Guidelines for Crafting Solo Adventures

[MonkeyMage]

If you want diversed monsters in your encounters, you could try a houserule suggested a couple of threads down: multiply all monsters' HP per 1/2, but only award 2/3 of XP, while keeping the same Encounter Budget. (I think that's the same as just upping the budget by 50%). That way, you can add a couple more monsters of different roles to complement each other.

I'm not sure what you mean here. When you say "keep the same Encounter Budget" do you mean same as if it was a 5 person party?


Using my rules of a single PC with a template and a NPC cohort, but only 1.5 set of actions, do you think 2 x level budget make sense, or should it be more/less?

 

[erf_beto]

MonkeyMage: You keep the same encounter budget as in "Number of PCs times XP for monster of Encounter level". So, the budget at level 1, for 1 PC, is 100XP, while for 5 PCs it'd be 500XP. Since, with this houserule, monsters will grant less XP (because you halved their HPs), you have more room to play.

Here's an exemple of a 1st Level Encounter: 100 XP
- 1 Goblin Warrior (Level 1 Skirmisher) 66 XP (100XP x 2/3)
- 2 Goblin Cutter (Level 1 Minion) 33 XP (2x 25XP x 2/3)

I think the true benefit of this houserule shows when you have more PCs though, because that highly increases the budget. Like, for 5 PCs, the same encounter would be:

Level 1 Encounter 500 XP
- 7 Goblin Warrior (Level 1 Skirmisher) 466XP (6x 100XP x 2/3)
- 2 Goblin Cutter (Level 1 Minion) 33 XP (2x 25XP x 2/3)

In the end, this may not work very well when playing solo, but I think fighting only one monster at a time is kinda boring, so it might be worth to give it a try.

Another problem is, as grickherder said, you also increase the total damage the monsters will be doing. Even a single minion can be a threat, specially when you're going solo (maybe it's best not to use minions in this system). On the other hand, the non-minions will have half HP, going down sooner, so it might even things out...

 

[MonkeyMage]

Ok, so you multiple the individual monster's XP by 2/3, not the total budget amount, which is what I thought you meant. Now, unless my math is off, you could just mutiply the total budget by 1.5 and get the same results without having to do the math for each individual creature.

 

[erf_beto]

exactly, just remember to multiply it back to 2/3 before awarding the xp to the PCs, otherwise you'll be giving them 50% more experience for killing weaker monsters.

Anyway, back on topic, here's an idea:

How about creating simple henchmen with Instinctive Actions or some sort of scripted tatics section to help your single player? Really simple stuff: artillery (wizard, archer, warlock), lurker (rogue), soldier (fighter). You could command them with your actions like the summons/companion, but when left to their own devices, they'd be instructed to attack nearest, or move up until within 2 squares of you, or allow you to spend a surge when you're bloodied, etc.

Whould that be too boardgamey?

 

[Kzach]

Actually, I like that idea.

I'm not keen on putting any NPC's in at all to compensate for the lack. But in one or two encounters I could see it happening as a natural extension of the plot and in those circumstances, 'henchmen' would be cool.

On a side note, I'm starting work on a rogue 1 on 1 that would take the character from 1st to 2nd level. I decided on rogue simply because I think it has the most obvious solo capacity.

 

[Crowley42]

I agree with Wik. Change your planning as a DM and embrace and have fun with it being one character. changing the rules becomes less necessary. Any way you do it though make sure its still fun as a one on one game!