[3.5] D&D for 2 players + DM

[matthewmw64]

Hi all,

It looks like in the Near future I amy be DMing a game fro just 2 players. Does anyone know of any homebrew rules / have any suggestions for running such a thing? It's been a while since I've played (Nearly 2 years now ) and so I'm keen to do what it takes to get back into it

Any help at all is much appreciated.

Cheers,
Matt

[Esser-Z]

Homebrew unnecessary. Gestalt rules designed for exactly such situations. Suggest using them.

Addendum. Also a viable situation for the ever-controversial DMPC.

[Sdonourg]

I was DM'ing a 2-man party almost all the time and I had no problems and used no houserules or gestalts.
It's okay to play normally.

[Esser-Z]

There is that, too. As long as the DM scales encounters to party capability, two-man plays fine.

[Tyndmyr]

What everyone else said. I don't even bother scaling. The world is the world.

However, in game, my PCs are smart enough to realize that if the cleric's visiting the temple, the ranger's riding to the next town with a warning, and the rogue is too hung over to come with, well...the two of them best be cautious.

So, they play it safe. But even so, a two way split on xp is a good deal.

[Gavinfoxx]

Encourage the characters to play characters that can come with their built in 'party', like Druid, Golemficer, or Dread Necromancer?

[Nick_mi]

I played one this summer, sometimes it was even just 1 on 1. We both had two characters. One was real voistrous(obviously the guy I roleplayed), and then the other was treated like an NPC, but in combat I controlled him.

[Kylarra]

I'll second gestalt rules to cover bases, and potentially army-in-a-box type class choices.

Class synergy will be key in a 2 player game, since that will allow you to work together better which is far more important than if you have two to four other meatshields members in the party to soak up your mistakes.


Alternatively, just have each player play 2 characters, but that's another barrel of monkeys.

[bokodasu]

You don't have to do anything - if your players are the type who play smarter when it's more dangerous. But you can always use Leadership, or "animal companions for everyone!" or the 2-character thing - I've done all of those, and they all work fine. (My favorite is "play smarter," though.)

[Janus]

I just recently started playing D&D, but I've both DM'd and played a 2-player game (4e).

I was the DM in my group's first session, and I made a DMPC cleric to support them (warden and wizard). I then simply ignored what I knew about the dungeon and applied only what my character would logically know. You might check out D&D Solitaire for ideas.

The second time, I was playing my cleric along with the wizard from the previous session, and the warden's player was DM. However, he did it without a DMPC. He ruled that his warden left to who-knows-where, but the guild sponsoring our next mission gave us an archon to help out.
It worked out well. The wizard and I controlled the archon (though the DM warned that if we gave it conflicting orders, it would get confused and not act during its turn), and the DM's only input on behalf of the archon was any one-word messages it communicated (such as "Locked" when it inspected a door, though we joked that when we're done with it, it'll only say, "Why? Why? Why?").

Like others have said, 2 players works fine. Just watch how large you make the monster groups, and be sure to vary the types of encounters so that the players' individual strengths shine.

[Dirty n Evil]

I've been playing in this situation for years, actually. There have been guest appearances by friends who join in for a few sessions, but for the most part that's the way it's been for me and my two pals.

What we do is typically everyone runs two characters, DM included. Most often, the DM won't have a heavy spell caster of any sort, which allows him to focus his characters while managing the creature encounters the easiest. When the players get used to this, a good balance can be acheived as they each can have one character who's a melee combatant and one who isn't. They get to appreciate multiple aspects in the same game.

It requires a bit of mental juggling, but after a while you get a sense of the flow and it becomes easier.

[Remmirath]

My usual game is three people, DM included. We takes turns DMing in the same world. We do also have a ton of house rules, but I don't believe any of them actually have anything to do with the three-player nature of the game.

Our solution is for everybody to play more than one character. Typically three a piece, DM included - as, due to the rotation, when that person is not DMing those are their PCs and when they are DMing they get a temporary switch to NPC.
The 'DM included' part requires that everyone who's DMing is good about not using player knowledge, so it might be a bit shaky when starting out.

One of our campaigns has a slightly crazy number of characters a piece (20+), but I wouldn't recommend that unless you're sure all your players can handle it - and even then, it's usually more like eight a piece per session, and it's only in place that campaign due to the nature of the campaign.

Two or three, though, is pretty easy. To start with they probably want to keep their second and third characters with classes that don't take too much effort, and then just make sure that they have very distinct personalities.

Combat actually goes quite a bit faster with two or three people playing multiple characters than it would with the same number of people as characters, or at least that's been the case every time I've seen. Other than that, there's not really much difference.