Solo Characters

[Unwise]

In my current gaming, I play and GM mostly single player games. I find that this brings up a very unique style of play, one that I actually prefer to multi-player games at this stage. The story is crafted around a particular character and the PC-NPC interactions are far more detailed and varied than you would find in a group game. In a group game where everyone was a roleplayer, things might be different of course.

There are a thousand interesting topics that spring up from solo games: Roleplaying; character development; encounter building; plots; GMing advice; deaths; un/importance of balance where it is not relative to other PCs; running multiple companions; gaming tools etc. For the moment though I would like to talk about designing a PC for single player use.

Q: What character would you choose if you had to adventure alone?

Here are my thoughts on the topic, some general rules I have discovered:

1. You must have a non-violent way of addressing conflict. Either you must be an exceptional theif, or a master diplomat. Both of these allow you to succeed against odds you cannot hope to fight against. Ideally be both.

2. Do not use a build that relies on other PC classes. The GM should not have to include companion characters for you to be able to succeed. They have enough on their plate already. Don't rely on having a healer, tank or striker to help you.

3. To flourish, you need to be able to do unreplied damage. You cannot win by trading blows with the enemy. Summons, charms, slows, immobilise and stealth are all winners in this regard.

4. Certain abilities are balanced for group play but amazing in single player games. For instance, slowing an enemy is ok in a group, but realistically your group won't have intiatives in the right spot or the right positioning and coordination to "kite" an enemy. In a single player game, a slowed enemy is a dead/ignorable enemy.

Likewise for stealth, if you are hidden, the enemy has no good options to attack. In a group environment they would simply hit your friends, in a solo environment they are left with nothing much to do.

Any ability to spend a healing surge is amazing when you have no healer to rely on.

5. While damage is important to stop a fight dragging on, fights don't get boring for the player in the same way as a long group fight might. For the GM it can feel they drag a little. The most important thing about damage is for it to be unreplied, so the lower damage debuff might be more effective than the nuke.


As an example, my current character is a Rogue Cunning Sneak and fits the bill quite nicely. By being a hidden sniper most fights start with a surpise round. Then it is a matter of shooting then moving and hiding again. This leads to a great deal of unreplied damage and enables a single character to take on entire groups of enemies. Being a stealth class means that the GM can design adventures built around stealth, so the player can still go up against dragons etc, but is not trying to fight them, just steal from them. Combat is a consequence of failure.

A previous solo character was a merchant who was at best an average fighter. This style of game was about convincing people to help him, making money to hire mercenaries and generally keeping the sort of reputation that stopped people messing with him. Once again, he punched above his wieght as he could bring an awful lot of hired/allied muscle to a fight.

As my campaign starts to draw to a close. I want to get peoples' opinions about what other classes make for a good solo character and why.

I am leaning towards a dwarven warriorpriest as they could do a respectable amount of damage while having 4 or so heals per encounter, I'm just not sure how interesting that is.

Anyone care to share their experiences?

 

[On Puget Sound]

perhaps a sentinel druid? A bear to tank for you, healing for yourself and/or the bear, and some battlefield control available by taking some powers from the other druid builds. Maybe a rogue multiclass feat to get you stealth and an occasional sneak attack when flanking with the bear.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd probably go with some kind of Warlock/Sorc* hybrid, with a MC Battlemind thrown in for giggles. Or maybe swap out the Sorc for Battlemind and MC Ardent.

Most of my powers would key off of Con & Cha, and as I recall, thievery, diplomacy and intimidate would all be trained...



* If not Sorc, then a Shaper Psion- lots of Summons.

 

[Pentius]

I'd go with a Str/Dex Two-Blade Ranger. Some options selected for durability. You could get good physical skills, including Stealth. If you went half-orc, intimidate becomes a good option for a single social skill. Maybe not good for getting yourself through things diplomatically though.

 

[wlmartin]

Q: What character would you choose if you had to adventure alone?

A : I would pick a Hybrid that included a Healer type (Cleric is best) and the other would be a Fighter or Paladin... reason being that a lot of the cool stuff that makes a certain class shine above the rest gets lost in Dual Classing, at least with a Fighter or Paladin things like Guardian Forms, Stances, Rages and other dailies that persist are not as important.

Without a healer, as a solo in D&D you are pretty much stuffed. Sure you can use Healing Pots but where is the fun in that!

Here are my thoughts on the topic, some general rules I have discovered:

1. You must have a non-violent way of addressing conflict. Either you must be an exceptional thief, or a master diplomat. Both of these allow you to succeed against odds you cannot hope to fight against. Ideally be both.

I disagree. Although diplomacy and such is a great mechanism of D&D, the game itself hinges on Combat. It is fun to have RP and Skill Type challenges mixed in but D&D is a Combat game with fun RP mixed in, if you focus a Solo Character on these areas, the Combat will suffer and since you don't have any other Party Members to help you out (its not like you are the skill-monkey bard and everyone else fights) you may die a lot.

2. Do not use a build that relies on other PC classes. The GM should not have to include companion characters for you to be able to succeed. They have enough on their plate already. Don't rely on having a healer, tank or striker to help you.

Agreed, you would need to find a way to build the job of a healer into your character.

3. To flourish, you need to be able to do unreplied damage. You cannot win by trading blows with the enemy. Summons, charms, slows, immobilise and stealth are all winners in this regard.

Mmmmm... The problem with the above is that they rely on your being a Controller. Controllers are fun to play in a party but without a meat shield in front of you, your poor AC and lack of fighting ability will make you dog food quickly. A Controller needs the tank gaining aggro so he can do his stuff behind the scenes.

I am not saying it is impossible to make a Solo Controller, but it would be VERY hard

4. Certain abilities are balanced for group play but amazing in single player games. For instance, slowing an enemy is ok in a group, but realistically your group won't have intiatives in the right spot or the right positioning and coordination to "kite" an enemy. In a single player game, a slowed enemy is a dead/ignorable enemy.

Kiting in D&D tabletop isnt really something you get into. If your PCs are ever kiting a monster then the DM isnt really doing a good job. Kiting comes from games like UO, EQ (and yes, WoW) where you are up against the AI of a computer server and it is very easy to just run around them until they die.

In real life D&D, kiting wont work because the DM will punish you for thinking his game is like a quest in WoW

Likewise for stealth, if you are hidden, the enemy has no good options to attack. In a group environment they would simply hit your friends, in a solo environment they are left with nothing much to do.

I get you, hide then attack, hide then attack.
Whilst this is effective, it isnt reliable since although it may work on small encounters (1 or 2 or 3 monsters), with a massive array of minions and not a lot of concealement you may find yourself running away

5. While damage is important to stop a fight dragging on, fights don't get boring for the player in the same way as a long group fight might. For the GM it can feel they drag a little. The most important thing about damage is for it to be unreplied, so the lower damage debuff might be more effective than the nuke.

Again this goes back to the Controller side of things. If you were playing a solo PC as a Controller you would HAVE to rely on Nukes (Fireball etc) since you need to do damage fast. Ongoing damage and debuff attacks work in a normal team game but since most players subscribe to the concept of "Focused Fire" it is often best just to throw your biggest guns at an enemy all at once, not run around him as he bleeds from acid damage.

As an example, my current character is a Rogue Cunning Sneak and fits the bill quite nicely. By being a hidden sniper most fights start with a surpise round. Then it is a matter of shooting then moving and hiding again. This leads to a great deal of unreplied damage and enables a single character to take on entire groups of enemies. Being a stealth class means that the GM can design adventures built around stealth, so the player can still go up against dragons etc, but is not trying to fight them, just steal from them. Combat is a consequence of failure.

I like the idea of the above character for an MMO type game but in D&D it just wouldnt cut it. We are of course talking massive Hypotheticals here since D&D isnt designed to be a Solo game, its a team game. All of the rules and mechanics are built for each player to work together. The only way you could make D&D work Solo is to make a PC that can take damage and give it, thus a tank... and ideally one that can heal himself.

I applaud your forward thinking, it is a really interesting idea but it smacks more of tactics against a Computer DM (ie something in DDO or WoW) than against a real DM as a real DM would have his monsters figure a way to beat your sneaking and make you suffer for it.

In conclusion

Soloing in D&D isnt really something you can do without serious revisions to the working rules of the game.

D&D is designed to be a Team Game.

That being said, when you consider that as you are on your own you will draw the most Aggro, your only options are to either Hide or Fight. Hiding is OK for the first 1 or 2 occasions but the second you lose Stealth, you are dead.

So the only option is to Fight and build a massive Defender type with heavy armor and good defenses.

He of course will need healing and unless you are going to have a sack of Healing Potions, you will need to Hybrid (not Multiclass) in some Healer Class.

Hope this helps

 

[Subtlepanic]

I'd definitely go hybrid between defender and leader.

But then, I guess class combination may not be quite so important for solo play, as the DM would have to tailor the game so much more: e.g. if you're a controller, they use loads of minions, if you're a leader, they include henchmen. This should create its own balance, if the DM knows what they're doing.

In the past, I've toyed with the idea of creating some sort of "Champion" class that is roughly equivalent in power to an entire party, acts multiple times in a round, and has a bit of each role. I think that could be quite fun, if done properly.

 

[Zaran]

I think any character would work fine if you stuck with rules on encounter building. As a GM you would adapt to the kind of class. I think the best feature of 4e is how balanced and easy to adjust it is to number of PCs.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

A hunter...

his at-wills knock prone or slow... he has good selection of skills and even a tool against minions...
he can get access to utilities that may allow him to spend surges... a perfect solo character...

 

[Xris Robin]

Well, I certainly don't want to play a defender. My mark wouldn't be of any use with no one else to attack. The class itself could still mostly work, say, a Paladin. They have some self healing and good armor, etc. But being the tank seems weird when there's no one to tank for.

I'm thinking maybe Bard, myself. Healing, excellent skills, melee and ranged builds. I'd consider something like the Rogue/Warlock/Assassin using Cunning Sneak/Shadow Walk, but I wonder if most DMs couldn't handle it. It would make combat really weird. Something like the Executioner might work, it would give the DM the ability make stuff like your poisons really shine out of combat. Without having to share focus with other players it'd be easier to make it work more often.

Also as pointed out, something like the Sentinel, which sorta fills all the roles and comes with a meat-shield built in. Or something like the Ranger, maybe with hyrbid of multiclass into Cleric for healing. Rangers have tons of skills and stealth, can be melee/ranged, have lots of movement powers.

I think of lot of it depends on how the DM can adapt encounters (and gameplay in general) to a solo character, and then to whatever you are specifically playing.

 

[wlmartin]

Well, I certainly don't want to play a defender. My mark wouldn't be of any use with no one else to attack. The class itself could still mostly work, say, a Paladin. They have some self healing and good armor, etc. But being the tank seems weird when there's no one to tank for.

I'm thinking maybe Bard, myself. Healing, excellent skills, melee and ranged builds. I'd consider something like the Rogue/Warlock/Assassin using Cunning Sneak/Shadow Walk, but I wonder if most DMs couldn't handle it. It would make combat really weird. Something like the Executioner might work, it would give the DM the ability make stuff like your poisons really shine out of combat. Without having to share focus with other players it'd be easier to make it work more often.

Also as pointed out, something like the Sentinel, which sorta fills all the roles and comes with a meat-shield built in. Or something like the Ranger, maybe with hyrbid of multiclass into Cleric for healing. Rangers have tons of skills and stealth, can be melee/ranged, have lots of movement powers.

I think of lot of it depends on how the DM can adapt encounters (and gameplay in general) to a solo character, and then to whatever you are specifically playing.

If you are going to play Solo, the main thing you need is AC
Find a class that gives you Plate (Paly?) or take it as a Feat and then focus on making sure your AC is as high as possible.

Due to the extremely limiting options of playing Solo, most of the mobs you encounter would need to be -3 or -2 at least for fear of hitting you... however since you are Soling the XP reward should even out and even if it doesnt, Soling - what would you expect?

However the only reason anyone would want to think about going Solo in D&D is because of MMOs like WoW and DDO. If you suggested that before the MMO craze, most people would think you are Crazy.. it would be like trying to play Basketball with 1 player... what do you do? Play 1 on 1 or 1 on 5?

MMOs however are structured to appreciate that most players will want to join groups but there has to be some activity for the lonely or hard-to-group player to get involved in otherwise they quit and take their subscription elsewhere.

D&D tabletop doesnt work as a Solo game...