The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

[kuhaica]

So. Been a while since I've posted as I've been running the Final Battle. God was that a ride.

To begin, have a look at the City Battlemap

Spoiler: Image

Show

So, I broke the siege up into 5 days, with the 5th day being the assault. This helped me plan out the siege quite nicely and allowed both the Redhand and more importantly the players to adjust and see how effective the Redhand was. The players previously had set up the locations of all the troops, while I did off screen rolls for there effectiveness and the PC's give basic orders if need be.

This gave it an element of tactical gameplay but didn't make it the primary focus, which my players did enjoy, especially the one who likes the army fighting games. They especially like it when they got to see how their tactics played out against a proper army. Their biggest achievement was keeping the Owl Riders back to only be used as anti flyers. Until the assault began, the Defenders of brindol held air superiority which did a lot of good for them.

So for some key things I noticed as I ran a couple encounters out of the Box with my main party and did the entire battle of brindol out of the box with a diffrent group. I found that the out of the box was a slugfest, and only a slugfest if you had standard characters. A five member party, barb, fighter, wizard, cleric, monk. The front line people spent all there time fighting non-stop while the casters did nothing but shoot crossbows as they wanted to save there spells until the big battle.

This made things drag on. But when they encountered Kharn and his goons. The frontline kept the goons back while the two casters anhilated Kharn in two turns. All he got to do was try and charge someone. Honestly, the out of the box I didn't find that enjoyable.

And one thing that my test group hated was the Sniper encounter. They hated it simply because they felt it took away their player agency. "Who was this guy?" "How did he get past our line?" where the two big complaints. Honestly the encounter itself I didn't find to fun and it felt like it was just thrown in.


So! I took all their feedback and basically redid the enetier battle of brindol. Only One encounter remained the same. The 'Streets of Blood' everything else was diffrent.

Spoiler: My battle of brindol

Show

The Assault I split up into 7 Phases, each phase had multiple objectives (except for the last 2) that the party can split up on, or hope that the soilders/heros elsewhere in the city can deal with it. This made them extremly paranoid and forced them to make quick decesions. They, of course, went to the 'most important' or the 'hardest' sounding objectives. They even split the party at one point which was lots of fun.

Phase 1 was a three pong assault. One at Eliser Gate which was lead by a 'war machine' that the Redhand had got operational. That was the parties target as well, it could break down the wall and gate like nothing. They had fun stuffing the exhaust pipes. The second was the entire southern wall which was just a push of ladders and siege towers. The third was the king's gate/bridge. The party took on the Titan and the main walls. Unfourantly for them, the soldiers defending the bridge where not up to the challenge of fighting elite troops. In the end, they killed the titan, and held the southern walls. Unfourantly the Elisr gate was breached, the King's gate fell and a different section of wall on the east side was exploded.

Phase 2 was Abbys Rampage which started with him nose-diving into the keep, and destroying it, plus everyone inside. That tanked moral and made him target #1. The Redhand Regroups, which was a basic series of harassing the redhand as they try to get order in their ranks. The Tirikitor elves did well there. And the 'Mauraders in the Streets' which was the Redhands 'allies' rampaging around. They killed no one because there was no one to kill in that section of the city. Instead, they stole stuff. Much fun was had. So, players murdered Abby after a fairly epic fight. Took them a couple rounds. But a dragon slaying lance from the cavalier finished him. Many cheers to be had.

Phase 3 started when a second, even bigger, red dragon showed up. With a friend/PC who was separated from the party since Chapter 2 of the campaign. Renuin was had, fears where alleviated as the Senile Red dragon was helping brindol. Unfourantly, all the big dragon do be attacked mooks. Anyways, in this section, there was 'Broken Bodies' which was an encounter that functioned as a base defence/escort mission to protect the cathedral of Wee Ja and help the priests get out with the tablets that prevented the undead from being raised in the city. As the Redhand... really... really.. wanted to raise some dead (Undead Dragon Anyone?), there was also the Streets of blood, which was unchanged, and another called 'The Chosen March' which was basically a harder street of blood. Players, however, saved the tablets preventing any necro bro from being a necro bro. The Pike Mercs that where hired came in the clutch at the streets of blood, and the Cavalry lead by lord Jarmath annihilated the Chosen. It was a pretty epic phase.

Phase 4 was the 'Sniper Attack' which I changed a bit to include a character that the players where familure with and making it so if the players had gathered enough moral. That the NPCs may deal with it on there own. With a wopping 17 Moral bonus those NPCs beat the ever loving snot out of that assasain. Then there was 'We Meet Agan' which was Devil Mihar making a gate in the middle of brindol academy (idea stolen from here) this went uncontested as no one was in that part of the city, but confused raiders who were still looting. F

Phase 5 was "The Dragon Lies" which was also stolen from this thread. And was Obby disguised as one of the nobels luring the party away from the main fight? This was the one encounter that made the party feel (besides final battle). Mostly because Obby killed all the Forest Giants, and a few of the players liked them quite a bit. In the end. Obby turned out to be more formidable than the other bigger dragon, having lasted much longer and not being goaded into fighting on the ground. In the end, though, they were killed. And all was well in the world.

Then phase 6 happend. The force of brindol where all holding or trying to hold at around the green space in the centre of the city, having nowhere to go, all the forces of the redhand besides 1 tenth that was busy distracting the big dragon trashing the walls and city. Was there. And the party had to get to them. So this was a 'runaway' sort of ordeal with the side objective of helping friendly troops along there way. The party did a pretty good job saving a handful of troops, about half of the total they could save.

Phase 7 'A Hero's stand" was an even more intese streets of blood, this time however it was fought at the steps of the cathedral and lasted 20 rounds of carrange. Only to end when the big bads and their honour gaurd showed up. Party went to intecerp them while there friends/brindols heros held the line. And when the party rushed out to meet the bosses in glorious combat. A new edition I added 'Commander Evollik' telported the bosses to the top of the cathedral steps and they went inside, leaving the party shocked and forced to chase after them.

Phase 8, the final battle began. They had to deal with General Kharn, Commander Evollik, Dradetch the Vengful and two Chosen (the Armored ogers where whiped out early on, so Kharns escort where not present, same with Evolliks). Kharn was stated to be something of a cleric and a warblade. Evollik was a full on the sorcerer and Dradetch was warlock/fighter combo. Level 14, 11, 12 respectfully. Evollik went to the centre of the room to destroy the last of Brindols magical defences. I simply decided that to be the case to help explain why the redhand would even try to take the cathedral. The players had no idea what she was trying to do, just knowing it was probs bad news.

But they had to get past the 2 chosen, big man Dradetch and General Kharn who was quickly nicknamed Pink Thanos because of his wicked chin and jaw. So, the party rushed big man Dradetch, killing him before hecould use any of his speical abilities, while the Only caster and her bodyguard distracted Pink Thanos. Pink Thanos had some monologue, and cut down the body guard in 2 attacks, turing the once proud guard into burnt flesh. causing the caster to lose it, and silence in the chat room.

The following turn, Evollik had managed to do what she had to, but it was too late, she got KO by the monk and Jarmmaths totally not lover. And, then Pink Thanos had his rear end handed to him as every single player just attacked him. He surpisngly lasted long enough to almost kill the caster. Got her down to 3 HP before fire and acid, fire and diease damage killed him.

All in all, it was 7 round battle and the players loved it.

What I took from the entire exspirnece is that realisim is good. This is a battle, the players cannot do everything, plus its a battle which is 100% not fair, they are outnumbered 4 to 1 in my version and easily anywhere from 3-11 to 1 in the out of the box (depends if the citizens of brindol fight or not) plus more then 80% of the defenders. Are Militia. Not soilders (unless you change things up) that are going up against a blooded army of soilders who are all willing to die.

I made this clear to my players, they wanted to just evacuate the city, but when the citizen basically said "No this is our home" they knew they couldn't leave. So they mounted a last defence. One they knew was likley to fail. That plus giving the players control over how the battle would play out byt letting them build barricades, set up strong points. Position troops and make orders/heads of diffrent sections. Made them feel like this wasn't just some scripted battle, but one that they could influence the outcome.

And influenced it they did. I wished that I kept track of the kills because the two units which saved the day where the Mercenary Pikes who singal handled between three groups of 100 soilders held off half the army until the very end. All because the players said "We want those pikes to be used to block up the streets when everyone retreats, they will not take part in thewall defence" and thats what they did. And they had a group of elite mercnary crossbows "Reggies Rangers" which were postioned on the western walls. They alone nearly halted the redhand and did stop every single attack until the main assault.

When I told my players all the things that their previous actions effected like the difficulty of some battles, and the apperance or lack of in diffrent parts of the battle. It only made the game more enjoyable for them, as they got to see first hand how their actions affected the course of the battle. Which for me was the best part?

All in all, I thank everyone who gave suggestions to me, and this guide otherwise I doubt it would have been so epic. Now.. well, I get to throw the party into the Civil War that the Wyrmlord is dealing with. As his entire power structure just crumbled around him and the loyalists to the old ways are well... the ones who stayed to 'hold the fort' so to say.