From: Ivan Godard <ig@solaris.kala.com>
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To: b l a d e s@ spiderwebsoftware . com (Note spaces added to thwart spammers. Remove spaces for valid email address.)
Subject:Instructions for creating and maintaining a 1 PC Party.


I start with the default party and discard
everyone but the nephil. I then reduce all stats
to minimum, giving a PC with 77 skill points,
instead of the 60 you get if you start up a
party from scratch. I then change the species
to Slith and the traits to have every good and
no bad traits. This produces an XP penalty of
142%.

I then set skills: mage 5, priest 5, str 10, int
5. All other skills are minimum. Because you get
three free spell points per level, the resulting
PC has 30 SP. It has the minimal HP of 6.

I start this character in all Low and Medium
scenarios and most High or Very High. The very
first level is often _very_ tricky to get,
because with only 6 HP you can't take a hit from
anything. But you can get off 6 Fireballs (only
an average 7 damage each though) before running
away, so you can knock off one or two in a crowd
of wandering monsters before fleeing. Eventually
you make second level and 12-13 HP. The big
advantage of that first level gain is that your
Haste/Bless lasts more than one round.

However, with the high strength you go up in HP
very quickly. By the time you're 3rd level and
20HP or so you can stand up to a hit, and with
studded, leather helm and boots you are hard
to hit when you have a Bless running, again
because of all the strength.

You also gain levels fast, even with the XP
penalty, because you are not splitting the XP
six ways. With the penalty, you gain roughly
2.5 times as many levels as a six-party without
any penalty and so you will catch up in level
to a Medium regular party by the middle of a
scenario.

I put the first two levels (10 skill points)
into dex 3 bladed 2, and from there on fight
if possible as a fighter, using the magic to
have Haste and Bless running all the time,
with the occasional special situation calling
for Fireball, Poison, etc. Note that the PC has
the ambidextrous skill and fights two-weapon.

The next 4 levels (20 points) go into spell
points, giving me a level 7 fighter with 50 SP.
That lets me cast Identify (and Ritual if
needed), partly solving the biggest problem of
single-PC parties: only 24 inventory slots. With
periodic Identifies you can weed out the junk
loot and bring back the bulk of the cash value.

Thereafter I put skill points into fighter
skills, adding priest or mage levels only when
level 6 spells become available, and mage lore
only when I hit something that needs it. When
I'm 20 on str, int, dex, and blades, and 7 on
priest and mage (about level 25 or so) I put
any more into Assassination or (eventually) Luck.

I never buy archery, thrown missle, poison,
locks, alchemy, or traps. Distance magic
substitutes for archery (there are contrived
situations where it won't, but Summoning will
get you archers or equivalent eventually);
thrown is universally derided as a waste; poison
is too much trouble and takes to long for effect,
and you could Envenom if ever needed; locks
yield to high strength or magic; alchemy is
unnecessary unless it's built into the plot line
as in Exile (II?), where you'd get it when
needed; with heavy-fighter level HP you simply
shrug off traps and Cure or Heal if needed.

With fighter HP (roughly 7X level) and all the
Heal/Cure you want with 50SP, there's no need
for potions. I do carry a Potion of Clarity
(Restore Mind) for emergencies, but have never
actually needed it in play. I will carry an
Antimagic or Paralysis Wand if I find one
before I get the spells, but almost never
use them. But in practice, in High games the
spells are readily available and in the others
the wands are not needed.

One other factor: with only one PC, you get to
keep the rare really good items and so the one
PC is equipped with the very best stuff that
would be scattered across a 6-party. After 10-15
levels of play, a party will have found stuff
like an Onyx Charm, Gold Ring Prot, Helm of
Alertness, Magic Studded, 2xMagic Broad or Wave,
Boots (or Ring) of Speed, Giantish Gauntlets,
etc. Scatter that around a party and it helps a
little. Put it all on one PC and he rocks.

A single PC calls for somewhat different strategy
than a six-party. To begin with, you explore in
combat mode, already Hasted and Blessed and with
the lights _off_. That means you hit the monsters
one at a time, and get in four (two-weapon,
remember) hits before they get a turn. If
that doesn't do them, play the 'now you see me
now you don't' game: step in one square, hit X 2,
step back out of sight (lights off) in one turn.
On their turn they can't find you and never enter
combat mode.

When lights are on you play it similarly, except
that you snipe with magic (good old Wound works
on _anything_) from around a corner instead of
up close with blades. You don't have a six-party
getting in each other's way and impossible to
hide.

What _doesn't_ work with a 1-party are big-room
situations with no place to hide and lots of
casting monsters. One Slow and your 1-party
is easy meat. Fortunately this is only a problem
at the middle levels; once you get Fire (or 
Force) Barrier you can build your own hiding
place on the fly. Lacking that, Antimagic on you
will block casters, but not breathers unless the
room is small enough that you can blanket all
of it. I usually play those using mobs of Weak
Summons as distractions and simply fight through,
healing as needed.

The toughest fight this party has had lately was
the Scorpion encounter in Tatterdemalion. Not the
scorpions, of course. Those couldn't hit this
party once I got Blessed. But those Fire-immune
spiders took a lot of restarts from save. Once
they webbed me I was stuck, especially in 
Bodyguard mode where you don't get Cleanse.
I never got a turn, but they couldn't hit me
on their turns, so I never could get to the
menu for a restart. Eventually I had to shut
off the machine to get out. The working strategy
was to step toward an edge and behind a cactus
and Haste on the first move; move to the edge
and throw Wound at the nearest spider on
the next move; Wound X 2 (kills) on the next
(picking up a web or two); exit combat and leave 
encounter. By the third repeat you eliminate
the close spiders, so you have time to Haste and
Bless before they are all over you. Then simply
run in a big circle around the encounter, with
the monsters strung out in a line behind you,
and pick them off one by one with exits if you
get hit by a web. Nasty.

There are rare situations in scenarios which
cannot be done by a one-party becuse the author
did not anticipate the possibility. One Doom Moon
puzzle requires the party to enter combat mode
and have different party members stand on three
runes to trigger a lock. Fortunately the code
also unlocked if a single PC ran across all three
runes in one combat mode turn. 

In another case, Nephil's Gambit requires that
the party volunteer for a death mission one at a
time, and the code assumes that six volunteers
are available. However, the plot can also handle
it if the party refuses to volunteer at all.

I encourge authors to be aware of the possibility
that their scenario may be played by parties with
fewer than six PCs.