Duo for phandelver

[zylodrizzt]

I will be running the beginning adventure in the boxed set. I am inexperienced dming and my players are inexperienced as well. What advice do yall have for running only 2 players? I know what they will play. One will play a barbarian of some sort or another. And the other will play a warlock. Thanks in advance.

[Callin]

Tailor encounters to 2 people. The Redbrands could murder em, and the Dragon will murder them. The final dungeon is a toss up though. The Castle will be a deadly challenge as well. Make sure they get chances to rest.

[Vogonjeltz]

You could run two other PCs as companions, additional hirelings of the dwarf who follow the PCs leads.

Alternatively you could try to scale down the encounters, but that would generally require you to start crunching numbers on all the encounters, reducing the number of enemies appropriately, or leveling up your PCs faster so that they can succeed and survive.

I think you controlling 2-3 NPCs to accompany them and who will take direction from the players is probably a lot less work than retooling every encounter.

[doc225]

You cold start them a level or 2 higher, if you really needed to. That would likely work out ok.

[Cespenar]

Yeah, maybe give them a cleric and a rogue NPC to fill out other roles.