Howdie folks and friends,
I'm in the planning stage of a campaign played with just me as the GM and one single player, and would value some feedback from you good folks.
As the player intends to play a Bard (possibly not a bad choice) I figured, I'd add a cleric-ish NPC as a mostly-permanent friend / companion / GM-run-2nd-hero to complement his class. We talked about me running a "character" along with his, we're both fine with it and are (hopefully) aware of the ups and downs of this.
I've been looking through the Curse of the Crimson Throne books and those appear a good choice for this experiment. At least the first installment seems to be fairly heavy in social skill interaction.
Any other helpful input from anyone on all of this?
Ah, as a sidenote, we're going to play this through a forum, so I hope to be able to actually make NPCs come to life and give the single player lots of spotlight action.
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Yes, a long-time memorable buddy npc is a great idea. You could also have a small pool of other adventurer npcs that the bard player could draw upon if they needed added specialisation and expertise.
It can be quite fun 1 player 1 dm. I prefer 2 players and a dm though, but you work with what you've got.
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I love one on one games. I am currently participating in two of these type of games one GMing and one playing.
I would suggest to maybe reduce the number of monsters at any one time if you plan on having the two characters. However I do find that boss fights tend to be more epic than with a larger party.
I would also suggest allowing your player to run the Cleric in combat as well as his own character, if your player is up for it that is. This helps to bring the PC into the game a bit more when it isn't their turn. This works well in the games I play.
The most noticeable change from larger games is of course the fact that you have no other PC's to discuss ideas/strategies with. The best way to deal with this is probably what you have already mentioned and have a GMPC in the game. Playing via the forum will probably help alot as well. Perhaps having different alias's for major NPC's etc would help as well.
This is some of the things I can think off of the top of my head and hopefully they can be a little bit of help.
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I've run successful 1 on 1 camapaigns, even using published material with a few specific suggestions.
1. Gestalt:
As mentioned, gestalt is a really good idea for small party games. Its a power up for sure, but in particular if the party uses it to sure up weaknesses instead of powering up strengths, it doesnt break the math of the system.
What I mean is, if you play a fighter/barbarian gestalt, you are going to hit harder then the game expects for your level. If however you play a barbian cleric, wou wont be dramatically more powerful then either of those individually at any one thing, you will instead be more versatile. That helps cover the gaps in a 2 person party.
2. Generous but limited point by. The game basically assumes a 15 point buy, expecially published material. But that hurts many gestalt concepts which tend to be fairly mad. So instead I give a 25 point buy, but a hard cap of 17 after racial modifiers on the maximum a stat can start on. That way you have the points to spread out but you cant just boost one stat extensively without difficulty.
3. Emphasize action economy boosting concepts and mixed role concepts. In a small party things that help your action enconomy are king. Specifically the classes with pets. A druid with an animal companion, and a summoner with an eidolon are the best examples. And while I normally shy away from these because they tend to hog the spotlight, in these cases, theres no spotlight to hog, its just you and the player. Rangers with the boon companion and animal companion choice are also good.
In addition classes in general that mix roles are a good thing. The biggest issue in a small party is that if one person is knocked out, no present the party is lacking half its abilities. If however both characters are versatile this is less of an issue. Classes like the druid, summoner, paladin, bard, magus, inquisitor etc mix the classic 4 concepts and make for a more rounded party in a small game.
Doing these 3 things I dont see any reason a 2 character party cant get through a published adventure path like crimson throne.
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You can vary it up on numbers. So generally cut it back, but once they get a few levels, give them a few crazy battles vs. 20 goblins. They can be memorable. When my party have split up, I've done this.
Okay hero, you've got a job to do, get that gate open, but these 20 zombies are here to ruin your day.
Fighting while trying to meet objectives can be baller.
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You might also want to impress upon your player that not fighting is always an option. With a regular sized party there can definitely be peer pressure to walk into fights, because hey - the Fighter wants to get his bit in too! Not to mention, stealth and retreating gets harder the more people you have to account for.
Thanks for the input. I looked through the PRD but can't find anything on Gestalt. Could someone provide some link / info there?
Gestalt rules are simple enough: take two classes, choose the best elements of those two classes (hit dice, BAB, fortitude, reflex, will, skill points*) to have, then take everything else the two classes offer and keep both (bonus feats, Spellcasting, bardic performance, channel energy, wild shaping, unarmed strike: whatever). EDIT: it's an important note to make: gestalting (is supposed to) follow the usual rules for multi classing, so no Diviner/Necromancers or bard/bards (unless you run games with that rule anyway, but that has a tendency to go... badly... on accident).
Gestalt isn't a Pathfinder-specific rule: it's been around since older editions of the game.
It primarily just grants endurance and survivability. The hard limit on the action economy ensures that a gestalt character, while powerful, isn't actually too far out of line.
I'll post an example in a little bit. Archeologist bard makes for a great single person PC/basis to gestalt with other classes, though.
EDIT: example time!
Okay, so let's presume a gestalt fighter/rogue. Why? Just because.
What does our fighterrogue gain?
D10 and Best BAB (fighter), best fortitude (fighter) and reflex (rogue), 8+ skills (list is both a fighter's and a rogue's)
First level: all armor and shields (fighter), all simple and martial weapons (fighter) and any rogue weapon not already covered; fighter bonus feat, sneak attack +1d6, and trapfinding.
Does that make sense?
* A particularly common variant is that you add all the class skill points together. So if you're a cleric-gestalt-Druid, you'd get (2 from cleric list + 2 from Druid list + Intelligence modifier from both list) or 4+intelligence modifier from both lists.
Link to the original 3.5 rules for Gestalt
Also, in case you didn't know, PF is mostly just a revision of the older 3.5 rules set, which itself is a revision of the 3rd Edition rules set. The three games can be used mostly compatibly with each other - the primary differences are small - skill consolidation, hit dice being tied to BAB, combat maneuvers organized into a single stat, spell-rule or feat refinement, things like that - and so the basic mechanical chassis are similar enough that most anything can work together.
Here's a couple of popular choices:
Bardarian: gestalt barbarian/bard for maximum variance in playstyle (though I'd recommend an Urban Barbarian, which didn't exist in 3.5, to make for a more versatile character in more situations).
The Limitless Arcanist: gestalt sorcerer/wizard means spells all day long. That said, a gestalt witch/wizard would be far superior (single casting stat, access to almost every kind of spell, prepared casting) as would oracle/sorcerer (single casting stat, access to every kind of spell, spontaneous casting). The latter technically falls under (and both partially replace)...
The Theurge: with a gestalt cleric/wizard, there's no need for a mystic theurge class! As noted above, however, a witch/wizard or oracle/sorcerer would be superior to this in most ways.
The Gish: gestalt fighter/wizard mostly obviates the need for an eldritch knight... but then again, Magus did that already. A magus/wizard would have a lower BAB, but would be superior in most ways. And one nice thing you could do is go magus/wizard... and then go magus/edritch knight. While you lose 1 caster level of wizard, that puts you about on par with sorcerers, you've two INT-based classes, and it increases your BAB to max for ten levels, as well as enabling access to both eldritch knight and magus combat goodies.
The never-before-seen: ninja-summoner. Now you can have an army and be an army. The law of conservation of ninjitsu suddenly works in your favor as you're both the only ninja and you've tons of fodder to fall before you. Plus, as both key off of charisma...
There are really tons of interesting combinations, though things like the ninja/summoner become really complicated really quickly, for which reason, if the player wants two caster classes, I strongly recommend spontaneous classes, unless s/he's really good at (or really likes) bookkeeping.
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For your cleric companion (should you choose to go that route), I actually would recommend an oracle with the life mystery (allowing you to nab the channel revelation) and the legalistic curse (who proceeds to never say anything) who loads up on all healing spells all the time.
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Also, the mythic rules really do handle an awful lot of solo-potential play questions, though, if you're looking for an easier variant rules-set to use, I'd recommend using the mythic simple template for your PC. Choose the agile and/or (arcane-or-divine) template, apply the most generic abilities granted due to tiers, and viola, you've got a multi-action-per-round PC with some nice extra abilities.
Also, regardless, take a look at the archeologist archetype of bards. It really makes for a great solo "I can do anything" type character.
EDIT: minor word change for clarity.
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I'm a big fan of being Batman as a Ninja/Paladin if going Gestalt (yes, Batman's actually an Investigator...but that's really not the point).
A Magus (Kensai)/Swashbuckler also sounds amazing in an 'Ultimate Duelist' sort of way. It's a little MAD...but not enough to be a big deal, IMO. Thematically perfect as an Elf, too.
Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager)/Alchemist (Vivisectionist, Beastmorph) dabbling in Master Chymist also lets you be The Hulk.
And so on and so forth.
Exactly.