Making my Solo Campaign Work.

[TheRedFox201]

Greetings Playground. I come before you to beseech your wisdom and talents. I am to begin a campaign featuring a Barbarian at level 20. Much of it will not be combat, but I need both a specific answer as well as any advice for such a thing flows through the many denizens of the Giant's Playground.

The campaign world is heavily homebrew, and demons, devils, daemons, and the like. Secondly, it is a prequel/sidestory to another campaign in the same setting. Some of the characters I have devised are meant to be bosses at various levels for the players. There will be entities in both campaigns from all challenge ratings. How does having a 1 man party affect the sort of CR and or challenges I should devise.

[Yakk]

75% chance you aren't playing 4e, but rather 3e/5e (your other posts, and use of CR, choice of level 20), and are in the wrong forum.

[Duff]

Assuming you're in the right thread though - 5 person party is the default so divide number of enemies by 5 where you can.
But:

If you can't easily do that, reducing levels would make it hard for you to hit and easy for the PC to hit. Consider using minions instead
You may need to drop the difficulty of fights more if you haven't house ruled in some way to heal
Regardless of systems, a lone character is more vulnerable to debilitating effects such as stun
Barb might be the best class for a solo character - high hp, good(ish) defences and the features and powers work without needing other people
Solos and elites would probably make things too hard. I'd avoid them outright unless you want a very long battle where you miss a lot and they pound away on a lot of hitpoints (you's have to have them at a lower level)

[Beoric]

Yeah, 4e characters are designed to be stronger when working cooperatively. 5 PCs vs 5 elites of the same level is an even match (by which I mean either side could win). 1 PC vs 1 elite will leave the PC as a smear on the grass.

You can fill this out with lackeys/squires/henchmen. I generally require these types of followers to be martial Essentials classes so player decision-making doesn't slow down the game too much.

You can also fill it out with companion characters, designed using the DMG2 but making sure to use MM3 monster math. For example, a paladin, his warhorse and his dog, and using monster rather than PC rules regarding mounts so the horse gets an attack. Or Vlad Taltos, with two companion spiretop drakes.

(As an aside, I gave someone a companion spiretop drake with Hunter's Quarry instead of the suggested CA mechanic, and it proved to be remarkably effective).

Other than that, reduce the encounter XP budget as discussed in the DMG or the Rules Compendium.

[ThePurple]

1 PC vs 1 elite will leave the PC as a smear on the grass.

I kinda doubt that, actually. PC daily and encounter powers will do a *lot* to even the score there, especially since PCs have a higher hit rate than NPCs (65% rather than 50%) and healing surges to spend (which can dramatically shift outcomes). A lot of it depends upon the PC's class and level (low level heroic only has a single encounter and daily, which is gonna give them very little to ramp up their performance with), but once you get to upper tier heroic and higher, I would argue that it's basically a wash even at 1v1.

I've done some "1 PC v. 1 elite" fights before and, pretty much always, the PCs takes out the elite after burning a daily and a few encounters.

[masteraleph]

Yeah, 4e characters are designed to be stronger when working cooperatively. 5 PCs vs 5 elites of the same level is an even match (by which I mean either side could win). 1 PC vs 1 elite will leave the PC as a smear on the grass.

You can fill this out with lackeys/squires/henchmen. I generally require these types of followers to be martial Essentials classes so player decision-making doesn't slow down the game too much.

I'm actually kind of thinking about a solo party- Slayer, Knight, Elementalist (not martial but simple), and one full fledged enabling leader like a Warlord. DM would have to be up for it, but it feels to me like it could work with the right DM and right player.

[Beoric]

I'm actually kind of thinking about a solo party- Slayer, Knight, Elementalist (not martial but simple), and one full fledged enabling leader like a Warlord. DM would have to be up for it, but it feels to me like it could work with the right DM and right player.

I frequently run campaigns for a single guy operating multiple PCs, but he insists on building O-characters, and filling them with every out of turn power he can find. I get housework done waiting for him to make decisions.

The men-at-arms I have hanging about waiting to be hired, though? They are all slayers, knights and thieves, with hunters at low level.

[Vhaidara]

and healing surges to spend (which can dramatically shift outcomes).

I'd like to note that the relevance of surges varies wildly depending on how many you actually have the ability to spend. Sure, your Battlemind might HAVE 20 surges, but what built in mechanism allows you to spend them? Second Wind? That is 1 surge. I play in an LFR style game and this is a pretty common thing (especially for con primary/secondary characters) because it's very possible to not have any leaders

[MwaO]

I'm actually kind of thinking about a solo party- Slayer, Knight, Elementalist (not martial but simple), and one full fledged enabling leader like a Warlord. DM would have to be up for it, but it feels to me like it could work with the right DM and right player.

A reasonably simple Solo party is a Striker|Cleric hybrid who uses Battle Cleric's Lore for an AC. You do damage, you can heal yourself, lots of various stat possibilities.

[The Kool]

To the question, even though I'm not as familiar with 4e I can give you some basic advice. When you're only dealing with one PC, you can no longer expect the party to handle any variety of challenges, because the single PC does not have every approach covered. You need to be fully aware of what the PC is capable of, and what kind of numbers they have for things like hit chance and damage output. How hard you can hit them also matters, as you have almost no room for riding out an encounter with a boss that accidentally takes half his HP in one hit and hits 60% of the time. With a full party, they can rotate, heal, fall back and kite, working cooperatively to mitigate the KO potential. With a single PC, he either needs an alternate approach to the situation or a lot of luck. Speaking of alternate approaches, actually do plan some of those in, account for ways the PC can overcome foes by means other than "hit it 'til it dies" instead of expecting him to come up with his own. A single PC has far fewer tools at his disposal than a full party, and sometimes when you were thinking in the back of your mind that an encounter is easy with a bit of elevation, you forgot that there's no way for the land-bound Barbarian to actually get said elevation.

Just my 2cp

[TheRedFox201]

Thank you all for your advice, I'll be sure to keep some of these tips in mind.