D&D 4E 4e could use some official one-on-one rules.

[Simplicity]

I've tried to kludge together one-on-one D&D sessions (fairly unsatisfactorily) for a long time. The Gestalt rules go a long way toward helping with filling out party roles when there's only one character, but I think it would be very nice to finally have a well-designed system capable of running one player parties in normal published adventures.

Especially for those of us married fogeys who find less and less time to get the band back together...

All you really need is some way of beefing up the character that maintains their power at slightly above the power of a 4 player group (slightly above because single players are a heck of a lot more vulnerable than a group... one failed save means disaster in 3.5e). Not that that's all that easy to do.

To survive in a one person party as is, you almost need to add a fate token system or something just to deal with flukes of the dice that normally can be managed just fine by a 4-person party.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

4e, more than any other edition before, seems to be oriented around designing for synergies in groups, both for the characters and monsters.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070727a

This can be seen in the idea of "combat roles." The Leader buffs The Defender who is taking damage from the Artillery while the Controller holds back the Mooks so the Striker can get a kill on the Brute.

Combat in solo play is not optimized for this. In any one-on-one situation, you will probably get a rock-paper-scissors problem. Defenders may have no problem wading through Mooks, but lack the appropriate qualities to take on Lurkers. Strikers might be able to effectively evade Artillery style monsters, but get totally punished by Brutes. Etc.

However, once you gain some real play experience, this might not be such a disadvantage. You can use this to more carefully craft encounters. If your player's character is a Defender, you can make sure that Masterminds are of a much lower level if they easily trump your characters role, meanwhile you can give them a full challenge with Brutes and just swamp them with Mooks because you know that they are equipped to deal with those particular challenges.

The defined monster roles makes it easier for you, because you have a basic idea of what works well and what doesn't against your player's character.

The problem of course comes in that without a Leader to heal and buff, your player's character has to take time outs (go back to town, etc) regularly to rest and heal. However, this was the way it was in 3e with groups. So maybe that isn't a game breaker for you.

Because of the emphasis on group play, I don't see WOTC doing any special rules work or write ups for one-on-one, but I think that once the system has been out for a while, there might be an opportunity for an OGL publisher to have a source book for creating encounters, adventures and campaigns appropriate for such campaigns. Even creating magic items etc that may help in this regard but aren't appropriate for group play.

In the past, in one-on-one I have always had my player run multiple characters. That may be easier 4e due to streamling and focus on combat roles.

 

[FireLance]

I don't think there needs to be special rules for one-on-one games. To me, it's a matter of tailoring the challenges more closely to the strengths of the character in question.

That said, there seems to be a move in 4e towards narrowing the gap between the most skilled and the least skilled characters of the same level, e.g. the skill system may change into something similar to the Star Wars Saga Edition system, where characters automatically get half Character Level skill ranks in every skill, being trained in a skill grants +5 to your checks, and being focused in that skill grants another +5.

This actually makes it easier to design general one-on-one adventures as you can expect every character to have a basic level of competence in everything, and have a chance (however small) to succeed at most tasks.

 

[takasi]

I think they just need to make it easier to find people to play with online.

Or make the game so successful that every town has a gaming group.

I also run two solo games (one through MapTool and one through email) in 3.5 and I've had no complaints about balance. The best part about a solo game is that you don't have to worry about a character being "too powerful" vs other players at the table. The email game is not combat oriented, so that's not a biggie. The MapTool game is very combat heavy, but this is made easier by pitting the PC against lower CRs, giving him gestalt levels and a free cohort.

 

[Baumi]

Since the base is now 5 Players instead of 4 I wouldn't count on official Rules.

But I think it will still be easier than in 3.x since they said that Encounters are easily adaptable (just drop the problematic Enemy-Roles) and the new skill rules make it easier to do things you are not specialized in.

My experience showed me that the Problem with one on one Games are not the Rules but that the Play get quickly boring since there is only the GM you can talk to and if you are stuck with a riddle or problem you have no one that can help you with new Ideas.

 

[Jack99]

There are some quiet decent treads on wizards boards about running one man campaigns. Unfortunately, I dont have them bookmarked anymore, but try googling it.

 

[Kaodi]

I suspect that if the multi-classing rules actually work this time around it will be possible to make a decent character that covers two or three bases and can take care of themselves.