Suggestions for a 2 player game (1DM,1Player)

[Kerberos1976]

Hello everyone

After a little while, due in no small part to my daughters birth, I'm looking at getting back into some DnD after about a 2 year hiatus. Unfortunately there is only one other person I can count on to show up to this regularly, so I'm throwing up a flag and asking for your help. I'm looking for an adventure, one that is pre-generated. I don't mind paying (I've been poking around drivethrurpg.com as an example) as long as the price isn't out of sight. An adventure with pre-generated characters would be great as both my buddy and I are working stiffs and would rather put the bulk of our "allocated gaming time" towards actually playing the game. I'm thinking something like the Adventures they send out on RPG day, you know with everything that is needed to just "get going" (althought we don't need minis etc.)

Does anyone have any experience with some great adventures?

Any help is GREATLY appreciated .... I need to play some DnD!!!!!!

 

[Rechan]

I don't think anyone has made any 4e adventures for 1 PC. There were some 3e modules, whose quality I am not certain of, which were geared to 1 PC, but that's a 3e mod not a 4e one.

 

[Kerberos1976]

Thanks for the input ... I'm wondering if maybe a 2 player game would work if my buddy played 2 characters.

We tried playing a regular adventure once, but WOW did it get completely unmanageable when he was trying to play 4 characters and I was trying to run everything else.

Are there "scaled down" pre-written adventures that anyone knows of?

 

[Crowsion]

I can say that if there are any 1 player adventures out there, they would be almost impossible to find. Not many are published. WoTC is keen on larger parties, it shows from the increase to 5 PC in a standard party instead of 4 as in 3rd.

My advice would be to take any adventure you like and make the encounter composition flawed. Usually with a more rounded party of PC's they can face almost any threat, hazard, or environment. But with just one PC you should build according to his strengths, or he'll get murdered.

I would also put in a companion character. I usually build them like monsters. Just half the health and give them 2 healing surges. This works best with elites. By building them like monsters it makes them easy to run if either you wanted to give the player control of them. If you really have to put in a second companion I would control one each.

My last couple pieces of advice would be making the PC a little bit more resilient by maybe doing any combination of the following: increase the maximum amount of healing surges per encounter to 3, or make healing surges a move action to spend yet I thinks its better to make just the second wind a move action.

Oh and I'd encourage the PC to play something like a Paladin or Fighter; just something that can hold their own in a fight. Leave the Wizards and Clerics as the companion(s).

 

[Crowsion]

Check out this link. They have a lot of good ideas there as well.
WoTC Community

 

[S'mon]

PC + Companion can be used in a regular 5 PC adventure for PCs 4 levels lower.

 

[Unwise]

I play 90% of my games with 1 player, it can really work very well. This is especially true if you are both into at least some level of roleplaying. Giving a character, or duo, the limelight all the time really helps the characters develop into multi dimensional characters.

I think that this is a good opportunity to play a sandbox style game. I suggest the Chaos Scar adventures, as they require very little preperation and are all quick. You can do one entire adventure a night pretty easily.

It worked well for me, I had my player find out about a lot of places that other adventurers or rumours marked on the map. He would have a long list of things he wanted to do, but would pick one each time we played. Since they are all very quick and easy adventures to DM I would just roll with his choices.

I think that D&D is often a bit too easy. I started off by scaling the adventures down quite a lot, now I pretty much use them as is with only 2 characters. I might take out a monster here or there, but it is amazing to see what a well built duo can do.

Some careful consideration needs to be given to the type of characters used. For a solo character, I suggest a theif/assassin style character. They can achieve things that a fighter or mage never could. Sneaking in to a castle and assassinating the lord, or stealing the crown jewels is an great adventure that can be done by a lone sneaky guy. In comparison, a fighter/mage/cleric would never make it past the front gates.

Stealth and a silver tongue allow you to play it smart and avoid a lot of combats, only engaging in combats where you have the upper hand. This allows for the completion of heroic missons without the need for other characters. As a Changeling assassin, I completed multiple un-editted adventures designed for 5 players that level, it is a really fun challenge.

 

[Rechan]

The PC + a companion character is a fine idea. You can even do an adventure solo, but that would take more DM finesse/prep.

THe question is: What role does the player want to play? A striker or Controller is easier than a Defender or Leader. Why? Because defenders are about defending other characters, and Leaders are about making other characters fight better. Since it's one person, they shouldn't be just giving Support to NPCs, it should be about them, and the NPC supplying support.

THere are a lot of options for strikers, from armored fighters (Slayers, Blackugards), light armored fighters (Barbarians, Rangers), sneaks, or spellcasters (Warlocks, Sorcerers).

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am not an expert on one to one games, but I would like to hear how yours goes.

 

[Rechan]

Also, you might think of having the PC take the FEy beast tamer theme. That gives them a free "Pet" without taking away any other powers. So it would become 1 PC, 1 PC-controlled pet, 1 companion character (controlled by you likely).