[4e] Best solo character

[Tengu_temp]

4e is a game oriented towards teamplay, first and foremost - but what if you don't have a team? What kind of character would be fit most for adventuring alone, without other PCs or helpful NPCs? What I think about is mostly combat, but being useful and versatile outside of it is a nice bonus, as well as having a role in an actual party once they stop going solo.

My no-brainer answers are warlord and strength-based cleric - both possess decent, if not impressive damage, hit points and defenses, and enough healing to outlast opponents they cannot kill quickly.

[Gralamin]

4e is a game oriented towards teamplay, first and foremost - but what if you don't have a team? What kind of character would be fit most for adventuring alone, without other PCs or helpful NPCs? What I think about is mostly combat, but being useful and versatile outside of it is a nice bonus, as well as having a role in an actual party once they stop going solo.

My no-brainer answers are warlord and strength-based cleric - both possess decent, if not impressive damage, hit points and defenses, and enough healing to outlast opponents they cannot kill quickly.

I think Avengers Would work well, because they already have quite a few abilities based on Isolation.
A Beast Ranger could work, as could a Fighter.

[Tiki Snakes]

Half Vampire swordmage of some kind, perhaps, could do good stuff. I also built a Minotaur Fighter multiclass (some leader class) for the fun of it, who was designed to take on solo dungeon type stuff. (admittedly, combat only, really.)

It'd be a fun challenge to build for, I must say.

[edit] If you are unable to kill it quickly, healing doesn't help as much as having been able to kill it quickly would have, I suspect.

[Kylarra]

Beastmaster Ranger is probably one of the better ones because it's "almost" like having two characters, particularly if you take the feat that allows you to OA whenever someone attacks your pet.

[Tiki Snakes]

Beastmaster Ranger is probably one of the better ones because it's "almost" like having two characters, particularly if you take the feat that allows you to OA whenever someone attacks your pet.

Pretty sure there's one that gives your beast a bonus to attack or damage when attacking a quarry of yours that has damaged you, too? It could work quite nicely.

(Tack on the Vampire feat for some temp HP, and a bard multiclass for a bit of healing, and you probably do have a pretty durable solo build.)

[FoE]

The DMG recommends a Defender for solo campaigns.

I haven't played a Barbarian yet, but I was wondering whether it would also work decently alone.

Outside of combat, the Bard or the Rogue would be good for a solo campaign.

[Mando Knight]

A Paladin could probably last a while, especially since he's got (limited) healing, moderate damage output (about as good as a Warlord, anyway), a nice HP buffer, and decently large defenses (including one of the highest ACs available without feat investment).

[Kylarra]

A Paladin could probably last a while, especially since he's got (limited) healing, moderate damage output (about as good as a Warlord, anyway), a nice HP buffer, and decently large defenses (including one of the highest ACs available without feat investment).

Chaladin should be pretty good since LoH is a good "Oh crap" button, and the daily restriction is meaningless since you'll be running short days due to lack of party. CHA skills help you diplomance your way into things too. Divine challenge does become very useless though, unfortunately, which takes away a bit of your offense.

[Mando Knight]

A Str-adin works well, too. But only if you're a race with a bonus to both Strength and either Charisma or Wisdom. The reason being that Divine Challenge then allows you to use the increased power of Holy Strike (which deals +Wis to marked targets)... and Valiant Strike helps for accuracy reasons (+1/adjacent enemy, with no damage reduction for accuracy). The Champion of Order PP then lets you shut down any tougher opponents with its Encounter power and Divine Challenge...

[Kylarra]

Dragonborn would definitely be good, since its racial power allows you to clear out minions, albeit only 1/encounter.

[Mando Knight]

Dragonborn would definitely be good, since its racial power allows you to clear out minions, albeit only 1/day.

1/encounter, actually. And with some feats from Dragon, it becomes an Area 2/10 with X/Radiant damage, so it doesn't really matter what your targets' resistances are.

[Kylarra]

1/encounter, actually. And with some feats from Dragon, it becomes an Area 2/10 with X/Radiant damage, so it doesn't really matter what your targets' resistances are.

My bad, serves me right for not checking.

[Kurald Galain]

Beastmaster Ranger is probably one of the better ones because it's "almost" like having two characters, particularly if you take the feat that allows you to OA whenever someone attacks your pet.

I'm not convinced that would work: the enemy can focus on you instead, ignoring the beast, and all you'd get from it was permanent combat advantage (noting as how the beast does not get an OA when someone attacks you). Not that permanent CA is bad or anything.

The DMG recommends a Defender for solo campaigns.

I don't think that's good advice. Several of the defender's abilities are pointless unless he has something to, you know, defend.

Outside of combat, the Bard or the Rogue would be good for a solo campaign.

Absolutely. A solo character will likely need skills.

I think the solo would also need healing. It's true that in combat, it's probably more effective to focus on damage (i.e. ranger or barbarian) to take down the enemy quickly, but you'd need healing out of combat to get more mileage out of your healing surges. Problem is that all classes that provide healing also have abilities mostly focused on buffing your non-existent teammates.

Barring cheese like the Half-Elf Of Doom (or whatever they're called now) I think your best bet would be a striker/leader hybrid, like Ranger | Streric, or Charbarian | Bard.

[Totally Guy]

I'd go with Bard, pump up to scale (or maybe plate!) armour use a Sorcerer multiclass. I'd take the most damaging Sorcerer powers available at each level and focus on melee powers from the bard. Then I'd give him a magic staff which I'd expertise with.

The character would have limited but good quality blasty powers.
He'd have basic healing.
He'd have decent armour.
And a decent number of skills.. (Although his sorcerer multiclass Arcana skill is wasted...)

May be a bit fragile but I bet he'd be fun.

[FoE]

II don't think that's good advice. Several of the defender's abilities are pointless unless he has something to, you know, defend.

Good point. That was the problem that oxinaobox ran into not long ago with a high level NPC fighter.

[Totally Guy]

I think that power swap feats could be used quite effectively for this kind of challenge as you can take a class that has a decent backbone of class features like Paladin - For Heavy Armour and hit points and then swap out defender style powers for powers from a striker class.

Of course most striker get class features that boost damage over better powers. Barbarian stands out.

[eepop]

I'm going to go with Warlock.

They can be tough as nails, they get decent skills, and while they are near the bottom of the striker list for damage, they are still strikers.

[FoE]

I too was wondering about the infernal pact warlock.

[kjones]

I don't think that's good advice. Several of the defender's abilities are pointless unless he has something to, you know, defend.

Agreed. The fighter's mark ability would be only useful against, say, retreating creatures - not that creatures never retreat, but still, its usefulness is most evident when you're trying to "draw aggro".

[valadil]

Dragonborn would definitely be good, since its racial power allows you to clear out minions, albeit only 1/encounter.

Agree on dragonborn paladin. That was my first character. They can almost be a striker (although not as much since RRoT was (rightfully) nerfed). Divine Power only increased their striking. It would take a little more effort, but they could be decent healers too if they had the wisdom to power several LOHs.

The paladin's inadequacy compared to other defenders is his subpar mark. But this doesn't matter in a solo game. Unless you have a lot of NPC allies, encouraging enemies from hitting you is meaningless in a solo game. The best use for your mark would be to hit a minion with it and hope that he can't reach you so he dies from auto-damage.

[Draz74]

Agreed. The fighter's mark ability would be only useful against, say, retreating creatures -

Or creatures trying to circle around the Fighter to achieve flanking.

[Sipex]

An infernalock would make a great solo character I think.

Naturally high constituition, striker damage, bonuses to AC with shadow walk, temporary HP coming out your ears. PRIME SHOT would always work...always. Both burst and focused attacks.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I'm with eepop and Sipex, only I'd add more detail. An Infernalock/Wizard has all the tools one would need in order to solo Orcus himself in the end. It'd have semi-constant temp hp, high con (for surviving), high int (for skills), striker dps, various controller powers, and thematic soundness to boot.

[Mando Knight]

A Warlock is dead if he tries to solo for long periods of time, though. Even with massive Constitution, they're still behind the Paladin and especially the Warden in HP, and have nowhere near enough self-recovery to stop a guy that gets a few lucky hits in. Paladins get moderate damage output, a reliable means of healing themselves, and massive AC to deflect hits. By multiclassing into a Leader class, they can gain extra healing, and by taking a Striker class (particularly Warlock, Sorcerer, Ranger, and Barbarian), they can increase their damage output. If the Paladin worships Bahamut, he can take a feat to negate a critical 1/encounter instead of boosting his damage or nearly auto-saving on an adverse effect.

[LibraryOgre]

Bard. A bard built with substantial multiclass options can cover every role, fight decently, and handle most of the skill duties. They're mid-tier on armor and weapons, and even their healing power, Majestic Word, helps with their mobility... once per round, they can use a minor action to take a healing surge AND shift one square.

[Sipex]

Oh right, I had forgotten that this was about making the BEST solo character. Not just a good one.

[Kaerius]

I'd have to agree bard and paladin make very good options(possibly hybrid with sorceror for either).

On the other hand... artificer is interesting. It can have pretty decent AC(leather armor and primary AC stat without spending feats), heal itself, create meatshields, can be specced to fight well in both range and melee. Heck you probably won't be able to manage more than a fight a day in solo in most cases anyway, so using their awesome dailies doesn't hurt. Heck at lvl 5 you have yourself an awesome little minion by animating a weapon and at 9 you can get your conmod healing every time you hit(radiant weapon). I heard encounter-long surgeless heals are good. ;)

You won't be mr. silvertongue though.

[Willis888]

It depends on the total character levels allowed.*1 Some builds that work out in the end are difficult to play at lower levels.

It also depends on the setting. Casters run out of spells while fighters can do arbitrary damage without rest.

An Epic Barbarian who has focused on getting as much damage reduction as possible can last literally forever against armies of mooks (if they use siege weapons against you, a Vampiric weapon counters). Low level Barbarians will wish they were Paladins. Both are out of luck if regularly confronted by single, strong NPCs with optimized PC levels comparable to their own - Paladin/Sorcerer please (except at levels 6-15 . . . see *1).

In what environment/scenario are we building a solo character?


But really, just be a Wizard and hole up in a dungeon somewhere, sending forth your minions to take care of bidness. Or hire adventurers.

[Drager]

I've got a solo wizard build that works very well. I'm still fiddling with the Paragon tier stuff, but Heroic and Epic are sorted. I'll link to the Heroic part of the build. the PAragon Path you want is Simbarch of Aglarond and the Epic Destiny is Archmage.

The Solo Wizard

[Kurald Galain]

I've got a solo wizard build that works very well. I'm still fiddling with the Paragon tier stuff, but Heroic and Epic are sorted. I'll link to the Heroic part of the build. the PAragon Path you want is Simbarch of Aglarond and the Epic Destiny is Archmage.

That strikes me as a pretty bad paragon path. If you need the healing, use a multiclass feat and invest in a bunch of potions.