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View Full Version : How should I run this heroic one on one campaign?



MonkeySage
2015-06-04, 06:34 PM
So, the story first:
A long time ago, a primordial evil force(PEF) was sealed away by 6 Saints, and the seal was recently broken by an unfortunate idiot. In its time sealed away, its power has waned considerably, so that now it can only influence the world by manifesting in incorporeal harmless form, by possessing proxies, and by reanimating the dead. This PEF has the ability to possess living or undead vessels, on a sort of mutual benefit basis, and can possess more than one vessel at once.
The PEF wants to assemble 6 saint stones, created from the blood of the saints that sealed it away, and corrupt the stones with the help of its proxies. The proxy that acquires the stone is able to transform into a monstrosity using its power, can use it to spread the PEF's taint.

In other words, this is a game that will involve a bit of political intrigue, but a lot of mortal danger.

My player has created a half elf sorceress(Serpentine bloodline) with almost no offensive spells(Ray of Frost is her only one, to the best of my knowledge).
She barely survived the last encounter, which involved 1 gnoll picked right out of the Bestiary. If I hadn't given her smoke balls in the very first session, she would have died. And that isn't the first time she almost died, she could barely handle a single fire beetle, and the player got worried when he was pit against a group of zombies.

The player has revealed to me that he does not want to control an npc, and I really don't like controlling helpful npcs in combat or in dungeons, as it would make designing complex puzzles and such totally worthless. I go in to the fight knowing exactly how to win it, where as the player only has their own experiences to go on. In a dungeon, I know exactly where all the traps are, so an NPC Rogue controlled by me would break the dungeon. I'd either intentionally miss all the traps, or have a disproportionately high record of disabling the traps I put there in the first place.

This player is also uncomfortable with the idea of me inviting more people.

I hate spoilers, my players usually go into the game knowing basic information about the setting but that's it.

ngilop
2015-06-04, 07:22 PM
Seems you are caught beytween a rock and hard place.

If your sorcerer player understand that this is a political and combat deadly game, im surprised she has no taken more offensive spells.

that being said.. Have you thought about allowing gestalt? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm) Normally I try to steer away from the unearthed arcana stuffs, but when youhave a very small number of players ( 1 to 3) then I highly suggest that the DM offers up this option.

If this player is good then I would nudge to the Paladin (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin) and specifically the Enlightened Paladin (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/archetypes/paizo---paladin-archetypes/enlightened-paladin-paladin-archetype) for the charisma synergy.


Other than that, tweek the actual combat encounters to be set up to only be against 1 who seems to not take combat spells/abilities.

Eisenheim
2015-06-04, 11:40 PM
start at higher level. 1 level one PC is going to be swingy as hell with a huge risk of death in every encounter. Think about starting at 3 or 5, or not having any combat until then if that's unpalatable. Or consider another system entirely.

Hawkstar
2015-06-05, 07:46 AM
What spells does she have?

Tailor the campaign to her character's specialization.