| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm trying to introduce a friend of mine to Pathfinder, and we're planning on doing a solo campaign of Shattered Star. We're starting with the first book, and if that goes well, continuing to the rest of the path. No details at the moment, but I plan on having him be about 2 levels above what's suggested for a full party- starting at level 3, progressing to 4 when it suggests level 2, and so on.
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?
All Paizo-published stuff on d20pfsrd is acceptable.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you don't mind some cheesiness, a paragon surge oracle of battle could be both fun and powerful.
Being a battle oracle you'd have the ability to both cast spells and go toe-to-toe with enemies.
Paragon Surge in case you are unaware is a spell for half elves which allows them to temporarily take another feat (among other things). By taking the feat Expanded Arcana with paragon surge they can then access any spell on the oracle/cleric spell list on the fly. You can also paragon surge for the feat Improved Eldritch Heritage to get the 9th level Arcane bloodline power - adding any sorcerer/wizard spell to your spell list.
Long story short, you can bash things and cast all the cleric/oracle and sorcerer/wizard spells spontaneously. Pretty unfair normally, but quite nice for a solo character.
Also fun would be a Reincarnated Druid. Druid's are great for solo play as they are and once you hit level five you can auto-reincarnate yourself - useful when you don't have any party members to revive yourself.
My last bit of advice would be to play any class with the vetala vampire template. This might be a better option for evil characters, but they're unkillable at low-levels and get fun possession abilities that can be very useful for solo infiltration and combat.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If it is a intro scenario then i suggest against the Real solo classes, summoner, paladin, wizard after 9, druid, and propose that a barbarian or a ranger will be a fun solo hero. You will need to remake the encounters but letting a new player play a synthesist or some other powerhouse is not gonna be good for future gaming.
|
you could also build him 4 charectors *gasp* let him play all of them and learn the capabilities of four of the classes and roles at once. I had a simular thing teaching a friend.
Another idea used for that friend was they made their charectors, then in a weird portaling dm fingerwavy magic thing, I had all four charectors inhabit the same body. they rolled initiative for each 'persona' and basically when that persona's initiative came up, it was that persona's turn, and i 1d4'ed to see whose 'body' took the damage from bads, it worked out okay. after a few levels they got the gist and knew what they wanted to play for the most part. Just some ideas
Or just run some NPC lackeys for him. He can be the star of the show, making all the important decisions, with the rest of the party following his lead.
If you start him at level 3 just give him the squire feat to get a cohort and perhaps have him play a class that has an animal companion.
For example make him a mad dog barbarian and give him a paladin or ranger squire. That way he is not really solo and his cohort can use wands of CLW.
If you used the Gestalt rules a Paladin/Rogue would be rather capable of succeeding at most of an AP, via Stealth and Smite.
Since he's the only player, earning 4x the XP, he should end up (or you can start him off) about 4 levels ahead of where a normal group would be.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
your best bet would be a normal summoner:
- an optimized eidolon (pouncing quadruped- max # natural attacks, plus arms to add iterative full attack with 2hander; as big and strong as possible) will deal crazy damage with its own turn.
- that leaves the summoner with its own turn to cast/fight/whatever.
- if you add eldritch heritage[arcane] and improved familiar, he can pick up a faerie dragon familiar which can use its own turn to use wiz/sorc wands or scrolls (though the scrolls above 2nd level will require a caster level check).
that gives you 3 turns every round instead of 1! throw in leadership at 7th and you'll have 4- that's basically a full party with just one character.
that said, i agree with Cap.- starting a player out with a character capable of soloing an AP is gonna cause all kinds of problems down the road; that player will have unreasonable expectations of what all his future characters should be able to do, and maybe even of table dynamics and how much attention should be on him. The Nine and Detect Magic both made good suggestions for (IMHO) better solutions, although the best solution is probably to try to find a few more players...
I started a thread asking people to try soloing an AP with a Synthesist, so we'd had evidence of their power level, but few took me up on it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
people talk about synthesist like its the most OP thing ever... IMHO its less potent (in most situations) than a vanilla summoner. as shown in my previous post, the regular summoner just has crazy action economy, something that the synthesist's exceptional survivability doesn't typically make up for. plus, with a separate eidolon you both get distinct skills and feats which is another advantage.
With one player, one interesting option would be a ninja. Rather than trying to fight everything, I'd try to stealth around what I couldn't easily fight. He'd probably still die without the gestalt rules though. Gestalt Ninja/Magus with a familiar (for wand buffing) would be powerful, versatile, and sneaky enough to run away from anything it couldn't outmatch.
EDIT: Hmmm... Magus and knifemaster rogue could be a brutal gestalt. Kukri + shocking grasp, vanish as a frequent spell...
|
I second a ninja or rogue. (get swift trigger and build mechanical triggers which triggers your magical clever traps which are stuck on your body). - He'd be a true sneaky hero.
Also, a ranger would be very versatile.
If you don't want to change the encounters - make sure the character has some serious stealth and movement skills.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
don't get me wrong, a synthesist should be a beast. my issue is just that the eidolon itself has the same outrageous melee capability whether the summoner is in him or not, and if it isn't than the summoner gets a separate turn (and his own separate feats). so, while the synthesist can pounce for a metric butt-ton of damage, the summoner can cast haste and (eventually) a quickened enlarge person and then have his eidolon pounce for noticeably more damage. in subsequent rounds while the synthesist continues fighting and potentially is forced to start funneling his hp into the eidolon, the buffed super eidolon also continues fighting (more effectively) and the summoner keeps him going with rejuvenate eidolon spells...
synthesists are indeed potent, but the base summoner is just broken. their only weak spot really is that if you can drop the summoner the eidolon disappears, but unless a GM designs an encounter specifically to accomplish that it's pretty unlikely. that's why i think that if anybody could solo an AP it would be a summoner.
+1 vote for druid. You got the summons, you got the wild shaping, you got the animal companion(s). What else do you need?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
+1 for having your new player play 2+ characters. I would recommend the Sylvan Sorcerer and Lunar Oracle for a while so the player can get the feel of divine v. arcane casting. As the game progresses past level 7, allow your player to take the Leadership feat to gain access to a couple martial types.
By the end, your new player will be, at a minimum, moderately conversant and familiar with all the standard roles.
|
Synthesist is a very strong choice along with a cast of support NPCs run by the GM. ESPECIALLY if you get creative with the origins of the Eidolon.
A couple of friends are running Council of Thieves this way, with a Chelish woman whose soul has been fused with a sacrificed Erinyes as the PC and a number of NPCs as her supporting cast. It's been working out swimmingly for them so far, and the player has gotten plenty of enjoyable drama out of the PC and Erinyes' plight.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am against summoners in general and especially the synthesist. The vanilla summoner's issue is taking up too much time, not a problem in this instance, but the synthesist is objectively bad. From what I've seen on it, including a guide a fan of the synthesist wrote on it, it was atrociously written and the rules regarding it are obtuse and confusing. I have no desire to subject a new player to that.
As for playing multiple players, companions, summons, and the like, I'm somewhat reluctant to overwhelm him with new data, but it does seem viable.
I highly doubt any class can solo an AP. Since you're going to have to make adjustments anyway, why not let him pick the class he wants to play and then you make the adjustments based on that?
I'd suggest giving the character two extra levels, and a side kick, sister, wife, kid brother or whatever character/creature can serve as a good support character played by you.
Give the GM pc two extra levels of npc classes instead, aristocrat or expert probably best.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Make up a nice, flavorful background for the character. Do it together, back and forth. Encourage a very experienced woods-crafty mundane background. Or whatever.
If your friend wants the simplicity of being a T1 shape-shifting-prepared-full-spell-caster-with-a pet then make up a Druid. If your friend wants something simpler, make a switch-hitting Fighter or Ranger. Consider starting your friend with a rogue. For example, a well equipped 7th level rogue ought to be able to complete most 1st level adventures written for a team of 4. Is that wrong?
After a solo session or two you can add a supporting character. Introduce the new character in role-playing, then hand over the character sheet. Then another. Pretty soon you have a small, well balanced group, able to tackle higher level challenges. Make the classes and roles interlocking, so that the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts. A pair of stalwart heroes with a helpful sidekick could go a long way.
I suggest you start your friend in a class without much in the way of spells or special abilities, and low point buy/dice rolling schema.
|
|
You could make him play a brother combo of 2 characters (both with 1 wizard level of divination and then the feat: "Lookout". = always act in the surprise round and get a full round worth of actions in the surprise phase instead of 1standard action. Most commonly, people die or end up in s@~% positions from being surprised.
I am against summoners in general and especially the synthesist. The vanilla summoner's issue is taking up too much time, not a problem in this instance, but the synthesist is objectively bad. From what I've seen on it, including a guide a fan of the synthesist wrote on it, it was atrociously written and the rules regarding it are obtuse and confusing. I have no desire to subject a new player to that.
As for playing multiple players, companions, summons, and the like, I'm somewhat reluctant to overwhelm him with new data, but it does seem viable.
You will have to get over your reluctance. Action economy is a critical element to the game. A single character is at a huge disadvantage when compared to a full party even if you add to its level. Those extra actions matter ALOT.
Personally I've given it some thought and I would allow him to make it a gestalt character, probably mixing bard or ninja and summoner or inquisitor and druid. Both cases the pet is really important to help with the action economy, as are the spells and skills.
To everyone doubting that a single character can solo an AP, it's been done. The thread was "Son of Beastmass", I believe. Still, that used one specific build I don't want to force him to use.
He's fine with playing two characters, so I'll do that. As for letting him play what he wants to play, I'd just do that except he's not sure what he wants to play other than a vague idea of what it should be capable of doing, namely, stealth, and stealth is easy to optimize thanks to invisibility.
Or Magus and Warpriest for upfront power with spellcasting. I'd probably still use gelstalt rules for both characters though.
To everyone doubting that a single character can solo an AP, it's been done. The thread was "Son of Beastmass", I believe. Still, that used one specific build I don't want to force him to use.
I had some time, so I popped into the "Son of Beastmass" thread. That was a module, not an AP. But I'm pretty sure that build (a level 18 Wizard) could solo the first 4 or 5 books of any AP without a problem. It'd be pretty boring though, after the player got tired of hulk smashing everything with 9th level spells. :/
Ah, my mistake. Point taken.
Alchemist has the most versatility.
A Summoner has gotten through Carrion Crown solo, with a Diviner cohort, no adjustments made, xp slowed down so it wasn't level 8 by the end of book 1.
UMD covers a whole multitude of sins, including not being able to natively cast Restoration, Remove Curse, etc. Also, having a full party of wealth for one character is pretty much by definition really generous WBL.
There were a handful of fights that could've really wrecked. There was luck involved.
My rule of thumb is that if you have the helpful creature as a class feature, or a SM or SNA spell, or a feat, it's fair game. If you're doing shenanigans with friendly NPCs in the story, charmed/dominated people or monsters, created or controlled undead, planar binding, hiring mercenaries or buying wardogs, or anything like that, then you've given up your solo bragging rights.
But that's just where this one peculiar fellow has decided to draw his particular line in the sand.
I'd say let him pick what he wants, then give him a friendly npc to tag along with him. Mod the encounters or don't, depending
I find that most AP encounters are stupid/easy, and so need extensive reworking to fit my players. (or at least I used to, before I decided not to bother and run my own game instead)
If you optimize your character or give him good stats, preferably a combo, you can probably get on with 2 characters.
Good 2-player combos could be:
Rogue/druid
Paladin/wizard
Druid/Wizard
Summoner/bard
Fighter/cleric (+ a Yan-ti half-blood :D)
A well built melee Hunter is a beast, not having access to 7-9 spells sort of hurts but depending on build your beastitude makes up for it, eg building a small mounted hellcat stealth charging lancer. He's nearly invisible at all times and can explode enemy's while having awesome druid buff's.
If there's only one guy of whatever best suited class, even with an added npc, it's probably gonna be a good idea to run away from time to time. Nothing wrong with a strategic retreat followed by shoring up whatever weaknesses and a later attack. As you describe your player as being introduced to Pathfinder, you might want to drop that hint.