The dangers of soloing

I'm playing a 15th level ranger wizard eldritch knight in one solo campaign. He's pretty good at figuring things out, hand to hand combat, blasting things with spells, talking with NPCs and can use a cure light wounds wand for healing. I even have a giant otter (dire weasel with swim speed and no blood drain) familiar who can help out in some situations. He has combat reflexes and improved unarmed strike so even when jumped by surprise with no weapons out he is not completely helpless.

Last night I was shown the vulnerability of soloing.

I checked out a burned down village hut as I stumbled in the middle of a forest vs village war that I suspect is over a misunderstanding. I got jumped by animated trees, escaped them with my flying boots sucking up a little damage and was looking for the hidden animating treant calling out that I wanted a parley. Unfortunately I did not climb high enough quickly enough to escape his readied charge to grapple. My AoO did not beat his DR so he got his tree grip on me and the difference in size and strength was enough that he quickly pinned me and had his trees join him to beat on me doing subdual damage.

Damn grappling.

If I was in a group I'd suck up the damage while they beat on me and my party beat on them, with me doing little unarmed strikes for possible damage in the grapple but mostly taken out of the action while tieing up an opponent in the grapple.

As a solo adventurer this is much more threatening. I could try and break the grapple but its a long shot against the odds and would have to happen twice as I got pinned. I could try attacking with unarmed strikes but with his DR it is not a winning strategy. My contingency spell is a defensive one, but not much help here. I don't know dimension door but came to an epiphany about its usefulness as a contingency spell.

So I tried for a bluff to fake unconsciousness and hope he takes me to the woodland leader. That's how we ended. We'll see how that goes. I am at his mercy, I could be killed with nobody rescuing me, I could lose my stuff (and I've got tons of cool stuff, including a huge spell book), and who knows what else.

I'm really looking forward to this, as long as the DM does not kill me out of hand. I'll cut right to the heart of woodland folk and talk to them, learn more about the situation, and possibly resolving the war.

But I am at the mercy of hostile NPCs who have been killing humans ruthlessly without parleying. It is a precarious position and I would hate to see the end of this character I've been playing continuously for more than a decade through various incarnations of D&D. But if I pull it off it will be really cool. Luckily at the end when the treant pinned me, slapped a branch over my mouth to stop my statements that I was there to help and had his trees beat on me as he crushed me, he called me a "lying wizard" and said X will figure out my lies and decide my fate after I regain consciousness. So it looks like there will be a chance to talk my way through this.

So vulnerabilities that come to mind when soloing are

1 grappling

2 shut down spells like charm or hold person, once you are neutralized you are super vulnerable.

3 overextending in combat, no back up healers so going negative is much more risky than in a group where you can be healed.

However these also make prisoner story scenarios possible that are tough to do realistically in a game with a group.

Contingency Freedom of Movement might be a good idea, too.

Most parties have some weaknesses, but they are more numerous in a solo campaign. It's a different style of game which also present some other opportunities that aren't possible in a party either.

See this thread (or don't look at it), tell your DM to look at it. He'll thank me in the morning.

Use This Encounter Please 1

Any sort of paralyzation in a solo campaign can be complete doom. Ghouls and Carrion Crawlers are real menaces.

As a DM I use them very sparingly when I run a solo adventure. They easily can make a encounter a save-or-die experience.

sleeping in the wilds... means random death.

You'll go blind if you "solo" too much.

diaglo said:

sleeping in the wilds... means random death.

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Mage's magnificent mansion.

Food and protected shelter for 2 hours a level.

Gentlegamer said:

You'll go blind if you "solo" too much.

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That was . . . bad.

dim door out of grapple. with your contingency say from a scroll.

philreed said:

That was . . . bad.

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But it's pretty much what I was going to say if I hadn't noticed he had already done so. Although I was going more for the hairy palms approach...