The D&D Essentials Kit is a brand-new boxed set for new D&D players—sort of like a premium starter set. In addition to an adventure that spans levels 1–6 titled Dragon of Icespire Peak, it also includes a poster map of the northern Sword Coast, a sturdily bound rules booklet, and a set of cards for magic items, sidekicks, status conditions, and quests found within the adventure. Not to mention a set of dice and a slim DM screen that, while not quite as sturdy as the standalone “Dungeon Master’s Screen Reincarnated,” is still useful for new DMs.
Oh, and it also contains a code that gets you the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure free on D&D Beyond, as well as a coupon for 50% off the Player’s Handbook on D&D Beyond. What can we say, we’re proud to have our name on a box set. The adventure is fantastic—designed by Chris Perkins and Richard Baker, who wrote not just Lost Mines of Phandelver, but many, many other D&D adventures over the years, like The Forge of Fury. It’s “quest board” gives players the ability to acquire sidequests in a somewhat video-gamey but highly player-motivated fashion. It feels fun and self-directed, and it culminates in a tremendously satisfying dragon fight.
Sidekicks and Solo Campaign Play
However, this adventure contains a new ruleset that may be of interest even to veteran D&D players: one-on-one adventuring. People have been clamoring for one-on-one D&D adventures—that is, an adventure played with one Dungeon Master and one player character—for a very long time. It’s a fun way for D&D-loving couples to bond; just ask Todd Kenreck, our beloved video host and creative manager, and his wife Meagan. It’s also great for people who have only one or two D&D-playing friends at their school or job, but still want to play a D&D campaign anyway.
The Essentials Kit accomplishes this style of play by granting the main character a host of NPC sidekicks to round out their party. It ends up making a single-player game of D&D a lot like the D&D computer RPGs of the 90s, like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Planescape: Torment. Given that Baldur’s Gate III was just announced, I’d say that comparison is pretty apt! There are three types of sidekick known as the expert, the spellcaster, and the warrior. The spellcaster can choose between a healer or mage specialization, and the warrior can choose between an attacker or defender specialization. The sidekick rules presented in this adventure give a leveling progression for the sidekicks to advance up to 6th level—the same level that the main character will be at the end of Dragon of Icespire Peak.
Each sidekick type is represented by a single stat block, and leveling instructions are provided for each sidekick. While the sidekicks are based off of classes like cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, they aren’t quite as skilled as their player character counterparts. For example, warrior sidekicks gain the Extra Attack feature at 6th level, while fighters gain it at 5th level. Because of this, the main character will always shine a little bit brighter than the sidekicks. I like this; it keeps the whole party leveling at an even rate while keeping sidekicks from overshadowing the main cast.
Overall, these sidekick rules are fun. They remind me of the D&D computer RPGs, and of more recent tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. It lets my character be a hero and a tactician simultaneously, directing units with personality around the battlefield to support my own personal strategies. The charming character portraits on the sidekick cards provided in the Essentials Kit boxed set really sell this feeling by making the sidekicks feel more like authentic characters than an assortment of stats—being able to hand them out as cards with those portraits displayed front-and-center helps keep their “realness” in focus at all times.
Even more, these sidekick rules are eminently usable in games that aren’t one-on-one, too! A game with only two or three players could let the characters find a sidekick that rounds out their party. Likewise, an enterprising DM could even use sidekicks in games in which the characters acquire an ally or hire a mercenary that travels and gains levels with the party for some time.
Alternative One-on-One Guidelines
With all that said, you may not feel satisfied with this answer to the question of “how do I play a solo D&D campaign?” You may not want to tactically command a bunch of NPC sidekicks around. You may just want to go on a heroic adventure on your own, like in the tales of Perseus or Theseus from Greek mythology, or like video game heroes like Link (The Legend of Zelda), Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey), or the player character of The Elder Scrolls games like Morrowind or Skyrim.
If you’re a DM trying to run a one-on-one game of D&D without involving sidekick NPCs, consider how significantly the game changes when there’s no longer a party of adventurers to help each other. The weaknesses of any particular class become significantly more pronounced; a fighter’s inability to deal area-of-effect damage like a sorcerer or wizard can be a big problem in fights with lots of minions; a rogue’s inability to tank damage like a barbarian becomes a problem in forced combat scenarios; a wizard’s inability to disarm traps or open doors stealthily like a rogue makes it hard to explore ancient ruins—and the list goes on.
Try to compensate by these weaknesses by focusing on challenging your hero’s strengths—while throwing in a few obstacles that gently challenge their weaknesses. In combat, consider using optional rules such as Healing Surges, Climbing onto Bigger Creatures, and Cleaving through Creatures, to give your campaign a more heroic feeling. This will help elevate your sole hero’s actions and, in the case of Healing Surges, give them a better chance of survival in case the dice go awry.
Finally, as a DM running a one-on-one game, be sure you keep a close eye on the encounter building math. Encounters that will challenge a party of four will wipe the floor with a single hero, so don’t go too big too fast, especially if you’re used to “eyeballing” encounter difficulty. Pay attention to the math until you’ve developed your instinct for creating appropriate single-player challenges, using either the encounter-building tables in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, or the D&D Beyond Encounter Builder.
Are you running Dragon of Icespire Peak? Are you running it solo? Let us know what you think of it in the comments!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Agreed. The Target website has been out of stock for at least a week, and I've personally been to 5 different Target stores (including one the day of and the day after release) and nothing. So incredibly frustrating. Releasing to Target first, and hosing the LSGs that have supported D&D for years was a #$%^ thing to do to begin with; hosing players by massive under stocking and making no information about upcoming replenishment/availability is incredibly thoughtless and disrespectful to the customers who make all of this even possible. Epic fail WoTC. I'm super disappointed.
The nearest Target that has this in stock is a 12 hour drive away, in Denver Colorado. I really wish this launch was properly supplied. Not sure if the failure is on the WotC/Hasbro side or the Target side, but it's a pretty glaring failure. I had planned on buying 3 of these boxes, one for me, one to keep on my desk at work to give away to any interested passerby, and one for a specific co-worker to take home and run for her family. :(
I am brand new to D&D, and I picked up this kit at Target on launch day. Any advice for me as I read through the rules and adventure books to prepare playing with my daughter (who is also brand new)?
Learn the rules as well as you can, but don't overstudy. If you wind up confused at the game table, make an ad hoc ruling, take a note of the point of confusion, and look it up after the game while it's fresh in your mind. Maybe even put a sticky note in the rules booklet where it happened. The rules of D&D are very important, but you should never be afraid to bend them or ignore them if it makes your game less fun. This is because the DM and the players are friends. Even if the DM is placing obstacles in front of the players and challenging them, maybe even seriously trying to defeat them, the DM and the players want to have fun together.
I saw the mismatch with the bosses for the starting quests as well. Here are some of my house rules to make it more fun, especially for a new player doing solo with a sidekick:
As they level up or there are more party members, I'll crank it up (boss is a CR 1, etc.).
It's always a tough balance keeping it challenging but not too hard for new players. I use the UA reference for encounter building (an oldie but goodie) to "age" or "wound" bosses as needed:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/encounter-building
We finally got our hands on the Essentials Kit (last copy in Maui) and were disappointed to find absolutely zero information in the rulebook on playing 1-on-1! Not even a sidebar. Literally this article has more info about playing 1-on-1 (solo Adventurer) than the Kit does. This was the whole reason my son wanted to buy it. He was really looking forward to the Kit for that reason (wanted to DM for his friend who’s also into D&D). He was really disappointed. Smacks of a bit of false advertising!
UPDATE: found the single paragraph on “Running for One Player” in the Adventure book. The entirety of the “rules” is “let them pick a sidekick”. Talk about a letdown.
This is a cool little twist for player and DMs alike! You make amazing posts and just keep up the good work!
Clarification: I want to play solo or “1 on 1”. I want to have one PC but would like to have a party of at least 4 to take on the tougher bosses and round out things. I’m assuming rules are not saying only 1 PC and 1 sidekick only. Assuming ok to add 3 sidekicks to round out the party as well as keeping things simple without making 3 more character sheets?
I’ve compared the UA to EK and it seems the EK sidekicks are weaker so they may be too weak for encounter building?
thanks for any info!
Yes! I bought it for the One on One rules as I am brand new and wanted to run the adventure as a duet for my wife and me. There really wasn't any help or direction for those of us who have never done this before.
So started running this adventure. Thought it was going to be DM and one player, but at the last minute I was able to add another player to the mix. We are doing 2 hour sessions, so our first session was pretty much all town stuff in Phandalin. I ended up using some of the colorful sidekick characters to populate the town, and give the players some more roleplaying opportunities. I'm going to try to balance the encounters so they don't have to rely on the sidekicks, but if they want to bring one along they can (they got a kick out of Donnabella the unicorn).
For the second session they went to Umbrage Hill. I've noticed quite a few folks lamenting about the Manticore and how it is a guaranteed TPK. My two person party actually handled it pretty well. I made sure they noticed the hill with the cairns first, as they went to investigate that, they were able to see the manticore flying around the tower from a distance. I had the creature display his barb attack against Adabra in the tower, so the players understood what the creature could do. i made sure they heard it taunting, ensuring that the taunts sounded kind of silly and simple (it isn't all that bright). I also thoroughly described the ruins around the windmill. This gave them plenty of ideas on how to sneak up close to the windmill and get inside before the manticore noticed them. It was a close thing though, because one of the stealth rolls failed.
Once inside they worked with Adabra to come up with a plan for bargaining with the manticore. It turned into a very fun and memorable roleplaying encounter with the players attempting to bargain with the beast, and him falling for some deception from the rogue.
So while the manticore is deadly against a first level party here are some tips to make it fun and survivable. Give the party plenty of information about the surrounding area, remind them to review what they have in their packs, and all their skills (new players have some trouble keeping track of all it). Make sure you demonstrate clearly to them how dangerous the creature is before they engage, and also how it is intelligent enough to communicate, but dumb enough to be tricked. Also remember that Adabra is in the tower watching all this. If things start to go badly she can throw a caldron or glass vials at the creature to distract it. Or maybe she throws down a healing potion to the characters if they are looking worse for wear. For a new DM it can be tough to keep all this in mind, but the end goal is to make sure everyone is having fun. A TPK is rarely fun. But bargaining with a dumb manticore can be a blast.
I like the multiple ways the Umbrage Hill encounter can play out. I think as a DM the key element is that combat is not always the solution and I think that is why Chris Perkins intentionally put in a CR3 Manticore so that the party would have to come up with other solutions than a straight combat.
can you play d&d on d&d beyond?
no
why