This post offers some suggestions for changing the scale and number of combatants for extended combats in your one-on-one D&D games—roll for initiative!
Best Practices Foundation
We often suggest that the main PC in a duet game be empowered, and especially that they be flexible in various combat situations. It’s fine if they’re better at either melee or range, but we want to make sure both are an option for your gameplay.
After that’s established, the next important consideration for DMs of one-on-one while running combat is keeping an eye on action economy. You want to make sure that the PC and their party aren’t excessively outnumbered as this slows down combat and makes the fight difficult and frustrating for the player. Two lower-level combatants for each party members is a good rule of thumb, and I would advise against going over three combatants per party member in most cases.
One way to bring in more combatants in one-on-one D&D is to throw waves of enemies at the player. Instead of asking them to fight five guards all at once, perhaps they encounter two, and then one on patrol, and then two more near the magical item they’re trying to snatch from the dungeon.
Playing with Scale
But let’s say you want to break the rules and you really want to bring in lots of people for your PC to fight. Sometimes large scales fit the narrative of the campaign! How can you incorporate a large number of combatants while still maintaining the player’s trust and keeping the narrative moving forward?
Answer: One large wave of impossible odds that’s broken up before disaster and exchanged for a small-scale (1 v 1 or 1 v 2) combat to decide the fate of the many (or whatever outcome you were fighting over in the first place).
You might incorporate a different narrative explanation of the second fight, or maybe you transition into a prison break or something along those lines, but in either case, the shift in scale brings a really exciting change in stakes and strategy to the gaming table.
An Example to Start
I want to keep this really concrete, so let’s start with an example and build from there.
While our party was sheltering at a camp en route to a large city, a herd of hostile centaurs gathered in the distance. We’d had a run-in with a smaller offshoot of the Ever-Wandering Herd before, and Iellieth, my PC, knew that they weren’t just there to rob the camp and then be on their way.
They wanted to kill her dire wolf companion. Needless to say, we weren’t going to allow this to happen.
Combat: Phase One
Iellieth rode out ahead, using some lovely and powerful druid spells with a huge area of effect and made a dent in the herd’s front lines. She retreated to the camp. The centaurs surrounded it, and the battle commenced.
We had a few rounds of intense fighting. Our party fought on one front of the fort, and Jonathan narrated what was transpiring across the other sides.
Takeaway One: Summary and narration are your friend. It’s fine to hand-waive what’s going on, at scale, around the party, and combat can still focus in on the 4-8 enemies they’re personally facing.
The fort looked unsteady and was starting to take heavy losses, but so were the centaurs. The centaur leader stepped forward and called a truce till dawn. At that time, one of their warriors and one of ours would fight. If we won, the herd would leave Iellieth and her wolf in peace. If we lost, the herd would take Iellieth and Daphne with them. High stakes!
I hadn’t expected this sudden shift in our combat, and it was a really intriguing turn of events that took place over about 60 real-life seconds as opposed to 10 rounds of combat.
Combat: Phase Two
My PC didn’t have time for a long rest before the new combat, which brought in some interesting mechanics with the spells she’d already used and had prepped.
Dawn rose in our story world, and Iellieth stepped out from the fort to face not the commander we’d anticipated but a priest specializing in necrotic magics.
The caster vs caster battle was really exciting, especially because the necrotic mage could conjure additional combatants similar to my PC’s conjure animals spell. This combat was a lot faster-paced than the first had been, but the damage each round was much higher and more significant as well since it wasn’t spread out across the party—it was only focused on my PC and the centaur she was fighting.
Takeaway Two: Try to set up the special, smaller combat situation as one that plays to the PC’s strengths while also providing them with an intense challenge. That same fight with our paladin DMPC wouldn’t have had the same round-by-round weight—our paladin would have either done them in within two rounds by dealing extreme amounts of damage, or he would have been done in by being massively outnumbered because of the conjure undead spell.
Save for something special
We’ve tried this shift in scale a few different times in our games, and I’ve really enjoyed each instance! It’s certainly not a tactic that I would suggest employing all the time, but when you’re looking for something special, perhaps leading up to a big reveal or before fighting the BBEG’s lieutenant, consider bringing in a custom-made situation and enemy for the PC to battle!
You can read the campaign diary for how another session that utilized a massive change in scale played out in our Curse of Strahd duet adaptation here! Fans of werewolf transformations and vampire-led ambushes will also enjoy the recap!
Maintaining Player Trust
It’s a point we make often, but I do want to reiterate here: when you’re putting the PC in an impossible-to-win situation, make sure you’re checking in with the player and that they know that you’re aware of the difficulty they’re facing.
Additional Benefits
Ideally, this is a chance for the PC’s personality to shine. Briseras, my PC in our Curse of Strahd campaign (referenced in the campaign diary above), when facing impossible odds, is going to take as many people down with her as she can. Another PC might try and call a truce or attempt to trick their enemies into relenting.
As a DM, you may not know precisely how the PC—or the player—will react, but keep their gut instincts in mind and play to the PC’s internal character development.
The NPCs involved will also shape the PC’s reaction to the situation, so don’t overlook the power of failure states beyond TPK. Are they trying to protect someone, or trying to prevent them from being captured? Do you have a fugitive dwarven prince that the party is sheltering and attempting to return to the throne?
Desired Objective
The goal with this combat scale shift is to increase the enjoyment and drama for you and the player and to highlight different combat tactics for the PC.
Think of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, or Ursula in The Little Mermaid as they transform from their humanoid form to a giant dragon or a giant octopus self, respectively. This is such a crucial moment in the overarching narrative and in the combat, and their reaction speaks to their own strength and the power of their will in that moment.
Perhaps your villains, or their aides, can keep something similar up their sleeve.
We would love to know, in the comments below, if you’ve tried this out in your home games or if you have any questions!
Cover Photo by Matthew Smith on Unsplash
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