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CartaRulla
2009-01-15, 12:47 PM
First off, this is my first thread on the OotS forum, I've been lurking for some time. Note that similar thing might have been asked before... but I'm asking anyway.

So here's the situation. I'm gonna master a D&D 3.5 campaign in Faerun, but due to lack of friends willing to play, I'm stuck with a 2 people campaign, and I have to be the DM, which I'm not really good at, but I'm the only one willing to do the thinking behind everything. Oh, the characters: one is doing a rogue, the other one a warlock.

So, my main issues now that I'm preparing the campaign are the following:

-Encounters: I know that the CR is intended for a 4 people party, so I should keep in mind that for this campaign I should simply cut the CR to half, correct? Anyway, as I stated before, myself and, particularly, the PCs are particularly noob, so I was wondering if I should cut out also some of the "tactics" of the encounter, ie. cunning strategies or special abilities that my players can't or don't know how to counter? I'm a bit reluctant to do this since I believe that it makes the adventure so much more entertaining, so I was thinking to simply lower the stats, abilities, attack bonuses and the like. What would you do?

-Healing: they have no healer. I tried to talk the two of them into being some kind of healer but they don't want. I was thinking of a video-gamey house rule: when they sleep, they will recover full HP. Imbalanced? Still to weak? I think that at the beginning it might be more powerful than normal healing spells, but in the end when they won't be healed during combats it will be an unfair burden. The other solution was to stick a cleric NPC with them, but personally I don't like this solution much.

-Experience: yeah, they are only two, so I should double the experience, but won't this result in some sort of power-leveling, where they might be of a level too high without having properly learnt how to play?

-I only used a premade setting, I've written the story myself, and I've planned the encounters using some online adventures as a "blueprint"; I playtested the encounters myself, but I'm still afraid that the PCs won't come up with some of the solutions I used. What to do if they don't seem to "grasp it"? Point it out for them?

Oh, to clarify the "noob" part, one of them actually tried to eat a rabbit after shooting him with a poisoned arrow.

Well, thanks in advance for the replies, and sorry if this is a redundand thread.

Satyr
2009-01-15, 12:54 PM
When I read the topic's title I thought about a party of gnomes and halflings...

In this case, you should have a look at the Gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm) rules. Gestalt games are in general a good idea as they increase the depth of hte characters by adding more possibilities to them, but if you have only two characters in the group, you have an additional motivation to use it.

vegetalss4
2009-01-15, 12:57 PM
and no you can't simply halve the cr.
two level ten people for example would slaugther a cr 5 monster.
however i second the proposal about going gestalt

RagnaroksChosen
2009-01-15, 12:59 PM
First off, this is my first thread on the OotS forum, I've been lurking for some time. Note that similar thing might have been asked before... but I'm asking anyway.

So here's the situation. I'm gonna master a D&D 3.5 campaign in Faerun, but due to lack of friends willing to play, I'm stuck with a 2 people campaign, and I have to be the DM, which I'm not really good at, but I'm the only one willing to do the thinking behind everything. Oh, the characters: one is doing a rogue, the other one a warlock.

So, my main issues now that I'm preparing the campaign are the following:

-Encounters: I know that the CR is intended for a 4 people party, so I should keep in mind that for this campaign I should simply cut the CR to half, correct? Anyway, as I stated before, myself and, particularly, the PCs are particularly noob, so I was wondering if I should cut out also some of the "tactics" of the encounter, ie. cunning strategies or special abilities that my players can't or don't know how to counter? I'm a bit reluctant to do this since I believe that it makes the adventure so much more entertaining, so I was thinking to simply lower the stats, abilities, attack bonuses and the like. What would you do?

-Healing: they have no healer. I tried to talk the two of them into being some kind of healer but they don't want. I was thinking of a video-gamey house rule: when they sleep, they will recover full HP. Imbalanced? Still to weak? I think that at the beginning it might be more powerful than normal healing spells, but in the end when they won't be healed during combats it will be an unfair burden. The other solution was to stick a cleric NPC with them, but personally I don't like this solution much.

-Experience: yeah, they are only two, so I should double the experience, but won't this result in some sort of power-leveling, where they might be of a level too high without having properly learnt how to play?

-I only used a premade setting, I've written the story myself, and I've planned the encounters using some online adventures as a "blueprint"; I playtested the encounters myself, but I'm still afraid that the PCs won't come up with some of the solutions I used. What to do if they don't seem to "grasp it"? Point it out for them?

Oh, to clarify the "noob" part, one of them actually tried to eat a rabbit after shooting him with a poisoned arrow.

Well, thanks in advance for the replies, and sorry if this is a redundand thread.

you could just increase the loot also haveing a well decked out group of two can be balancing...

Or just increase the amount of healing items you give out.. like wands, potions, and scrolls.

Egiam
2009-01-15, 01:02 PM
Listen to Satyr about gestalt.

Uh... Do not just cut CR in half. A single 6th level wizard can easily cream a single CR 3 monster with his spells (fireball averaging at 21 damage, enough to kill most CR 3 enemies...), but when another one comes along he is out of spells and gets killed. better to reduce regular CR by one (in gestalt ratio) and have less battles in a row so they can rest and recover spells.

Greengiant
2009-01-15, 01:03 PM
Think about how it'd work in real life. When all else fails, I say, this works because it does, but before that, I think about real life situations.

Not having a healer is sort of a problem, but not really. They're still going to need some way to heal in combat, without a healer, but outside of combat, have them regain hit points the regular way. Stress to them the importance of their wounds, in fact, describe them in detail, and maybe even make it a sub-plot to recover from their wounds. It's much more dramatic in some ways.

For example, "As the adrenaline from the battle leaves you, you are pained by your wounds. There is still an arrow sticking out of your shoulder, and numerous small slashes on your legs, arms, and torso. Your clothing is particularily crisp in certain sections where that fireball hit you. Your character feels that he needs to rest for at least a couple days to get back to full strength."

Outside of narration, you can make comments to the players, comedic observations on their situations, to influence how they think about it. For example, "Haha, you guys are in a pickle now. Four days from the nearest known town, your characters beat and bruised, with only two days of food between you, and a cold front is coming in, and with it, a storm. This should be interesting."

Immersion ftw. On the other hand, with a healer, "You finish the battle, and are now burdened by your wounds."

"I cast cure moderate wounds on Mr.Meatshield"

"Making some holy gestures, a small glow infuses his body and he is absolved of any wounds."

And then they continue in the monotony of the dungeon crawl. It's a preference of mine to have no healer, now that my party has none, it's fun.

Saph
2009-01-15, 01:03 PM
Tactics: Try and do it in-character - have other people around who'll explain things to them. Also give them in-character advice: "you know that X would be dangerous", etc.

CR and XP: For a quick fix, encounters should have a CR of the party level minus 2. If you want to check the math, use the Encounter Calculator (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm).

With both a rogue and a warlock, stealth and urban-style adventures will probably suit them much better than wilderness encounters and hackfests.

- Saph

Efil
2009-01-15, 01:06 PM
With maxed UMD and Deceive Item warlocks are mean with magic items. If the warlock can get some wands of CLW Healing should be all right. In the first levels I think healing potions and similar will be neccessary.

CartaRulla
2009-01-15, 01:10 PM
Thanks for all the answers. I didn't know about the gestalt rules, thanks, it looks interesting. It's somewhat more complicated than normal rules, I'll ask the players if they're willing to use them.

esorscher
2009-01-15, 01:10 PM
UMD is a class skill for Warlock, and I think Rogue as well.

Give them wands of CLW, show them how the UMD skill works (they'll have to emulate a wisdom score of 11 if they don't already have it). That will take care of healing; as they progress, give them more powerful healing wands.

They have no tank; don't have them fight many foes at once. They are designed for ranged combat so give them an opportunity to excel at it.

You might want to allow the leadership feat to give them cohorts later on, when they have more experience playing.

RTGoodman
2009-01-15, 01:23 PM
If you don't go with gestalt rules, how about changing the HP/healing rules to be more like 4E's? It seems like it could be an easy fix.

Basically, players have a set number of "healing surges" they can use per day. For a Rogue and a Warlock, probably 6 + Con modifier. Once per encounter as a standard action, they can spend one to heal number of HP equal to one-quarter their maximum. Outside of combat, as long as they have time to catch their breath, they can spend as many as they want.

If you wanted to and if they seem to fragile with two low-HD types, you could even give them more hit points in general; at 1st level characters have HP equal to their normal number (12 for Barbarian, 10 for Fighter, etc.) plus their Constitution SCORE (not modifier), but at each level afterwards its just a die roll (or average, if you play that way) plus Constitution modifier.

Otherwise, you could just have them UMD healing stuff, but I don't like that solution.


I playtested the encounters myself, but I'm still afraid that the PCs won't come up with some of the solutions I used. What to do if they don't seem to "grasp it"? Point it out for them?

Well, first, when you DM, don't have certain solutions are the ONLY way to solve a problem, especially with new players, unless you're CERTAIN one can figure it out. Give them some freedom to figure out their own ways out of things, even if it's not what you expect. In fact, as a DM, get used to players doing things you don't expect anyway - it's what they do. :smalltongue:

I'll also second someone else's advice to try to focus on intrigue and stuff like that rather than straight hack-and-slash. Yeah, you can give them combat encounters, but if they have to fight it out too much they're probably going down just because that's not what their classes are designed for. (Well, Warlock can go all day, but they're still likely to get bogged down with a lot of enemies, especially since eldritch blase is only once per turn.)


EDIT: I don't know what I just thought of this, but GIVE THE PARTY HEALING BELTS. You can find them in MIC, and they could REALLY help out with a small party that doesn't have access to real healing.

Dublock
2009-01-15, 01:27 PM
also, what you could do, is have them play 2 characters instead of just one. I did that myself with one group, worked out pretty well. Yes they roleplayed with each other between their two characters. We enjoyed it :smallsmile:

shadowfox
2009-01-15, 01:30 PM
Gestalt is nice, but here's something to consider:
"Sure, it's nice having the benefits of two classes... But it doesn't stop you from sucking at low levels." -Said by a good friend of mine, in response to having gestalt characters in the 3-person party-

It's not against gestalt, it's just something to consider.

Another option is that each person plays multiple characters. This is fine in a bash-in-the-door-type game, but I'd assume that few can successfully pull it off in a roleplay-heavy campaign. Another option is one that I call "DMPC," where you both DM and play a PC. This, again, must be handled with care. I did this for my first campaign; in fact, rarely, on my own free will, did I say "I'll search this area of the room." I told the PCs that, in those sorts of situations, my hands were tied, so they would tell me when to use certain skills and where. This prevented myself from meta-gaming, and allowed the PCs to have a rogue in their party. However, you then have to be careful to make him an actual character in the party, not a drone, as well as to not center a lot of campaign events around the DMPC.

Campaigns with even 3 people can be iffy. No matter what you choose, have the first session or two simply be "for testing purposes," and from it, gauge what sorts of things they can and can't handle. Don't penalize them during these sessions for only having two characters; if need be, explain that to them, and be ready to save them if the going gets tough. They might think it's lame that you prevent their doom during the first couple of sessions, but if you can use what you learned to give them challenges that they can handle, then it will be worth it.

Tacoma
2009-01-15, 01:38 PM
-Encounters: Don't cut out special abilities or tactics. Just start with encounters of CR half what they should be fighting. If that's too easy, ease it up to the next higher CR bracket after a couple fights. So at level 1, use CR 1/2 encounters. Then move it up to CR 1 if they seem to be handling themselves very well.

-Healing: People shouldn't be healing during combat anyway. You take as much damage again in the round you get healed. And healing spells provoke AoO so the party might actually take more damage than you healed. Assume they will be resting a lot (use normal resting rules, maybe one of them will want to take ranks in Heal) and go a little easy on them when it comes to night-time encounters. If they rest in the dungeon, they have random encounters coming to them.
They will probably hang on to and use healing magic, and if you allow them to buy magic items you should make healing magic generally more available than other types to compensate (not cheaper, just available for sale). Remember if they buy a Wand of Cure Light Wounds that's money they could have spent on something else.
Be careful about "Cure Light Wounds 3/day type items. This still doesn't help in combat but it means they can skip resting more than a day at a time. Unlimited-use healing items should be pretty much unavailable because their value is so much greater than their cost in gold pieces - unless you use a formula like (spell level x caster level x 10,000) and the item is standard-action activated.

-Experience: The book assumes a party of 4 and if you have fewer you should get more XP because your side is weaker. I say give them standard XP awards. I also never awarded XP for overcoming traps. But you can add bonus XP for completing adventures, too, to balance it out. It's always easier to give more to balance it than to take away.

-Confused Players: First, don't set up anything that requires a great leap in logic. Plant opportunities to discover the answers throughout the adventure. NPCs might have information, people might write in diaries or on maps, or whatever other clues you can think of. Have at least three or four clues to any puzzle or mystery. Each clue should be good enough on its own that a smart group can figure it out.
But because you have 2 people instead of say 6, you have 1/3 the chance one of your players will "get" the clue when they stumble across it. And new players are often unwilling to spend a lot of time talking to NPCs.
So make a quick list of the most likely outcomes, and what you think you want to do if that outcome happens.

Let's say they're hired to rescue a kidnapped merchant from some orcs. They need to find the orcs (Problem 1) and deal with the merchant (Problem 2). They might have a lot of trouble finding the orcs alone. First off there should be people in town who know kind of where the orcs are hiding. There should be opportunities to track the orcs without meeting them. And if the PCs wander around enough they should get attacked by orcs, which they can then track or follow back to their camp. As for the outcomes, I'd suggest the following:

X: The players decide to not take the adventure.
Y: They go on the adventure and quit.
Z: They go on the adventure and see it through.

1: They side with the orcs, joining them.
2: They destroy the town.
3: They kill the orcs.
4: They kill many orcs, the rest flee.

A: They rescue the merchant.
B: The merchant dies.
C: The merchant flees on his own.
D: Someone else rescues the merchant.

Many outcome combinations don't make sense (Z2A) but many indeed could happen. You don't have to make detailed plans, but certainly look things over and see if later adventures are dependent on a certain outcome. If so yo umight need to revise the later adventure because the PCs did something wacky and unexpected in the first one.



You have an interesting opportunity here to make adventures that cater to the two classes these players chose. I'd have them go up against trapmaking creatures like Kobolds, Goblins, perhaps spiders, a gang of thieves, some were-rats, forest bandits, that sort of thing. The Rogue gets a lot of use out of his Search and Disable Device, and of course Open Locks. Town adventures offer plenty of Pick Pockets opportunity.

Since these are new players, using tropes like "finding a treasure map" or "protect the town from bandits" can be new and exciting. But these two characters are not toe to toe fighters. Expect them to try to sneak around and offer such opportunities in your adventures. Avoid having a single hallway that leads from room to room in the dungeon. Side passages and disused tunnels will offer them more maneuverability.

Since both characters can get Use Magic Device, and the Warlock probably has high Charisma, expect them to be able to use most items you throw out there. They could greatly benefit from a Cleric-only healing item and it would give their UMD skills some use.

valadil
2009-01-15, 02:00 PM
I've never had a healer in any of my games. You can deal with it.

CR has always been weird to begin with. Cutting it in half isn't likely to help. Since the players are new and there are only two of them, I suggest ignoring CR, at least initially. Start with a fight they can win. Over the course of several encounters, slowly turn up the difficulty. See what they struggle with and what they overcome. THEN, go back and look at the CR of those encounters to figure out what the players should be facing.

You might also want some encounters that aren't straight up fights. Rogues are rogues. Warlocks are plenty capable of subterfuge. Design and encounter or three that you expect them to sneak around instead of fight (though make sure its obvious they shouldn't fight).

shadowfox
2009-01-15, 02:14 PM
Oh, the healing situation. In the campaign I'm going to run soon, there's also no healer. Although there is a Truenamer in the party (Tome of Magic) who can learn healing-type spells, it's not guaranteed that she will take any of them. So, I'm trying to cover alternatives.

One that I did was that, since it's a medium-low magic campaign (not almost nonexistant, but a lot rarer than in normal D&D (at least on the Material plane...)), I made potions alchemical-based. Although this has no influence on your campaign whatsoever, I will get to the point: healing potions. Maybe even make them a little cheaper. Another thing I've been toying with is a healing system using the Heal skill. Although several people offered different, and similar, suggestions, the simplest version of the rule is "it heals a number of HP equal to Heal result - (insert number here)." So far, I've gotten "result - 10" and "result - 15." In addition, it's usable once per encounter, so they can continue to heal themselves partially over time. It'll heal them so they can go through more battles.

You might also want to look into Healing Surges from 4e, and award them with action points ever few encounters or so (or whenever) to allow them to heal.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else...

Ernir
2009-01-15, 02:18 PM
I am/was in a similar situation myself. My first time as a DM, was only about to round up two friends willing to play at the time, and neither of them had any experience at all.

Things were a bit rough at first, but I found that I did not have to drastically alter the CR system. Just had to pull my punches a bit.

The only mechanical change I did to help them overcome the small party size is that I increased their stabilization chance while bleeding up to 25%. I made that change after one of them got himself into -2 HP at the very end of a random encounter, and his friend the Wizard friend spent the next 8 rounds failing his Heal checks.

Tacoma
2009-01-15, 02:21 PM
... The Wizard friend spent the next 8 rounds failing his Heal checks.

Wizard: Don't you die on me! CLEAR!
*bweeeiIIIII-KRACKOOM*

only1doug
2009-01-15, 02:40 PM
Wizard: Don't you die on me! CLEAR!
*bweeeiIIIII-KRACKOOM*

So that's what shocking grasp was originally developed for.



-Encounters: I know that the CR is intended for a 4 people party, so I should keep in mind that for this campaign I should simply cut the CR to half, correct? Anyway, as I stated before, myself and, particularly, the PCs are particularly noob, so I was wondering if I should cut out also some of the "tactics" of the encounter, ie. cunning strategies or special abilities that my players can't or don't know how to counter? I'm a bit reluctant to do this since I believe that it makes the adventure so much more entertaining, so I was thinking to simply lower the stats, abilities, attack bonuses and the like. What would you do?

doubling the number of creatures adds 2 to the CR, so I'd subtract 2 from the CR for a half strength party.


-Healing: they have no healer. I tried to talk the two of them into being some kind of healer but they don't want. I was thinking of a video-gamey house rule: when they sleep, they will recover full HP. Imbalanced? Still to weak? I think that at the beginning it might be more powerful than normal healing spells, but in the end when they won't be healed during combats it will be an unfair burden. The other solution was to stick a cleric NPC with them, but personally I don't like this solution much.

wands of cure light wounds + UMD



-Experience: yeah, they are only two, so I should double the experience, but won't this result in some sort of power-leveling, where they might be of a level too high without having properly learnt how to play?

Nope, don't double the xp, the xp from an encounter gets divided by the number of PC's so the doubling is already counted in at that stage.

Tacoma
2009-01-15, 02:42 PM
I was actually thinking more like Chain Lightning.

Too much? :P

monty
2009-01-15, 02:46 PM
I was actually thinking more like Chain Lightning.

Too much? :P

Nah, you need Call Lightning Storm.

Epinephrine
2009-01-15, 03:15 PM
Things we did to make a less lethal campaign suitable for small party:

1) Gestalt - two classes makes everyone more flexible.
2) Decent stat spread, to combat the MAD from trying to fill multiple roles.
3) 2 extra skillpoints per level. Compared to a 4 person party they'll still be a bit lower on skill points, but it'll help pick up some extra skills. In a 4 person party yuo can divide tasks among more people, but with only 2 people it's pretty tough.
4) Maxed hit points on the first three levels. This gives a bit more of a buffer - they still need to watch what they are doing, but when 1 player goes down in a 4 man party you're operating at 3/4 strength, and still get 3 actions a round. When one player goes down in a 2 man party you have 50% effectiveness and only 1 action a round (which may be needed to keep the other alive) and you are going to be screwed. Only the last HP really matters in any game, but a bigger buffer is nice. You could even go with Max HP at every level or something.
5) Action points. I don't recall if they're from Faerun or not, but they make for better survival for smaller parties. Since a TPK is only 2 players away at any time, not dropping is really vital for a 2 man party. Action points (spending one to get an extra 1d6 on a d20 roll) can save your butt from many a failed save, and makes for a more heroic feel. Don't leave home without them ;)

TheCountAlucard
2009-01-15, 03:27 PM
Nah, you need Call Lightning Storm.

Remember, even when you're large enough to throw around galaxies in combat (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TengenToppaGurrenLagann), if the opponent is as big as you are, you don't have enuff dakka (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoreDakka).

Triaxx
2009-01-15, 05:51 PM
Halving the CR is good. Then you double the encounter numbers. It goes from being too hard (Full CR) to too easy (Half CR), to challenging (Half CR/Twice the monster.)

holywhippet
2009-01-15, 05:58 PM
Consider letting them run two PCs each. Failing that, offer them an NPC cleric but let them direct his/her actions.

For working out if a battle is too tough, try it out yourself before hand. Provided you guess the likely actions of the players, run the combat from both sides and see what the odds of dying are.

I wouldn't double their experience, but I'd start them off at level 3.

Berserk Monk
2009-01-15, 09:47 PM
Look up something called gestalt characters in Unearthed Arcana (http://shadowsystems.laurencemartin.org/DND_35Ed/Unearthed%20Arcana.pdf)

herrhauptmann
2009-01-15, 10:40 PM
If they're that new, then playing 2 characters might well get too confusing. Especially if they're still at the stage where you're explaining combat mechanics. (No idea how new they actually are).

Maybe they auto stabilize when in negative hitpoints.
When in negatives, give them a chance to remain conscious (fort or will save), and a chance to act when in the negatives, maybe a standard every second round. http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0180.html

JonestheSpy
2009-01-16, 03:26 AM
[QUOTE=shadowfox;5645709] Another thing I've been toying with is a healing system using the Heal skill. Although several people offered different, and similar, suggestions, the simplest version of the rule is "it heals a number of HP equal to Heal result - (insert number here)." So far, I've gotten "result - 10" and "result - 15." In addition, it's usable once per encounter, so they can continue to heal themselves partially over time. It'll heal them so they can go through more battles.
QUOTE]


I use a variation of that idea in my campaign, but instead of the Heal skill flat out curing damage, it transforms X number of regular points of damage to temporary damage. So the damage still affects the characters, but can be recovered by resting an hour or two (or 8, if really beat up).

Harperfan7
2009-01-16, 11:13 AM
"also, what you could do, is have them play 2 characters instead of just one. I did that myself with one group, worked out pretty well. Yes they roleplayed with each other between their two characters. We enjoyed it "

I will second that.

I do it all the time with players I DM for, and for parties that I play. I once played 4 characters by myself.

Satyr
2009-01-16, 11:59 AM
I would recommend against using more than one character per player.That would only hamper with the bindng between player and character and is likely to mess up the inner-party social structure.
It is better to let every player concentrate on the personification of one character than having more, but shallow characters.