Inquisitor? Heck - Master Summoner.
Summoner. You play healer/buffer/battle field control, Eidolon plays tank/striker.
Master Summoner. 9 or so SLA Summons for damage/tank, healing, buffs, and control, with a skill monkey eidolon,.
Cleric imo. Can heal yourself have decent fort and will saves. if you go cleric and are a neutral or evil cleric can aoe creeps down with neg energy.
Summoner hands down. You are an entire party by yourself, with just as diverse a skillset as you advance in levels.
A few come to mind depending here are my picks
1) Druid ( Got one now level 4 with a spinosuarus, kicking major a#% and useful in many different situations.)
2) Paladin- great self buff/self heal and full bab? yes ma'am and the Lawful stupid issue doesn't even have to be an issue...you're flying solo remember?
3)Cleric.
Any other could work but these would be the easiest I think and didn't list summoner cuz I don't like them and everyone else pretty much already suggested that.
Id say bard or inquistor, both have decent combat, magic and skills. Ranger would be another good choice if youre careful.
I'm all about the archeologist bard. In a solo campaign you will need a variety of skills and abilities.
|
Stealth rogue. Focus on moving at night and max out ur umd and stealth so u can heal ur self via wands. Rogue will allow u to take care of traps as needed. Get a Heavy crossbow with perma gravity bow on it and the sniper goggles so u can sneak attack at any range. Also u will have to max out ur disguise ability to walk freely about with out having people take notice to u. The character will be a pseudo assassin type which in my experience works best alone.
For upfront play go Synthesis Summoner and pick up all the evolutions that give u immunity and nat armor. Toss in a level or 2 of monk to increase ur ac and basically ignore all attacks coming ur way.
There is also the diplomatic approach depending on the game. Were u can play a bard and rank up through politics to a point were if any1 touches u there as good as dead because of the people u know. I actually did this in a friends game and made the character an actually ruler of an empire back in 3.5 were they actually had rules to do such a thing. It was basically in short D&D Sims. Surprisingly fun if i may.
Either way depending on how u go about it there is a few things u need to consider to make a solo character. How to handle traps, heal ur self, travel, can u handle ur own in a fight, and deal with environmental issues such as weather, location, and food.
Hmmm... many have already said some of the best... Maybe an arcane duelist bard? They can get heavy armor and shields, and it would not affect their spell casting. Their healing spells help too. The skill points would allow you to cover most roles.
Druids are always great. Part of me wants to say Saurian Shaman druid... 'cause DINOSAURS! In seriousness, the bonuses to wild shaping into a dinosaur, and the ability to summon dinosaurs as a standard action, are good for a combat build. There is enough diversity to fit most needs. Healing is again, great.
Reach clerics (and oracles, I guess) can balance melee and casting just fine by using their turn to cast spells and using AoO to keep enemies at bay.
I tend to lean towards melee builds for casting characters since you need to be able to handle yourself the first few levels before your magic starts getting Quadratic.
Master Summoner, Master Summoner, Summoner, Inquisitor, one of those self-ish bard archetypes, master summoner, druid, animal domain cleric, master summoner...
I think that covers most of 'em.
Master Summoner, Master Summoner, Summoner, Inquisitor, one of those self-ish bard archetypes, master summoner, druid, animal domain cleric, master summoner...
I think that covers most of 'em.
You forgot Master Summoner
Oh! Thanks.
Master Summoner too.
No prob
I have an odd question. A friend and I are shortly to be trying out our first single-player (one on one) game, with myself as player. My question is this: does anyone have an opinion on the best class given the premise that this character would for the most part (aside from hiring NPCs) be a solo operator? In other words, are there any builds for a "lone wolf" character who ideally is rounded enough not to have to rely on backup? Historically, the DM has never been TOO vindictive, so he probably won't be directly attacking weak points every round, but at the same time, I feel I probably should be building for a hero who's a little more self-sufficient than usual just so that the world's crappiest will save isn't dangling enticingly in front of him like a ripe apple every round.
Absolutely Master Summoner. Trick out your eidolon as a scout/pocket rogue, summon monsters to fit a particular threat and stay out of danger. You get great spells to control the battlefield (Pits) as well as incredibly useful spells (like Teleport, Fly, Invisibility). The things I've been able to do with my MS have been truly mythic at times.
An alternate build suggestion would be the Tiefling Paladin I just posted here. He's a little less versatile but pretty damned self-sufficient (if you'll excuse the pun), almost impossible to kill or control and has some nice RP aspects built into him.
Bottom line is that you're going to need someone with skills available to him one way or another, and a Master Summoner with a skill monkey would be the best way to do it in my opinion. A lot of it actually depends on your GM - if he's going to tailor adventueres to you and your particular strengths or skill set (as he should when running a solo campaign) you could really run anything.
Heck, the master summoner even cautions that it's mostly suitable to solo games.
Master summoner is quite good, person in my solo game is doing well with it. However, there are other classes that work well too.
Clerics work nicely, channel energy: negative is quite useful.
Paladins do well.
As mentioned, stealthy rogues can have a great time.
Wizard is probably the most difficult to solo, though even this class can do surprisingly well alone.
Remember, when you are by yourself the encounters are usually considerably weaker relative to your abilities. Making damage dealing abilities, like sneak attack and damage spells, more powerful. A very difficult encounter is not longer taking on someone four levels higher than you, it's taking on someone of your level.
Ah, true, paladins have enough going for them to get through many situations. Healing, combat abilities, and save make it fairly sturdy. It would end up terrible if you fell though.
Druids might also be good since they can use the call animal spell and handle animal skill to tame various beasties to build up your own little army. Maybe pick something pack based as your animal companion and set it up as the alpha to help micro manage. Hirelings are also a good resource. Pay some farmer a silver a day to ride your tamed T-rex into battle! Not very hard to get the animals to follow your plans if you have an intelligent being of any kind guiding them. At the very least, you can get a few small animals to serve for tracking purposes. Since this is solo, you can spend all the time you want training them.
anything with a degree of self-sufficiency (healing is optional, but a point in its favor) will work fine.
-paladins/inquisitors (good saves, self-healing, usually great in melee),
-monks (same as above reasoning, trading self-healing for great touch AC, lots of flexibility with quinggong, *REQUIRES DECENT POINT-BUY AND PROPER OPTIMIZATION, ELSE IT GETS RANKED WITH FIGHTER*),
-clerics/oracles/droods/summoners (free access to healing, lots of summons for flexibility, eidolon and wildshape for summoner and drood, respectively),
-cavaliers/samurai/rangers/gunslingers (quite tough, great damage output),
-witches/wizards/sorcerers (general casty owns everything reasoning),
-fighters.
in about that order IMO (slash-separated ones are about equal). special mention to gunslingers or the appropriate gun-wielders, since the whole "touch AC for everything" makes encounters much less horrifying for a lot of things.
the casty section and the cavalier/sam section can be switched according to most folks opinion on the caster-martial disparity.
@TOZ: good point, i always forget bards. though, the swordplay bit is arguable from what i hear.
in about that order IMO (slash-separated ones are about equal). special mention to gunslingers or the appropriate gun-wielders, since the whole "touch AC for everything" makes encounters much less horrifying for a lot of things.
Hmmm... gunslingers with a few ranks in craft(trap) could also theoretically rig up some barrels of gunpowder. 5d6 damage can provide a good bit of blasting and maybe battlefield control if you made them into mines. Obviously it would need a lot of prep time and a reason to fortify a location though.
It really depends on the type of campaign you will be playing in. Since you will not have any other charterers to aid you being able to cover all basis is going to be important. You will need good combat ability, the ability to use magic, and decent skills. Being able to heal yourself and having a decent selection of weapons and armor is also going to be important. Having a class with perception as a class skill is also going to be a bonus. Depending on the campaign some skill will be more important than others so concentrate on a class that has those skills as a class skill.
Several people have suggested a summoner and for combat they do pretty good but you even with a high CHA your social skills will be lacking and you will not have a lot of skills. You can use your Eidolon to cover some skills but the locals down at the pub may not be really cooperative with it when he tries to gather information. The summoner also lacks cure light wounds on his spell list so you will need to invest in UMD to heal yourself.
In a wilderness environment either a ranger or a druid is going to be a good choice. For the more urban environment the archeologist bard is a better thief than a rogue and has spells to boot.
Overall I would recommend an inquisitor. His combat ability is decent all the time and with judgments and bane can nova up a couple of times per day. He has a good selection of skills and gets a bonus on several of them. With the conversion inquisition he can dump CHA and still have good social skills. His spells include healing and a lot of stealth oriented spells which as a which will work well since you don't have to worry about the rest of the party.
Jedi :P
I'd say Paladin.
Chalk up another one for Gunslinger.
Grab a horse and Mounted Combat/Mounted Archery (it just says ranged weapons) and you can be the Lone Ranger.
Magus isn't a bad choice ether. With infernal healing and vampire touch they can keep themselves going. Good skills points since they are int based casting. Good ability to keep going through a long day with spell recall and it covers one of the big holes in a lot of these suggestions.
AoE spells. Anyone without them is going to get wrecked by swarms. Though one would hope the DM would not use swarms vs a solo PC but I like to have all bases covered.
Swarms are what alchemist's fire and acid flasks are for. They are a very real threat though, so I would definitely pack a couple vials on my master summoner, and hand a couple to my eidolon just in case I miss.
rogue.
Whenever we have soloed, the player has been a rogue and it works out decidedly well.
Why fight when you can run and hide? Pee stains in your undies, is the better part of valor!
Swarms are what alchemist's fire and acid flasks are for. They are a very real threat though, so I would definitely pack a couple vials on my master summoner, and hand a couple to my eidolon just in case I miss.
While that has its uses at low lvls splash weapons like those don't scale at all. It does not take long before the damage they do becomes well useless.
Not if you take throw-anything ;)
I hurl the jug at the creature! What's in the jug? Eight pints of alchemist fire. Rapid shot or multiple attacks and have the second one be oil. Works just as well, and a lot cheaper.