Solitaire Dungeon Protocols

[lionrampant]

I have a question for everyone: when you are running a solitaire dungeon, what do you do if you don't have a character already in your stable that meets the recommended combat adds for the adventure? For example, I have pulled off my bookshelf "Escape from Khosht," which recommends a character have 75 to 95 total combat adds. Considering that the character I just rolled up has combat adds of 7, she will likely get munched pretty hard, pretty quickly.

So, how do you guys handle this? Would you just play the adventure with the character as is? Would you try to modify all MRs in the adventure by a specific denominator? Would you "level up" your character until they meet the adventure requirements? Would you do something else?

In the past I have just run characters as rolled, and they all tend to die horribly rather quickly. This has led me to simply not play some of the solos I have in my collection (Sewers of Oblivion, I'm looking at you) as I have never had a character that could even come close to handling them. How do you guys handle these situations?

[Boozer]

Hi Lionrampant.

I tend to take newly rolled characters through the more basic solos, like Buffalo Castle or maybe Labyrinth, to get them a bit stronger, maybe risking a trip or two through Beyond Silvered Pane or something like that. If the characters survive and gain some power and maybe a few good items, then I run them through something a bit more difficult. Sewers of Oblivion is very hard, as is Overkill.

I'd recommend also some of my own mini-solos from the Hobgoblin's Tavern for beginning characters. Mind you, I have been known to just make them up to take through solos that I really want to have ago at. I don't get the opportunity to play GM dungeons anyway so my 'stable' of PCs is purely for my own amusement, so if some of them are made-up it doesn't matter to me or anyone else. As I write a lot of solos, I like to play through the standard FB ones to see how they are written and what tricks they use etc.

Of course, as you suggest, another way is to reduce the MRs and saving rolls in the tougher dungeons so that you can use the characters you have got. remember, in all the GM adventures you can buy, it usually says somewhere something like 'remember, this is your dungeon now, feel free to change it to suit your PCs...' etc., so why shouldn't it be the same for solos?

I tend to write my solos quite tough but with well-balanced rewards for the risks, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if players of my stuff reduced the MRs and SRs just so they could get a character through without being slain! ;D

I hope this helps to answer your question a little. Good luck with those sewers!

[lionrampant]

Boozer, I have also in the past run characters through the easier solos to try to "beef them up" for heavier duty. The problem with this is that it can take quite a bit of time, especially since a lot of solos tend to have instant death sections where if you blow one SR you are toast. This leads to spending 3 hours running a character through easier solos to get up to snuff, then he dies, then I spend 1 hour on a new character in the easier solos, but she died due to bad die rolls, then 2 more hours... you get the picture.

What I ended up doing last night, for the forementioned Escape from Khosht, was to roll up a new L1 character. Based on those stats (high DEX and LK), I decided she would be a Rogue. Then I started "leveling up" the character. I rolled 2D6 for each of the Rogue-specific attributes (I'm playing 7th ed.) and 1D6 for the non-specific attributes. I did this three separate times and ended up with a character with 70 personal combat adds. This was close enough to the recommended 75 to 95 that I ran the character as is. I also let the character learn new spells, with the following progression:
New character (Rogue) - one first level spell, per the basic rules
First boost - one first level spell, one second level spell
Second boost - one first level spell, one second level spell, one third level spell
Third boost - one first level spell, one second level spell, one third level spell, one fourth level spell

And so on and so forth. She was stuck with the starting 50gp I rolled, so she wasn't heavily equipped (no armor at all). I refuse to just give a character good equipment at the beginning; good items must be earned. I wasn't sure if I was giving her too many and/or too high level magic spells, but most solos have heavy restrictions on when and how magic is used, so I didn't think it would be a problem.

In the end, I was able to run the adventure, and I even beat it, thanks to my usual bad die-rolling skills not showing up for once. The exercise seemed to work pretty well, but I'm not sure what to do with the character now, since she was specifically tailored to the requirements of the adventure. Ah, well, I'm sure I can come up with something.

[Mhegrrrim Skulltosser]

I used Boozer's methods for years being careful to pick the "right" adventures. That meant dumping many non-magical characters into Labrynth and Naked Doom. Naked Doom is a great primer to jump next into advanced games. Labrynth requires a great deal of luck to NOT find the minotaur and to bathe in the River Styx . Beyond the Silvered Pane was good if you can roll a 7, but otherwise quite deadly.

During these adventures I used my solos' rules to my benefit. For example promising characters always got to meet Chronus even when not adventuring in the City of Terrors. My most played game has to be Abyss.

Eventually, I grew tired as my characters grew too tailored made as per Lionrampant's complaint.

Recently I have been downsizing adventures to a more reasonable level. Example: if the max Adds are +90 and my character has +9, I divide all MRs by 10 and reduce most saving rolls to level 1 or 2.

Or I run these "solos" with a small group of characters. Not all solos fit group play without a tailor made excuse. For Sewers of Oblivion I link the sewers to the Blue Frog Tavern and Sword For Hire's underground riverway. I replace the demon with a dwarf and away we go!

Of course, my other problem has been knowing too much about the best choices. So I either sacrifice the characters on the altar of randomness or I make character choices based on a well defined personality. Overconfident characters quickly die . Underconfident characters live, but are poor . Risk takers... well 50-50 half dead -half rich and powerful.

[lionrampant]

Talonfire, thanks for your comments. As far as running characters through solos that I know too well to really have as anything other than a dice-rolling challenge, I fully agree that the best method is to make choices based on a well-defined personality. These are "role-playing games" after all, even when played solo. Taking the time to develop a character's personality is a great way to have more fun with the game, at least for me. I have had significant success with that over the years.

[uburoi]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAFFE!

I thought I'n necro this old thread, particularly in the light of people enthused about writing new T&T stuff.

My question is, and any of you past solo-writers are encouraged to answer, how do you determine the proper combat adds for a solo? Is there a algorithm of some sort? Do you send playtest characters through until more than half survive? Or is it just something you get a feel for?

[lostheretic]

Algorithm? All you need to do is look at monster ratings and what range of weapons/combat adds can defeat them.

[Boozer]

I just tend to get a 'feel' for it uburoi, but I do work out the chances for survival by looking at all the MRs throughout the solo and the average Adds I expect a player to take through.

Having said that, I don't use any complex calculations, and I do tend to write my solos quite tough, as I suspect many members of this forum will have discovered!

[djacknh]

Since I have also had many, many, many...characters die when starting out, I've resorted to rolling up 5 separate sets of attributes, and picking the best set. But after that the characters are on their own. If I want to tackle a really tough adventure I'll go through several mid-level adventures until the character is buffed enough.

~Dave

[zanshin]

I try to build the characters through solo play so they are ready for the tough stufff, but I do roll 3 sets of stats and choose the one that i like best.

I have a couple of fixes for the instant death sr's that i have written about elsewhere (i think) but reprise here.

I give my Delvers one Fate Point for each level they achieve and each Solo that they beat.
This means that you can backtrack one choice that lead to instant death or roll an additional 2 dice (DARO applies) on a save roll at the cost of a fate point in each case.

I also (WoW influence here) apply the 'ding' rule - when a character levels up in a dungeon, his Con and Wiz restore to full - it helps a lot in very long dungeons that don't give chances to rest.

If they die despite all this, thats it, off with them.

I dont feel right about creating a hard enough character for a high level solo- but i guess if i was going to, i would probably choose a non McAllister race (Angel or something like that) and roll them up

[Hogscape]

Nov 25, 2009 14:21:43 GMT -5 uburoi said:

RISE FROM YOUR GRAFFE!

I thought I'n necro this old thread, particularly in the light of people enthused about writing new T&T stuff.

My question is, and any of you past solo-writers are encouraged to answer, how do you determine the proper combat adds for a solo? Is there a algorithm of some sort? Do you send playtest characters through until more than half survive? Or is it just something you get a feel for?

For solos or GM adventures, I calculate my player's average combat totals and work around that. 10 to 15% lower for an easy fight, 10 - 15% higher for a challenge.