I vote Druid. Summoners are boring, and a solo campaign with one will be doubly so.
A druid can take a whole new spread of spells every day, can heal better than a Summoner, and can do a whole lot more stuff over the course of his career.
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If it's for a new player, you probably don't want a highly complex character like a Summoner. I would highly recommend picking a class with decent martial abilities, 4-6 skills per level, magic, and preferably an animal companion, as the character will need to be even-rounded and an AC helps against save-or-incapacitation stuff. I think your best bets are Ranger, Hunter, or Druid; all of them are quite self-sufficient, particularly in a nature-based campaign.
If you feel the player is ready to handle controlling multiple creatures at once, a Shaman Druid would actually be fantastic. If he's one or two levels above the regular foes, he'll be able to summon multiple animals on par with them. No more action economy problems!
You might also consider simply including an NPC with healing magic in the party. Perhaps a cowardly acolyte of some sort? Think of the comedic value!
Oh, and depending on the type of campaign you're running, a Slayer or Ninja with UMD could make for some awesome assassination/espionage missions!
I'm actually doing this with a single player who has only a little experience, playing Second Darkness. This might be helpful to you, but we did most of it so I could avoid work on the GM side, as I explain later.
We went with gestalt classes, and decided one should be paladin for the save boosts, immunities to a lot of SoDs, and Lay on Hands. The player picked evoker/admixture wizard for the other because he likes gishes and we thought the utility would be important. Divination would probably have been more optimized for one player, but eh.
Final result: Angel-kin aasimar, 25 point buy and cheated on the variant ability table to get an extra +2 INT in exchange for alter self. Gestalt paladin/evoker, relying on the Arcane Armor feats to avoid spell failure. Max HP, and all healing is maximized. To make up for the action deficit, we eventually also had to throw in the old version of haste, where you get an extra standard action each turn. I still limited him to one non-swift spell per round. Medium XP track when it should be Fast for the 3.5 rules tends to keep the PC less than two levels ahead of the where the game expects.
As for the GM side, I changed almost nothing. This is not my only campaign, just a side game we started when our normal group couldn't meet regularly. So I didn't even bother giving out favorable loot, and didn't convert the 3.5 stat blocks to PF, except for upgrading some drow to nobles to maintain the CR of boss fights.
The hardest part was a dungeon at the end of book one where the PC was only level 4 or 5 and had run out of spells, only making it through the dungeon by using a wand of CLW every round. I had a NPC ranger tag along as backup in book two, but he probably wasn't necessary. A fight with a dragon in book three was desperately close. Once the PC had enough gold to get a really high AC to became untouchable to most enemies, with no squishier party member to protect... you get the idea. We're in book 5, so not sure how the end will turn out yet.
This has been fun, but if we do it again, I'd rather the player played three or four PCs instead of just one super-PC to make things less swingy.
Two gestalt ideas.
First here. Combine Seeker Heavens Oracle and Primalist Untouchable Bloodrager.
Trapfinding, martial healing. At low levels be cheesy with Awesome Display and color spray. Rage cycle with the lame curse at fifth level, with the curse's movement penalty offset by the Fast Movement of the Bloodrager class. At mid levels be a super-rager who is pre-buffed with the Cleric spell list, immune to surprise and flanking, and very resistant to spells.
Second, combine Undine Shaman (Flame spirit, wandering spirit Lore) with Menhir Savant Druid (Rivers subdomain).
Lots of fire and water spells, and both knock foes prone. Wildshape for scouting and mobility.
I like druid as well but prior to shape shifting it can be hard on newer players
How so? Remember, we're talking about solo campaigning. Obviously the GM is going to have some kid gloves on until he's sure that the player has his sea legs. Druid gives a built-in tank with an AC and a lot of options for melee. Little lighter on ranged, but you don't really want that with a solo adventure, I think.
How devoted are you to running Shattered Star in specific? That AP in particular will be harder for a solo character because it is a very traditional dungeon crawl type of game. That means that there are challenges for all of the "traditional 4 man party," which includes rogues. The combats can easily be scaled back, but the traps will be a bit harder to scale. Of course, he could play some manner of rogue (or urban ranger, or Archaeologist bard, etc), but then this entire board will cry out in one voice about how underpowered they are.
I doubt that any single character should be able to survive an AP as written. You should consider NPC'ing at least one character, or modifying as needed to match the strengths of whatever character your friend makes.
If you don't want it to be overly complex, then Paladin is great because you can lay on hands and have full attacks, your saves are great, you are immune to fear/charm (which will kill a single person party), you can channel vs. groups of undead, and customize your magic weapon. His health and saves should make up for most traps encountered, as well. Adding an Archaeologist Bard NPC would be a great fit as well.
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My buddy and I have done most of the APs solo. Alternating which of us GMd
Shattered Star - I did it with a wizard, full xp and wealth, ended up using planar binding mostly to save on spells.
Kingmaker - Paladin - 1/4 EXP, but full items/wealth.
Rise of the Runelords - Cleric, negative channeler/shatter resolve. 1/2 EXP - Wealth by level table.
Reign of Winter - Oracle (battle, Half-elf Paragon surge) just started.
Iron Gods - Alchemist 1/4 exp, wealth by level table + found tech/consumables (through book 5, Certainly was easiest of the early levels as far as class power goes)
Jade Regent - Druid full exp/wealth.
Really the CR system doesn't work, after book 1 it usually gets pretty easy. The original idea was complete it in less than 3 deaths, but it's been pretty easy after you reach level 3 or 4, generally.
If you get full EXP and Wealth the APs aren't remotely a challenge after book 2 (had to start adjusting encounters up quite a bit).
Paladin is likely the best class for this, it's nearly impossible to kill and starts off quite strong, only getting stronger. Combat oracle/cleric are also excellent as you can "save" a bunch of gold via magic vestments and shield of faith.
I might also use the mythic rules for his character. If I do, would adding some mythic templates, ranks, or tiers to a few encounters overwhelm a single character, or do you think an overleveled optimized PC could handle it?
If the person you are introducing is not an experienced roleplayer I think that making the game simpler not more complex is the way to go. Even if he knows about roleplaying that is likely best.
Giving him a relatively straightforward character is likely better, and restricting the game to the core rulebook to start is not a bad idea.
I can relate my minimal experience of D and D 3.5, and I am an insanely experienced roleplayer. Because I knew full well the amount of powergaming possible and the comparative uselessness of intuitively built characters, I would ask for some advice on building a starting character. Several people would start talking rapidly, all at once with various different ideas. Give up in despair.
I've done this before when I was introducing my sister to Pathfinder. I ended up running Skulls and Shackles with her playing a ranger and it worked out great. My advice: make two or maybe three NPCs and have them as your friend's allies. I converted a couple of NPCs (a cleric and a fighter/rogue) that were part of the story into party members and then had them follow her character's lead, but offering in-game "advice" to help explain how rules worked or how to use certain skills or tactics. She had a huge amount of fun and learned how to roleplay by interacting with the NPCs too.
vetala vampire template
Either I fail at google or there's almost no discussion of this... thing. Is it a variant vampire with no weaknesses but prayers?
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I second the recommendation of don't. You will have to heavily modify the AP. For example: what happens when the PC goes against a save and die spell?
I'd recommend a class with a pet/companion at the very least AND still give the player another character/follower/hirelings of some kind. And by another character I mean one under his control, not a DMPC.
You really don't have to modify the APs. If you run them purely by RAW (using xp and wealth normally) The solo PC will be pretty solid once it gets to around 3rd level, as you'll be outleveling/wealthing the AP. If it's a optimized character the character will have basically 0 difficulty after the first book, much like an optimized party. There is nearly always a work around for not having a skill or something, It's rough if you don't have good perception and diplomacy though, but traits exist.
My suggestion for Solo-player APs is use the "advancement track" and give the PC +2 levels (start at 3rd, level up when the Track says to) Then give the PC things they pick up to use for "free" and when they level up, have them set to their wealth by level table.
Save or Dies are super rare in pathfinder, So I wouldn't worry about it too much. If a PC dies to a Save Or Die, just play it out like they had saved and keep track of the deaths, if they die in a real fight, they lose, new adventure.
If you do this by RAW only level 1 is hard. after that you have more money then you know what to do with, take leadership and have your cohort craft all your magic items (even if you don't want him to come along) and you'll pretty much dominate the AP, if you know what you're doing :D.
HARDCORE MODE: is wealth by level table, bonus gold = 1/2 the value of items you find and use (since thats effectively what you save by not selling the item) and Advancement Track no bonus. This one is pretty rough, I'm playing an alchemist in iron gods this way, it is admittedly quite challenging. I just finished book 5, and am waiting for book 6 to come out. *I am allowed to keep tech consumables, like grenades and medlances*, but I really haven't used them much, as alchemists kinda handle that stuff on their own.
P.S. I didn't use Alchemical Similucrum to make a bunch of copies of annihilator robots or myrmidons, we decided it would be a bit cheesy.
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I'm actually doing this with a single player who has only a little experience, playing Second Darkness. This might be helpful to you, but we did most of it so I could avoid work on the GM side, as I explain later.
We went with gestalt classes, and decided one should be paladin for the save boosts, immunities to a lot of SoDs, and Lay on Hands. The player picked evoker/admixture wizard for the other because he likes gishes and we thought the utility would be important. Divination would probably have been more optimized for one player, but eh.
Final result: Angel-kin aasimar, 25 point buy and cheated on the variant ability table to get an extra +2 INT in exchange for alter self. Gestalt paladin/evoker, relying on the Arcane Armor feats to avoid spell failure. Max HP, and all healing is maximized. To make up for the action deficit, we eventually also had to throw in the old version of haste, where you get an extra standard action each turn. I still limited him to one non-swift spell per round. Medium XP track when it should be Fast for the 3.5 rules tends to keep the PC less than two levels ahead of the where the game expects.
As for the GM side, I changed almost nothing. This is not my only campaign, just a side game we started when our normal group couldn't meet regularly. So I didn't even bother giving out favorable loot, and didn't convert the 3.5 stat blocks to PF, except for upgrading some drow to nobles to maintain the CR of boss fights.
The hardest part was a dungeon at the end of book one where the PC was only level 4 or 5 and had run out of spells, only making it through the dungeon by using a wand of CLW every round. I had a NPC ranger tag along as backup in book two, but he probably wasn't necessary. A fight with a dragon in book three was desperately close. Once the PC had enough gold to get a really high AC to became untouchable to most enemies, with no squishier party member to protect... you get the idea. We're in book 5, so not sure how the end will turn out yet.
This has...
I'm surprised a dragon was even a threat by book 3. Smite + Resist energy + Stoneskin should have pretty much shut it out. I guess he went with wizard instead of Sorc, so he didn't have totally insane Cha, but yeah full EXP/Wealth makes PCs neigh invulnerable after a couple of books.
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A paladin would make an excellent class story wise, following his own path and code of conduct creating havoc all around him. Lay on hands and saves are a massive boost. But for a solo campaign I am gonna second what many others have said "Summoners" or any class with an animal companion. If you go with gestalt rules the class gets even more versatile which is a must for handling all different complex issues he will face on his own. A Paladin//Summoner would be able to handle combat really well, while a straight Druid would demolish in his own right.