So me and my sibling both play DnD. We don't have others to play with so him and I go one Dm and one PC. We've been trying to find a way in where in combat, we throw in monsters that aren't to hard for one player upon the CR without making the combat seem to small and not very fulfilling FOR EXAMPLE: A final dungeon excepting cool combat skills and difficulty with the final monster but the final monster in the dungeon is just some singular creature that just difficult and not as cool of a experience.
The problem is that me and my brother need help to find a way which we can balance combat so the one PC don't get one shot but, also making the combat flavorful more than just a few kobolds.
Any help and advice would be great please and thank you.
My first thought is to start using sidekicks (in Tasha’s) then at least the player has one more ally.
And as much as I am generally against DMPCs, sometimes that’s what you need to do. Just have the DMPC stand towards the back and not say much, and then use them in combat. With that and a sidekick, you’re at a 3- person party.
Consider leaning harder on the non-combat elements of the game. Add in sidekicks, as Xalthu suggested, and give them story goals and reasons they'd help in a fight vs. run. It is hard to balance the fights because the game really isn't designed for two. But, the roleplay, story, etc., can get rich and focused on the two of you!
I play a Duet campaign with my wife. Instead of Sidekicks, I've added two full characters that are very agreeable to whatever the PC thinks, but are useful to give hints or suggest alternative ideas. Their main role though, is to make the CR issues easier. I've been using the Encounter builder with 3 characters and it's been far easier to manage the CR than trying to fight a singular character.
If you want to stick with the singular character, then you need to keep in mind "Economy of Action". Fights are better as single monsters or no more than two enemies at once. By reducing the number of PCs you'll struggle to have enough "return fire" if you have too many opponents at once. Again, the Encounter Builder is a great tool for showing you how hard a given fight will be, by auto-calculating the CRs.
I would suggest a CR Calculator, like the one here, assuming you don't use the encounter builder: DonJon 5E CR Calculator
With the ability to adjust encounters into the 4 different difficulties laid out in the DMG, how many players you have (including down to one), and the level of the party, it is bareboned, but effective. So long as you have resources like the Monster Manual at hand, and you take the time to review your choices (some CRs 2s are "more" than others, etc), you should have some success.
Like Perringaiden mentioned above, action economy for a single character party means you will really want to limit having too many creatures in a single fight, so be wary when suggested to go above 2 critters.
The big problem with having a single PC is that you're extremely vulnerable to bad die rolls. On average, a level X PC should beat a CR X/2 monster without too much trouble, but the fewer PCs you have, the more random fight outcomes will be. I would suggest letting the player control two PCs, or a PC and a sidekick. Giving the player access to a resource for smoothing out the randomness (the lucky feat, or some custom metagame resource) will help with that.
So me and my sibling both play DnD. We don't have others to play with so him and I go one Dm and one PC. We've been trying to find a way in where in combat, we throw in monsters that aren't to hard for one player upon the CR without making the combat seem to small and not very fulfilling FOR EXAMPLE: A final dungeon excepting cool combat skills and difficulty with the final monster but the final monster in the dungeon is just some singular creature that just difficult and not as cool of a experience.
The problem is that me and my brother need help to find a way which we can balance combat so the one PC don't get one shot but, also making the combat flavorful more than just a few kobolds.
Any help and advice would be great please and thank you.
My first thought is to start using sidekicks (in Tasha’s) then at least the player has one more ally.
And as much as I am generally against DMPCs, sometimes that’s what you need to do. Just have the DMPC stand towards the back and not say much, and then use them in combat. With that and a sidekick, you’re at a 3- person party.
Consider leaning harder on the non-combat elements of the game. Add in sidekicks, as Xalthu suggested, and give them story goals and reasons they'd help in a fight vs. run. It is hard to balance the fights because the game really isn't designed for two. But, the roleplay, story, etc., can get rich and focused on the two of you!
I play a Duet campaign with my wife. Instead of Sidekicks, I've added two full characters that are very agreeable to whatever the PC thinks, but are useful to give hints or suggest alternative ideas. Their main role though, is to make the CR issues easier. I've been using the Encounter builder with 3 characters and it's been far easier to manage the CR than trying to fight a singular character.
If you want to stick with the singular character, then you need to keep in mind "Economy of Action". Fights are better as single monsters or no more than two enemies at once. By reducing the number of PCs you'll struggle to have enough "return fire" if you have too many opponents at once. Again, the Encounter Builder is a great tool for showing you how hard a given fight will be, by auto-calculating the CRs.
I would suggest a CR Calculator, like the one here, assuming you don't use the encounter builder: DonJon 5E CR Calculator
With the ability to adjust encounters into the 4 different difficulties laid out in the DMG, how many players you have (including down to one), and the level of the party, it is bareboned, but effective. So long as you have resources like the Monster Manual at hand, and you take the time to review your choices (some CRs 2s are "more" than others, etc), you should have some success.
Like Perringaiden mentioned above, action economy for a single character party means you will really want to limit having too many creatures in a single fight, so be wary when suggested to go above 2 critters.
The big problem with having a single PC is that you're extremely vulnerable to bad die rolls. On average, a level X PC should beat a CR X/2 monster without too much trouble, but the fewer PCs you have, the more random fight outcomes will be. I would suggest letting the player control two PCs, or a PC and a sidekick. Giving the player access to a resource for smoothing out the randomness (the lucky feat, or some custom metagame resource) will help with that.