Alright first of to those who ran The Gathering Storm, I know it's somewhat combat heavy and I was wondering how hard would it be to run it with only 2 players (A Thug and an Agent) ?

Secondly, did anyone ever used hirelings with a player group, like a support npc with the players? And how did you do it? Just used a normal NPC type with A.C.E. or a total character built the same way as the players? And in combat situation, did you let the player use the npc by themselves or use did you play him in combat also?

I'm pretty much just asking since our group situation changed a bit and I might be down a player and I'm looking into solutions until I can find a third one

Thanks in advance!

(1) The adventure as written would be very tough on 2 PC's. They would get slaughered in the Chapter One beastmen encounter. You would have to re-write the adventure extensively and heroes would have to consciously avoid combat at times.

(2) I have handled NPC aid with a "environment card" like effect. For example, in Gathering Storm at one point "Serjeant Balthus" of the watch was along with the PC's. Rather than rolling dice etc. and taking focus off the PC's (and slowing down game) there was a "Serjeant Balthus" card noting how he could be drawn on for an extra defensive black die into foe's pool (the Serjeant helps defend you), a white die into attack pool, and a limited number of expertise dice. The player had to narrate what the Serjeant was doing in each case and he couldn't do more than one thing each round.

I did a similar thing for limited healing aid from another NPC at one point.

sinkarna said:

It's possible. I don't think it needs extensive re-writing but you have to modify some parts and maybe remind the players that head-on combat might not be the answer. You could describe the enemy as overwhealmingly many and let the players decide on how to proceed.

Anyhow, use henchmen a lot. That way you can have many weak enemies and since individual henchmen groups are allways equally large as the number of PC's that will balance it out a bit.

So I think it's possible, we ran it with 4 PCs and most of the time we lacked at one of the players, that worked out even if there's only 2 combat focused characters in the group.

The idea with using a card for hired help is a good one, that might help even the odds.

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sinkarna said:

I like this idea! I'm gonna try it! Thanks a lot!

valvorik said:

When handling NPC's who accompany the players I usually develop them to have at least one area of expertise and then use them in a similar fashion as was mentioned above. They are bit players and I only use them to add a couple dice at most as though they are aiding the player's characters. The PC's can decide what the NPC's do if they desire otherwise I run them in an appropriate fashion to their skill sets and area of specialty.

It's important to not roll dice too often for the NPC's because it slows the pace and detracts the attention away from the Players which is usually a bad thing to do.

I completely agree! This game especially is all about the players and running npc's as pc's would be really unwieldy with this system.

I'm thinking of doing something where players can use the A.C.E. dices of the npc, maybe an action card or 2 and maybe a special effect when a player that is being assisted by the npc rolls some boons or comet.

If I run 'meat shield' NPCs I run them as groups of henchman with each group having a number of NPCs equal to the PCs. I then square these off against groups of monster henchmen or individual monsters during the fight. Depending on how big the scrap is I either roll for the groups of henchmen or use a progress tracker to abstract things.

You can let the PCs influence either option with inspirational or helpful support/social action cards and let the bad guys influence things with appropriate actions (Waagh effects for green skins, maybe a War gor kills an ungor to motivate the rest if the bad guys are losing etc.)

Also, again for those who ran Gathering Storm, how fast/slow did the storm tracker advance?did it make much of a difference?

Gathering Storm is a great adventure to run with a small party, because it provides three different NPC adventurers that you can send into danger with the party.

As far as the storm tracker goes: IIRC, it advances once space per hour as writtenwhich is absurdly fast. I ignored that part,advanced it after every encounter, every night of rest,every delay symbol rolled in story mode. That meant it maxed out just before the finale, but that'll very a bit depending on how conservative your party ishow you interpret "encounter"

One space per hour the PCs don't do anything. Not necessarily one space per hour.