The One-Man Party

Dungeons & Dragons is a social game built around the core concept of the adventuring party. To that end, the various threats and obstacles throughout an adventuring day necessitate a variety of skill sets. One party member can bash down doors and cross swords with burly foes, another can pick locks and disable traps, a third can cast spells and, uh... do everything the first two do as well as much more. Nonetheless, the point stands: if you want to get far in this world, you'll need some friends with different class features before long.

Such is the conventional wisdom, anyway. But we here are all about bucking trends. Wouldn't it be exciting to try and have a single character be as versatile as possible to try and fill every party role? I'm not saying he or she has to be just as good at doing everything a complete party is, merely well enough to have a fair shot at any demand the adventuring world may throw at him. There's a certain tidiness (and thrill) to running a one-man party: how different does the D&D game feel when it's just one player and the DM? Imagine not having to share any loot from a treasure horde or XP from a fight. Imagine never having to argue about where to go or what needs to be done. Plus, it's the only way to experience one of my favourite adventure modules from a conceptual viewpoint: Jacob's Well.

So what sort of class is suited to take on such a demanding role? Perhaps it's tempting to take one or two levels of several different classes, hoping to score the most fundamental aspects of their class features and thus being able to do a little of everything. Your base attack bonus, spell progressions and general effectiveness at any one thing are going to suffer mightily for it, though. Surely it would be more elegant (and no doubt effective) to try and tick all the boxes while still staying in one base class!


Chances are we'll want at least some kind of spellcasting on our character - there are just so many things spells can do (and more importantly, only spells can do) that we'll probably not be able to manage without it. Initially I thought the Cleric might be the ticket - they can wear heavy armour, and with d8 hit dice and ¾ base attack bonus, generally put up a bit of a fight. Meanwhile, full spellcasting from one of the largest lists in the game can fill in nearly every other gap, with some careful domain choices hopefully taking some pressure off of having to do everything magically. Maybe this could work, but I don't think it's quite there - you just can't fight well enough, maneuver or exercise skills well enough, at the lower levels to ever get situated. So what's the alternative? Play a wizard and rely on the greatest spell list ever to simply do everything? Try for a druid, whose animal companion and summons can cover the melee basis while your spells do the rest? Again, maybe... but casting spells that accomplish the same things as class features isn't really the same as having those class features at all times. I have my eye on something much more unassuming but consequently much more interesting. Thanks to the endless wonder of splatbooks, a single class has been given the tools necessary to fill virtually every role there is - not just approximate, but legitimately fulfill the various class features needed.

The answer may surprise you. I'll give you a hint: what is one of the most mediocre, unfocused classes in the core books? While it may be unimpressive out of the box, the ranger has an incredible wealth of alternate class features that can pull it in any number of different directions, focus-wise. What's perhaps most incredible is that it can employ nearly all of them at the same time! With a number of different key alternate class features, the unassuming Druid Junior results in a versatile, multifaceted character that can actually outperform even the mighty Sorcerer in the early-to-mid levels!

So you're starting off with a ranger, what does that mean? Full base attack bonus, d8 hit dice (despite potentially being a front line class?), 6 skill points from a pretty decent list, and Fortitude and Reflex as good saves. Pretty well-rounded as far as a chassis goes, with that full BAB being a particular point of interest. Fortitude as a good save is always appreciated, but missing out on good Will saves will likely be a real weak point that requires shoring up later. Having Hide/Move Silently and Search/Spot/Listen puts the ranger on the map for potentially being stealthy, unusual for your run-of-the-mill combat class, with three Knowledge skills to make him a little more versatile.

Now the class features are where things diverge from the norm. The ranger out of the box gets favored enemies, a choice of archery or TWF bonus feats, tracking and some minor spellcasting. Much of these can be traded out and/or improved upon thanks to the scattered but generous support material the humble class garnered over the years.


Mystic Ranger

Perhaps the most dramatic change to be had is the mystic ranger ACF, admittedly coming from Dragon Magazine #336. Before you get excited, give me a break here: we're talking about giving the ranger, of all classes, a hand. I'm not trying to stick the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat on an incantatrix or the Spellhoarding template on a venerable Dragonwrought Kobold sorcerer. I think the poor lads deserve a little help.

So the key change of the mystic ranger is improving the base class's spellcasting. They gain the ability to cast a small number of level 0 and level 5 spells (including such goodies as control winds and baleful polymorph!) and are given a more reasonable spell progression: level 0 spells at first level, level 1 spells at second, and then a new level of spells at every even-numbered level until tenth. The heightened level of spellcasting helps lean the ranger a little more away from the paladin's side of partial casting and a little more towards the bard's. As a bonus, spellcraft is made into a class skill - handy in dealing with other spellcasters, which is always an important obstacle, and also makes for a more versatile character who won't need help identifying scrolls and potions.

A boost to casting is powerful indeed, so there has to be some kind of trade-off. The mystic ranger loses its animal companion as well as proficiency in martial melee weapons or shields. Most interestingly, there are some other native class features that it doesn't lose so much as gets later. The first favored enemy, combat style and Endurance as a bonus feat are all delayed by one level, which doesn't seem so bad if it means getting spellcasting from the get-go. Animal companions are nice, particularly in the scope of a character who is going it alone, but 1) you had the half-strength animal companion anyway, so no big loss, 2) you can get one anyway with the feat Wild Cohort, assuming web content is permitted, and 3) you can actually just purchase and train animals. Why waste class features or feats on anything money can buy? I'm quite impressed that the mystic ranger gets to keep its full base attack bonus, allowing you to rain death with a composite longbow, and while you might miss the option of a greatsword at times, the longspear and morningstar are both quite reasonable weapons.

So the mystic ranger lessens the ranger's combat capabilities somewhat in exchange for more consistent spellcasting as well as a higher power ceiling with those 5th level spells. Making him a little more able to fill the divine spellcasting role without entirely losing the ability to put up a fight should make him a little more versatile, and the superior spell progression serves as a useful basis for other ACFs to build upon. With this new chassis established, onto the next alteration!


Sword of the Arcane Order

...okay, I've already broken the rules. Sword of the Arcane Order is not actually an ACF but a feat. Work with me, here, though: it's very helpful in making the one-man party. What this feat from Champions of Valor does is allow you to prepare wizard spells in your ranger spell slots. Yessir, it allows a ranger to cast wizard spells. Here is where having more spell slots, as well as access to more spell levels, becomes so much more important: now you have access to all of that arcane-only goodness, including 5th level spells, thanks to the mystic ranger ACF.

Note that you still need a spellbook to prepare these spells, and they're keyed to your Intelligence score, making you a little more multiple-attribute-dependent. Note also that you can't cast wizard spells through wands or scrolls - only out of your own hard-earned spell slots. Still, how many feats give you access to grease, glitterdust, polymorph and celerity?


Wild Shape Ranger

Here's another of the big ones. A class variant presented in Unearthed Arcana, this option trades your combat style feats for the barbarian's fast movement and the druid's wild shape, limited to Small and Medium animals only. This makes for a rather nice interaction with the mystic ranger: they don't trade away their combat style, merely delay it, so it's still kosher to be traded in for this other ability. Moving at 40 feet is a useful tactical advantage (sometimes the lone adventurer will need to beat a hasty retreat from overwhelming odds!) and the ability to wild shape is hugely versatile, even with the limitations in place. Turning into an unassuming eagle for scouting, fast travel or mobility can take a lot of pressure off of your spell slots. A dire badger can tunnel under walls or escape underground, a medium shark allows for long-term underwater travel, the fleshraker can probably fight more effectively than you can in melee, and even at higher levels, a legendary ape can go toe-to-toe with a lot of melee brutes.

While this provides plenty of usefulness right out of the box, where things really get interesting is if you build on your wild shape capabilities. The Master of Many Forms prestige class from Complete Adventurer lets you wild shape into just about anything - it removes the size limitations over 10 levels and permits transformation into giants, plants, aberrations, even oozes! Things get really wild at level 7, when you even get the extraordinary special qualities of any form you turn into. While it won't advance your spellcasting, your full BAB and getting one of the prerequisites as a bonus feat make this a much more comfortable transition for a ranger than a druid. Besides, see just how much you miss your spells once you're crushing skulls as a cave troll or 12-headed cryohydra.


Trap Expert

Okay, so you can cast some spells and put up a decent fight - that's the makings of a gish, however, not a full-on party. Some key elements are still missing, particularly on the skillful side of things. Thankfully, this ACF from Dungeonscape lets any ranger trade out Track as a bonus feat for Trapfinding as a rogue and Disable Device as a class skill. Now you can detect and disable (or at least bypass) even magical traps, ensuring you don't always have to guess about what may or may not be trapped. Track is much easier to replace (you can just take the feat if you really want it) but I find its applicability to be questionable: disabling traps is much more urgent as well as harder to replicate.

You may not quite have all the infrastructure for handling traps that the rogue does, but you can make up for it with masterwork thieves' tools, lockslick (from Dungeonscape) and a casting of fox's cunning. If you aren't confident in your Disable Device roll, don't forget that you can summon a celestial monkey to open a door/chest that you've determined is trapped.


Spiritual Connection

I wouldn't call this one a must-have, as it doesn't exactly take the ranger in a new direction, but I think the utility available here is worth mentioning in this kind of build. This trades out your Wild Empathy class feature for the ability to use speak with animals and speak with plants as the spells, in any combination of the two up to three times per day. While this doesn't let you easily make animals any friendlier, being able to directly communicate with your summons should help you get a lot more utility out of them. (If you're really worried about unfriendly animals, don't forget that Sword of the Arcane Order gives you direct access to ray of stupidity... problem solved!) Besides, the average ranger doesn't get access to speak with plants until level 8 at the earliest - doesn't having it from day one sound like a good deal?


Arcane Hunter

At this point we've traded nearly everything away... what's left? A-ha, our favored enemy is still intact! While a reasonable class feature in and of itself, it's difficult to know what to pick: do you select something that's common at lower levels, like goblinoids or undead, so that it's useful right away? Or do you select something more defining of the higher levels, like dragons or outsider (evil), knowing that your first choice ends up having the highest bonus? This alternate class feature from Complete Mage allows us to select the branch of foes that is arguably the most dangerous at all stages of the game: spellcasters! You need to have a single rank in Knowledge (arcana) to take Arcane Hunter, but it lets you select "arcanists" as your favored enemy - this includes any character capable of casting arcane spells or even using invocations. Wizards are surely the type of character you'll most want to be able to use Bluff, Sense Motive and Spot on. The bonus isn't going to ever increase past +2, but every little bit will help you better fill that role of the skillful character.


Skilled City-Dweller

If you're really looking for every bit of utility you can find for the ranger, this little gem from a Web enhancement helps you better tailor what class skills you have access to. At first level, you can choose to make as many of the following exchanges you want in terms of what you can treat as class skills: Handle Animal → Gather Information, Knowledge (nature) → Knowledge (local), Survival → Sense Motive, and Ride → Tumble. The last of these is perhaps the most attractive, as Ride is a skill only used by very specific character builds, whereas Tumble is useful for just about any character who wants to move around the battlefield and potentially get out of sticky situations in a fight. Gather Information and Sense Motive could be more useful for filling the party face role (getting food and shelter in the wild is one of the easiest problems to fix with money), but I couldn't imagine wanting to ever get rid of Knowledge (nature). If nothing else, unless you specifically intend to engage in mounted combat, you'd pretty much always appreciate some ranks in the trained-only Tumble: it's nice to be at least able to attempt the roll!


What's Left...?

So you've got some respectable spellcasting, combat capability, and a decent range of skills as well as the ability to deal with traps on their own level. You're pretty comfortable when it comes to adventuring, but wait - who's going to give you any quests? The ranger is the scruffy loner with twigs in his hair, more comfortable eating tree bark than dealing with his fellow bipeds. Unfortunately the Party Face is an important role and you're pretty lacking in term of social skills. Between being a martial character and also having both Int- and Wis-based casting... chances are you don't have any point left over to stick into Charisma. None of the social interaction skills are on your skill list, but Skilled City-Dweller can help a little by providing potential access to Gather Information and Sense Motive. Things are looking somewhat bleak when it comes to ever talking your way out of or into something.

There is, then, one aspect of the character we haven't touched on yet - in fact, it has nothing to do with your class at all. Don't forget you'll also need to select a race for your character!

The ever-helpful (and let's be completely honest, ever-boring) human might be the default choice, but let's take a look around for what other options are open. The illumian, for instance, is a human-adjacent race that is intended for multiclassed characters: while we are sticking with straight ranger, the resulting character might as well be a multiclassed character for all its versatility. Taking the vaul sigil will grant you a +2 bonus to all Charisma-based checks from level 2 onward, which is a nice little boost for Diplomacy, Bluff and the like. The changeling likewise gets a +2 bonus to Bluff, Intimidate and Sense Motive checks specifically. What's more interesting is that minor change shape ability - very handy for disguises and infiltration, but it pairs handily with wild shape. A wild shape ranger could turn into a legendary ape but then use minor change shape to look like himself on top of that. So you keep the 30 Str, 6 NA and claw/claw/rend/bite routine, but you can go around town without looking like Gorilla Grodd. Talk about having the best of both worlds.

Alternately, just embrace your shortcomings and run with it! Being a whisper gnome boosts your stealth and perception, helping to pad out the skillful side of things as far as intrigue is concerned. Meanwhile, being Small is mostly upside when you'll primarily be slinging spells, firing arrows and even undoing it by wild shaping if you ever get in the thick of things.


Rangers In The Night

So there you have it: a single-classed (with the possible exception of a single prestige class) character who is versatile enough to perform any party role while adventuring, thanks to some varied and synergistic alternate class features. If you ever find yourself wanting to try a solo adventurer with your DM, this should be a good option that doesn't need much pandering on his part.

But who says that's the only place for such a character? The one-man party can still function perfectly well as part of an actual party, able to choose a role to focus a little more towards but still able to patch up any shortcomings that may arise among his adventuring companions. If he's left to fill the 'fighter' role, for instance, a prompt entry into master of many forms should give him plenty of options for mixing it up - but if the rogue is ever knocked out, the ranger can still give trapfinding and scouting a go for the time being. Wizard felled thanks to his d4 hit dice and bad Fortitude save? Hey, no worries: you can cast wall of stone and teleport, too. While it's generally advised a character not become jack of all trades, master of none - since a group of four 'masters' can handle the various contingencies much more competently - a character who can master a trade and still have plenty to offer in other arenas isn't actually hurting himself any. Besides, when's the last time you saw anyone besides Viggo Mortensen run more than two levels of ranger?