Of Knights and Knaves and Players' Slaves (or, how to cope with only 3 players)

[Laurellien]

Evening all.

I'm going to be running War for the Crown over Roll20 for a smaller group of 3 players. I don't want the challenge to be overwhelming, and I worry that three characters in particular would not have enough social rounds between them to complete their missions.

I've thought of some options, and I was wondering if anybody could let me know what might work, what problems there might be, or if I'm overthinking things and there won't be a problem?

Option 1: Increase the number of social rounds available by about 1/3.

Option 2: Allow each player to create a second character if they wish. If they do so, then they can have one noble character and one character in service to that noble.

Option 3: Decrease the difficulty of encounters (reducing levels and numbers of enemies).

I want to make sure that I don't make a decision that will make things boring or overly confusing for newer players. I had considered gestalt characters, but that would be too complex for newer players and wouldn't get around the action-economy problem.

[GM PDK]

Book 1 and 2 are a cake walk. May be challenging for 3 players though IF they don't have a healer: so make sure the group has two strong martials and a pure cleric*. For Book 3, you'll need to recruit another gamer.

*Pure Cleric: a cleric that's actually a cleric.

[Wyran Tegus]

My campaign has been running with 3 characters since near the beginning of Book 2 (the fourth wasn't feeling the campaign, and we couldn't recruit anyone else). We just finished Book 3. PC deaths since reducing the party to 3 have been relegated to niche circumstances: drowning and a massive crit. (We actually had a TPK in Book 1 with 4 party members, so ymmv.)

Option 1: Increasing the number of social rounds is a great idea. However you increase it, make it equivalent so that three could do as much as the four originally slated.

Option 2: Six characters would probably be overkill, though, and playing two characters makes roleplaying difficult.

Option 3: Our GM has actually been increasing the difficulty curve as time has gone on by: throwing out tactics as written, throwing on advanced templates, etc. But our group is fairly power-gamey, so we have a great chance at solving most encounters, and we like more of a challenge. (We are also 3 characters getting the loot of 4, so we're remarkably well-equipped for our level.)

The early combat encounters in Book 1 are a great time to see how the players handle themselves. If the difficulty seems like too much, you can reduce the number of enemies, throw on CR-reducing templates (Degenerate and Young), or nerf the enemies' tactics. (I like throwing on templates more than reducing levels, because reducing levels requires you to basically rebuild the monster.) Another possibility is staggering when enemy combatants join the fray. A chained encounter where they don't have time to heal up in between is a lot like the full CR, and it can lead to some memorable moments of "Wait, there's more of these things?!"

Most encounters will be about one CR higher for a party of 3 (not exactly, but CR is more of an art than a science). For instance, the 2 CR 2 Walcofindes are a CR 4 encounter for a presumably APL 2 party, so a reasonable but by no means insurmountable challenge. For three Lv2 characters, it's functionally a CR 5 encounter. But removing one of the Walcofindes makes it like a CR 3 encounter for the party of 3. It's the same if you slap on either of the CR-reducing templates, but having two monsters keeps things a bit more even in terms of action economy.

Have all options on the table. If you start out with the Walcofindes as written and it seems like the party is *struggling*, have the CR-reduced statblocks on hand and substitute them in as a deus ex machina to save them from dying in their first combat. Or start them with one and then have the second surprise them on round 3 or 4. You'll get the feel for the party's capabilities fairly quickly and be able to tailor things appropriately for them.

Check out the GM's Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGj BMDg/edit#heading=h.i37vh18ldah9 for the Math behind CR. I'm a big fan of this document for when I GM.