different counts of posts displayed

So I know that you can change the setting of how many posts you want to display but I want to display different amounts on the same page.

Well…to better explain what i want to do: I want to display the first post in full and the titles of the related posts in the sidebar. i was able to get the titles only to display but i need to manipulate the amount shown and right now the setting applies to both. anyone know the php code for this?