D&D 5E One-on-one adventuring in 5e

[Sunseeker]

Numbers are so telling in 5e, it would probably be advisable to have a party - have the lone player play a couple characters and have a DMPC tag along. Or go really old-school and let the PC have a number of henchmen and hirelings.

I haven't found it to be a problem with one character and one DMPC (which is built as a normal character, no special DM-powers). I have not noticed a problem with running monsters straight from the book at the appropriate challenge rating, in fact it's a little easy.

 

[Zaruthustran]

That's a good story, Rabbitbait. My son is a little over 1 year old and I'm very much looking forward to his first game. He already has a full set of (giant, non-choking-hazard) dice.

Don't fret too much about that first character death. I was brought into D&D at the tender age of 6 by my siblings, who were in middle school. My halfling character lasted about three sessions. He wisely avoided death by my refusal to drink a potion found in a giant rat nest (it was poison, and killed the Magic-User who sipped it). But then we encountered a swarm of Shadows. With the wizard dead and only a single magic weapon (a +1 dagger) between us, the whole party quickly succumbed. Somewhere, out there, there's a Shadow of a halfling named Falthou on the hunt.

It was a traumatic experience, but a valuable one. Little 6-year-old me learned decisions (like "should we decide to press onward even though we lack a magic-user?") have consequences. And that this game, D&D, is unlike any other.

 

[Bera]

If you're looking to find some adventures (old school, 2nd edition, 3.5/pathfinder...) you might check out this blog post: tower-of-infinite-evil.blogspot.com/2014/07/solo-adventures.html

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Hey, thanks, Bera.

 

[redrick]

I enjoy solo adventures and would like to run more of them. But I also enjoy non-solo adventures and only have so much time.

I ran a solo campaign in 4e that was pretty successful with one companion NPC that I RP'ed out of combat but the player directed in combat. His features were simple, like standard monster features, which allowed the player to manage her complex 4e character and then a simple archer with the "leader" ability to shout up hitpoints when things got rough.

I ran a couple of solo sessions in 5e using Keep on the Borderlands. For this, we used a full compliment of hirelings. It went ok. Probably not the adventure to run solo, but it was the one I was itching to run. (So shortly afterwards, I got a full group together to play it.)

I think the 4e concept of companion characters (from DMG2) works really well. The character is basically a level-appropriate bag of hit points to allow for some basic flexibility in combat tactics and an extra set of actions, but they get one role-specific feature that helps to round out the shortcomings of the sole PC. On the other hand, 5e allows characters to cover more bases and be less specialized if that's the route they want to go, so simple guard hirelings to help hold or choke point or provide ranged support might be all you need.

 

[redrick]

Another question is, are you planning on starting at first level? True first level solo (no hirelings or companions or DM NPCs) would probably be pretty tricky if you intend to have any combat, but, theoretically, once you get to 3rd level or so, you could just start running 1st level adventures. Bounded accuracy should allow them to scale without too much tweaking, and a reasonably rounded character, say with the criminal background to provide stealth and thieve's tools, should be able to at least have a chance of success in most situations.

I can imagine Keep on the Borderlands working really well as a Yojimbo style adventure with a 3rd or 4th level Fighter/Criminal or Fighter/Charlatan. The character would need to be able to handle herself in a few combats against a group of low-level humanoids, but they could then start stalking around from camp to camp and pitting the monsters against each other without having to single-handedly clear out a cave full of bugbears.

 

[S'mon]

Looking at the mechanics, I would recommend giving solo PCs (or buddy-team 2-PC parties) Proficiency in all saves, and probably in all their class skills, also.
Max hp every level might be good if you plan to run a lot of combat, but I don't think this is nearly as necessary as saves proficiency, assuming you are using lower-level monsters. HP are only really an issue at 1st level, when a 'rats/kobolds in the cellar' type newbie quest is in order. I would have your unconscious 0 hp PC auto-stabilise and be left for dead or taken prisoner where possible; even a predator might drag him back to its lair for later consumption allowing for a short rest & spending of healing dice.

 

[Bera]

If you are concerned about strengthening a solo PC (or a small party of 2-3) I'd strongly consider adapting the 3.5 gestalt rules: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm

Basically, just advance in two classes at the same time. You might have to make a few decisions about which features stack (a sorcerer/wizard should probably get double spell slots, but I'm not sure a barbarian/fighter should double up on extra attack). Assuming you got the proficiencies for both classes you'd probably have two of the big three saves, a decent hit die, and the ability to last a bit longer than a regular character.

You're a little stronger and have more options, but you don't necessarily have more actions. A fighter/wizard or cleric/monk would be pretty slick that way.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

I started a solo 5th Ed Middle-Earth campaign (2nd Age) for my nephew, the character is a Half-Elf Paladin, started him off at 1st level, but with an extra full HD (so, 20 + Con modifier HP).

 

[Tony Vargas]

I haven't found it to be a problem with one character and one DMPC (which is built as a normal character, no special DM-powers). I have not noticed a problem with running monsters straight from the book at the appropriate challenge rating, in fact it's a little easy.

Given how swingy I've seen encounters get at even odds (ie: equal numbers of monsters and PCs) with parties of 4 or more, that's a little surprising. I suppose if you're one or two PCs, mostly facing single monsters, the possibility of 'focus fire' from the opposition is, at least, no longer a factor...