I am looking to start a campaign with just me and one other person. I am looking for any story ideas that will help. I am fairly use to gaming and have always Gamed with at lest three players but we just moved and have not been able to get anyone to the new place. Most the character build simply are not balanced enough to play solo that I can see. I am not good at having a npc or two follow the player around either to much to keep trace of.
With a one on one adventure its a complete restructure of the kind of story you are going to tell. There is a lot more time for roleplay and personal interaction/character development. I recommend taking a look at 1on1 adventures which are published adventures designed for a single player. Even if you prefer writing your own material, it would give you some good ideas on how to handle this particular challenge in your story.
I love one on one games. You will really need to talk to your player and get a back story. Once you establish this you can tailor a campaign around his history. IMHO Games with smaller groups tend to be more compelling.
There are a bunch of great sources on line. 1on1 adventures is a great resource.
My one recommendation to you is that at lower levels you need to really tailor the campaign to your player... So that if he is a rogue you have him sneaking into a compound, If he is a fighter you have him fighting in a gladiatorial competition ect. The last thing you want to do is put low level wizard in a situation that forces him to rely on melee.
Sneak Campaigns work a lot better with smaller groups (or a single player).
Use games like Thief or Assassin's Creed or others like that for inspiration.
Another one is the mythical hero campaign. The single player is an amazingly powerful demi-god, forced into trials or adventure where he faces equally powerful creatures alone.
Leadership feat works well here, as you can bring alone someone to cover a weakness you might have, and then you can have a bunch of followers that get eaten/killed out of hand to have the movie effect of "see how powerful this thing is you are about to face".
There is a third party DragonRider class (Super Genius Games) that is pretty OP (imo) it may work for him. Just don't go Eragon style and rip off star wars.
Thank you all for the input. the one player is a she and she is my wife. I know what she can and can not play. she is a hack and slash player fits well with a barbarian class. we both love the idea of trying a solo campaign for her. I really like LOTR effect described. She also favors high crit weapons. uumm brain is working now.
If she's willing to try it Inquisitor's can practically be a one man party, the deal out good damage, get cleric spells, and plenty of skill points.
For a single player all you'd have to do is switch out the teamwork feats they get in their progression for normal feats.
Just a suggestion!
I ran a solo campaign for my brother a while back, and he was a barbarian. I think barbarian culture can lend itself pretty well as a solo campaign at beginning levels. Used a pretty typical coming-of-age scenario to start with. That gave him a task to perform with opposition that can be easy enough to overcome alone (a few wild animals, etc). Use treacherous terrain as low-level traps to gain some more xp without being overwhelming. Another benefit of this type of starting scenario is that even if the character is overcome it can be easily enough explained that they were being watched by a tribal scout the entire time, who can bring them back to health in the case of failure. Although that sort of outcome may seem a little convenient it's believable enough, and still penalizes them (with shame) without ending the campaign prematurely.
It may be pretty generic, but it worked well for me.
Barbarian is a good call. It's easy to flavor, they tend to be pretty hardy, are great at hack-and-slash, and still get a respectable amount of skills. If she's willing to try out something a bit different, an inquisitor (probably of Cayden Cailean or Gorum, and you can even flavor it as a barbaric shaman if you want) is a GREAT solo class. 6+int skills, Bring Your Own Buffs/Heals, 3/4 BAB/HD, Medium armor, bows+favored weapon proficiency, and special domain powers.
But that depends on if she wants to mess with skills/spells. If not, I can't blame her.
Ranger is also a good choice for solo play.
Lots of skills, Full BAB, Good HP, Combat style feats, favored enemy bonuses, favored terrain, Pet at 4th level, spells, evasion...