Solo Play

[Rabbitbait]

I'm waiting for rabid anticipation for 4e to be released at the moment, but while the whole teamplay aspect of the game seems a great improvement I'm a wee bit worried because a lot of my gameplay style involves solo adventures (mainly because it can be hard to get the whole group together at the same time).

Do you think this will be:

• Still possible, but harder to balance
• So much easier - especially for 1st level wizards
• About the same
• Impossible, the game is designed for a team now

 

[Andur]

Would seem easier. Just have to make sure you don't run any obstacles which don't have some way around them. Trying to make a Fighter swim in heavy armour, expect the Rogue to tank, or have the wizard go against an iron golem... If you are custom designing adventures looks like it would be easier, adapting would be another story however...

 

[Dragonblade]

I would imagine that solo play should be much easier now. Characters are much more self-sufficient. A DM will still have to be careful about overwhelming the solo player but with the new saving throw and healing mechanics you have a much better chance of surviving a solo adventure.

IME, in solo games of 3e, any failed save pretty much spells doom for your character.

 

[Branduil]

It seems much easier to me. With the way enemies are balanced now, it will be simpler to design for 1 PC.

 

[Lord Fyre]

And, related to "solo" play is something I have been running into a lot, the incomplete party of two or three players.

This also looks to be much easier to run.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I believe it will be easier, given that there is more balance within the classes and that it is not necessary to have a Cleric to keep alive.

Another benefit is it is quite alot easier to balance an encounter for 1 PC given the new monster encounter XP.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Actually, how much easier solo play looks to be is one of my major +s for 4E. You could maybe give the character a few extra powers, and use a lot of Minion-level baddies. I think you'd maybe be alright.

 

[ferratus]

You'll want to stay away from monsters that immobilize or stun. Those types of monsters usually do more damage when the player is incapacitated, and the rules rely on your allies to pull your fat out of the fire.

I think you might also want to give the solitary PC advantages that Solo Monsters have, to keep them alive longer.

All that said, I think that 4e definately is meant for Co-op gameplay. In 3e you had to worry about maximizing your damage output and minimizing your damage input. If you made your saves, you were golden. It is more complicated than that in 4e. I don't think you can get away with sending lower level monsters at a single PC anymore.

 

[Novem5er]

Running solo games in 3e (1 DM w/ 1 players) was a big pain in the butt! The whole CR system is too confusing. A CR3 ogre is appropriate for WHAT level solo player?

It looks like 4e will be much simpler, as encounters are XP based. A typical encounter has 1 monster of equal level for each player. Ta-da! A level 1 encounter for a single player should be ONE level 1 monster. If that's not dynamic enough, then there could be 4 minions instead. Since all classes seemed to be balanced for combat, encounters should be even more balanced.

Obviously, classes with higher HP and AC will be better at fighting the typical monster, but I can see some fun stories being writing for the solo wizard adventurer. No longer are they forced to cast 1 or 2 spells a day!

So I think solo adventures will still be challenging to balance, but much less so than in 3e.

I occasionally play 3e with my fiancee and I committed to only running published adventures (for the sake of time). Since all those adventures are balanced for a party of 4, I decided that each of us would run 2 characters. She ran a Fighter and Cleric and I ran the Rogue and Wizard (while I DMed). It turned the game into more of a tactical combat game, but it was fun!

 

[Intrope]

And, related to "solo" play is something I have been running into a lot, the incomplete party of two or three players.

This also looks to be much easier to run.

That's the exact situation of my current group, too. And based on what I've seen, it looks like it'll generally be easier for small or solo games.

On one hand, the characters themselves seem to be better rounded out. From what we've seen, most (all?) classes will be able to be melee-competent--even the wizard! (one of the playtests had a staff-based wizard, who apparently had Melee spells as well as ranged). Naturally, if you're building a solo character you may want to make different power & feat choices...

On the other hand, the standard encounter assumes several creatures--so dropping down to a single creature, or a small group of lower-level creatures should work all right and be easy to compute (1st level character => 100xp of monsters => 4 Kobold Minions, for example). At low levels, it might be difficult to find enough low-value creatures to build out encounters though. Depends on how many sub-100 creatures there are, I guess.

C'mon June!