Looking for advice for a solo campaign

[Nimbus]

Hello folk, hope everyone is faring as well as is possible given the times!

I've ordered and am looking forward to the new Icewind Dale campaign book coming out soon and I am hoping to run the campaign for my Wife. However we are both fairly introverted even in the best of times, so given the current times a solo campaign is the only real option to do this.

As such I'm planning on having her roll a gestalt character, I found some good rules online at the danddwiki under "Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule)", I would link however post limit says no.

These cover most of the basics I was looking to have covered so that is awesome. However there are two things it doesn't mention that I was hoping for advice from some more experienced DMs on. First off, concentration is still limited to one active which I feel is weak for a solo campaign however I'm not sure if I can or should bump it to two or adjust it some other way. Secondly, if I run more than 1 monster it will be the reverse normal problem of boss fights so only having one initiative round per turn will seem very weak if even 5 weak monsters each get to go between. Not keen on a great solution to this problem at all, so any ideas would be awesome!

As a note I have considered having a NPC companion in the 'party' to help out but those always feel a bit weird to me. If I control it then I'm stealing the fun (in my opinion), if she controls the NPC then it might be overwhelming and refocus her from her own character's actions and interest. So hoping to make it as close to actually 'solo' as possible. Obviously if she chooses to try to hire a mercenary to help or something that would be her own choice - I just don't want to make it for her.

Hope this is the right place to post this question, sorry if not. Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can offer!

[Bunny Commando]

Have you considered suggesting a class with an animal companion?
That way she would have a mini-NPC to control that would be part of her character.

[Eldariel]

For solo characters, minionmancers are disproportionately powerful. Shepherd Druid, other Druids, or any Wizard or Cleric or Divine Soul or Lore Bard with Animate Dead can all shine once they hit their minionmancy point (level 5 though Druids need a bit more level to be able to spam it all day and Lore Bard needs level 6).

The extra set of action evens it out with encountered monsters (though up until that point it can be rough but doable). And in a solo game, you don't need to worry about slowing down the game or outshining the teammates or any such so I say, cut loose and have fun!

[firelistener]

While it might be on that wiki, I don't believe the gestalt rule has actually been officially ported to 5e, even in unearthed arcana. I could be wrong on that, but you might run into something odd playtesting it lol.

That said, I think it should work out fine. I'd suggest you also give the PC some legendary actions or just roll a second initiative and take two turns per round if you're overly concerned about action economy. Honestly though, I would personally just opt to put fewer monsters in single fights if you really don't want to use helpful NPCs. Those are the best option in my opinion. They don't have to have actual class levels, so they wouldn't really steal the glory IMO. Just basically a meatshield lol.

[CTurbo]

I recommend:

1. Ritual Caster(Wizard) for multiple reasons. Find Familiar is almost mandatory, but so many other rituals would be infinitely helpful.
2. Alert feat. Getting surprised in a solo campaign could be instant game over.
3. Minionmancy is really strong considering the best thing a solo character could possibly do is expand the action economy.

I think Rangers, Druids, Rogues, Warlocks, and Bards make the best solo classes.

[Greywander]

I've ordered and am looking forward to the new Icewind Dale campaign book coming out soon and I am hoping to run the campaign for my Wife. However we are both fairly introverted even in the best of times, so given the current times a solo campaign is the only real option to do this.
I've played with just my sister and me (not in a module, but a homebrew campaign, which does change things somewhat), and what we did was we both rolled up characters and then co-DMed. We would take turns being the main DM for a story arc, and whenever one of us would talk to an NPC, the other would take on the role of the NPC. You might also find this website (https://www.rpgsolo.com/) helpful. Any time you're not sure about something, you can phrase it as a yes or no question and have it roll for the answer.


As such I'm planning on having her roll a gestalt character, I found some good rules online at the danddwiki under "Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule)", I would link however post limit says no.
Here's the link, for those curious: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule)

I have my own rules for gestalt characters, which you might find useful. You could mix and match with the DandDwiki ones. A while back I wrote up a somewhat extensive doc looking into some of the different possibilities, along with which ones were my preference. You can find it here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M1klFB07A7zeulumCZ6jqyd2XM8qkk2LaMVfC0sk_UY/edit?usp=sharing). Here's the cliff notes:

Hit Points/Hit Dice. Take the larger hit die, but hold the smaller hit die in reserve. If you gain a smaller hit die later (e.g. from multiclassing), you can replace it with a reserved hit die. For HP, take the larger of the two, and the other class gives a small bonus based on its hit die size: d6 gives nothing, d8 gives +1, d10 gives +2, d12 gives +3. What this does is insure you have the same hit dice and average HP for your combination of class levels, regardless of the order you take them in.
Proficiency. Get the weapon, armor, tool, and language proficiencies of both classes. Get the skills of both classes, minus two, chosen from the combined skill list. Choose one strong save and one weak save from those available to either class.
Spellcasting. Both classes contribute to your caster level, allowing you to have 9th level slots as early as 9th level. However, caster level still caps at 20, so a wizard 10/cleric 10 has all the spell slots they're going to get.
Ability Score Increases. You get the ASIs of both classes. Especially in solo, this frees you up to grab some much-needed feats.
Multiclassing. There is no distinction between "main" class and "secondary" class. You just get two class levels every time you level up. In fact, you can put both class levels into the same class, as long as this doesn't raise your level in that class higher than your character level.

Now, what I found with gestalt was that we were leveling up so quickly that we were having trouble remembering what abilities we had. So I came up with a new system that was a hybrid of gestalt and multiclassing. Instead of getting your "extra" class level for free, like a gestalt, you have to pay for it with XP (which slows down progression enough for you to get used to your new abilities). As you reach higher levels, you become able to multiclass into more classes (you can have up to two classes at 1st level, three at 5th, four at 9th, etc.), but again, you have to pay XP to level them up. So it creates a system that's a bit more flexible, allowing you to go straight classed if you just want to reach 20 as soon as possible, or you can slow down and dip into as many classes as you can. You can find the rules for that here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XkpH63RskT5akra8IpHP2STak2LeeDi7lpc91fc0mXg/edit?usp=sharing), but you'll need to scroll down; I also have rules for 0th and 1/2 level characters in the same doc.


First off, concentration is still limited to one active which I feel is weak for a solo campaign however I'm not sure if I can or should bump it to two or adjust it some other way.
What I've seen others recommend for an issue like this is to give a magic item at some point that can concentrate on a spell for you. One I remember was a lantern that lights when it is concentrating on a spell, and if the flame goes out then concentration is lost. So you have to protect the lantern to make sure the flame stays lit.

Speaking of magic items, a similar issue is attunement. Not sure what you should do there, but something to be aware of. The artificer can grant additional attunement slots, so if you just give extra attunement slots to the player then it devalues the artificer.


Secondly, if I run more than 1 monster it will be the reverse normal problem of boss fights so only having one initiative round per turn will seem very weak if even 5 weak monsters each get to go between. Not keen on a great solution to this problem at all, so any ideas would be awesome!
Well, how do boss fights deal with this issue? With legendary actions and legendary resistance. How are we going to deal with this issue? With heroic actions and heroic resistance (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?596581-Solo-small-party-Try-Heroic-Resistance-Actions).


As a note I have considered having a NPC companion in the 'party' to help out but those always feel a bit weird to me. If I control it then I'm stealing the fun (in my opinion), if she controls the NPC then it might be overwhelming and refocus her from her own character's actions and interest. So hoping to make it as close to actually 'solo' as possible. Obviously if she chooses to try to hire a mercenary to help or something that would be her own choice - I just don't want to make it for her.
Yeah, it feels weird either controlling multiple characters or having a DMPC tagging along. Definitely introduce friendly NPCs that she can ask for help from, if needed, and make it clear that mercenaries are an option as well. It might be a good idea for her to pick up some summoning spells (or she could play a necromancer, anything with minions would work). You could give her a magic item (not right away, though) that lets her cast a summon spell once per long rest. Something like Conjure Animals is pretty solid. The animals are pretty weak, but there's enough of them that sheer force of numbers helps overwhelm the foe, and force of numbers are where she's weak.

[Keravath]

Other options would include
- running more than one character
- having one or more NPCs
- running a DMPC
- having a sidekick in the party (WOTC added rules for sidekicks to some of their modules for running them solo)

Of course you can use gestalt rules if you like but there are other ways to make a solo campaign work. You could even consider some mix of these. e.g. one other NPC/DMPC/sidekick with some of the boosts from gestalt characters.

One of the issues with a single character is the action economy. A gestalt character may have more options to deal with a situation, more hit points on average, but they still only have one action, one bonus action and reaction every turn to deal with the encounter.

For this reason the NPC/DMPC/sidekick can actually add quite a bit more than just giving the individual character have more options.

[rlc]

Scale down whatever combats you have to, and don't be afraid to fudge rolls. Adding a companion or two is fine, but keep the focus on the player, because you can actually have a main character in this game.

[CTurbo]

Co-DMing works too. My bro-in-law and I have done that a few times and it's always fun.

Running two characters at a time helps a lot too. I recommend having the "main" character and then a second simple character like Champion Fighter that acts more like a loyal bodyguard type character while the main character makes all the decisions. I've done this before too with my loyal Fighter bodyguard being a mute. I would avoid having two main characters. I had a friend play a purposefully dumb Monk/Ranger as his main character with a blind Wizard friend as his second character. You flesh out 1 character and keep focus on them.

[Nimbus]

Thank you all for all the great tips, way more than I had even hoped!

Unfortunately not sure exactly what we'll go with yet so I can't provide any exciting news on that front. Right now we're going to wait for the new adventure to hit, then she plans to pick her class(s) off the setting/theme/feel of it all. If she ends up going minion-mancer of some form that'll solve most the issues, if she ends up wanting to go more lone-wolf style the Gestalt rules plus heroic action/resist per long rest might feel the best for that style. I also really like the item-bound concentration idea for a most caster-focused build.

Thanks again for all the help, always love hearing different ways people work around issues like this. Granted that is sort of the core of the whole game so I guess that makes sense!