My son has just rambled in and asked if I'll run him through Second Darkness as a solo adventure path for 4e. He doesn't want much...
Naturally, because I'm a sucker for punishment, I've said "yes". Anyone got any tips or advice to offer before we embark on this crazy venture? The actual conversion doesn't bother me so much - I do a lot of on the fly 3.x into 4e anyway for a pbp I run. Scaling suggestions would be most helpful however.
Perhaps halving hitpoints and lessening the number of foes in larger combats. I know some people who make it a point to halve hp for larger monster on general principal as HP tends to be the only reason the baddies cause combat to dragon on as long as it has for them. Either that or convert more enemies into minions.
Unfortunately I haven't run a solo game since I was much younger and never with 4th edition so I'm afraid I can only offer you the above basic advice.
Do you have DDi? If so there is a good article about Gladiator combats in Dragon 368 that can probably be used as a guideline to solo adventuring.
I do have DDi and thank you both for the advice.
He's rolled himself a dwarf bard and it's been interesting. In our group games, he is a very combat focused player, but immediately recognised that in a solo adventure he'd have to use different tactics.
The result is that he started using his skills in some pretty imaginative ways -
He's enjoying himself and so am I. It's a very different experience for both of us. As a DM I tend to run with whatever players throw at me anyway, but running this means we both have to be a bit cleverer and more flexible. Our aim is to get through the first adventure without me having to recruit an NPC for him to use as a combat buddy.
He's rolled himself a dwarf bard
Perfect! Dwarf leaders are among the best choices for solo play. They can heal twice per combat as a class feature and access their own second wind all with minor actions.
Sounds like it's going great. I'd definitely be interested in reading more about how this all turns out, so keep us posted.
That is a very canny choice of character! And the use of his character's strengths in that encounter is hilarious.