Minimum players for a table.

[GaBiggunn]

I am trying to get a table together for a home game, mostly because I want to play/GM. I know the rules state that there must be a min of 4 PC's to make a legal table but does that mean there has to be 4 "players"? Could 2 players play normal PC's and a pre-gen each, with only the PC getting credit?

[Vinyc Kettlebek]

For official Pathfinder Society games, run anywhere, you need a minimum of 3 real people playing 1 character each and a pregen run by the GM. Though many times the GM gives control of the pregen to a player, since they have enough to track.

For a basic generic homegame you can as many players as you want. Playing as many characters each that you'll let them. Most of the encounter generation charts are written with a party of 4 characters in mind.

[Blymurkla]

Pathfinder has no hard rules on number or players (or number of gamemasters). PFS has, but those don't matter for home games.

If your gaming group is small you can, as you suggest, let the players play multiple characters. But that's far from optimal. Sure, the party will sufficiently effective in combat, but the role-playing part will suffer.

If you're going to play your own adventures, rather than using published adventure paths, you should be able to adapt to a small party. Make sure your players makes PCs that can fill multiple roles (I'm no expert in that area, but Bard comes to mind what with skills, healing, spells and half-decent combat all in one). Then you design encounters according to that. The number one principle would be to keep numbers down. Action economy is everything, 2 PCs risk being overwhelmed by large groups of enemies.

There are other ways of boosting your party's performance, without resorting to having players play multiple characters. Give them free stuff. Mythic Ranks, extra equipment, free feats and traits to make them more versatile. You might consider having a "GM-PC", a member on the party which you control. That does come with many pit falls though, so I don't recommend it. But I do recommend hirelings. Give the party 2 or 3 hirelings, with NPC classes and/or a level behind the PCs. They can be controlled collectively by the players (and you) and make up for the lack of PCs, without incurring the drawbacks of GM-PCs or multiple PCs per player.

[Lemmy]

GM + 1 is not something I'd play... But I know people who enjoy games like that with a sibling or spouse.

GM + 2 is the bare minimum. Needs some patching, but works.

GM + 3 is great.

or + 4 is the ideal number.

GM + 5 is also great.

GM + 6 players is doable, but pushing it...

GM + 7 (or more) is basically unplayable, IME. Rounds takes too long, players are too easily distracted, GMs are too easily overwhelmed and CR has to be completely reworked.

[Artificial 20]

To add to what others have said, I've played in a 2-PC party where I was both of the PCs. It can definitely work if you just scale the encounters accordingly and are aware of the pitfalls.

The biggest thing to consider is Pathfinder has some enemies with what I call "Sucks to be you" attacks. If you've played Left 4 Dead or similar co-op games, it's kind of like those attacks that unavoidably disable a single player so the others have to assist them, encouraging teamwork and sticking together. As the DM you obviously pick the monsters, but if you grab-bag from all over then even early on, some will have abilities to the basic tune of "Fail a save and be completely incapable of action for at least 2 turns". This is disproportionately devastating if 1 person is 50% of your party instead of 25%. Be careful with those, and if you can negotiate with your players, characters that bring a sidekick along, like animal companions, familiars etc. can boost the party's actions per turn.

You could also have a support-style NPC accompany them early on for some narrative reason, until they're past the fragile first character level or 2. A cleric, bard or the like who focuses on healing and buffing them up isn't likely to steal the spotlight, and clearly needs their protection in turn so they shouldn't feel babysat. Perhaps an elderly priest making a pilgrimage to and from a holy site that forms their first mission, even after they leave the party they're a friend and contact in the world the players could hear info from, turn to in a desperate moment and so on :).

[GaBiggunn]

Ok to clarify, if I play a homegame the number is up to me, basically "my house my rules" but if it's under the PFS I need a min of 3 to be able to play a legal table to report back to Paizo? Am I getting it right?

[hasteroth]

For about 3 months I was in a group of only 2 players. We leveled up extremely fast and loot was only being distributed between the two of us. GM didn't scale any of the encounters down in the beginning, making it VERY challenging at first but incredibly rewarding (both in terms of loot and XP, and personal satisfaction) but we overcame it. The challenge never went away despite the borderline gamebreaking tactics we developed and how rapidly we leveled up and gathered loot because the GM always found creative and interesting ways to balance everything. At one point we had a temporary NPC companion guiding us through an area we were very unfamiliar with.

I feel a big part of making this 2 player system work was our choice of classes. We both chose classes that can fill a lot of roles. I was a Chaotic Good Rogue (a social/skill monkey build), and the other player was a Paladin (built as a tank/secondary healer). I handled all the Rogueish stuff, and we'd split up quite often for me to Scout ahead and for me to do things the Paladin didn't want to be directly involved in (breaking local laws, lying as a means to and end, etc).

We had some very interesting RP conflicts between the two characters, but since the Paladin wasn't played Lawful Stupid none of the conflict spilled into OOC problems.

My point being, tiny groups can work if well thought out, with an extremely competent GM. And frankly I'd say they often work better than large groups (6+ players).

[hasteroth]

GaBiggunn wrote:

Ok to clarify, if I play a homegame the number is up to me, basically "my house my rules" but if it's under the PFS I need a min of 3 to be able to play a legal table to report back to Paizo? Am I getting it right?

Yes. 3 players with a pregen NPC is the bare minimum required for PFS, as PFS has a lot of reporting requirements and other restrictions.

Homegames have total freedom technically, as you aren't even REALLY required to do anything at all. You can toss out the entire rulebook if you really wanted to (whether or not you SHOULD is an entirely separate debate). The GM is accountable to nobody except his players in a home game, and how restrictive the rules are depends on GM and player preference.

[Tinalles]

Who says you need players? I ran the first three books of Carrion Crown for myself, controlling 4 PCs and all the monsters up until I TPK'd myself in the first encounter of book 4 due to some really amazingly bad rolls on the "player" side.

Mind you it was more like a thought experiment than a role-playing game.

[hasteroth]

Tinalles wrote:

Who says you need players? I ran the first three books of Carrion Crown for myself, controlling 4 PCs and all the monsters up until I TPK'd myself in the first encounter of book 4 due to some really amazingly bad rolls on the "player" side.

Mind you it was more like a thought experiment than a role-playing game.

I thought about doing this once... ultimately I dumped the idea.

[Meraki]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "getting credit." Getting experience? Two players could each play two characters--whether made or pre-gen--but all the PCs would get the same amount of xp.

Blymurkla wrote:

Pathfinder has no hard rules on number or players (or number of gamemasters). PFS has, but those don't matter for home games.

If your gaming group is small you can, as you suggest, let the players play multiple characters. But that's far from optimal. Sure, the party will sufficiently effective in combat, but the role-playing part will suffer.

Well, not necessarily. It's a little harder to switch back and forth between characters when role-playing, but possible. (Helps to have a distinctive voice for one/both of them.) I've been playing in 2-player games for awhile now, and they've given me some of the best game stories. It also makes certain kinds of sidequests/tangents easier if you have fewer players to worry about...for example, if two of the PCs are in the spotlight for a little bit, the others can just take on more supporting roles without a problem, since the player will still have a character to play.

[TomParker]

Meraki wrote:

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "getting credit." Getting experience? Two players could each play two characters--whether made or pre-gen--but all the PCs would get the same amount of xp

Given the reference to legal table and credit, I'm assuming the OP is asking about a PFS home game. Players can't play two characters in that scenario.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

GaBiggunn wrote:

Ok to clarify, if I play a homegame the number is up to me, basically "my house my rules" but if it's under the PFS I need a min of 3 to be able to play a legal table to report back to Paizo? Am I getting it right?

That is correct.

[Meraki]

TomParker wrote:

Meraki wrote:

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "getting credit." Getting experience? Two players could each play two characters--whether made or pre-gen--but all the PCs would get the same amount of xp

Given the reference to legal table and credit, I'm assuming the OP is asking about a PFS home game. Players can't play two characters in that scenario.

Ah, I see. The reference to a "home game" made me think it had nothing to do with PFS at all; I didn't know that PFS home games were a thing. Disregard my previous answer, if that's the case.