Solo missions

[Godrednu]

I'm a DM for about 5-6 players. There are times though where only 2 or even 1 person wants to run a side quest. What are some ideas for this? I've found several websites with ideas, but they're usually ideas for an entire team to go on a side mission. I could just scale these down, but I was wondering what your guys' suggestions were.

[Specter]

Depends on each one's ability. I find these work best for skillful characters than others. For a sneaking mission, for instance, look no further than Metal Gear Solid for the ultimate inspiration.

[Gastronomie]

1. Make the character high-level gestalt with the Epic Heroism variant rule (from the DMG), so strong he can fight on his own.

2. Make the mission something really related to the character's past, like seeking vengeance upon the guy who killed his love.

Perhaps combine these two.

The thing is that D&D is not a system meant for solo battles, because the characters' HP is so low, and also because of bounded accuracy issues that make it difficult for the DM to have 4 or 5 guys attacking the solo character at once. If a solo fight is to be managed with balance, it would be a sorta-high-level character fighting a monster or two with a CR much lower than his level, but the problem is, this gets boring quickly. No variety in his attacks. No variety in the opponents' attacks. Also, most encounters are meant to be solved by combining the abilities of multiple classes, and that becomes impossible in a solo adventure.

Solo adventures should thus either have (1) the character be extremely overpowered, or (2) the scenario include minimum or even no fighting, and more of simple RP-ing, interacting, puzzle-solving, and researching.

That's what I think.