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Jan. 21st, 2019 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreI've gotten a couple comments asking about my comment in an earlier post about adjusting D&D modules for solo play, so here are a couple links to the resources I'm using and a basic explanation.
First off, I'm using the rules in Black Streams: Solo Heroes (that link leads to a free PDF) to adjust how damage rolls work. Then, since Black Streams is meant for older games, I'm using the info in this post to adjust those rules further for 5e.
How this works is:
1) When an enemy does damage, you roll it normally, add any modifiers, and then covert it according to a table. So
Thus, if a goblin or whatever hits my 11HP 1st level fighter for 6 damage, I only actually take two. That means it's possible for me to stay up a lot longer without a full party backing me.
2) Enemy HP is calculated differently. Instead of HP, they have hit dice and each point of damage I do removes one hit die. (My damage is also calculated according to the table above.) The calculation for how many hit dice an enemy has given in Black Streams doesn't quite work for 5e, but fortunately, someone on the internet worked out an equation that works better for the latter system. It's given in the G+ post above. You take the dice HP given in the Monster Manual and then do some quick math.
Say you have an Ogre, which is listed as having 7d10+21 hp. Right now, it's got 7 hit dice. That doesn't seem quite hard enough. So you take the 7x10 = 70+21 = 91. Then you divide that result by 8 because dude in the G+ post says a medium sized enemy has a d8 hit die. I'm willing to accept that. That gives us 11, rounded down, and seems acceptably challenging for one player.
3) This isn't a Black Streams thing, but I've been doing a thing where, if my character is fighting a group and I do over twice the amount of damage to kill one of them, it can carry over to another. So, I'm fighting 8 kobolds (which are 1HD creatures), I do 4 damage, I get to kill two of them on one turn. I'm not sure I'm going to keep that going forward, but it seems to work okay right now.
4) Healing works the same as damage, but in reverse. If I take a potion that does 2d4+2 healing and roll a 6, I get 2 HP back.
I'm writing the whole thing down as I go, both to simply keep track of what I've already done and to have some of the flavor/roleplay aspect that would be easy to leave out playing by myself. I also have to be really clear on the difference between what I know (as the person reading the module book) and what my character knows, so that I can avoid metagaming.
This all seems to be working pretty well for me so far. Some of it may need tweaking later, but I'll figure that out as I go. I hope it's helpful to anyone else who wants to try some solo D&D.
*Yeah, we're gonna need some higher numbers if I keep playing into higher levels, but we'll deal with that when we get there.
First off, I'm using the rules in Black Streams: Solo Heroes (that link leads to a free PDF) to adjust how damage rolls work. Then, since Black Streams is meant for older games, I'm using the info in this post to adjust those rules further for 5e.
How this works is:
1) When an enemy does damage, you roll it normally, add any modifiers, and then covert it according to a table. So
Dice roll of 1 = no damage
Dice roll of 2 - 5 = 1 damage
Dice roll of 6 - 9 = 2 damage
Dice roll of 10 - 13 = 4 damage
Dice roll of 14 - 17 = 6 damage
Dice roll of 18 - 21 = 8 damage*
Thus, if a goblin or whatever hits my 11HP 1st level fighter for 6 damage, I only actually take two. That means it's possible for me to stay up a lot longer without a full party backing me.
2) Enemy HP is calculated differently. Instead of HP, they have hit dice and each point of damage I do removes one hit die. (My damage is also calculated according to the table above.) The calculation for how many hit dice an enemy has given in Black Streams doesn't quite work for 5e, but fortunately, someone on the internet worked out an equation that works better for the latter system. It's given in the G+ post above. You take the dice HP given in the Monster Manual and then do some quick math.
Say you have an Ogre, which is listed as having 7d10+21 hp. Right now, it's got 7 hit dice. That doesn't seem quite hard enough. So you take the 7x10 = 70+21 = 91. Then you divide that result by 8 because dude in the G+ post says a medium sized enemy has a d8 hit die. I'm willing to accept that. That gives us 11, rounded down, and seems acceptably challenging for one player.
3) This isn't a Black Streams thing, but I've been doing a thing where, if my character is fighting a group and I do over twice the amount of damage to kill one of them, it can carry over to another. So, I'm fighting 8 kobolds (which are 1HD creatures), I do 4 damage, I get to kill two of them on one turn. I'm not sure I'm going to keep that going forward, but it seems to work okay right now.
4) Healing works the same as damage, but in reverse. If I take a potion that does 2d4+2 healing and roll a 6, I get 2 HP back.
I'm writing the whole thing down as I go, both to simply keep track of what I've already done and to have some of the flavor/roleplay aspect that would be easy to leave out playing by myself. I also have to be really clear on the difference between what I know (as the person reading the module book) and what my character knows, so that I can avoid metagaming.
This all seems to be working pretty well for me so far. Some of it may need tweaking later, but I'll figure that out as I go. I hope it's helpful to anyone else who wants to try some solo D&D.
*Yeah, we're gonna need some higher numbers if I keep playing into higher levels, but we'll deal with that when we get there.
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Date: 2019-01-21 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-01-22 04:11 pm (UTC)