What is the best class/ build 1-20 solo adventure

[liquidformat]

Like the titles says, in your opinion what is the best class and or build to take going from level 1-20 if you were adventuring solo? For this exercise only use official first party sources. In this case solo means only you and the dm no other players but cohorts and minions or more than welcome for the builds.

[el minster]

Druid for all thier versatility

[Tvtyrant]

Like the titles says, in your opinion what is the best class and or build to take going from level 1-20 if you were adventuring solo? For this exercise only use official first party sources. In this case solo means only you and the dm no other players but cohorts and minions or more than welcome for the builds.

I would probably go with Binder. They can go with Platemail at level 1-2 to keep them alive, get Zcerall at later levels for an unending flood of spells and minions.

[Gruftzwerg]

Imho it highly depends on what type of adventures your are going to have with your DM.

If it is mostly about killing stuff, there are plenty of legit (build/class) options to choose from: mundane , gish or full caster everything goes here.

If your campaigns consists more of "solving non-combat problems", you might be better of with some T1 caster build.

[Troacctid]

It depends, but also, druid.

[Anthrowhale]

Anthropomorphic Bat is very good as a race. At level 1, you have flight, darkvision, Listen/Spot+4, Small size (so Hide+4), and Blindsense 20'. Oh, and Wisdom+6.

For classes, Cloistered Cleric with the Sky and Trickery domains as well as Knowledge Devotion. Take Apprentice[spellcaster] as your first level feat. At this point, you have as class skills Hide, Spot, Diplomacy, Concentration, Spellcraft, Knowledge[Religion], and Use Magic Device. Putting a rank in each knowledge skill allows knowledge devotion to trigger. Compared to a Druid, you lack an Animal Companion (...which would probably ruin your stealth), but you have two more skills.

[Gavinfoxx]

Azurin Artificer!

[Kaleph]

The problem is that, if you are alone, you are likely to suck too much on the action economy; sooner or later there will be someone who will successfully cast at you a save-or-lose, and then you're done, since you have no party member who can tank for you or cast remove paralysis or whatever.

Therefore: dragonborn dvati!

[Gavinfoxx]

My idea with the Azurin Artificer is to make tons and tons of golems. And before that, buy lots of fighting animals for your team!

[Vizzerdrix]

My idea with the Azurin Artificer is to make tons and tons of golems. And before that, buy lots of fighting animals for your team!

I second (3rd? 4th?) Artificer. You have the highest access to a variety of minions, and you will want them. Nothing is as bad as having a cleric turn all your backup, so a mix of undead, constructs, and summons will keep you from losing everything to a single turning.

[Gavinfoxx]

And plus they get access to all the obscure summoning spells that last am extra long time. And can do lesser planar ally/servant before anyone else.

[Soranar]

I would vote beguiler actually

-you need some form of trapfinding otherwise any bad luck with a trap is essentially instant death
-the highest tier trapfinder is a beguiler

You do lack versatility with your basic spells but there are a few workarounds

Arcane disciple + ancestral relic (for a runestaff) can take care of giving you access to utility spells you lack like summons and undead minionmancy
Eternal wands can cover low level spells that you intend to use a lot (say desecrate to create said undead minions)
Wild cohort gives you a bodyguard close to a druid's animal companion, I highly suggest it as your first feat (a progressed riding dog in barding can be surprisingly good)
Obtain familiar gives you a trapfinder (since it uses your skills) that lets you stay away from a bad roll on a trap disarm and it'll help you spot traps too

Being INT based + x6 skillpoints in light armor means you're not completely defenseless without spells (compared to a wizard) and your skills let you take care of problems with something else than your precious spell slots.

The wild cohort is marginally weaker than an animal companion
The spell list is also a bit weaker but you have more options to expand it (it's harder to expand a druid's spell list) and that gives you access to broken spells a druid doesn't have (like animate dead)
The skills are much better and being INT based also helps with that
It's hard to compensate for not having the wildshape option but being in melee is generally not a good idea anyway when you're solo

[Kemev]

It depends, but also, druid.

Honestly, most of the questions that start with "what is the best...?" are going to involve druid.

It's a complete package at all levels of the game. You even get diplomacy, so you have some social ability to work with.

If you wanted something a bit off the beaten path, bard/barbarian into the frenzied berserker/warchanter PrCs is a good option. At lower levels, you're a reasonably survivable combatant with plenty of out-of-combat options (especially since your bardic spellcasting effectively unlocks a lot of handy consumable magic items). At higher levels, the interplay of Inspire Recklessness + upgraded power attacks wins a lot of fights in a hurry. As an added perk, you only need core + Complete Warrior, so no need to bust your DM's chops with 8 different resources to dip through.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Is the adventure intended for a single player of any class?

If it is, you're probably okay.
If it it's a module, you run into problems.

I can't say I've done a complete survey, but I imagine many modules have challenges that cater to different characters. With encounters being quite hard for a single character already, some might be impossible to beat without a specific ability.

At mid-high levels, I expect most casters to do well in either case.
At low levels, it's tricky. Druids are probably solid, and clerics, and bards are in that lot, too, due to their wide skill range. Artificers are great for dungeons, too, with Trapfinding and all. Wizards and psions have a little more trouble, but if you can get plenty of rest, I suppose you'll live...


I would probably choose to play a steel dragon gish. Loredrake wyrmling, two levels in wizard, levels in Swiftblade. LA buyoff, ideally. Not really optimal--you lose a lot of casting--but I imagine a small, fast dragon is quite survivable at low levels. And you have Alternate Form, too.

[Quertus]

So, crazy thing: as a solo adventurer, you don't care about, you know, things that normally limit you with a party.

As such, take advantage of as many of those as you can!

For example, you don't need to worry about being "behind the party in level", because there is no party. So spend XP on crafting, on Sculpt Self, on anything you can to make yourself OP for your level. And adventure at your actual level, stomping everything.

Towards that end, I'll point out that any class with a Familiar gives you an easy way to decrease your XP, thereby increasing your treasure to XP ratio.

[Gavinfoxx]

But but... The cute little familiar that loves and trusts you!

How could you??

[Firest Kathon]

If Pathfinder is on the table, a Summoner (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/) is in my opinion a fine class for solo adventures:


An easily replacable, strong, highly adaptable eidolon (almost-permanent summoned creature that can be modified on the fly) as front-line fighter
Lots of summons as backup
Good support/utility spell list (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/spell-lists-summoner), party with earlier access to spells than wizard (unless you take unchained summoner)
Cha-based character, i.e. good social skills for non-combat stuff

[aglondier]

Bard. Some fighting, spells, a little healing, and plenty of skills.

[Gnaeus]

How focused are you on the adventure feeling like a normal adventure?

Because once the Druid 8 uses aberrant wildshape (Dharculus) (or the artificer or wizard start using nightmares to astral project, but it’s a harder road to get there) virtually nothing can threaten it except for encounters specifically designed to fight planar threats

[Elkad]

Arcane Hierophant topped off with Mystic Theurge.
Your companion familiar is a whole second character.
Breadth of magic and massive spell selection to cover everything. Including things like guard duty (via Alarm, Hut, etc) normally easily covered by simply having friends.

There are arguments on the arcane side for Wizard or Beguiler (giving up some spell selection for class abilities and massive skills and skillpoints)

[thethird]

I would go with artificer, or druid depending on the tone/timing of the game.

If being solo player means that I will have some downtime so I can spend time crafting at my own pace and then confront the problems after properly thinking about it, artificer for sure. If the DM is railroad-y doesn't want me to find magic items, is stingy with loot and stuff then definitively druid.

Those are extremes though, most likely it will fall somewhere on the middle, in which case I lean towards artificer, mostly because artificers are my kind of fun.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So, crazy thing: as a solo adventurer, you don't care about, you know, things that normally limit you with a party.

As such, take advantage of as many of those as you can!

For example, you don't need to worry about being "behind the party in level", because there is no party. So spend XP on crafting, on Sculpt Self, on anything you can to make yourself OP for your level. And adventure at your actual level, stomping everything.

Towards that end, I'll point out that any class with a Familiar gives you an easy way to decrease your XP, thereby increasing your treasure to XP ratio.

But you're banking on your GM feeding you suitable encounters for level 4 until you get to five, while you're specifically stalling. That's a bit of a gamble. What happens if the GM starts ramping up the difficulty the moment they figure you should have been level 5?

[Gruftzwerg]

But you're banking on your GM feeding you suitable encounters for level 4 until you get to five, while you're specifically stalling. That's a bit of a gamble. What happens if the GM starts ramping up the difficulty the moment they figure you should have been level 5?

Agree and if the DM uses an (bought) adventure book designed for normal level progression that might become a problem.


_________________


Imho we need something stealthy, be it mundane hide/move silently or invisibility. Because being solo, you don't wanna be ambushed or have several enemies have their turn before you. And no, Improved Initiative is not enough in this chase.

My best bet would be my Killer Kobold glaivelock build (see signature). Has (basically) HIPS, Invisibility, & Fly at will. Further can share a space with an enemy and hope that other enemies hit that enemy (50%) instead of him (50%). Can deal enough dmg in any scenario since he can bypass almost any DR (and later SR).

The build can get up to 10 attacks @ lvl 16 which most likely will ALL HIT, because they are touch attacks.
Most enemies will never see this Kobold before it is to late.

Since the requested build is only up to lvl20 we can exchange some of the epic feat taxes like Brimstone Blast and take Flee the Scene. FtS allows us to come and go as we please. No door or wall will stop the lil Kobold. Once of the best escape & tactical abilities in the game.

[Quertus]

But but... The cute little familiar that loves and trusts you!

How could you??

Um… Lawful Evil. :smallwink:


Agree and if the DM uses an (bought) adventure book designed for normal level progression that might become a problem.

Quite the opposite! A (bought) adventure is designed to give roughly 4x the XP you need for each level - so you need an outlet to spend it, else you're higher level than expected.

A (bought) module is explicitly *why* I recommended having an XP outlet. Although "CR appropriate challenges" (which, you'll note, is kinda a Playground meme) is another good reason.

Agreed on the "stealth" bit, btw - Dark Petal, perhaps?

[Ruethgar]

Anthropomorphic Bat is very good as a race. At level 1, you have flight, darkvision, Listen/Spot+4, Small size (so Hide+4), and Blindsense 20'. Oh, and Wisdom+6.

If you didn't want to look like Manbat, Anthro ravens also have +6 Wisdom and flight with a little more Charisma for turning/social, but less sensory benefits.

[Doctor Awkward]

For most purposes Druid 20 is going to be the best class to solo at any given level. The amount of utility they get from nothing but the core books is insane.

For any endeavor where you might roll skills checks to solve most of your problems the Factotum is the best bet. In addition to winning at skills they can be tinkered with to function adequately in most combat situations: extra standard actions to make up for being alone, access to turning and healing, a few silver bullet arcane spells for emergencies plus the standard Use Magic Device shenanigans.

The type and scope of adventures you will be playing matters a great deal to answering this question.

[Morphic tide]

I'd actually suggest Dvati Crusader, as the two bodies share uses, have half health from class levels, and spellcasting eats the actions of both. For the Crusader, the first is an upside, everything they have mitigates the second, and the third is a non-issue. Iron Guard's Glare effectively means +4 AC, Stone Bones is DR 5/Adamantine, Crusader's Strike is healing period, and generally the Crusader's very early tankiness makes for a very good time getting through fights.

The big thing is that you need to drop everything for surviving the first few combats, and Dvati Crusader is a lot of tools to do that. With each wearing Studded Leather, 16 Dexterity, and Iron Guard's Glare, enemies have to land a 20 on their attack rolls to hit right from 1st level, and those that do have 5 of that delayed to next round. This may lead to poor damage prospects in the future, but up-front heavy tanking means you'll actually get to see that future.

[Ruethgar]

If you really wanted to go all in Awakened Advanced Monkey, ECL 0, 5 free RHD, add any number of non-type templates and Awaken sets it to 0(Titanic, Dungeonbred, Magebred, War). But for more tame, I would probably also second Dvati Crusader. Delayed damage plus Stone Power for temp health is awesome for that race especially.

[Quertus]

If you really wanted to go all in Awakened Advanced Monkey, ECL 0, 5 free RHD, add any number of non-type templates and Awaken sets it to 0(Titanic, Dungeonbred, Magebred, War). But for more tame, I would probably also second Dvati Crusader. Delayed damage plus Stone Power for temp health is awesome for that race especially.

Explain? Does it have LA -5? But you said you're setting LA to 0… :smallconfused:

[Ruethgar]

The Dragon Magazine article was released a little before 3.5 so they didn’t have LA, instead the article directly set the ECL for all MMI creatures with Animals being the only exception in that they got their ECL from being awakened. Since that part was never reprinted, it remained valid in 3.5. So any awakened cat/rat/toad/lizard/monkey is set to an ECL of 0 by awaken before DM adjudication. Pick a monkey because an advanced one is small so you don’t need the April fools “Don’t Mind Me” feat or similar.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

As others have said, Druid is the best choice. Take Wild Cohort for a second animal companion. A DM that repeatedly throws traps against a character who can't find them is not a good DM, but in case there's an occasional trap just have one of your animals scout ahead of you. Later on you can use the Summon Elemental reserve feat to Nodwick the traps.


The Dragon Magazine article was released a little before 3.5 so they didn’t have LA, instead the article directly set the ECL for all MMI creatures with Animals being the only exception in that they got their ECL from being awakened. Since that part was never reprinted, it remained valid in 3.5. So any awakened cat/rat/toad/lizard/monkey is set to an ECL of 0 by awaken before DM adjudication. Pick a monkey because an advanced one is small so you don’t need the April fools “Don’t Mind Me” feat or similar.

Please cite the Dragon issue# and page number, otherwise everyone just assumes you've misunderstood it or that you're making it up. Also, it's not realistic to presume any DM would ever allow this, similar to trying to make a Lycanthrope or Tauric creature from a Paragon version of the animal.

[Morphic tide]

So, kinda thinking in terms of actually optimizing for this. Dvati Crusader with Major Djinni bloodline seems a good starting point, as Bloodlines will give full IL, CL, and whatever other class-level-variable is wanted. The two most relevant bits of Djinni for getting through the first levels to reach powerhouse status are Improved Initiative at 2nd and +1 Dex at 3rd. A mere +1 doesn't sound like much, but that's an extra point of AC at 4th, and you get an additional +1 Natural Armor at 6th. Even if you take Improved Initiative at 1st, you'll get to choose another feat at 2nd level, giving you much better early options.

For the Druid route, Nature's Warrior is a very notable option because it will give +4 Natural Armor in Wild Shape with its first level if you take Armor of the Crocodile due to Bloodline theurgy, and placing a Swordsage dip at 9th with Crusader 1/Druid 5/Bloodline 2 will give access to 3rd level Maneuvers and a 3rd level Stance, which can be Assassin's Stance to enter Daggerspell Shaper, a PRC that answers virtually every Dvati Druid action economy problem in existence remarkably directly, eventually. Cast while holding a dagger in each hand at 1st, Move Action Wild Shape at 7th, and Quicken spells as part of Full Attacks at 10th, for a final level stub of Crusader 1/Druid 5/Bloodline 3/Swordsage 1/Daggerspell Shaper 10.

In general, Bloodlines and gish builds are important tools for Dvati solutions as they share resources and need to work for two characters' actions, so all-day combat capabilities like Initiating or conventional Martial stuff will be big as it helps to let one of them fight normally while the other focuses on the daily resource scheme, whatever it may be.

[newguydude1]

artificer. it doesnt even come close. anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

level 8 he has access to concurrent infusion which lets him cast spell storing item for free which lets him cast planar binding. planar binding gets you cr11-13 minions at level 8 and this is gg right there.
level 6 if your willing to spend a teeny tiny amount of xp you can cast lesser planar binding and bind a ravid for gargantuan animated objects, or a mirror mephit for 1/day simulacrum. create a simulacrum army.
level 7 he has access to wish. using wish to create a mithral golem is gonna cost you 15,000xp. so delay leveling up and once you bank 15,000xp just create a scroll of wish with 15,000xp in it and you can make your own mithral golem. an epic creature.

if you grab extract demonic essence feat, you can use planar binding or a mirror mephit's simulacrum to halve that xp cost to 7,500xp.

how to survive until you hit level 6? an artificer can create a scroll of lesser planar binding at level 1 if he has the money. and with that you can get a mirror mephit. cl8 simulacrum will carry you until level 7 definitely.

how to survive until you have enough money to make scrolls of lesser planar binding? there are feats. wild cohort gets you an animal companion. wild talent + psicrystal affinity + elemental envoy gets you a ludicrously op expendable minion at level 1 who has dr 5/-.

in addition you have personal weapon augmentation. use it to bestow the flying enchantment on a weapon to turn it into an animated object. its 1min casting time may seem daunting but it lasts 10min/level, and its a touch spell so you can just hold the charge until combat starts and apply it to your weapon as a free action.



so in short, use personal weapon augmentation and feats to get you op minions that steamroll your opponents at level 1-3.
when you get the money craft scrolls of lesser planar binding and magic circle against evil to bind yourself a mirror mephit a.s.a.p.
use said mirror mephit to make a simulacrum squad of 8hd creatures until you hit level 7.
at level 7 bank 7500xp and use it to create a scroll of wish and create a mithral golem
have the mithral golem carry you until it cant, at which point you craft scrolls of simulacrum yourself using summon component spell to bypass the creature component of simulacrum and create a simulacrum of any monster in the game and have it carry you to 20.

[Twurps]

artificer. it doesnt even come close. anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Dragonwrought kobold paladin begs to differ.