Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 figurehead00 Jul 18, 2014 6:00:04	I'm really interested in picking up te 5th Ed Starter Set, but it would only be me (probably DMing) and two other people. I know D&D is normally made for like 5 people, so I didn't know if we could have a good experience with it. Any tips for D&D with only a DM and two people? Thanks for the help!
#2 figurehead00 Jul 18, 2014 7:32:25	I just realized this probably isn't the right board for this question. Sorry about that.
#3 bawylie Jul 18, 2014 8:26:28	You're fine. Just have each player handle 2 adventurers.    Back in the day, we'd have whole teams of characters, held in reserve, that we brought up when one was too injured (or dead) to continue.
#4 alienux Jul 18, 2014 8:39:36	As DM, you can always also play one or more of the characters as  NPCs.
(Reply to #4) Impalpable	alienux wrote:
#6 Noctaem Jul 18, 2014 10:51:28	I'm also running a session this weekend since the current DM is going to be away and I'll have 3 players.  I was thinking of just dropping a standard monster from each encounter or running a DM-PC.  When running a DM-PC though you have to make sure that you don't overshadow the actual players.  Be passive with it.
#7 Jaguar451 Jul 18, 2014 11:07:43	And/Or pets (wolf)
#8 ivstin Jul 22, 2014 0:22:11	I regularly game with only three people, occassionally with four (me, my pet koala bear, my roomie, and my old music comp graduate buddy).   Three players could definitely take this adventure, with or without you as the 4th (Sildar Hallwinter is listed as an NPC in the monster list for you to use). I've been writing an adventure intended for 4 to 5 players, but only my ladies regularly play it (my pet koala bear and my roomie). I have two fully made NPC characters (a fighter and a wizard) just in case they ever need help.   GET TO IT!
#9 mrsrockguru Jul 22, 2014 3:36:41	I DM for my hubs and me, he runs all five characters.  Only issue is that I have to run the bookkeeping as he blind, which is not that onerous...  It does also help he has approx 40yrs playing experiance so tactical awareness is not an issue....   So yeah easy mate.
#10 DM_HEEGZ Jul 22, 2014 8:10:44	Yes you can run with three players. In our group, one son is DMing is, the other is playing a fighter and rogue pregen, and i'm playing the other fighter, cleric, and wiz pregens. It's working out okay, but I think three is a bit much for me. In the future I think I'll cap at two PCs each. When Tyranny of Dragons first book comes out next month I'll be DMing, and I'm going to have them each play one PC. I will probably run a DMPC for a third party member. Either a tank or healer depending on what class they need to round them out.   In my experience, as long as you have a rogue and a healer you can usually duo many encounters. Having a tank and DPS style class is also really helpful. I've got some random tables for generating NPCs from some old sourcebooks, so I'll mix that with the new class info in the PHB when it is released. I should be able to come up with some interesting NPCs to run with my two PCs. I am imagining it to be a lot like many computer RPGs where you play the protagonist and have various numbers of NPCs that join your party and are basically controlled by the AI or scripts. Except that they will be controlled by me.   Finally, the DMPCs in their party will not be leader types, as that is the role of the PCs. Instead they will be support roles, either healing, controlling, or tanking damage. Sometimes they will be on their own and a party of two PCs, and I will adapt as needed for encounters (and they will need to as well).