You could always "upgrade" to dual-class, maybe.
free archetype and dual class help with the power issue but you always are going to have to reduce the number of opponents in encounters. Numbers advantage is a real thing in 2e even if they are several levels below the frequency of attacks will eventually make enough of them crits.
I've been GMing for 2 friends and usually gave them an NPC along that I controlled during fights but they would include in out of combat situations.
The encounter budget table and XP Awards tables are your friend for planning encounters. You should still give out the XP that an encounter for a 4 player party would get before the reduction of enemies.
If you're using an AP or other Adventure you can also use the Building Creatures rules to thoroughly downgrade or Adjusting Creatures to quickly downgrade enemies such as bosses so that it doesn't get too hard on your players.
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I think free archetype helps mostly with the reduced versatility that a smaller group might have. Dual-classing would also give a power boost.
Schreckstoff is correct about the quantity of creatures - action advantage is a real thing. A 2-player party can be overwhelmed because they have to move around, attack, and do defense/support stuff on a much smaller budget.
What I can imagine is that the flavor changes a bit from "four Rambo style folks kick in the door" to "two clever spies sneak in and mob down a guard before he's got any chance to even draw weapons". Stealth is more valuable for a smaller group, and easier to pull off because there's fewer people to make noise.
You can take that a bit further and use it to help their action economy; more enemies encountered unprepared for combat, not starting in the best possible square on the map, still having to draw weapons and so forth. The little bits can add up.
I would also suggest agreeing on an escape protocol - if the PCs feel they're too deep in and wanna run away and regroup, can they? The normal movement system where everyone uses 3 actions and almost everyone has 25ft speed can make that rather hard. It might be an idea to institute a house rule that if the PCs run off the map (or out of the room), that you switch over to using the Chase rules from the GMG instead of using the three-action grid movement to determine if the PCs can get away. Staging a getaway is normally very hard for a 4-player party to pull off, but for a 2P party it can be easier to coordinate the logistics. Make sure you also have rules at your fingertips for picking up an unconscious teammate.
Also like Schreckstoff says, you can adjust creatures up or down - the Weak template works well to shift them a level down. Other things you can try:
- Give the PCs loot as if they're one level higher.
- Make the PCs one level higher than the adventure expects, but keep the loot at the expected level.
- Increase both PC and loot level by 1.
This too will change the tone a bit - the PCs will be individually stronger compared to the monsters, but they have to be more on their toes against crowds and monsters with nasty action economy effects. It's almost like the PCs are in the monsters' shoes :P
I think such a game could be pretty fun actually.
You could always "upgrade" to dual-class, maybe.
Second this. Give them an upgraded gestalt game, 2 classes with combined HP, class/skill/general feats, and superior proficiencies.
For action economy, I'd give them two separate initiative rolls to act twice in the same round, though I'd maybe incur a MAP penalty of some sort so that they aren't automatically getting back-to-back turns.
Other things would be on a case by case basis, but otherwise functional.
Trying to scale back the power level of the encounters to accommodate 2 players is proving challenging.Does anyone have any suggestions for this predicament?
From the encounter guidelines it theoretically should be super easy.
I haven't played a long campaign with 2 players in PF2 and I also wrote a similar thread on reddit and they gave varying answers but it felt like most felt like the guidelines worked.
People of course recommended the free archetype variant... then again I am pretty sure people just love that variant so much that they will recommend it whenever possible! It does seem fun.
Following the rules https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497
It should be quite easy in theory for 2 players
Trivial = 20 XP Budget
Low = 30 XP Budget
Moderate = 40 XP Budget
Severe = 60 XP Budget
Extreme = 80 XP Budget
Have these not been working out for you? Once you understand the rules it should be super easy to scale back any encounter by adding weak templates and taking out monsters.
Then if you are finding the battles are too hard just add a level or two if they are really unoptimized to the PCs and you should be golden.
I personally feel like dual class wouldn't be fun but I guess some people like it, on the other hand free archetype seems like something I would love in every campaign but still have yet to try.
IMO the real problem with 2 players is the lack of skills, you will pretty much have to 100% tailor skill challenges for the players which shouldn't be horrible. I also wanted to add I guess it depends on how your 2 players are built. If both went like 100% support I would probably add a Fighter character with 0 feats who just attacks and adjust encounters to 3 players.
I ran Plague stone with 3 player and a GMPC. Usually I would hand off the GMPC character sheet to another player to run. So that is a possibility.