Solo Dungeons and Dragons
- Cate Saturn
- Sep 23
- 5 min read
While the concept of playing a TTRPG solo does sound rather sad and depressing. No friends to throw jokes at, nobody to bounce ideas off. Yet, it’s not all doom and gloom. For you see, the stars don’t have to align for your group to meet up, you get to explore every facet of your character to the fullest. You don’t have to worry about bogging the flow down or being a spotlight hog. It’s just you, your character and your guide books. Better yet, no game master to tell you “no” to any sort of homebrew or 3rd party characters.
Now over the past few days I have been looking into this strange hobby. There are so many programs and tools out there it’s actually rather impressive. There are a plethora of systems such as; Apothecaria, Ironsworn, Mythic and even some tailored solo guides and modules for 5e. Now this has piqued my interest. I have a few modules in my collection I have been dying to play, but alas I have no group interested. With a little bit of luck, knowledge and skill I’ll be diving into those soon.
First Solo Adventure:
Over the past week, I have been hunting and on the prowl for a good solo book to jump into. I was recommended a book called “The Death Knight’s Squire.” I could almost feel a sense of glee enter my body. An adventure where I get quests from the spooky Death Knight as his apprentice? Oh that would have been lovely. But no. The book is about some kidnapped kid that you have to rescue. With the wind firmly taken out of my sales I found another book called: “To Hell and Back Again”
You can procure the adventure here:
While it may be written in the format of “choose your own adventure” books, I look forward to exploring the book and my character in my blog posts. I am a text role player first and a TTRPG player second. Text is where I feel the most comfortable.
Character Creation Process:
So the base line requirements for this solo adventure goes as follows: Level 1 character and something survivable as a class.
For races, I like playing something exotic. So my options are:
Fairy fueled by pure spite
Drow to really explore the racism
Kobolds are cute and lovable.
Owlin so that I can play a werebear.
Aasimar because I never got to play one.
Upon conversing with some friends, the idea of Aasimar really spoke to me. Unlike teiflings, aasimars are seen as blessed. They are expected to carry other people’s burdens. They are expected to help and be paragons of hope. All because you won the genetic lottery. I feel that exploring the hidden stresses and anxieties would make for a really compelling character!
With the race picked, all I need is a class. The Cleric/Paladin aasimar are frankly boring to me. So those classes can be thrown in the bin. We don’t need them. My friend told me to roll for a class.
First roll:
Artificer… *rolls subclass* Armourer.
Well. I had an experience with playing with one. He uh. Took up space at the party. Ultimately for solo play, I think this subclass is rather dead weight. Artificer has some really useful spells and gimmicks, but I think they shine best in group play.
I reject this reality and substitute a new one.
Second Roll:
Warlock.
*rolls subclass*
Great old one.
*rolls for pact*
Tome
Oh-hoho! Now we are talking. There are a lot of fun things I can do with this. Lots of angels to explore. Tome will give me a good portion of cantrips to add to the utility of my character. Plus I could take the ritual caster feat and now I have a tome that can’t be torched. Neato. The only downsides to this option are a lack of recovery options, and close range combat.
The only problem I have is trying to figure out a pact that’s interesting, the old ones in DnD are currently rather lacking.
Character Creation:
Now with a class and a race, now it’s time to put it all together. I paused for a moment as I observed the skills, and recalled my time playing in a group where every encounter was deadly. We only won due to our quick thinking, skill and intimate knowledge of our classes. This is why I think it’s important to have an overarching build.
I looked at warlock proficiencies. Light armour and simple weapons. Will this get me through the toughest of fights? No. I think the kindest thing I do for myself is take that level 1 dip into fighter. That way I have extra tools I need for every encounter.
Next on the list of things to do: Stats. As I loaded up Aurora (a PC 5e character builder). I sighed to myself, “Ugh. I guess I am doing point buy, again.” Then I saw a little option on the top that reminded me that I could roll for my stats. Most GMs don’t even let you do fun things like that. Since I am no longer beholden to anyone’s ruleset. I can just do what I wanna do.
So I rolled… Thrice.
The first roll left me feeling wanting. I had enough to make my class functionally sound. No complaints there. However I just wanted a little more wiggle room.
The second roll left me a little disgruntled. It didn’t provide me the tools I needed to succeed.
The third roll is perfection made. I have everything I never need for my build. High Charisma for spell casting and facing, Good enough Strength for armour and smashing, Enough dex leave me happy, the perfect amount of int for ritual caster and I didn’t have to dump Constitution!
Core Build:
Fallen Aasimar, Fighter 1, Great Weapon Fighting.
Stats:
16 str, 14 dex, 12 con, 13 int, 11 wis, 18 cha
Weapon of Choice: GreatAxe*. (I still think greatswords are better.)
*Spell casting requires the use of one hand. That’s fine, you don’t need to hold the greataxe with 2 hands all the time. Only one hand has to hold a weapon. Dropping an item is a free action.
Starting gold: 150g
Items:
Gold Remaining: 5.2g
Basic Backstory Concept:
Name: Holly of the Hallow Feather
Hallow Feather: A rank within the local town guards of a local big city where they are called upon to cast judgement and are trained to fight the evils that might plague it. Holly is a new recruit.
Family: Normal elven parents, with 11 normal siblings. Holly is the oldest. She bears the responsibility of helping to care for her younger siblings. Her father works as a local priest in the Church. As such he insisted that his aasimar daughter enrolls in the choir.
Job: Town Guard
Economic Status: Lives at home, has enough to eat, and owns a few nice outfits that she saved up for.
Goals: Currently undecided as the path she stepped on isn’t her own, but rather a path that was laid out for her.
Personality: A people pleaser doing what she thinks is expected of her. She is afraid that people may not like her true self.
Combat: She has trained in how to use her great axe, however beyond her racial spells, learning magic doesn’t come intuitively to her. As of now, she hasn’t taken a life, The most she has done is intercept barfights and knocked a few people unconscious.
Fallen Aasimar: She bargains for power using her holy inheritance. Through this hasn't happened yet.
Moving Forward
The next up, writing and designing her character sheet. While I write up the session I thought it may be a cute idea to draw little MSpaint doodles of Holly to break up the reading. As a treat for making it through this block I will share with you a doodle of Holly.
See you next time in DnD Solo Adventure: Holly First Adventure.
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