I am trying to create a set of encounters for my wife. She will be playing a Drow Hunter (controller) from the Essentials line of DnD 4e.
I'm looking for advice on how to make encounters (2 levels worth, so about 20 encounters) that will be fun, but not too easy / boring.
One line of thinking, was the idea of having her play a sort of television series like Burn Notice. Before each battle/ encounter she is approached by someone who needs a task to completed. But should these tasks be done on a per encounter basis, or should each task make up 2-4 encounters?
Thanks for any help.
Also, are there any solo campaigns that exist out there for essentials?
pps, Any magic item advice as treasure for the drow hunter is also welcomed.
Best Answer
A few weeks ago I started DMing for my wife, who also plays an Essentials Hunter. We started at level 1 and are now nearly level 8. Here are a few things I've picked up along the way.
Recognize the shortcomings of a Hunter
The essentials Hunter, unlike the typical Ranger, doesn't have the possibility of having a beast companion. As such, you will find that a lot of your encounters will come down a long sequence of "I shift back and use Clever Shot" as melee opponents crowd around. This gets repetitive and none of your combats will ever take place in the room they were set up in, as the logical strategy is to slowly back down the hallway shooting for your life. There are a couple of solutions to this.
Make up for her lack of healing
The biggest challenge of a solo Hunter campaign is once you've used your second wind, you're out of luck. The nature of D&D is that you're going to be taking damage, and that's tough to deal with without a healer. Again, you have a few options here.
Reward creative thinking
You're in this to have fun. Don't be a rules lawyer. Encourage and reward your wife for thinking outside the box. This gets really particular to your adventure so I can't offer specifics, but here are a few things that happened during our game:
Exploding Zombies! My wife was protecting a merchant caravan against a nighttime zombie attack. She decided to try to slide the zombies into the campfire using Clever Shot. I ruled that the zombie got a save to fall prone adjacent to the campfire, but if it failed, it would catch fire and take 2d6 fire damage and ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends). When the first zombie erupted she lured a bunch of them in a group and then slid one in the fire, and there was a chain reaction as the zombies ignited one another. By far one of the best encounters we've had so far.
Infiltrating the cult. We had killed a few cultists outside a ritual chamber. Inside the cult was attempting to raise an ancient demon from the grave. My wife decided to throw on the cultist robes and enter the chamber like they belonged there. Her bluff was garbage but I still allowed them to position themselves ideally in the chamber and initiate the combat with a surprise round.
Clever fighting. We were downhill from a guard tower with archers firing down on us. My fighter took the total defense action, the Hunter hid behind me, and picked them off one by one. Normally my wife would only have cover, but I gave her superior cover for being downhill and hiding behind a half-orc with a heavy shield. It took a while but the archers needed a natural 19 to hit either of us, so we eventually won out.
Make your encounters coherent, challenging, and resolvable
Nothing's worse than an encounter for no reason, a fight with no chance of losing, or a story with no end.
Plan for failure
Inevitably an encounter is going to go poorly. And contrary to popular belief, dying in a solo mission is slightly difficult to recover from.
And lastly,
Treasure
Give out items that your wife will actually use. Be reasonable (the robed necromancer doesn't drop a +2 longbow), but don't weigh her down with a bunch of junk to sell. Earning items is much more fun than saving gold and purchasing items. A few low-level suggestions for a Hunter are:
Hope this helps, and let us know how the adventure goes!