Any tips on how to do a solo adventurer run?

[sickle1986]

I want to try a solo adventurer run, but I'm not sure how to start it off.
Is there a best class to use for a solo adventurer?
Should I make the game easier than the normal difficulty setting for the run, as it's just one person?

[Tuidjy]

The easiest I've had it with a solo attempt was with a Reaper (Rogue → Assassin → Reaper)

I do not recommend you try without having finished the story at least once. This said, if you take your time, and do not enable the enemy level growth, and spend a lot of time scouring the random maps for permanent stat boosts, it is not too hard, even on "Very Hard".

Probably the best way to make sure your character does not die in the very beginning is to abuse the "Hidden" mechanic... and flee, a lot, when there is nothing important at stake.

[sickle1986]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

The easiest I've had it with a solo attempt was with a Reaper (Rogue → Assassin → Reaper)

I do not recommend you try without having finished the story at least once. This said, if you take your time, and do not enable the enemy level growth, and spend a lot of time scouring the random maps for permanent stat boosts, it is not too hard, even on "Very Hard".

Probably the best way to make sure your character does not die in the very beginning is to abuse the "Hidden" mechanic... and flee, a lot, when there is nothing important at stake.

I tried with a Archer class and got smashed on the first lot of bandits - probably a bad idea?

[Tuidjy]

There is something I am not sure I got across.

There is NO point in engaging, and especially risking your life, in fights while your character is under level 4, at the very least. You can get the experience for leveling from completing the quests while collecting event rewards and dodging enemy squads.

You could even try to get enough stats to switch to an advanced class WITHOUT leveling, i.e. try to be an assassin/ranger before your first level-up. That is not how I do it, I consider the gains not worth the long hours of grinding low level maps, but even I try to have a few traits like "Arm wrestler", "Strange memories", etc. before my first level up.

[sickle1986]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

There is something I am not sure I got across.

There is NO point in engaging, and especially risking your life, in fights while your character is under level 4, at the very least. You can get the experience for leveling from completing the quests while collecting event rewards and dodging enemy squads.

You could even try to get enough stats to switch to an advanced class WITHOUT leveling, i.e. try to be an assassin/ranger before your first level-up. That is not how I do it, I consider the gains not worth the long hours of grinding low level maps, but even I try to have a few traits like "Arm wrestler", "Strange memories", etc. before my first level up.

I have Fast Learner, Lucky, Loves Pain.

Figured if I'm going to only have one guy, I will need to heal him, and if he loves the pain from the temple heals, great... no morale loss.

As for Lucky, helps with Crit and Item values, to help keep that gold a bit higher.

Fast learner is obvious, more Exp, more growth... makes sense.

[Tuidjy]

Oh, the traits I mentioned are traits that you collect from events, IN ADDITION to the traits your character natively has.

[jacopo.gianese]

sorry if its not whit the best grammar but i beated an ironman custom whit setting above very hard whit only a character.
the tips i give you are:
enable the scoutin fitures an create a character whit mana core (mandatory) an i like sadist for the extra BP and quick for the movement and agility grouth.
start as a rogue and take shadowstep asap. then you want to reach 80 sp so that you can use shadowstep every turn and be always hidden.
this will carry you a lot becouse only the late game bosses and enemy have true sight.
in middle late game when you start having true sight enemies you want to have the brave title tht at the final level halves the bp cost for the heroic action so you can heroic dodge for only 20 BP your ultimate goal is the reaper class.
my final gear were
Cuirass of the champion armor for the bravery
poisonus fangs daggers
scoundrel and executioner mask.
the only time i changed class was against vorathax and i changed whit a 95% damage reduction monk and acid vial to negate the boss regeneration.
whit this i was able to do all the quest alone i finished late elite encounter in 3 or 4 turns and it was a lot of fun.
I stopped levelling at level 27 and just for fun before the final fight i leveled to see how much exp ive gained and i went to level 45.
hope it will helpful and sorry again for the grammar errors

[Heaven has even sheep spread]

Long story short, class is irrelevant. You will be dodge tanking regardless of class. But you need a lot more planning than just thinking about class. And it will be grindy -- relative to a story driven speedrun, very grindy. (Though relative to what readers of this forum seems to do, maybe only a little bit grindy.)

At the beginning you will need to grind a lot to level up your character. Part of the problem though is that your early levelups will be trash before you have the traits and item for growth stats.

I am not sure how you will define your starting point.

You can for example pick Elan after he becomes available. Or reload for a Talented character on one of your starters. (Somehow I got a Talented character on the starter with Healthy Body on INT, WP with my first run, and simultaneously a Magically Talented Faster Learner on my starter with Dubious Upbringing with an INT talent. yep... I could've solo'd with either of them easily.)

At the beginning, you want to aggressively cycle 1-star Forest maps for Arms wrestling Master. (You simply avoid random battles and go straight for event and quest completion.) If it's Elan, you will also want Fountain for skill point right off the bet. You will also want to collect +30 INT book asap from Old Fortress and Strange Memories from the same. If you have static growth, then you can hold onto your levels early on. Otherwise, you want low difficulty quests only, *not* high, because that reduces your xp intake until you finish collecting all the growth traits. You want to do 1 level at a time in order to make good decision on your reroll each time.

After that, it's just grinding levels and giving them traits whenever possible. If you are truly solo-ing, your first maybe 7 levels will get half the eventual growth -- and that's only achieved if you min-max. It'd be worse for longer otherwise.

But after that you have all the growth traits, Elan for example can get the following growth spread relatively early on:
https://i.imgur.com/cnb1lpz.png

That's +3 STR and +2 everything else and then later more +3s here and there.

To put in perspective, that's to the tune of 100+ PAB by lvl 24, 200+ HP, and 100+ dodge. PAB without the 75% PAB from being a Monk, btw.

You can use whatever class you feel like. The easiest late game class will be Sword Master where you get mana refunded on kills. You will tailor your class to the situation mid game. But you will likely use Monk for a STR character or STR-INT character for a long time to simplify growth. (You can switch to a "useful" class for a difficult quest and then switch back to a growth class for leveling.)

Regardless, mid game, I think it will be very difficult to organically level up from story quests without extensive grinding with random quests. The problem is lacking positional control and mana. You have 1 character. They will be swarmed. So you can't retreat to get mana potion and then come back out. You can't get 50% mana from heal on yourself. etc etc. But grinding doesn't make your game better. You will come back over leveled for a given story quest and it will not feel like an accomplishment.

But maybe putting all the stat potion onto the character will mean early Monk and early use of Monk's jump. With that, maybe it's feasible.

I think Monk gets a mana-less skill at lvl 16 iirc? Once you get there, you can level up more organically. And by that point, you should have master classes at your disposal too.

Note: Monk is not the only class with jump/teleport. It's also not the only high growth class. Explore your classes! The game lets you do that! Most classes can viewed in "Set Class Goal", except for Melee Archer, which is a title. It just means you use a bow, use Archer/Ranger/Beast Master skill tree PLUS Martial Art skill tree plus dmg modifiers. Just change class into one of those and you will see the title in tavern.

Originally posted by sickle19868:

Should I make the game easier than the normal difficulty setting for the run, as it's just one person?

Don't see the point. To the contrary, You can increase difficulty if you want by increasing enemy hp and accuracy.

I just wouldn't dial enemy spawn rate to anything but -50%. I am not sure if that means # of enemies per random encounter or # of spawned random enemies on exploration map or both. Either way, increasing that means grindiness. Grind is not content or challenge.

Decreasing quest xp makes it easier to stack traits. But that makes later level grindy. Opposite problems opposite setting. Personally, I wouldn't touch those.

Do consider static growth. (Personally I like rolling for levelup so I would never. But static growth lets you hold onto your xp while you wait for traits -- to an extent anyway, you do need to change class asap. But that's something to consider.)

I wouldn't touch adventurer accuracy. The game is quite elaborate as is and has a system of balancing damage and build viabilities and progression etc. Dialing key stat like accuracy will likely mess up your experience and will make for a playthrough that's unrelatable to other more "normal" playthroughs.

For relatability again, I wouldn't touch drop rate.

---------

One last tip: remember to buy the 50% xp book from shop.

[Pure_Poetry]

Originally posted by Heaven has even sheep spread:

Long story short, class is irrelevant.....
One last tip: remember to buy the 50% xp book from shop.

That's a great quality post, thanks. BTW your image link is broken.

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Pure_Poetry:

That's a great quality post, thanks. BTW your image link is broken.

Here is a link to a similarly well-prepared, level 1 Elan.

Not the picture that was attempted above, not mine, either, just a picture of Elan being prepared for very efficient leveling before his first level-up.

Credit to

Originally posted by DarknessOrLight:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3259276677

Wanted to see how strong of a single "main character" I can get stat-wise. After 162 in game days, finally got him to an advanced class at lvl 1.

[Eshen]

I would ask what is the point? This is a team game, if you want to play solo there is a thousand other games you should go for. Team play is the whole premise of DND that this game is based on. Making it something that it is not supposed to be is.. well, doable but kinda like bashing heads with a microscope. If you are after more XP, you can set up the XP in Options to +100% . IMO too much XP ruins the game, and I set mine down to -50%, once I reached mid-game. Seriously, the thing I liked the most about this game is that it makes the team play meaningful, and that is from the perspective of a person who is not a team player whatsoever. This game really changed my opinion on that.