action economy also. You only have two characters worth of actions, not four. Adjusting the cr down should help some. But if one person gets held or stunned or knocked out, that's a fifty percent reduction in PC actions, not twenty five as with a four man group.
It can be fun with only two PCs, I know, I've done it before.
alright, thank you both for your input. This should actually help us out quite a bit
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Start with a lower CR (+1 or so) and then work up from there if combat is easy. During my game running with 2 Players (and 1 npc, none of them could heal anything) I started them at +1. Combat was fun, exiting, and difficult. As they leveled their abilities started outpacing the CR so I have been upping the enemies and adjusting the combat to keep the fear of death/injury there.
Step 1—Determine APL: Determine the average level of
your player characters—this is their Average Party Level
(APL for short). You should round this value to the nearest
whole number (this is one of the few exceptions to the round
down rule). Note that these encounter creation guidelines
assume a group of four or five PCs. If your group contains
six or more players, add one to their average level. If your
group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from
their average level. For example, if your group consists of
six players, two of which are 4th level and four of which
are 5th level, their APL is 6th (28 total levels, divided by six
players, rounding up, and adding one to the final result).
Average difficulty encounter CR is equal to the APL of the party, which basically translates into Party CR = APL. I quoted the encounter design guidelines, so you might wanna have your GM check it out and then play it by ear with encounters.
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Average difficulty encounter CR is equal to the APL of the party, which basically translates into Party CR = APL. I quoted the encounter design guidelines, so you might wanna have your GM check it out and then play it by ear with encounters.Step 1—Determine APL: Determine the average level of
your player characters—this is their Average Party Level
(APL for short). You should round this value to the nearest
whole number (this is one of the few exceptions to the round
down rule). Note that these encounter creation guidelines
assume a group of four or five PCs. If your group contains
six or more players, add one to their average level. If your
group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from
their average level. For example, if your group consists of
six players, two of which are 4th level and four of which
are 5th level, their APL is 6th (28 total levels, divided by six
players, rounding up, and adding one to the final result).
The CR system is built around the axiom of a 4 person party. Based upon this we can apply the CR increases from multiple monsters to the PCs. Therefore a CR 1 encounter for a party of 2 PCs is CR1 for a party of 2 - 2 CR since
1xCR 1 = CR 12xCR 1 = CR 3
3xCR 1 = CR 4
4xCR 1 = CR 5
The CR of 4x CR 1 PCs = CR 5.
The CR of 2x CR 1 PCs = CR 3.
5 - 3 = 2.
Decrease the CR of encounters by 2, and this should be balanced.
Action economy can still crush PCs if they make bad decisions, but I haven't thoroughly tested this at higher levels. However, treating the party as a party that is 2 levels lower than them is a quick and dirty fix.
we can always adjust things as we need to as we play. Being mythic characters they are a bit harder to kill as well and should hopefully put them more on an even footing.
the starting with 2 lower CR should be a good starting point however, and it's one we can work with pretty easily in the beginning.
we will need to watch the action economy however. Losing half our players would be a bit of an issue. Maybe taking leadership to get some followers would be a viable option? They'll be weaker sure, but it's something at least
If you want to do that then you should just let the players play two PCs.
I tend to build my dungeons with action economy that pointedly outstrips the PCs, and it honestly isn't a big deal from what I've seen.
Use lots of Standard, half, or none treasure monsters as these tend to be easier.
I tend to use this for building encounters, but remember that adding up the XP per PC is more important. Since Encounter XP is based on 4 PCs you can do the following:
(XP for CR X)/4*(Number of PCs)
Now build the encounter using that much XP and consider it CR X for the party.
I tend to use this for building encounters these days. The players never run into an encounter with a single monster in it unless it is a boss monster, and even then I have found throwing a single CR+3 monster at a party of 4 people is easier than 4 CR (APL-1) monsters. These are set for each individual player, so things are just additive per player. You can also mix and match the below so long as it is within the same parameter (If there are 4 players you can have 1 (APL-1), 2 (APL-3), 3 (APL-4), and 4 (APL-5) monsters to form one encounter, but NOTE: the lower the CR of the monster the more it needs to focus on using its CMB for everything, so pick monsters with high CMBs [The undead Owl-bears, CR2, have around +12 to grapple] or monsters who focus on using magic for everything so long as it is effective [Magic Missle always hits unless the target has the Shield Spell, CL 1 Magic Missle averages 3.5 due to the +1, in multiplicity this becomes 4[14], 8[28], 12[42], and 16[56] average damage in 1 round, so never underestimate the power of 16 level 1 wizards/sorcs. It doesn't matter if they die in 1 hit, NPCs should be damage focused not Survivability focused anyway.
The real power of the 4x[(APL-8) to (APL-5)] elements are when they are used as traps--possibly compound traps that activate EVERYTHING. Pit traps that are set to not fall for the first 3 on the way down a dungeon and then all of them activate when the last trap activates tends to hit the entire party if they are in line formation. Anyone who fell in is now stuck fighting up against the enemies who were watching the party and now are attacking them from outside the pit.
Be aware that you should always mix things up, send neither continual commando squads 4x(APL-1), nor hordes 16x(APL-8), nor mix and matches, but mix it up by using all of them so the party cannot adapt to just that one thing. Also, do use compound traps such as rope bridges that dump the party into bear traps, rooms that have one or two pillars of 1,000 arrows, but are also filled with hidden beartraps that are pinned to the ground.
"titles" explained:
Use these the majority of the time.
Standard (Paizo): This is your average encounter that the PCs should blow through without problems.
Difficult (Paizo): This is only a little harder for the PCs, but not by much.
Hard (Paizo): The chance of PC death is average here.
Epic (Paizo): The battles can be awesome here, but PC death is high. Total Party Kill is possible here.Uses these sparingly, mostly for special events. Have build up to them, and try to allow rests before the battle or the chances of TPK increases dramatically.
Equals (Unofficial): The PCs are evenly matched to their opponents. PC deaths are highly possible, Total Party Kill is also highly possible.
BOSS (Unofficial): The PCs are less powerful than the challenge, and must overcome it with tactics. PC deaths are almost assured even if they don't make mistakes, and a Total Party Kill is more likely than (Equal). Just this once, and for the point where the story ends. This should be big, it should be over-the-top, it should be something that defines the characters. After this many characters should retire if they survive, and the entire story should end at this point regardless.4 monsters per player (4 players = 16 monsters)
CR (APL-8), CR (APL-7), CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), or CR (APL-3) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)3 monsters per player (4 players = 12 monsters)
CR (APL-7), CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), or CR (APL-2) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)2 monsters per player (4 players = 8 monsters)
CR (APL-6), CR (APL-5), CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), CR (APL-2), or CR (APL-1) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)1 monster per player (4 players = 4 monsters)
CR (APL-4), CR (APL-3), CR (APL-2), CR (APL-1), CR (APL-0), or CR (APL+1) monsters (Standard), (Difficult), (Hard), (Epic), (Equals), (BOSS)