How to make 2 players as strong as a 4-5 player party

[yougi]

Hey,

I'm looking to start a game with two buddies, and we can't seem to get other players to join in. Now I want to play 4e from the DM seat, and part of that is encounter building, and I find it sucks when trying to balance it with two PCs. Therefore, I have two options: (1) buff the two PCs, or (2) give them hirelings.

My experience with 4e is not that large, and so I'm turning to you guys to help me with the math behind it.

OPTION 1: BUFFING BOTH PCs
Here's what I thought:
- Higher point buy (although how much, I don't know)
- Giving a minor action at-will attack
- Allowing 5e-like overkill (if you overkill an enemy, the remaining damage is dealt to another enemy in range)
- Allowing each PC to choose two classes (and you can select powers from both)

OPTION 2: HIRELINGS
I'd like the hirelings to be half as powerful as PCs, so that two PCs, each with 2 hirelings, is like a party of 4 strength-wise. However, in my experience, controlling three characters means encounters become LOOOOOOOONG, because you forget what all of them can do, and too many actions and such. Therefore, my ideas for these characters:
- Lower point buy (but again, how much, Idk)
- No access to daily powers
- Encounter powers can be used once per day
- Minor action powers become move actions (to limit number of actions)

This, however, doesn't work with Wizards and Psionic classes, which sucks, and is extra harsh towards classes with strong minor actions powers (Warlock, and all healers).

Also, I'd like to have something to limit the options on equipment for the hirelings, because that two adds to the play time.

What do you guys think?

[Nightgaun7]

Honestly? My advice would be go make some more friends. Or join a local gaming group. Or something. Even 3 players is significantly better than two.

[yougi]

Honestly? My advice would be go make some more friends. Or join a local gaming group. Or something. Even 3 players is significantly better than two.

Brushing aside the insinuation that the problem is my lack of friends (I'm doing fine on that end, thank you), that is not the conversation this thread is aiming for. The title clearly states that this is about making 2 players as strong as a 4-5 player party: "have four players" is not helpful in any way.

[Epinephrine]

Brushing aside the insinuation that the problem is my lack of friends (I'm doing fine on that end, thank you), that is not the conversation this thread is aiming for. The title clearly states that this is about making 2 players as strong as a 4-5 player party: "have four players" is not helpful in any way.

Well, there are issues with what you want to do.
Problem #1) HP. Two players can take fewer hits than 5. Solution - you need a way to soak more damage. I would suggest a pool of HP that is a fair bit larger than normal, but not doubled. Doubled would give them far too much room, in that they will never have to fear being spiked down. I would start them at about 10 HP more per level, and give~50% more HP per level. So, a wizard would gain 6 per level, a cleric 7.5, a fighter 9, and a warden 10.5. You will still face issues of number of healing surges per day, but their surges are bigger. Not sure how to adjust that - my first thought is to leave surge size based on their original HP, but give them 50% more surges, but this might be the wrong approach.

#2) damage output. You need to let them deal with things faster. Options are bigger hits, or more hits. I'd go for more actions rather than more damage. Give them two turns each round, with a full complement of actions. They roll initiative, and act at that number -5 and that number +5.

#3) Action denial. Being stunned removes one set of actions (Have the enemy choose, it will generally choose the next one to come up, but if the player is already stunned it may pick the following one. Similarly with being dazed, blinded, etc. This allows effects to take the player out, somewhat, but doesn't fully disable them.

#4) Bloodied. When reduced to half HP, the player loses a set of actions, and is considered bloodied. Getting back above "bloodied" value regains those actions.

That's a start, I don't know how well it would work.

[ImaginaryDragon]

I gotta agree with Nightgaun here. It's a lot better to get enough players to make the game work as intended than spend huge amounts of effort trying to hammer it into shape.

Or play a different system.

[Endarire]

An option is to give your PCs two turns each per round and some extra HP. Maybe give them a free reroll on their saves/non-AC defenses every round or few (or every fight) to make them more durable, but not invincible.

[Nod_Hero]

Is the players each having multiple characters not a consideration?

[Sol]

Is the players each having multiple characters not a consideration?

This.

Encourage the players to each take one essentials character and one non-essentials character, for ease of remembering what options are available to their secondary character. The knight, slayer, scout, thief, and elementalist, and hunter are all sufficiently simple. Yes, this means one of them should have a leader as their "real" character, and yes, the hunter is worse than other controller options eventually. If you play with fortune cards, the hunter can be great, as there's cards that grant an ally an attack when you prone something or allow you to slide+immobilize with clever shot -- but fortune cards up the complexity game too, which you may want to avoid.

[Zaq]

Yeah. You can avoid the problem of balancing the weak hirelings and the problem of having three characters apiece by just having each player have two normal characters. My old group had a round-robin GMing system, where we'd all periodically take turns GMing, and we'd just pass off the GM's character to whoever felt like they could handle it. It worked beautifully, and none of us really had a problem handling two characters. Once you're familiar with what a character can do (which really doesn't take that long in 4e, especially if you built the character and didn't just get handed it), handling two characters at once isn't that hard. It takes a little bit of practice, but it's not that bad. It can actually be quite a lot of fun.

[yougi]

Well, there are issues with what you want to do.

Problem #1) HP. Two players can take fewer hits than 5. Solution - you need a way to soak more damage. I would suggest a pool of HP that is a fair bit larger than normal, but not doubled. Doubled would give them far too much room, in that they will never have to fear being spiked down. I would start them at about 10 HP more per level, and give~50% more HP per level. So, a wizard would gain 6 per level, a cleric 7.5, a fighter 9, and a warden 10.5. You will still face issues of number of healing surges per day, but their surges are bigger. Not sure how to adjust that - my first thought is to leave surge size based on their original HP, but give them 50% more surges, but this might be the wrong approach.

#2) damage output. You need to let them deal with things faster. Options are bigger hits, or more hits. I'd go for more actions rather than more damage. Give them two turns each round, with a full complement of actions. They roll initiative, and act at that number -5 and that number +5.

#3) Action denial. Being stunned removes one set of actions (Have the enemy choose, it will generally choose the next one to come up, but if the player is already stunned it may pick the following one. Similarly with being dazed, blinded, etc. This allows effects to take the player out, somewhat, but doesn't fully disable them.

#4) Bloodied. When reduced to half HP, the player loses a set of actions, and is considered bloodied. Getting back above "bloodied" value regains those actions.

That's a start, I don't know how well it would work.

Thank you for this. Interesting, two sets of actions. Hmmmm. I'll keep that in mind.


An option is to give your PCs two turns each per round and some extra HP. Maybe give them a free reroll on their saves/non-AC defenses every round or few (or every fight) to make them more durable, but not invincible.
Thanks for the reply. The rerolled save idea is interesting.





Is the players each having multiple characters not a consideration?
This.

Encourage the players to each take one essentials character and one non-essentials character, for ease of remembering what options are available to their secondary character. The knight, slayer, scout, thief, and elementalist, and hunter are all sufficiently simple. Yes, this means one of them should have a leader as their "real" character, and yes, the hunter is worse than other controller options eventually. If you play with fortune cards, the hunter can be great, as there's cards that grant an ally an attack when you prone something or allow you to slide+immobilize with clever shot -- but fortune cards up the complexity game too, which you may want to avoid.

I'm not familiar enough with 4e to know what essentials mean, or fortune cards. :D mind explaining that one?


Yeah. You can avoid the problem of balancing the weak hirelings and the problem of having three characters apiece by just having each player have two normal characters. My old group had a round-robin GMing system, where we'd all periodically take turns GMing, and we'd just pass off the GM's character to whoever felt like they could handle it. It worked beautifully, and none of us really had a problem handling two characters. Once you're familiar with what a character can do (which really doesn't take that long in 4e, especially if you built the character and didn't just get handed it), handling two characters at once isn't that hard. It takes a little bit of practice, but it's not that bad. It can actually be quite a lot of fun.
My experience is quite opposite. I play in a 4e campaign with three players (2 + me), each controlling two PCs, and combat takes a LOOONG time because of that. By now, we're pretty used to what our guys do (started at lv1, now lv8), but still, with retraining every now and then, and playing once a month, we usually forget about half of it, use items we've sold, and generally mess up. I love that 4e gives you so many options, but with multiple characters, in my experience, it bogs down. Also, RP really suffers with multiple guys (again, in my experience) and separating your attention between them, hence the idea of giving them a "main" and two hirelings each.

[Dimers]

I'm not familiar enough with 4e to know what essentials mean, or fortune cards. :D mind explaining that one?

"Essentials" is the later half of 4e books -- Heroes of Forgotten Kingdoms, Heroes of the Elemental Chaos and so forth, as opposed to PHB 1/2/3 and the ______ Power books. The classes are considerably simpler in Essentials because the player has fewer choices to make during character creation. Fortune cards are an optional add-on that let the players (at least those who spend money on cards) gain extra effects occasionally. I've never seen them in play; they seem like they'd be a decent addition, but I personally don't care to invest more money. And maybe not the best idea for y'all anyway since they'd add another thing to manage during play.


By now, we're pretty used to what our guys do (started at lv1, now lv8), but still, with retraining every now and then, and playing once a month, we usually forget about half of it, use items we've sold, and generally mess up.

Strongly recommend 'power cards' for that problem. Write each power's full text on a piece of paper and keep all the powers in front of you; when you use one that isn't at-will, just flip over the paper until you recharge it. In addition to keeping track of what's used and what isn't (even between sessions!), it provides some visual organization for your choices at any given moment.


Also, RP really suffers with multiple guys (again, in my experience) and separating your attention between them, hence the idea of giving them a "main" and two hirelings each.

Incidentally, hirelings or secondary characters are probably best off built as monsters, not as PCs with classes. That makes them competent but not overpowering, and they're MUCH simpler to play in combat -- they only have three or four different powers in most cases.

Gotta say, though, I'd be inclined to say the best solution* is just finding a different game system. I love 4e and would rather play that than anything else, but I don't believe it functions for very small groups.

* "Best" is predicated on you not getting more players eventually and not wanting to run multiple full characters to avoid RP difficulties.

[Tegu8788]

I'm running a game for a pair of players, just starting out, and I feel your pain. My advise would be to give them each an essentials character to control in combat. You can still do all the RP, but they help with combat. Even. A single DMPC might be good, as much as I am hesitant to suggest it. There are ways to balance things, making sure you only give 2 players worth of XP budget in a fight, and maybe even using weaker monsters than normal. If you've gotten to Lvl 8 you must be doing something right.

And I do second getting more people. We don't mean you don't have enough friends, just the fact that unless they come to the table, they don't matter.


The only way I can see to directly make 2 characters as strong as 4 or 5 is to pick very specific class builds, and then CharOp them to ludicrous levels. 4E is a team based game, with an inherent assumption of 4-5 players. It's difficult to run with less without a lot of DM work.

[Epinephrine]

A single DMPC might be good, as much as I am hesitant to suggest it.

I don't find DMPCs to be that bad, as long as they are well in the background and basically built to let the PCs do what they would like to do. They shouldn't be doing anything important (diplomacy, for example), and should if anything have simialr but less impressive skill sets (so if both other PCs have stealth, they should train it so that they don't act as a drag).

I ran a leader DMPC for a party as nobody wanted the leader role, and by picking powers that were lazy-ish (Staggering Note, for example, which allows an ally a swing at a target) it worked well enough. The players got extra chances to shine, benefited from buffs when they needed them, and were patched up when hurt, without the DMPC really ever doing anything to steal anyone's thunder.

[Sol]

I'm not familiar enough with 4e to know what essentials mean, or fortune cards. :D mind explaining that one?

Dimers already responded here, but I'll chime in as well.

The first half-ish of 4e books included character classes that stuck to the AEDU paradigm (that is, At-Will, Encounter, Daily, and Utility powers), and which all obtained the same number of each of these things at the same level, or if they deviated, it was only a little bit. Even the psionic classes aren't too far off, if you consider the maximum augmentation their equivalent of encounter powers.

The "Heroes Of" books presented alternate subclasses / build paths for many common classes. Some of these - the cavalier(paladin), binder(warlock), and vampire(all new, all terrible), at least - are decidedly awful, and never worth playing under any circumstance unless you really like annoying your friends. A few others - the blackguard(paladin), hunter(ranged ranger), sha'ir(wizard), witch(wizard), sentinel(druid), and berserker(barbarian) - are questionable, in that, while not awful, they're at least marginally worse than their parent class or other flavor-similar options. This brings us to the elementalist(sorcerer), scout(melee ranger), slayer(fighter), knight(fighter), thief(rogue), warpriest(cleric), and mage(wizard), who can all be excellent. The last two on that list also adhere to the AEDU paradigm, so are no more or less complicated than a traditional character, though almost all of a warpriest's power choices are made at creation, so I'm going to focus on the rest of that list.

The elementalist, scout, slayer, knight, hunter, and thief all do precisely what their parent classes do, only they do it on an at-will basis, as a basic attack, and rather than getting traditional encounter powers, they get multiple uses of the same encounter power that basically says, "this is the same thing I always do, only marginally better." (okay, the thief and elementalist encounter powers are pretty wonderful. power strike is decidedly meh.) They do not get daily powers.

I'd recommend one of these guys as followers, each, rather than multiple weak hirelings, as, in the slayer's case, there is literally no attack power selection, you just pick a target and melee basic attack them. The others aren't any harder, but the others benefit more from intelligent target selection.

There's very little added complexity by adding one of these guys to your roster. They're actually really pretty boring to play as a primary character, so IMO work best as mercs. Their personalities can be as fleshed out - or not - as you want them to be, but mechanically they're simple, boring, and effective, which is a quick and utilitarian fix to your problem.

The hunter gets a lot of hate because post-heroic it's a decidedly ****ty controller(even the traditional bow ranger passes it), but in heroic I actually like it quite a bit, it just doesn't really scale sufficiently, and being single-target holds it back substantially as well.

Fortune cards can be obtained if you google, but even typing that sentence is edging on violating the rules of this board. Play-wise, either you have one giant deck or let each player go through the cards and customize their own deck of 10 cards. At the start of each player's turn, they get to draw a card from the/their deck, or, if they already have an unused card, they can opt to keep the one they already have instead of drawing a new one. They can only have one card in their hand at a time.

The cards all have rules text written on them. Some of them might say things like, "Play this card as a minor action. Your next basic or at-will attack against an enemy deals an additional 5 damage on a hit," but they don't all have action costs. Some say things like, "Play this card when you knock an enemy prone. An ally adjacent to that enemy can make an opportunity attack against it," or, "Play this card when you hit an enemy with an at-will attack. Your attack deals 5 less damage and the target is immobilized until the end of your next turn." Once a card is played, it goes into a discard pile, and once the entire deck is in the discard pile, it gets shuffled and turned back into the draw pile.

It is of course one more set of things that can bog down combat, but it's a little extra boost of power that can help if your players are struggling, and (especially if the players pick their own decks and share them between their "character" and their "merc") the cards aren't overly complex.

[Geoff]

OPTION 2: HIRELINGS
I'd like the hirelings to be half as powerful as PCs, so that two PCs, each with 2 hirelings, is like a party of 4 strength-wise. However, in my experience, controlling three characters means encounters become LOOOOOOOONG, because you forget what all of them can do, and too many actions and such. Therefore, my ideas for these characters:
- Lower point buy (but again, how much, Idk)
- No access to daily powers
- Encounter powers can be used once per day
- Minor action powers become move actions (to limit number of actions)

This, however, doesn't work with Wizards and Psionic classes, which sucks, and is extra harsh towards classes with strong minor actions powers (Warlock, and all healers).

Also, I'd like to have something to limit the options on equipment for the hirelings, because that two adds to the play time.

What do you guys think? For this option, check out 'Companion Characters' in the DMG 2. They're highly simplified characters (a lot like a monster stat block) that the DM can run or can be given to a player to run in addition to their PC. They fill basic roles and combat functions like a PC, but are much simpler. They don't use magic items or other detailed equipment, particularly (they have flat bonuses like a monster, and don't benefit from enhancement bonuses, for instance). They're intended for these sorts of situations, where the party is short a role that no one wants to cover or the group is just short players.

[Yakk]

An easy way to approach is is to nerf monsters.

1) Halve monster HP (their bloodied value is their full HP, their healing surge value is their bloodied value).
2) Increase encounter budget by 50% (leave monster XP alone).
3) Use 3 minions:normal monster at heroic, 4 at paragon, 5 at epic.
4) Start the players at level 2 or 3.

This gives you a larger encounter budget, but not too large.

Under the above system, two level 3 players have a 450 XP encounter budget, between a group of 4 and 5 level 1 characters. So they can go on an adventure intended for level 1 characters pretty easily. Just trim a minion or two off encounters with lots of minions and reduce monster HP.

This is far, far easier and more transparent than buffing PCs.

(I have playtested the above, and it worked in a published adventure).

The advantage of the above is that your players can use "standard" builds. It also avoids spreading the spotlight between the PCs and their minions. I find a player controlling two PCs tends to disassociate the PC from the player a bunch.

Half HP foes mean that strikers are dropping foes in one shot if they hit hard or crit (which is fun). The foes remain dangerous, so you aren't wasting time evaluating attacks that don't matter. Adding 2 levels to the PCs won't break the encounter designs that badly.

Combat is pretty fast and furious. With +50% budget and half HP, total monster HP is actually 25% less than the budget expects, and total monster HP together with player damage per second mostly determines the time it takes to resolve a combat.

...

If I was to buff PCs, I'd pseudo-eliteize them. This should be enough to boost their encounter budget by about x2:

Each player gets a primary class, plus a hybrid class. They gain the hybrid benefits (so approx +50% HP) (maybe grant them the half-HP every even level from the "odd HP" classes if you care). They gain hybrid attack powers as follows (these do not replace their standard powers, but are parallel):
Level 1: Hybrid daily
Level 3: Hybrid encounter
Level 5: Hybrid retrain daily
Level 9: Hybrid daily
Level 13: Hybrid encounter
Level 15: Hybrid retrain daily
Level 17: Hybrid retrain encounter
Level 19: Hybrid retrain daily
Level 23: Hybrid retrain encounter
Level 25: Hybrid retrain daily
Level 27: Hybrid retrain encounter
Level 29: Hybrid retrain daily
This gives you upwards of 50% more limited use oomph, after you account for their higher levels and the ability to cherry pick powers

Gain hybrid utility powers at all the usual levels.
Yes, this means your characters will have lots of utility powers

You gain two paragon paths. The first starts at level 11, and progresses at double speed (at level 11 you gain level 11 and 12 features, etc), finishing at level 15. You gain the second at level 16, and also progresses at double speed (finishing at level 20).
Because one paragon path isn't enough. Double-speed should make the paragon path abilities show up really fast.

You gain two epic destinies. One starts at level 21 and progresses at normal speed, the other at level 26 and progresses at double speed (so they both finish at level 30). If you have two abilities that state "the first time X" happens, you can save one for the second time it happens.
As the level 30 abilities are not suitable for level 25, this method makes each epic destiny "finish off" at the same point.

On their turn, characters get 2 standard actions, one move, and one minor action.
This is most of the power boost, honestly. But for non-optimized characters, the above stuff will also help tonnes.

This elite-izing has only been theory-crafted, not play tested, so use at own risk.

[Tegu8788]

Yakk, that is devilishly clever.

[GPuzzle]

That is brilliant. Just... brilliant.

[Signir]

And what about two highly optimized hybrid ranger|clerics? ;)

But two players - this is only theoretical question. I, personaly, don´t want play game based on two players.