D&D 4E 4E solo advice
I'm running a solo with my wife, she plays three characters and it works just fine. One character solo's are doable, but you're going to get lots of advice about how you should give them an npc friend. That's why i just went with three characters controlled by one player, still solo, but much easier to plan and balance.
On the plus side, 4E characters tend to be more durable -- higher hit points, healing surges, and lower monster damage.
That being said, I think it requires the same adjustments that prior editions required. You tailor the game to the character, you reduce the amount of combat (and scale it), you might introduce henchmen, sidekicks, or hirelings. You can also, however, freely break "game balance" because there is only you and the one PC. Give them more powers, let them pick powers from any class, let them take feats regardless of tier, whatever.
I think solo campaigns are simultaneously the trickiest and most liberating type of campaign to run, as a DM.
That being said, I think it requires the same adjustments that prior editions required. You tailor the game to the character, you reduce the amount of combat (and scale it), you might introduce henchmen, sidekicks, or hirelings. You can also, however, freely break "game balance" because there is only you and the one PC. Give them more powers, let them pick powers from any class, let them take feats regardless of tier, whatever.
I think solo campaigns are simultaneously the trickiest and most liberating type of campaign to run, as a DM.
Zaran
Adventurer
Use lots of minions. Turn normal monsters into minions by having them always do minimal damage and dying on a hit. Use normal monsters as "solo" fights. You can still vary the level. Another thing you can do with minion heavy fights is make it so you can spend extra (W) damage for a plus 1 to hit. This gives high damage encounters a use against minions
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KahnyaGnorc
First Post
Buff up the PC, using some sort of gestahlt set-up (either one of those suggested here or elsewhere on the 'net, or start with a hybrid set-up and give the PC more of the powers from each) or just buff them up within their own class. Then, add a sidekick that complements the PC (using a normal class, so is weaker than the PC but not too weak as to be more of a liability).
You can even have the first adventure completely solo, with the sidekick joining in (even the cliched "Rescue the princess, princess decides to stick around" type of situation) during/after the adventure.
Since most stories center around a singular hero or a hero/sidekick dynamic, you and your player can have a lot of fun playing out scenarios that are often more contrived-seeming or awkward when applied to a full party.
Oh, and the minionizing (I don't care if it is not a real word) of normal monsters is a great idea. You can apply greater "realism" to the nameless hordes, while making the PC, sidekick, and villains seem even more above the norm than usual.
You can even have the first adventure completely solo, with the sidekick joining in (even the cliched "Rescue the princess, princess decides to stick around" type of situation) during/after the adventure.
Since most stories center around a singular hero or a hero/sidekick dynamic, you and your player can have a lot of fun playing out scenarios that are often more contrived-seeming or awkward when applied to a full party.
Oh, and the minionizing (I don't care if it is not a real word) of normal monsters is a great idea. You can apply greater "realism" to the nameless hordes, while making the PC, sidekick, and villains seem even more above the norm than usual.
DragoonLance
First Post
Downgrade all monsters a level: minions become the standard, standard monsters become elites, elites count as solos. A paladin would be a good character that can cover most of the bases, perhaps with a companion character like the one from the WotC solo adventure (a goblin that provided healing, combat advantage and extra attacks to the PC.) If they don't mind running two characters I think a standard paladin with an essentials druid could just about cover all the bases from a player powers standpoint. But don't let this stop them from building whatever they want, I'm currently doing a solo game with my son, who is playing a ninja. 
I'd recommend an Avenger if the player in question has any desire to play one. They already have the whole brooding, lone wolf vibe going for them. If not I'd recommend essentials War Priest or a Paladin. For some non-classic D&D inspiration for plots, pacing, storylines check out the comic Lone Wolf & Cub (the story of a ronin who adventures alongside his very young son).
I also think a second character is essential, perhaps run by the DM. If the PC is a wizard make a hulking, nearly mute barbarian who is sworn to protect him. If the character is a rogue, make an ugly, warted bullywug who skulks behind a hooded cloak right alongside him. The possibilities are endless, just make sure the npc doesn't become the focus of the campaign. Have him/her provide occasional comic relief and plot hooks (oh no the bullywug fell into the moat while you were scaling the castle walls). Have the npcs combat actions be quick and simple...or if the player feels up to the task have him select the npc's combat actions each round.
I have run several solo campaigns and a great many "buddy" campaigns (two players) and they have been a blast.
Happy Gaming!
William C. Pfaff
President of Escape Velocity Gaming
I also think a second character is essential, perhaps run by the DM. If the PC is a wizard make a hulking, nearly mute barbarian who is sworn to protect him. If the character is a rogue, make an ugly, warted bullywug who skulks behind a hooded cloak right alongside him. The possibilities are endless, just make sure the npc doesn't become the focus of the campaign. Have him/her provide occasional comic relief and plot hooks (oh no the bullywug fell into the moat while you were scaling the castle walls). Have the npcs combat actions be quick and simple...or if the player feels up to the task have him select the npc's combat actions each round.
I have run several solo campaigns and a great many "buddy" campaigns (two players) and they have been a blast.
Happy Gaming!
William C. Pfaff
President of Escape Velocity Gaming
Merkuri
Explorer
You can take some inspiration from video games and give the PC a companion, using the companion rules in the DMG2 (I think that's where they appeared).
The player gets to control the companion in battle, but the DM controls the companion's personality and stuff like that. It can give you a way to roleplay when there's no one else around and it lets the PC have a bit more flexibility in battle. You can find plot reasons to swap out the companion every once and a while for some variety.
As a player, I find that I like to have one character that I think of as "me" in a game, so I'd find this type of setup more appealing than if the DM had told me to roll up two or three characters and I was expected to play them all equally. Plus, having two or three characters' worth of powers in a battle is a bit hard to juggle as you get to higher levels, which makes the companion mechanic appealing.
The player gets to control the companion in battle, but the DM controls the companion's personality and stuff like that. It can give you a way to roleplay when there's no one else around and it lets the PC have a bit more flexibility in battle. You can find plot reasons to swap out the companion every once and a while for some variety.
As a player, I find that I like to have one character that I think of as "me" in a game, so I'd find this type of setup more appealing than if the DM had told me to roll up two or three characters and I was expected to play them all equally. Plus, having two or three characters' worth of powers in a battle is a bit hard to juggle as you get to higher levels, which makes the companion mechanic appealing.
Nytmare
David Jose
Pretty much copy and pasted from: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/260649-how-build-d-d-4th-edition-solo-adventures.html
It's been a while since I last ran my son in his solo campaign, but here are the guidelines I set up for myself as best I can remember:
It's been a while since I last ran my son in his solo campaign, but here are the guidelines I set up for myself as best I can remember:
Power Level - Lots of people look for ways to power up the character abilities or make monsters weaker. Instead of doing a bunch of extra math for every encounter, I started him off at 4th level and only threw him up against things that were under his level.
Healing - Healing potions, healing potions, healing potions. There were too many early adventures where I screwed this one up and didn't give him a way to access his healing surges. In addition, the cleric Brother Samael, was his favorite NPC tagalong.
Allies - I had a rotating stable of different NPC allies and, in general, had at least one running with him at all times. We had one big arc where there were three of them with him for a while, and one short adventure where he got separated from the group and was off on his own. I tried looking at it from the point of view of He-man episodes. There was almost always a group of people working with him, even if most those other people were just running ahead to take care of other tasks, or getting captured by the bad guys, or...Orko. Encounters varied wildly depending on which ally was with him, most notably when the ally was a leader.
Encounter Makeup - This is going to depend entirely on what class your friend ends up going with, and whether or not you have allies running along with. Lots of bad guys are dangerous if there's no controller, status effects are dangerous if there's no leader, etc.
Combat - Even though I only rarely controlled more than one good guy NPC, I still didn't want to hog all the die rolling time. I chose actions, but my son rolled all the good guy d20s. I streamlined the NPC character sheets so that everything was checkboxes and tick marks and damages for all NPC on NPC actions were static numbers.
Healing - Healing potions, healing potions, healing potions. There were too many early adventures where I screwed this one up and didn't give him a way to access his healing surges. In addition, the cleric Brother Samael, was his favorite NPC tagalong.
Allies - I had a rotating stable of different NPC allies and, in general, had at least one running with him at all times. We had one big arc where there were three of them with him for a while, and one short adventure where he got separated from the group and was off on his own. I tried looking at it from the point of view of He-man episodes. There was almost always a group of people working with him, even if most those other people were just running ahead to take care of other tasks, or getting captured by the bad guys, or...Orko. Encounters varied wildly depending on which ally was with him, most notably when the ally was a leader.
Encounter Makeup - This is going to depend entirely on what class your friend ends up going with, and whether or not you have allies running along with. Lots of bad guys are dangerous if there's no controller, status effects are dangerous if there's no leader, etc.
Combat - Even though I only rarely controlled more than one good guy NPC, I still didn't want to hog all the die rolling time. I chose actions, but my son rolled all the good guy d20s. I streamlined the NPC character sheets so that everything was checkboxes and tick marks and damages for all NPC on NPC actions were static numbers.
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