Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 2337525" data-attributes="member: 8835">I suggest using my Effective Party Level (EPL) formula for estimating combat difficulty:total levels of all characters in party / 4 = EPLThis means a lone 1st level PC has an EPL of 1/4 and should use 20% of his resources versus a CR1/4 monster.This is much better to compare with for monster CRs than saying he's in a party of 1st levels (only one character) and trying to put him against CR1 monsters.Combat should be infrequent, highlights to the story.  Consider most books have way fewer combat encounters than the typical D&D game.It should be up to the PC if he wants company or not.  Make lots of NPCs, maybe some will help him if they are in the area.  Don't foist the D&D party concept in a 1 player game.  This is your chance to be free of that meta-game concept, if the player wants to.Characterize your NPCs.  Every encounter can be a roleplaying encounter, from buying a sword from Gilmor the swordsmith, to trading insults with Count Filchet who is displeased with your recent heroics that have foiled his smuggling schemes.It will be harder in some respects on a single player, because they won't have friends to brainstorm solutions to mysteries and puzzles.  Try to avoid too clever of a puzzle, or make sure there's a brute force and cheating solution to the puzzle.Putting NPCs with the PC to build a party can lead to the dreaded DMPC.  Try to avoid that.JanxJanx</blockquote>

Verification