I am only beginning to learnPathfinder, so I have zero knowledge of Gestalts and Hybrids. All I can wrap my head around right now are multi-class characters and I'd prefer to stick to that :)

Didn't think Gestalt was even in PF, specifically. Hybrids are okay, and really function just like a normal class.

I'm not sure that it's worth the effort, unless you specifically have a certain player you want to run a game for. Nearly any system, barring the DnD-based games, would be better than PF for solo-play. In fact, I think you need to have GMed Pathfinder before to really make it work in GMing a solo game, but that's just my opinion.

Gestalt is easy enough to convert to PF I have been in multiple games where it was allowed.  I even got into one game where hybrid classes were allowed to be gestalt as long as there was no overlap.

5E, or even 4E, would still be better simply because characters have more sustain.

And there's no reason you couldn't have gestalt in PF. It's similar enough to 3.5 to work. And sure, a gestalt would work great. A Rogue/Cleric for example can do pretty much everything.

Well, *personally*, I prefer GURPS to PF :D But I got all these PF books through Paizo Humble Bundle and I'd like to try running it. I like the monsters :) But I prefer running solo games, as there aren't as complicated as group games...

Ah, that's a different conversation then.

The CR system in Pathfinder is a rough guideline that isn't going to work really well for a solo game (it barely works for a regular game).  One of the first keys to understanding it is to understand that the biggest limiter in Pathfinder is action economy.  That is, PF characters can often do a lot of "stuff", but they can only do one or maybe two things at a time.

In combat, this is why a single monster against a large party works so horribly - the PCs just have a bunch more actions than the monster.  You'd be having a similar problem if you tried to use the normal CR system against a single PC - the PC's one-two actions wouldn't stack up against those of two or three opponents.

You can still use the CR system to figure out approximate challenges, but you're going to be using much, much lower numbers than the PC's level.

For example, if a PC were to fight his clone, that clone's CR is equal to the PC's level -1 (if the PC were using NPC classes like warrior, etc, it would be level -2).  A clone battle is a 50/50 fight, which would put it at least at APL+3 (Epic) in terms of battle difficulty.  Using these numbers, we can extrapolate an "average" encounter for a single PC would be level-4 (with easy at level-5, challenging at level-3, and hard at level-2).

To check the numbers, let's do some math (note, CRs below 1 go fractional - 1/8, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2)...


So, let's take a few monsters out of the Bestiary for perspective:

A bat with the celestial of fiendish template is CR 1/8 and an "easy" encounter for a level 1 PC.

A housecat or rat with the celestial or fiendish template is CR 1/4 and a "challenging" encounter for a level 1, but an "easy" encounter for a level 3.

A level 1 PC is CR 1/2 and an "epic" challenge" for a level 1, a "challenging" fight for a level 3, but an "easy" fight for a level 5.

A Velociraptor, swarm of bats, or some of the smaller big cats are CR 2, which makes them an epic encounter for a level 3, a challenging encounter for a level 5, and an easy encounter for a level 7.

Finally, the smallest of dragons or an owlbear are CR 4, which makes them an epic fight for a level 5 or a challenging fight for a level 7.

Those... actually, those all look about right.  The game design tends to assume most of your fights fall into "average" or "challenging", with a smaller number of fights at the other difficulties.

My major caveat to this is that when you add multiple foes, you have to be really careful, because you dramatically up the difficulty (the book's chart is +2 to the CR for the second monster, then +1 for each additional).  A level 7 against 3 level 1 PCs might look like an Average encounter on the chart, but it's probably going to result in a dead level 7.

Thanks! This is most helpful!

Although... a bit surprising. A harpy is CR 4 - so, according to your formula, you'd need at least a level 8 PC to fight it. IIRC correctly, level 8 is quite high - around the level of expert fighters etc. So, harpies are that good that only an expert fighter would have a chance against one?

Until the GM gets a bead on the difficulty, maybe arrange for encounters that are survivable even if the character loses badly. I'm happy to explain what I mean, if you want to know more.

The numbers are a very, very rough guide.  I would actually bump the CR of the Harpy up a little because Captivating Song can be save or die for a single character.  In fact, any monster that has a lockdown ability that affects a single target (or one target at a time) is going to be much, much more dangerous against a single target.  The balance to those abilities is usually the fact that you have friends that aren't locked down that it has to deal with.

Take, for instance, the CR 1 ghoul.  The ghoul has a paralysis attack that lasts for 1d4+1 rounds and once it manages to paralyze you, you're probably dead without a friend or two to save you.  The CR numbers I put together say that's an average encounter for a level 5, and it might be if the character is somehow immune to the paralysis (elves are, for instance).  However, it's just as possible that that same CR 1 ghoul could murder a solo level 20 character in the right situation.

Hm. Good point. It seems, then, that it'd better for a solo PC to have at least one NPC backing them...

BTW. Any rough benchmarks on what the character levels mean? I realize it's not easy to do so, but I once did some calculations and I came up with the idea that characters around level 5 are professionals, level 10 characters are experts and characters of level 15+ begin to venture in the "truly amazing" / "one of a kind" power levels. Are my intuitions correct?

Dunno about path finder, but in D&D lv 1 is considered professional.

The main benchmarks are usually related to magic.  There's a variant called E6 that limits the game to level 6 mostly because of the way magic scales up.  http://p6codex.com/ if you are curious.

Here's a list of some of the major capability-adding magic at each level.  These aren't the only spells, by any means, but these are some of the ones that define those levels (though I assume I missed a few).  If it's marked with a (D), it's on the cleric list.  Everything else, a wizard can pull off, but maybe at later levels.


This message was last edited by the user at 15:11, Wed 24 Aug 2016.

Thanks. And how do the levels relate to, say, overall power of a fighter? Would you say that a level 10 fighter is very good indeed? Or just well-trained?

In reply to Varsovian (msg # 19):

Very lucky.

Compared to wizards and clerics, fighters are just a bit tougher with every level.  They never really get abilities that flat-out change the game, so their arc is... kind of boring in comparison.

There is a LOT of variation on level distribution between GMs, so don't take anyone's listing as the only way to do things.  Here's a random list I'm shamelessly stealing off the Paizo forums (he had nobility ranked on there, too, but I knocked that off since it's kind of silly):

1 Novice/apprentice
2-3 Journeyman/veteran
4-5 Local hero
6-10 World-class champion
11-15 Hero out of legend
16+ Demigod

Thanks again!

Hmm. It seems to me that PF solo games could be hard... and a bit boring, if you start with a level 1 PC. I mean, according to the numbers, a lone beginner PC could have trouble even with a single goblin. And the more interesting adversaries are waaaaay tougher...

Well, a moderately lucky goblin could bring down most starting wizards with one crit, so... it's a fair assessment.  (A goblin with a shortbow has a crit potential of 12 damage - which would take a lot of luck, but would knock down most starting characters.)

If I were going to do solo Pathfinder, I'd be more inclined to run the game in the mid-low levels (4-8) where the PC would be powerful enough to avoid instadeath from most stuff, but still weak enough to be interesting.

Instead of going with the higher levels approach, I've had some success in the past by just bloating the starting HP for the solo player.  I've used two different methods, and both seem to work fine.  The goal with this idea is to make the player more durable without adding on more "unearned" power via benefits from additional levels like spells and class features.

The first method was to give the player triple their Hit Dice's value as their base HP value.  So, a Fighter with a d10 got 30 + Con modifier for starting HP.  The second method was to give them their max Hit Dice plus their Con SCORE for starting HP.  Both methods seemed to work just fine in practice when I ran a solo game and a different two player game IRL a few years back D&D 3.5, so I imagine that they'd translate well to Pathfinder.

I like this.  It well reflects the fact that -1 HP = "probably dead" in a solo game.

Also, some creatures are much, much harder against one character if the character isn't an arcane caster. Swarms for example - melee attacks basically do nothing, so your fighter-type is dead. Clerics don't really get enough damaging spells that will hurt swarms till later, as from memory, any single target spells also don't effect them.

Long-term healing though is the big factor.

Solo campaign?  Hire hirelings!

In reply to willvr (msg # 26):



I'd contest that. Any non-arcane adventurer worth their 10-foot pole should be carrying either alchemists fire or flasks of oil for exactly that reason. And some acid for those pesky fireproof swarms.

Certainly, anyone that's survived a few levels of PFS play is well adjusted to dealing with swarms, but I find that most players that haven't done PFS aren't ready for them.  PFS really hammers you on being able to deal with swarms, difficult terrain, and flying/inaccessible foes from the start.

The higher-level swarms are insanely hard to deal with with just the damage alchemist's fire or acid does. And from experience, torches and oil aren't really a good alternative, certainly not if you're solo.

So forgive me if this has already been covered, but I didn't read *all* the posts before jumping in. Mah bad.


That said, I think it really really depends on what your character is trying to do. For instance a cleric? Honestly, while I love the idea of trying to solo a game as a cleric, honestly the only way I see of doing that would be as an evil cleric (which I'm just not partial to evIL characters, seeing as how I'm NG personality wise myself)
As for otherways? Honestly, Gestalt is the only way I see that working. I do gaming in rl with the wife, and have a character concept I really like as a Gestalt Fighter/Cleric.
It gets some homebrewed stuff added in, but what I do is make the Fighter side a tank (Dodge, Shield Focus, etc) and make my cleric side very healing focused. Now, naturally it's a bit lighter on the damage, but with the high AC (up to 42 when fully spelled up) and good healing that's how I've been able to solo things in pathfinder.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:15, Wed 31 Aug 2016.