Kelleris
Explorer
I think I'll cast a sorta-vote for the rogue (though I'd play a bard if I had my druthers). One thing that doesn't seem to enter into people's calculations makes the rogue viable, to my mind; balanced encounters.
All the stuff about rogues is true in a full-sized party. However, if the DM is making balanced encounters for just you, that means that you knock off 4 CRs before anything else is taken into consideration. That means that the toughest single opponent that you can reasonably expect to face (the equivalent of a Cr 12 encounter for 4 12th-level characters) is 4 levels below you.
Given the geometric rate of increase of virtually every important modifier in D&D, a lone character has some huge advantages that don't materialize for standard-level parties. A wizard with four levels on his opponent can consider finishing him off in melee as a viable option, simply because he's got those four bonus HD that a wizard in a larger group doesn't have the luxury of.
Now, everyone has this going for them; cross-class skills are actually useful, you can melee a greater percentage of enemies than usual for a large party, the odds of the huge bruiser who can drop you with a crit showing up are very low, and so forth. I think the rogue gets the best out of this deal, though, meaning that as a solo character his niche gains more inflation from the D&D system than any others.
For one thing, the rogue's primary weaknesses are not issues of power per se, they're problems with the results of a failed roll. Rogues do huge amounts of damage... unless they miss with their SA. They rarely if ever take any reflex-type or trap damage... unless they blow the roll. They have pretty good defenses (high Dex, half-way decent armor, usually surprise)... but an enemy blows through their hit points if they do hit. In a game where the enemies are 4 CRs below what you're used to, this chance for catastrophic failure (very concentrated in the rogue's MO) plummets. Those four levels mean that you will almost always make your Hide/Move Silently chacks, almost always save vs. attacks, almost always find the traps, etc. Perhaps most importantly, an extra 2 or 3 SA dice means that your first attack stands a vastly better chance of felling a foe than in any normal game. In a solo game, instead of having to try to drop an ogre in one SA, you'll be knifing kobolds instead. Invest in some poisons and wands using your vast-for-the-challenges wealth, and you can cover almost any circumstance.
Something also needs to be said about skills, too, the glaring weakness of the cleric and (to a lesser extent) the druid. It is in the nature of a skill check, moreso than any other, that no training means no chance. Sometimes a UMD check or a successful bout of Diplomacy are the only way to progress, something that never happens when you deal with combat situations, where everyone in D&D has some skill.
All the stuff about rogues is true in a full-sized party. However, if the DM is making balanced encounters for just you, that means that you knock off 4 CRs before anything else is taken into consideration. That means that the toughest single opponent that you can reasonably expect to face (the equivalent of a Cr 12 encounter for 4 12th-level characters) is 4 levels below you.
Given the geometric rate of increase of virtually every important modifier in D&D, a lone character has some huge advantages that don't materialize for standard-level parties. A wizard with four levels on his opponent can consider finishing him off in melee as a viable option, simply because he's got those four bonus HD that a wizard in a larger group doesn't have the luxury of.
Now, everyone has this going for them; cross-class skills are actually useful, you can melee a greater percentage of enemies than usual for a large party, the odds of the huge bruiser who can drop you with a crit showing up are very low, and so forth. I think the rogue gets the best out of this deal, though, meaning that as a solo character his niche gains more inflation from the D&D system than any others.
For one thing, the rogue's primary weaknesses are not issues of power per se, they're problems with the results of a failed roll. Rogues do huge amounts of damage... unless they miss with their SA. They rarely if ever take any reflex-type or trap damage... unless they blow the roll. They have pretty good defenses (high Dex, half-way decent armor, usually surprise)... but an enemy blows through their hit points if they do hit. In a game where the enemies are 4 CRs below what you're used to, this chance for catastrophic failure (very concentrated in the rogue's MO) plummets. Those four levels mean that you will almost always make your Hide/Move Silently chacks, almost always save vs. attacks, almost always find the traps, etc. Perhaps most importantly, an extra 2 or 3 SA dice means that your first attack stands a vastly better chance of felling a foe than in any normal game. In a solo game, instead of having to try to drop an ogre in one SA, you'll be knifing kobolds instead. Invest in some poisons and wands using your vast-for-the-challenges wealth, and you can cover almost any circumstance.
Something also needs to be said about skills, too, the glaring weakness of the cleric and (to a lesser extent) the druid. It is in the nature of a skill check, moreso than any other, that no training means no chance. Sometimes a UMD check or a successful bout of Diplomacy are the only way to progress, something that never happens when you deal with combat situations, where everyone in D&D has some skill.
