Hi, extreme newbie here. I'm doing some research into Pathfinder. I'd love to play it, but I don't know anyone who likes these kinds of games. The Beginner Box says for 2 players, but I don't want that, I want the core rule book and the bestiary 1 book. Can this game be played by only 2 players if I don't get the beginner box?
Sure, if the DM will tailor the adventures to the pary
most, if not all of the published scenarios and adventure paths are geared toward a party of 4 (or even 5) covering the 4 roles of fighter/tank, arcane caster/blaster, divine caster/healer, and skill monkey.
Absolutely. Like Klorox said, if you buy the Adventure Paths you have to do some modifying to them to get them to work for a smaller party but it's not hard to do. Or just create your own world with encounters tailored exclusively for small parties. My usual party is 4, but depending on who can attend can fall to 3 or rise to 8. I learned a long time ago how to adjust the encounters, the treasure, and the amount of time needed to complete a game. It just takes practice.
I just want to add, when I say 2 players, I mean 2 players total. There's just me and my wife, no "GM" (is that like a "DM" in D&D?)
at seven or eight players, everybody's waiting a long time for their turn and you may have trouble keeping their attention.
At rare times, I have that many players, and yeah, keeping their attention during a fight can be hard. But we've all been friends for a very long time and if they're willing to drive 3 hours to one of my games I'm not going to tell them I have enough players at 4. We manage pretty well, though.
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I've run for 1 player and 2. Both are fun, but require some careful adjustments. I'm in the middle of an Ustalavian campaign in a one player, 1 GM group (my girlfriend and myself). A lot of npcs get involved, but it's going really well.
Such low player numbers suit horror and investigation stories better than pure combat and I highly recommend hero points.
There are plenty of things a GM (yes, it's the same as DM) can do to run an adventure for 1 PC.
He/she can (should) lower the numbers and/or power level of every encounter, or even change out some monsters entirely (things that can take one character out immediately on a failed save cause immense problems for solo games).
GM can increase the starting level of the PC to a couple levels higher than the average encounter (eg a 3rd level PC in a 1st level dungeon).
GM can start the PC with exceptionally high ability scores, and potentially with one or two magic items.
GM can allow the use of Hero Point rules, and give those out as needed to keep the character on even footing.
GM can includes some NPCs with limited utility to accompany the PC (such as a healer or a rogue to pick locks). The NPCs should be designed so as to not risk overshadowing the PC, since he/she is the story's main character.
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at seven or eight players, everybody's waiting a long time for their turn and you may have trouble keeping their attention.At rare times, I have that many players, and yeah, keeping their attention during a fight can be hard. But we've all been friends for a very long time and if they're willing to drive 3 hours to one of my games I'm not going to tell them I have enough players at 4. We manage pretty well, though.
I usually play with that ammount of players. To solve the between-turns trouble, players have only 10 seconds to say me their actions, and I have their stats and NPC stats in a tracking paper to help me to calulate the results...
Besides combat, it is funny to play with 8 players always getting in silly discussions moments.
I just want to add, when I say 2 players, I mean 2 players total. There's just me and my wife, no "GM" (is that like a "DM" in D&D?)
Yes GM and DM are the same thing. It GM is just a more generic term since technically this isn't "Dungeons and Dragons". GM means Game master as opposed to Dungeon Master. There isn't any actual difference.
Now. In terms of playing the game one on one. Yes, it can be done, but it is going to be difficult for people completely new to the game. The game can be scaled for any amount of players really but it takes some knowledge and experience on the part of the game and is more art then science.
Unfortunately the game has a sort of fundamental assumption of abilities that will be present within the 'party' (the group of characters undergoing the adventure). Someone who fights (the classic fighter), someone with a lot of skills (the classic rogue), someone who casts arcane spells (classic wizard) and someone who casts divine spells (the classic cleric).
Today, in pathfinder there are lots of classes that blur those lines rather aggressively. For example, within even just the core rulebook, the druid can obviously cast divine spells, but also can have a companion who can be a solid melee combatant. The Bard casts arcane spells but is also a rather skilled character. The paladin is an excellent melee combatant and also has access, eventually to some divine casting. Additional books in the game (you can have a glance at the prd linked here on paizo's site that will show you everything in the rpg line so far) have far more blurring of those four basic roles. But in general, a 'typical' adventure requires all those bases to be covered to some degree. A small party will not have an easy time of that.
In addition there is a thing called action economy. In this game, each character acts in turn during encounters. What this means is that more characters on a side gets more 'stuff' done. The game is based around the idea that the party will have 4 or so turns every round. And that is important. Because for instance if you only have one character, you would get your one set of actions, then ALL of your enemies would get to act before you were again able to respond. Even if you are stronger then all of your enemies individually, their combination of actions is more dangerous then your single set of actions.
I know this is a lot for a new player to digest, but if you are going to attempt to run a game with just you and your wife its pretty important you understand this.
There are ways to work around this. I have in fact run published adventures (paizo makes some pretty great ones) with one on one games.
The things I do are as follows:
1. Have a GMPC. This means that the player controls their character, and the GM also runs a character that is the constant companion of the player. One of the great things about a one on one game is you have lots of face time, there is after all just 2 of you, and you can really work out character relationships. This adds a bit of burdeon to the GM to have to run the extra character but I strongly recommend it. One player character on their own will not work in the way the game means a party to work pretty much without exception, and I have found this is a far better solution then a player running 2 characters. In the latter case the player never gets as invested in their character and it becomes far more of a wargame then a roleplaying game.
2. Gestalt characters with generous ability scores. When you create characters, if you are rolling, give lots of rerolls, if you use points, give lots of points. With a 2 person party you will have lots of bases to cover and will need lots of good stats.
Gestalt is again sort of a difficult thing to explain to a new player but basically, each PC (the normal player character and the GMPC) pick 2 classes instead of one. And they get the abilities from both classes, and the best of the other statistics. So for instance, if you were a gestalt paladin/bard (an excellent combo by the way), you would get all the abilities of both classes (smite evil, bardic performance, spells etc), plus the paladins base attack bonus and hit dies (full BAB and d10 hd), the Paladins fortitude save, the bards reflex save, the will save from either (both are strong) and skill points from the bard.
This allows you to have more of the needed abilities covered along the lines of what a 4 person party would have.
3. Pick classes that give an action economy bonus and have a mix of abilities. In the core rules, the big ones that give an action economy bonus are the druid with his animal companion, the paladin who can do certain things like lay on hands as a swift action, and eventually the ranger who can also get an animal companion later on. In terms of mixed abilities, the druid, bard, paladin, and ranger are your best bets. A Bard/Paladin and Druid/Ranger can actually make a party that can just about function like a normal 4 person party.
This works even better if you add in the advance class guide as it adds more mixed classes. Particularly the summoner, alchemist and witch.
If you do the above, you can run a pretty normal game one on one. But as you obviously have noticed, its fairly complicated for 2 people who are completely new to the game. As other have mentioned, the GM can tailor the adventure to even a single player. The issue there is it takes an experienced and pretty talented gm to pull that off. Which is why I recommend my method. Once you get past creating the characters, you can use published adventures from paizo and elsewhere to get you started and introduced to the game and how adventures are put together before possibly branching out into creating your own adventures.
There may be a tabletop gaming club near to you - my university has one that's open to anyone and Pathfinder Societies are also a thing that exists. I'd look into things like that if you haven't already, as it's a fun way to meet people, and tabletop gaming nerds are an interesting bunch. Basically, don't play with 2 if you don't have to.
If that's not an option because of where you live, I guess you could play on your own, possibly with multiple characters. A fighter and a sorcerer wouldn't really be much harder to run than an unchained summoner or a druid, or anyone with the leadership feat, which have 2 characters to run anyway. For beginners it would be challenging, but on the other hand you'll learn twice as fast! I'm just not sure if it would be much fun, I'd probably prefer doing something else.
A one person or two person champaign would be difficult, because I think most adventures assume that at least one player will get taken down at some point. In a group of 6, that's nothing, in a group of 4 it's a survivable problem, in a group of 2 you've lost half the players (and half the options) and in a group of 1 it's game over. For one off adventures, a high chance of failure isn't too bad, but it's annoying if you want to tell a story. However, a GMPC could work in this situation.
The problem with using gestalt or over leveled characters or really high point buy is simple - things have to challenge you or they get boring. Challenge generally involves threat, threat generally involves possible defeat.
So long as you use the higher point buy to spread out instead of focus on a single thing its actually not a problem. A gestalt druid/ranger is not more powerful or less vulnerable then a druid AND a ranger. That's why this works for a small party. And as mentioned using classes that have action economy boosts, particularly companions helps a lot with the risk of losing a single character being a deathknell for the party.
I do however agree that having a character whose level is too high for the challenges presented is a problem. And that is mostly because the math breaks down when you do that. 4 1st levels characters is not the same as 1 4th level character. And no amount of tweaking will even that out. That's why I suggest pc and gmpc with gestalt rules, and an emphasis on covering multiple roles within the party rather then enhancing a single role. IE don't gestalt a fighter/barbarian, that just makes a better front liner, play a combination that compliments rather then overlaps.
Ideal for me in what I consider the games core rules (core rulebook and Advanced players guide) is something like Summoner/bard and druid/ranger.
Also the reason I advocate against one player running multiple pcs is not in regards to complexity, but instead of immersion. Players rarely get as invested in their characters when they are running more then one. A companion usually doesn't create that problem, but more then one pc almost always does. You end up with something that is far less of the role playing game experience and something far more akin to a wargame. That isn't bad, but it isn't the goal of introducing someone to pathfinder.