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I recently bought all of the 1E books through the Bundle of Holding and have decided to start a campaign using the system and setting. I can only get a group of 3 people to play and so I was wondering if 3 characters are enough to take on some of the adventures like the Tombs of Garsidi or the Arms of Nargash Tor. Please note that I have had no prior experience with this system so I don't know how to properly balance the encounters. I've thought about starting the players at second level and seeing if that would help. Thanks for any replies.

Also, experience: yay or nay? Most of the games I've run in the past have used benchmark levelling, but I wanted some expert opinions for Palladium.

Well, it's POSSIBLE to do those adventures with 3 players. They'll have to be very clever, and you might need to lighten up the numbers or make the game play easy. Nargash, you have to either remove a lot of those orcs and ogres, or make it so that the sound in the place doesn't carry very well. Else, the poor PCs might have a lot of orcs coming at them at once. For Gersidi, you need a few levels under your belt before trying it, so instead of five fourth level characters, maybe three 6th levels could do it. The problem with three players is it makes combat tactics difficult. You really have to be careful if there is a caster in that group who might be stuck in hand to hand combat.

I also suggest that you use the 2nd edition magic and psionics. They're much better. But otherwise 1st Edition is probably superior.

-Vek
"Flame me for my dislike of forcing the fantasy genre into the megaverse."

Are there any adventures from the books or possibly the Rifter magazine that you know of that can fit smaller parties? I was thinking of starting the game with the parcel adventure from the Old Ones Book.

Well, with three players it's difficult. I can't think of any off the top of my head. Prysus has a good list of what's in the Rifters. Most are in the 4-6 player range. What I can recommend is having them in a city. That allows the group to be in close quarters so that the fighters can fight and the mages won't be overwhelmed.

-Vek
"Or someone just throws Cloud of Slumber everywhere."

Disclaimer: I am mostly speaking from the perspective of 1E, but I don't think 2E is much different in the sorts of things I will suggest. I also don't know what systems you may have already played, so your expectations may not line up completely with the system for how building conflicts/fights work.

Don't be too worried about balancing encounters. Unlike D&D/Pathfinder, most everything in the world operates with exactly the same set of rules as PCs. This means you can look at parry/dodge bonuses and armor rating of an NPC, and compare that to the strike bonuses of your PCs to get a good idea which side has the upper hand. While luck with the d20 will certainly factor in, the side with the highest bonuses will tend to come out ahead on the contested rolls. Especially since defenders win ties. You can also look at that same thing in reverse (PC defenses vs NPC offense). If your group is running with little magic, then I would keep magic to a minimum at the beginning, and perhaps keep that to single target abilities. Of course, you would also probably want to compare damage rolls. If one side is much higher than the other, then fewer successful attacks would be needed by that side to "win".

One option would be to not start out running an adventure at all. Have them traveling across the Timiro Kingdom and use the random encounter charts there to throw some encounters at the players. I used to start all my longer games with travel, and most danger coming from beasts at the beginning. I'm not sure what you and your players have played in the past, but it is good to get players of this system thinking "outside the battlemap", because it is totally reasonable to climb a tree and resort to ranged weapons when you run across (or are run across by) some wild pigs. If they encounter a bunch of weak creatures, it is still a bad idea to allow yourself to become surrounded. It isn't bad to learn that trying to take on a bear in melee is very likely to be painful, and is much better avoided. Get them used to the idea that this system doesn't require outright victory to progress characters.

Also, this very beginning is the time to frame how your world works. Do most bandits rob people, but avoid killing because they want you to travel through to be robbed again? Do they capture people and sell them as slaves (not unlikely in the Timiro Kingdom)? Do they keep slaves for camp/porter duty? Basically, how deadly is it to lose against human(oid) foes? Is surrender survivable? Is surrender likely to just be captivity leading to the adventure of escape (and maybe revenge)? How often is talking possible, allowing PCs to put to good use their M.A., P.B., or maybe that Public Speaking skill to influence people and make friends (or at least avoid making enemies)?

All I'm really trying to say is that if you don't find an adventure that is tailored to the size group you have, just give a try at putting something together on your own. You might be surprised how easy it can be.

Note: I only play 1st ed with lots of house rules.

In my many years of playing I noticed that players did enjoy randomly killing cannon fodder, and then having to plan to kill elites.
I have successfully used d&d modules with enemies that have d&d hp, so goblins have 6-10 hp, and orcs have 12-20 hp in general. Then the players get to murder a lot of enemies so they seem less inclined to be murder hobo's. I have fairly successfully imported 2nd ed dnd's magic system (Magus), which seems to be the preferred version, as i also allow the normal version (Wizard) and 2nd ed palladium version (which i call sorcerer).

I modified the rules so only wp plusses to strike (so weapon training) add to armour penetration, so armour is effective, so if you want an orc to be tough, put him in chainmail or better.
This makes paladins and knights scary as hell as generally the biggest bonus to penetrate armour you can get is +5.

The island at the edge of the world is a decent adventure, and i changed skullthumper up to be effectively bloodbowl as i have that boxed set, and the players loved it and spent a fair bit of time become good players and levelling going around villages in the old kingdom playing skullthumper on a bloodbowl board, but i must admit i was using a lot of ideas from salute of the jugger movie.

If you want me to i can elaborate a lot more over pm's

Well, let me tag back in and recommend just doing some world building to start. As Kraynic mentioned, show some of the law and order portion of the world: the politics, the various factions and with whom they might be allied or antagonistic. You could explain all of it but if the PCs encounter people from these factions or people talking about it, it probably sticks more in the mind. It also can allow them to walk in their character's skin a bit as opposed to merely compiling bonuses. I also recommend hiding your dice rolls at the start so that you can save them from bad luck.

-Vek
"I've been considering making the die roll be what defeats AR, no bonuses."

The old ones book is good place to start as it has a lot of the above information that vek mentioned, but a bit of homework before you start is needed, just like with any system. If you are starting in a new system with new players i like the old trope of starting them off in a tavern with no memory of who they are or why they are here, then they get to find out about the system through interacting with it rather than reading about it, and if you start in one of the smaller towns in timiro you can make it so they can easily get a caravan guard job to another town, or let them explore and find a random dungeon, so you get used to the system before starting them on a campaign..

-Just using the wp bonus still usually has the armour work out pretty effectively, and follows the thought of training in a weapon teaches you how to get around armour a bit. I know my players now like to get armour whenever they can, and last campaign their favourite armour was an indestructible light chainmail shirt with an ar of 9, and they certainly don't like coming accross an enemy in full plate or plate and chain.