Seeking some ideas for a solo campaign

My wife likes to roleplay sometimes but has had little opportunity since the birth of our daughter a little over a year ago. We recently discussed me running a solo game for her and tonight (after the baby is in bed) is going to be the first session.

Here's the thing:

She is going to be playing a Wizard, starting from 1st level. It is going to be tricky to present challenges to her and keep her alive. I am trying to come up with some ideas for providing some support for the character without saddling her with a ton of NPC's on which she is dependant.

One obvious concern is that she presently has no access to healing and, with 5 HP, is a glass jaw in combat. My idea for a solution to this is for her mentor to provide her with a magic item to start with. The item is:

The Staff of Light

This staff has a continual flame spell cast upon it and the top is always wreathed in flames of almost pure white. Once per day, it can cast Summon Monster IV at caster level 7. The spell will always call forth a Lantern Archon.


So with the staff she can boost her combat effectiveness (with the damage the Lantern Archon can inflict with it's ray of light) and get the benefits of the Aid spell for a short while. It won't actually heal her, but it will give her a decent amount of temporary hit points.

There are a couple of limitations that I am considering putting on the staff to make me feel a little better about handing out the candy so early on and to give it a bit more flavor. One is that because the Lantern Archon is Lawful Good, she has to "stay on the path of right" or he won't come when called. Another possible limitation is that the staff calls a specific Lantern Archon and that if he is ever killed in combat, he is banished and cannot be called for some period of time.

Then, early on, I am planning on introducing an NPC who will accompany her. He will be a Half-Orc, Expert 1 who was the cook and gardener for an aristocrat who she is on a mission to seek out. The aristocrat has been kidnapped and possibly killed and the Half-Orc wants to find him out of a sense of duty. The NPC should be able to give her another little boost in combat effectiveness (if nothing else, he's another target).

Eventually, her path will lead to The Sunless Citidel and she will have the possibility of picking up Meepo as a companion.
I know that this is starting to sound like I'm doing just what I said I didn't want to do - put in a bunch of NPC's. The key to me is that they are optional. She can choose to travel with them or not. She isn't just stuck with them right out of the gate.

Any thoughts?

Don't send here on an adventure. She'll get creamed. Start off with a nice city, maybe even a mage tower training episode that will advance her. Set up the NPCs and allow her to gain XP through good role playing. PResent her with problems she can think her way out of.

Crothian's suggestion is good.

Does she like puzzles and riddles? You can do more with that, then direct conflict.

Run around adventures are good- like she wants to get a friend a job as city clerk, but the person in charge wants a favor first, which requires doing a favor for someone else, and so on, and so on- it is a great way to introduce a lot of npc's and lay adventure seeds.

Another type of run around is gathering ingrediants- each one involving its own little complication.

FD

Edit: Instead of the staff, I would suggest putting together a small group of npc's that travel with the wizard on big quests. It will allow for more rp opportunities. You could even let her control them in battle.

Yea I'd have to agree with that low level mage, starting in a city would be a better idea

Solo level 1 adventure.....

Start with a little sewer adventure
she's looking for someone who hid in the sewer <say the half orc gardener>
IN the process, she needs to fend herself from rats, small spiders, vermin of different sort. Not to kill her, but enough for her to be challenged and the feel that she is slowly gaining ground is a good one.

DO NOT give her the magic item.
DO give her healing salves that heal for 1d4 points of damage and it's nature instead of magical, meaning they leave scars.

Allow her to have 1d6 scrolls of spells she knows. This boosts her ability and learn how to cast in combat without using up spell slots.

She has a familiar. What if the familiar was kidnapped by a rival student who hates her guts? That's another aspect of role playing/getting familiar back, and she can't kill the rival in the city because she will get thrown in jail.

Measure how much exp she needs and portion the encounters that way.
level 1 to level 2 needs 1000 exp.

So find a mix an match of role playing rewards, mission rewards, vermin slaying rewards.

Who knows, maybe while she's down there, she finds a small cache with a few potions of cure light wounds.

The half orc will want to find his master, and she will want to gain the "approval" of her master so she can get the staff of light. I'd say to make something up to cover that aspect, like maybe do a good deed, like finding the half-orc's master.

Have the half-orc's master be kidnapped by bandits or something and have her and the half-orc mount a raid/rescue. With it's success, they gain exp, maybe a level or two by then, the approval and gain a magic item that is useful for her.

the progression starts from there. and that's still with only 1 npc.
And the half-orc might leave with the return of the master.


With proper handling, you should get her to level 2 or 3 before she gets the staff of light. By then she has a small reputation of helping people and people will start to show up asking for her help and more challenges.

Thanks for the quick responses so far. I'm ahead of you with the idea about the "Wizard Trials" idea. The first adventure will be her mentor putting her through a variety of tests that will allow her to use her spells, skills and wits to their fullest.

Although the city adventure idea is a good one (and I've done that sort of thing before for a solo Wizard in a non-D&D game), I don't want to invest the time to flesh out that many NPC's primarily because, while my wife likes NPC interaction, she likes the adventuring and combat parts of the game just as much.

So any ideas that stay within that framework?

Take idea that I had above, switch locale from city to village or small town. Then have half orc captured by bandits, inept but bandits still.

They sold the master to someone else. So she now has to save the half-orc, then go save the Master, before coming back to her Master and get her reward.

dang! I was pumped to reply to this when I saw the thread's title, but all my good suggestions are taken!

Rel said:

So any ideas that stay within that framework?

Click to expand...

Heh, have her play another class.. Or at least multiclass as a rogue for a level or two.

For a straight wizard- create a world light on monsters and big on arcane mages. Her main opponents will be fellow casters- that should even the playing field.

Good luck
FD

In Sword and Fist, there is a magic item called Vest of False Life, or something like that. It increases a character's maximum HP by 10 when worn, but the HP are lost when the vest is removed. Its listed as having some really outrageous cost, like 6k or something, but I would give one of these to the wizard to start with.

Really though, I don't see why you have to be shy about including NPC's in the party. As long as the wizard is the leader, then your wife's character is still the focus of the campaign. You might also think about including a melee oriented character or a cleric at the start of the campaign, maybe a mentor or relative of the wizard, and have this NPC be killed relatively early on.