Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 thinkmilitant Nov 02, 2008 15:09:44	I am a player in a 4th Edition campaign my girlfriend is running for me and a friend of mine. Our party has the following: lvl2 Human Orb Wizard / MC Cleric of the Raven Queen lvl2 Tiefling Infernal Warlock We have played a couple of sessions so far, and it seems alright, but this last dungeon has me worried. The DM had to Dues Ex Machina us twice in order to keep us alive (undead don't take prisoners.) Once the ceiling collapsed because I kept using thunderwave, and the next time she allowed us to shut a riddle door with the opposite of the riddle's answer (something she originally hadn't planned on us being able to do, but since we were on the verge of death...) Any tips on what we can do to improve our survivability? Do we need to add other characters to the party? (Either under our control or NPCs under the DMs control)
#2 blowfish Nov 02, 2008 15:59:27	If the DM is up to it they should probably run a DMPC cleric and maybe as a group start searching for at least one more player if you can get one.
#3 doomsought Nov 02, 2008 16:56:33	Max out your stealth skills and ask for jobs that pertain to your character's better. Less dungeon crawls and combat, and more infiltration and assassination.
#4 eldiran Nov 02, 2008 17:24:00	Perhaps go out of the way to acquire healing potions. Those are extremely helpful to parties without leaders. If there aren't any available, ask your DM if there's a way to make them available to help you out (Brew Potion? Monster loot?).
#5 thinkmilitant Nov 03, 2008 4:38:30	Do you think this pairing would be improved if the Wizard / MC Cleric were replaced with an Artificer / MC Wizard?
#6 Qube Nov 03, 2008 7:46:33	lvl2 Human Orb Wizard / MC Cleric of the Raven Queen lvl2 Tiefling Infernal Warlock Any tips on what we can do to improve our survivability? Do we need to add other characters to the party? (Either under our control or NPCs under the DMs control) he're a tip: get a meatshield? seriously, you guys are playing 2 ranged classes ... ... I recomend a high wisdom paladin, MC ranger (taking the percerption skill).
#7 piers Nov 03, 2008 8:27:03	Buy lots of potions, and consider taking the Durable and/or Toughness feats
#8 JayM Nov 03, 2008 11:10:54	lvl2 Human Orb Wizard / MC Cleric of the Raven Queen lvl2 Tiefling Infernal Warlock Two character party is tweaky under 4e anyways because the game is balanced around the 4 roles. But even beyond that, you have two ranged types and neither is particularly good at small parties. Orb wizards are best locking up a single foe from behind a wall of party members. A staff wizard would be better by himself. But wizards in general work best in larger parties, where they have more groups of targets to engage. Warlocks can have problems with small groups because they are designed for short but ranged combat. Without a party core to flank around, they tend to get tied up too often. A warlock can handle that if built with some melee in mind. If your up to it, I think the best solution for two players is to have both play two characters. That gets you a much more balanced party. Jay
#9 thinkmilitant Nov 04, 2008 15:12:29	So I have been talking with the DM and we are thinking of drawing my character (the wizard) to a close and bringing in a new character, a warforged Artificer / MC Rogue (but with thievery substituted for stealth). We also might have another player join us, but his schedule is rather limited, so I'm not sure if it will work out. I figured having some healing/buffing powers added into the mix would help things out. Plus, the warlock just got some Shimmering Armor (from the Adv. Vault, I believe) which means he won't take AoO from using his spells. Before anyone brings it up, I know shimmering is only supposed to be for cloth, but we fudged it a little.
#10 m4kitsu Nov 04, 2008 23:28:19	Not to invalidate the advice others have already given, but perhaps some tips for the DM of this game as well: Groups unusually large or small require a different hand to guide them than the typical group of 3-5. In this case, small groups have disadvantages beyond the obvious. Most notably, though this is perhaps not an obvious one to those not used to thinking in this manner, but a 2-player party has a greatly limited number of actions in a round. The amount that they can accomplish, in a single round, is greatly reduced compared to even a 3-player party. For the DM's perspective, this means that even an "average" encounter becomes proportionally more difficult if the monsters outnumber the PCs. 4e assumes that the monster to PC ratio will be close to 1:1, and adjusts accordingly when that ratio changes in favor of the PCs (hence why Solos have the ability to attack more than one target as a single action), but doesn't really make any concessions when that is reversed and the monsters outnumber the PCs. Thus, selection of enemies to fight becomes much more critical. You generally want to keep that ratio of monster to PC close to 1:1, and so you will end up using more equal-level creatures, fewer creatures of lower and higher level, the occasional Elite all alone, a Solo very rarely, and Minions will see a slight rise in usefulness for a small party. Another thing to consider is lack of healing surges party-wide. In a party of 4 or 5, the group will usually have an "off-tank" ready to step in if the primary defender starts running low. A small group will not have that luxury, and also has fewer targets for the monsters to pick on -meaning that each character will take more damage and use their surges faster, particularly if that monster to PC ratio aforementioned rises above 1:1. The final point I wish to put forth is once touched upon by others, but I wish to put a DM's perspective to it: availability of healing. Not only does your party have fewer healing surges available, but less ability to use them in a fight. With a 2-player party, a fight that forces them to use more than about 3 surges between them runs a serious risk of killing them, because at that point they're out of ability to activate more. Because of this, it is necessary to adjust the encounters themselves to compensate, or to grant the party a large improvement in the ability to self-heal -staying completely within RAW this is most easily achieved by making healing potions easy to find and readily available, however for a small group such as this, where balance becomes a delicate matter indeed and falls almost entirely in the DM's hands, it may behoove a canny DM to improvise a method that circumvents the problem entirely, notably by allowing them to trigger more healing surges on their own (making Second Wind an at-will is the most readily apparent solution for this).
#11 thinkmilitant Nov 05, 2008 18:43:04	I have DMed a couple of 3.5 two player games myself, so I am aware of the problems inherent in it (not to say I didn't appreciate the advise given above, it was very well worded and informative, and a lot more succinct then my own thoughts on the subject). I have been trying to help the DM as best I can (remember, it is my girlfriend) while at the same time not stepping on her ideas, or making it seem like I wanna DM the game for her, and play too. We are trying to get a 3rd person, but his work/school schedule might prove difficult. We have also talked about playing more then one character per player, but there are a couple of different reasons I fear that may not be best: 1.) The other player doesn't seem to excited about the idea 2.) Talking to yourself can make you look/seem/feel a little crazy 3.) This is the first game were the players have come up with character backgrounds (beyond just alignment and a general personality.) And we are starting to get into our characters. I'm afraid adding in more characters would reverse all that good work. In the mean time, I was wondering if anyone could advise me on how the situation would be improved if I worked with the DM to get my characters reason for adventuring (to track down and kill one particular necromancer) resolved early, so I could retire him (turn him over to the DM as an NPC) and replace him with an artificer. Bottom line: Would we do better as a 2 character group if the Wizard were replaced with a Artificer?
#12 frozenchrono Nov 06, 2008 3:03:48	I have DMed a couple of 3.5 two player games myself, so I am aware of the problems inherent in it (not to say I didn't appreciate the advise given above, it was very well worded and informative, and a lot more succinct then my own thoughts on the subject). I have been trying to help the DM as best I can (remember, it is my girlfriend) while at the same time not stepping on her ideas, or making it seem like I wanna DM the game for her, and play too. We are trying to get a 3rd person, but his work/school schedule might prove difficult. We have also talked about playing more then one character per player, but there are a couple of different reasons I fear that may not be best: 1.) The other player doesn't seem to excited about the idea 2.) Talking to yourself can make you look/seem/feel a little crazy 3.) This is the first game were the players have come up with character backgrounds (beyond just alignment and a general personality.) And we are starting to get into our characters. I'm afraid adding in more characters would reverse all that good work. In the mean time, I was wondering if anyone could advise me on how the situation would be improved if I worked with the DM to get my characters reason for adventuring (to track down and kill one particular necromancer) resolved early, so I could retire him (turn him over to the DM as an NPC) and replace him with an artificer. Bottom line: Would we do better as a 2 character group if the Wizard were replaced with a Artificer? with the adventures you sound like you've been doing and the why it sounds like you've been playing yes. That said this party could work well and be a lot of fun with the right adventures and strategies. Lots of difficult terrain can make your control abilities much more effective, adding arcane/ritual skill challenges to combat could give you a needed advantage and mix things up from regular hack and slash. If you want to try to stick with this party here's what I'd recomend. 1. talk to your DM about it. If they sound interested in changing encounter makup you'll be a lot better off. This is probably the most important thing. 2. Use your powers to combo off of eachother. Create a damaging or immobilizing zone then have your lock diabolic grasp an enemy into it. At level 5 Web + Hunger of Hadar + Thunderwave is made of win. 3. make sure combat starts at a distance and on terrain that's advantagous to you. If your enemies have to run uphill through thin path with a ledge on the side to get to you I'd give you much better odds. 4. POTIONS!!!!!!! 5. Consider multiclassing to gain helpful powers. At least one of you should probably MC into something with healing. The other may want to as well, or possibly ranger for extra damage. Good Luck!!