Rise of the Runelords party of 3 advice

[tonaxian]

Hey all, I'm dming rise of the runelords for the first time with a party of 3. I was wondering if there is anything special I need to change to balance the game? The party make up is a bloodrager abyssal, a feral Hunter, and a cavalier.

[Dousedinoil]

I've been substitute DMing for almost a year now (give the regular DM a break) and jumped at the chance to run rise of the runelords. IMO the adventure has moments where it is already tough enough for a fairly maximized party of four. I would highly recommend a DMPC or a cohort to help balance out the encounters.

[Malimar]

3 is a little tough, but not as tough as 2. I have three suggestions; pick one (or none, I'm not a cop, don't let me tell you what to do):

a.) Use XP as written, don't just level the party up when the adventure path tells you to. If you use XP, the party will eventually end up slightly higher level than the adventure path expects, and the party will be strong enough to face the foes. (This will be tricky early on, so you might consider letting the characters start with an extra level to smooth things out. Alternately, you could use my favored solution for making the earliest levels less painful, and start each character with 1000 gold, which is enough to buy e.g. decent armor or a wand of cure light wounds.)

b.) If you don't use XP and just level the party up when the adventure path tells you to, keep the party an extra level above what the adventure path expects.

c.) If you don't use XP and just level the party up when the adventure path tells you to, you might also consider allowing the players to be gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm). A party of three gestalt characters ought to be roughly on par with a party of four or five regular characters.

[tonaxian]

Ok thanks!! I'm going to use xp and I'm giving them a chance at a free magic item. Also I was going to allow the leadership feat for either the feral Hunter or the cavalier at level 4.

Just 1 more question. How well do the 3 characters classes mesh in a party?