[3.5] An Eberron-flavored Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

[RTGoodman]

They still have Jorr with them anyway. (How did you guys run him? Did he accompany them into Vraath Keep? I intend to do this given his hate of the goblins and his agreement to help them fight.)

I ran him as just sort of a hillbilly with his huntin' dogs that helped out but in general wasn't really that useful. Against the hydra he fired off many an ineffectual arrow, and at Vraath he refused to go in (it is haunted after all ) but agreed to stand guard outside in case any goblin reinforcements came in. They didn't, so he just sat around.

I have no idea how the players are going to sneak into the keep. The players have always been pretty lousy at stealth, and it doesn't help that the only guy who has Darkvision isn't particularly stealthy.

My group that got this far actually threw me a curveball here - they weren't particularly stealthy either (they had a Rogue, but the rest were a Str-based Ranger, a Cleric of Pelor in full-plate, and a Soulknife/Soulbow), but they came up with an ingenious plan. They got out ropes and grappling hooks and proceeded to scale the side wall of the keep, avoiding a lot of trouble that would have occurred from just waltzing in the front door.

What that meant was they could pick off most of the goblins, hobgoblins, wargs, and stuff down within the courtyard (though Karkilan scaled the walls in one turn and went after the Rogue), but didn't have much room to fight the flying, spike-throwin' manticore. (I also put a secret door in at the top of Koth's tower, and had him waiting inside it with a readied blindness/deafness - which he hit the Rogue with immediately; fortunately for the player, I rolled to determine which he used, and it was just deafness. The Cleric cured it the next morning with remove blindness/deafness.)


EDIT: Also, one thing that I did that you could use to screw with your players is the throw an air mephit miniature at the very top of the tower and tell the players they see a wispy white creature up there and here all sorts of chains rattling and stuff. They'll probably think it's a spectre or ghost or something (and maybe shoot at it to no effect whatsoever), only to realize upon inspection that it's a sheet and some chains blowing in the wind that Koth put there to scare off any nosy explorers/adventurers.

[AslanCross]

Thanks for the advice, Killian and rtg. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

One of Eldariel's questions that I forgot to answer: No, Holden wasn't Power Attacking. He hasn't used PA so far.

Since Vraath Keep is coming up, I've gotten around to rewriting the lore for the keep and its former lord, Amery Vraath and his run-in with the lycanthropes (who are taking the place of the forest giants).

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This region of Breland was the center of some very violent conflicts during the Last War, and the territory changed hands many times between Thrane and Breland. At the forefront of the occupation was the Silver Torch, a hardliner Silver Flame sect, and at head of the cell that settled into Elsir Vale was the young paladin Amery Vraath.

The Witchwood was notorious for its lycanthrope packs, and since Vraath was the self-proclaimed protector of the area, he took it upon himself to lead the most zealous anti-lycanthropes of his cell, dubbed the Argent Axes after Vraath's weapon of choice, to scour the land of the lycanthropes.

Vraath struck swift and hard, slaughtering hundreds of the lycanthropes, many of them too young to fight a band of zealots.

Then the lycanthropes got even.

A band of over fifty werebears and wereboars attacked in the middle of the night, catching Vraath's lackeys off guard. A good number were killed or badly injured. Most of them were shredded, but the leader decided to make an example of Vraath and bit him.

Fearing an infection, Vraath, retreats into the keep without telling his remaining men about his injury and holes himself up in his own basement. None of his paladins are a high enough level to actually heal him, and neither is Vraath himself. Most of the band are only warriors, even.

A week later, Vraath turns into a werebear while in his basement. His followers turn on him. In a blind rage, he slaughters every last one of them, even planting his own greataxe into his lieutenant's ribcage.

The next morning, he wakes up naked and bloody, and sees all of his followers dead. He recognizes his own injuries as sword slashes and arrows. Horrified by the bloodlust of his own followers, he moves into the woods, and seeks out the lycanthropes to beg for forgiveness. The lycanthrope elders see that his remorse is genuine and that he has nothing left to go back to, and accept him into the pack, bestowing the name Warklegnaw on him.

Many of the pack have since died, either slain by adventurers or by age and disease. Vraath himself is now and old, sick man, but his hybrid form is still much stronger than any of the PCs. He's the Warklegnaw the PCs find, but nobody knows that until they match the Silver Torch emblem on his axe with the Silver Torch tattoo on his face.

Vraath is bitter at the Silver Flame for abandoning him when Thrane pulled out of Breland, but he's looking for a way to redeem himself in the name of justice. If the PCs are careful with their words, they can convince him to call any other remaining lycanthropes and lead them in a guerilla war against the Red Hand, accomplishing the same thing as the forest giant tribe would.

TL;DR version:

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-Forest giants scrapped; they're not native to this continent in Eberron's world, and they have no way of migrating to Khorvaire from their ruined civilization. Lycanthropes of the large kind replace them.
-Vraath was an extremist zealot who led a purge into the Witchwood. The Ferry folk didn't really like him, and in the end, Vraath failed to wipe out the lycanthropes.
-Vraath gets infected himself and slaughters his own men. In remorse and knowing his own church would likely kill him, he begs for forgiveness and joins the pack of werebears that attacked.
-The PCs find "Warklegnaw," formerly known as Vraath, in the forest giant's place.
-His greataxe takes the place of the giant gauntlet in the treasure; the bastard sword will be replaced with other, more useful treasure.
-Instead of the Twistusk tribal marking, the PCs match up the Silver Torch emblem with Vraath's tattoo.

[KillianHawkeye]

Hey, no problem. This adventure was my first time DMing, so I know I made a lot of mistakes. But if I can help anybody else out, that makes it worth it. Just keep up the great work! I'm sure learning a lot about Eberron by reading this!

This adventure makes the best campaign journals!

P.S. I LOVE what you did with the Vraath/Warklegnaw writeup.

EDIT: Wait, did you say Vraath was a paladin? Don't paladins get immunity to disease, even magical ones like lycanthropy?

[kjones]

When I ran Jorr, I played him more as the gruff woodsman type - he didn't entirely trust the PCs, but he hated the hobgoblins enough to help them out. He basically just hung back and missed with his bow - although he did stabilize Ross the paladin when he was at -9 during the Battle of Vraath Keep.

I would keep in mind that the battle doesn't necessarily require stealth. Fast, decisive action can be just as effective as sneaking. They'll be a lot less likely to get the drop on Koth (and consequently get the map), though.

Koth has a high AC for his CR when Shield and Mage Armor are up, but this advantage disappears quickly if he's cornered and/or forced into melee. Have him use his scroll of fly during the battle, not after it.

[RTGoodman]

Aslan - sounds good to me. I can't really think of any problems with the change off-hand.

EDIT: Wait, did you say Vraath was a paladin? Don't paladins get immunity to disease, even magical ones like lycanthropy?

They get immunity to disease at 3rd level, but I don't think Lycanthropy counts as a disease. I think it's more a magical "curse." And if not, Aslan can just say he's a Paladin 2/Fighter 2 or maybe even a Crusader (I don't think they get immunity to disease).

Koth has a high AC for his CR when Shield and Mage Armor are up, but this advantage disappears quickly if he's cornered and/or forced into melee. Have him use his scroll of fly during the battle, not after it.

Very true. And don't forget, if you think you're party is gonna destroy him too easily, change up some of Koth's spells known, maybe throw in some non-Core ones.

[KillianHawkeye]

They get immunity to disease at 3rd level, but I don't think Lycanthropy counts as a disease. I think it's more a magical "curse." And if not, Aslan can just say he's a Paladin 2/Fighter 2 or maybe even a Crusader (I don't think they get immunity to disease).

It is according to D&D's default assumption of how lycanthropy works, although AslanCross is certainly free to change that in his campaign. There have certainly been different explainations of how it works in various stories and settings.

It's not on the SRD for some reason, but the phrase "such as mummy rot and lycanthropy" is appended to the description of Divine Health in the PHB.

[AslanCross]

Sorry Killian, I know I posted a reply to your question, but the board "ated it" as lolcats would say. He's only a Paladin 1/Fighter 2, which might explain why he sucked so much at his job.

In order to keep him at CR 7, I had to keep his class levels really low.
The low levels are pretty consistent with what Eberron has usually done with NPCs---most of the rulers of nations are only Aristocrats. The king of Breland is an Aristocrat 3/Fighter 8. The only really high-level mortal characters are Keeper of the Flame Jaela Daran (11-year old, Lv 18 Cleric, haha. Only when she's inside the Cathedral, though. Outside she drops to Lv 3), King Kaius of Karrnath (Vampire Aristocrat/Fighter 11).

[kjones]

And don't forget, if you think you're party is gonna destroy him too easily, change up some of Koth's spells known, maybe throw in some non-Core ones.

This. Swapping out lightning bolt for fireball makes a world of difference.

And fer the love of the gawds, give him some frickin' ranks in Concentration. Boost his Int if you have to.

[Coidzor]

Truly, fascinating to see what you've done so far and what you're thinking of doing.

Hmm, that reminds me that we've yet to actually figure out going about finding the lousy fane of tiamat. or figuring out what fane means.

Hmm... That artificer is either going to make things a lot easier in the battle of brindol by having the magical aid being slightly more abundant/easily portioned for rationing or going to make the party moan for an actual caster.

Seriously... the 6th level drow necromancer(so EL7...somehow) finally doing some necromancing (the paladin no longer breathing down her neck had something to do with this, and here I thought they gave bonuses against fear by being around Also, Blackspawn Raider zombies have some impressive hit dice) was what made the difference between limping through the fight with Kharn, Ulwai, Saarvith and Kharn's elite bodyguard and getting a TPK (it was especially bad since our party's barbarian had challenged them to send forth their champion to face him at the walls and they'd ignored him, and so when Kharn issued his challenge before the cathedral, he rushed out to take it about half-buffed, versus an over-buffed Kharn, end result, Kharn decapitated him after about 6-10 rounds of one on one combat between two guys with around 150 hp each.)

[AslanCross]

Session 3, covering Days 2-4 of the adventure: Much wickedness is smote with a flying, burning, stuffed owlbear, allies are made and an old paladin is given a chance at redemption, and the PCs behold their first dragon.

Hydra Aftermath
After defeating the hydra, the party searches the wagon and retrieves the +1 mithral breastplate. This goes to Ashie. The party crosses and continues north.

The trip to Vraath Keep is approximately an hour from the Blackwater Causeway, but 30 minutes into their trip, they run into a not-so-friendly forest denizen.

Girallon Attack

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Jorr spots a girallon stalking the PCs in the woods. The monster growls at them.
Initiative: Kikkeni, Girallon, Holden, Loven, Ashie, Jorr.

This random encounter goes by surprisingly fast. Kikkeni opens up by moving behind some trees to prevent the girallon from charging at her, but it covers the distance pretty quickly by double moving (it spotted her first). Everyone else moves to close in.

At the top of the second round, Kikkeni uses a simple but highly effective power on the raging monkey: déjà vu. Naturally the creature fails its save---It has to repeat its last action, so it moves toward Kikkeni. Again. A risky tactic, but this prevents the ape from using its decidedly deadly full attack. By this time everyone was within its 10-foot reach, but due to déjà vu, the girallon couldn't do a damn thing. Everybody wails on the monster with Jorr joining in to flank and plant a dagger in the girallon's ribs. This continues for one more turn. The girallon fails to make any attacks at all until Holden bashes its skull in with Mountain Hammer. One dead ape.

Stakeout

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The party continues north and arrive at the periphery of Vraath Keep at around 11 am of Day 2. (12th Lharvion, 998 YK by Eberron's actual calendar) Loven and Jorr scout ahead and scout the perimeter. Jorr identifies the scattered large skeletons as those of werebears and wereboars, but apart from seeing the breach in the wall and the crushed gates, they don't find anything else outside.
Jorr didn't want to go in, and Loven wouldn't dare venture in alone, so the two retreat to the camp.

Kikkeni is completey out of power points, and deciding they didn't want to enter the keep without heavy artillery, the party sets up camp and rests, with Loven staking out the castle from a tree. He spots the fake haunt (of course he just knows there's a glow and eerie moaning), and the smoke rising from the keep.

Once more before they enter the keep, Loven, Jorr and Seiza the iron defender sneak towards the breach in the southern wall. They hear hobgoblins making lame elf jokes (Jorr translates), and they see the embers of a fire burning low, casting a flickering light. They report back to the rest of the party.

At approximately 8 pm, the team moves in, with Jorr remaining in the camp to watch over the horses.

Breach

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The party decides to enter the doors to the right of the entrance (the stables). Listening carefully, Holden detects creatures speaking Goblin inside. With nothing else to do, the party sticks to the wall of the north guard tower, and Holden opens the door.

The goblin riders inside were too busy with their game of stickbeetle to notice that they were being creeped up on, so the PCs get a surprise round. However, due to bad positioning (only Holden had line of sight into the stables interior), all of them end up passing their standard actions.

Round 1: Holden and Ashie roll 23s on their initiative and go first. Holden enters and attacks the first goblin rider, taking off about half his HP using his greatsword. Ashie uses up her second eternal wand of shield use for the day.
The gobbo (already damaged) closer to the door makes a run for the worg stables, but Holden makes his AOO and cuts the goblin in half before he's able to do anything.
Next, Seiza, Ashie's homunculus, runs inside and attacks the second goblin, taking out a good chunk of its HP. Hearing the death scream of the goblin, one of the worgs (the closer one) closes the ground between its stall and Ashie quickly, and tries to bite. However, Ashie's high AC keeps the worg at bay.
Kikkeni enters, and also raises her inertial armo. The second worg rushes to confront Ashie and misses as well.
Loven enters , rapier drawn, and runs up to the haystack in position to attack the last goblin. Loven sneaks (Rider B is still flat-footed), but rolls low. He ends up dealing only about 12 damage, but his bleeding attack renders him a dead man walking. He retaliates, attacking Loven, but he misses badly.

Round 2: Holden turns on Worg B, while Ashie attempts to put some distance between herself and the worgs, five-foot stepping back toward the door and shooting at the goblin with her magic missile wand. Her homunculus attacks the second goblin, tearing its throat out and killing it before it gets to act again. The first worg attacks Holden, but is unable to bypass his AC. Kikkeni fires cold energy missile at the two worgs; A saves, but Kikkeni rolls really badly. A only takes 4 damage, while B takes the full 8 damage. Still not daunted, the second worg fights on and attacks Loven, but misses. Loven tries to move into a flanking position, risking the AOO from the first one. Worg A hits and easily trips Loven. This round is incredibly noisy, with the worgs yelping loudly. The manticore in the nest at the southern end of the keep climbs onto the roof of its lair, peering at the sources of the sound, but doesn't bother to do anything.

Round 3: Holden attacks the first worg this time, rolling maximum damage, dropping it down to 8 HP. Ashie moves back even further and tries to use her wand once more, but rolls low on her UMD check. Seiza runs to engage worg B, killing it. Kikkeni conservers her power points and passes her turn, while Loven gets up, provoking an AOO from Worg A. He gets hit again, and his attack misses too.

Round 4: Holden finally takes down Worg A with Mountain Hammer. The party quickly closes the door and tries to figure out what to do.

After a brief discussion, they wait for any reactions to the sound of fighting. Nothing really happens, so they decide to check out the building on the other end of the keep (the manticore's lair).

They sneak up, avoiding the break the wall where the flickering firelight had been seen earlier. They open the door in the southern tower, cramming into it. Holden tries to listen through the door to the manticore lair, but hears nothing---Ashie can see why.

Ashie was the only party member left outside the southern tower; she sees the manticore looming on the roof of its lair. It peers at them and says "No bother, Koth inside tower."

A few halfhearted attempts at diplomacy end with the manticore telling them to go away since Koth "pay better," and retreats groggily into its lair. (It's not the brightest crayon in the box.)

Taxidermist's Nightmare

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Holden and Seiza take up positions near the crack in the barracks' eastern wall, while the rest of the party goes to the north end. Holden screams, with a thick dwarven accent, "Help! Help!"

Instead of rushing to his aid, one of the hobgoblins simply laughs, saying "I'm so drunk, I can hear a dwarf speaking in bad Goblin!" Much laughing echoes out of the barracks. Holden hears a deep, angry grunt from the other side of the room.

Holden: "Help! Gods damn it, HELP!"

Second Hobgoblin: "Hey, I think I can hear it too! 'HELP! HELP!'"

By now, the hobgoblins are in stitches. Holden hears the grunt again; it sounds like a much larger creature. The minotaur can smell the dwarf now, so it angrily yells at its minions to wise up---intruders were about. The barracks goes silent for a moment, and then the scream of drawn steel rips out of the room. Holden steps straight into the breach in the wall, and he spots Karkilan the minotaur, and three of the four hobgoblins.
Initiative:
Kikkeni, Koth (not joining the battle yet, but he rolled 24), Loven, Veteran A, B, Seiza,C, Karkilan, Ashie, D, Holden.

Kikkeni opens the door, sees Koth's stuffed owlbear and the fourth hobgoblin, and improvises. Telekinetic thrust sends the owlbear and one of the hobgoblins (B) flying. I made an honest mistake here, completely forgetting the augmentation cap on psionic powers. I rule that the owlbear, due to poor stuffing, is only about 100 lbs, while the hobgoblin with his armor totals about 225 lbs. She augments the power further than she should have been able to, and flings the owlbear (large enough to hit more than one target because they were all adjacent), while she sends B flying toward A. Kikkeni crit misses on C, but hits D and Karkilan with the owlbear, dealing 4d6 damage. B fails his save and, being dense and heavy, would deal an astounding 9d6 damage to A. Thankfully, Kikkeni rolls low and B smacks into the wall as A ducks. B falls on top of A. Loven leaps into the doorway, rapier drawn, but sticks to the wall. A is able to disentangle himself and attacks Kikkeni. He misses. B likewise gets up and stands beside A, right inside the doorway. Seiza runs in and sticks close to Loven. C sprints for the doorway as well (provoking an AOO from Loven), attempting to engage the deadly caster. Karkilan moves to the crushed wall to attack Holden and misses, while Ashie casts fireball from a scroll.

A tremendous burst of fire sets Karkilan, C, D, Karkilan's bed, C and D's bunk, AND the owlbear alight. Karkilan saves, but C and D fail. Everyone survives it, though. D manages to run away from the burning upholstery, and then Holden goes in to attack the minotaur.

Once more, Kikkeni flings the burning stuffed owlbear, but at this point I remember the augmentation limit---Kikkeni shouldn't be able to augment at all, since she's only at Manifester Lv 5. We don't bother backtracking the previous telekinetic thrust, though, but this time, she can only fling the owlbear. Once more, she hurls it at the now angry minotaur. At this point, Koth opens the door to his tower, asking what the blazes is going on, SEES that the blazes ARE going on, and quickly casts invisibility. I change the music I'm playing to おたずね者との決戦: The encounter has just become a boss battle. Koth actually double moves out of the place and is now in the courtyard, however. The manticore climbs onto the roof of its lair again after smelling the scorched minotaur.
Loven attacks C, but finds his blade parried. A and B continue to ineffectually attack Kikkeni. Karkilan tries to chop Holden down, but misses again. Ashie uses her last scroll of fireball, dropping Karkilan and D.

C soon goes down, then B. Memory is fuzzy as to how this happened, but eventually, it was just the party, the invisible Koth, and the manticore, who still isn't attacking, and A, standing in the doorway of the barracks.

Koth spots Ashie and Kikkeni, and drops a fireball on them. Ashie saves, while Kikkeni fails. Kikkeni is now at critical HP, while Ashie is in the low teens. The fireball also catches A in the blast and vaporizes him.

Loven tries to go take a sniping position outside by the boulder at the barracks' northeast corner. Holden spits curses, going after Koth, while the manticore rains its spines at Ashie---Kikkeni is thankfully out of the manticore's line of sight. Two of the spines hit---Ashie is now down to single digits.

Holden yells at Kikkeni, telling her to get the hell into the room, but she bravely says she still has a job to do, and uses the last of her PP to energy push Koth. He saves against most of the damage, but he gets flung into the pile of wereboar bones leaning against the southern guard tower. Flitting behind the boulders in the courtyard like a shadow, Loven shoots from his bow, but is too far to make sneak attacks. Ashie also takes one last shot with a scroll of scorching ray before running back into the room to help Kikkeni get back up on her feet.

Koth goes invisible. With the girls vulnerable inside the building, Holden rushes in to support them, while the manticore jumps to the southern wall and perches there, shooting at Holden. The girls use Ashie's potions to heal, while Koth reappears and blasts Holden with the dreaded ray of enfeeblement. Seiza charges Koth, who fights it away with his morning star, while the manticore jumps down beside Koth to defend him. Eventually, Seiza shakes down Koth, dropping him to -1. The manticore flies away.

The party levels up---the encounter gave massive XP, and creativity got them through it despite having two near deaths.

Even better, Koth isn't dead, so Holden stabilizes him and Loven leaves him gagged and bound. They drag Koth close to the burning bed, douse him in alcohol, and have the homunculus lie down on top of him to prevent him from escaping.

Skeletons in the Closet Basement

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They decide to go to the second floor first to check out the "ghost," finding the dead man and the glowing light. Holden performs a few rites for the dead farmer and puts out the continuous flame. They then check out the room below.

Due to crappy sense skill ranks, Holden can't find the vault entrance despite his stonecunning racial trait. I rule that he can sense something is off about the foor, but it takes 20 minutes of searching by Kikkeni to find the vault entrance. They climb in.

The first thing they check out is the skeleton by the eastern alcove. They check it out to see that a silvered greataxe is embedded in its ribcage. "The Arm of Vraath" is engraved in Dwarven runes on the axe haft, while the Silver Torch emblem is embossed on the axe blades. At first they surmise that Vraath somehow committed suicide, but Holden says it would have been impossible for him to swing a greataxe into his own chest. A sneaking suspicion comes upon them: Vraath may have turned against his men for some reason. Holden does a little RIP ritual on the skeleton, then Loven comes in and shoves the skeleton unceremoniously out of the way. Holden picks up the greataxe.

Loven's player realizes he HAS NO RANKS IN OPEN LOCK. Since he leveled up, I just let him put ranks in, but he still keeps failing. Eventually he just takes 20 on each lock, taking over 3 hours to open everything. Ashie gets impatient, imbues the big chest with the spell storing item infusion, putting knock into it, and basically has the chest open itself. They claim the staff of life and the other odds and ends inside the chest. While Loven slaves over the locks until past midnight, Holden goes back to camp, wakes Jorr up, and tells him what happened. (I forget to give the PCs the replacements for Vraath's bastard sword and gauntlets of ogre power, though they should have picked those up. I'll send them the list.

Ashie and Kikkeni meanwhile read Vraath's journals, learning how he boasted of killing over 300 lycanthropes ("They weren't all that big."---this was supposed to imply that he massacred children, though they didn't catch that until I explained it later), then skip to his last entry ("We were attacked. My men were torn to pieces. Those left shouldn't find out what happened to me."---implying he got bitten, and Kikkeni feels her suspicions were confirmed.)

The players first think that it would be a good idea to give Jorr the deed to Vraath Keep, but don't tell him this. As they move into the barracks, Jorr points out something the players missed almost entirely: The war room. As they read Koth's notes (Ashie and Holden know Goblin), the PCs finally realize that they're in much deeper than they thought they were. Jorr then sees Koth, draws his dagger, and almost kills him. Holden tells him that if he keeps Koth alive, they might have chances to kill more goblins, so Jorr leaves him alone.

They bed down in the safety of the vault and rest until the next morning.

Day 3: Jack Bauer, Pt. 2

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The PCs drag Koth back to Drellin's Ferry, along with the map and Jorr. They immediately set up an interrogation session with the town's leaders. At first, Norro Wiston is pleased to know that they've cleared out Vraath Keep, but then Holden shows them the map----translating each note into Common, writing the notes onto the map.

Norro Wiston is flustered and indecisive. He has no idea what to do, and at the moment is in denial. The PCs then turn to Koth and have him talk about this.

Interestingly enough, Holden and Loven don't actually physically inflict any damage on Koth, and most of their attempts fail. They prefer not to use the elixirs of truth in Koth's bag. Koth refuses to say anything about their size and what the Red Hand is, though the party has a pretty good idea that it's a large force, able to easily raze the vale's hamlets---Koth says that they're only hamlets, so it won't take much to destroy them anyway.

Ashie really knows how to push the buttons here:

Holden: How many? Infantry, cavalry, artillery?
Koth: *grins, baring teeth*
Holden: How many tribes are there?!
Koth: We are only one tribe now!
Ashie: How many are there in your tribe?
Norro: We can handle a hundred or so.
Koth: If you could handle it, you wouldn't be asking for help!
Ashie: "So apparently, you weren't trusted with holding the Skull Gorge Bridge."
Koth: "They trusted me with the vanguard."
Ashie: "So you're only part of a larger force."
Koth: "*nervous, seething grin*"

When Ashie finally mentions how important the Skull Gorge Bridge is to Norro, he goes ballistic (while Koth goes pale). Norro says that it's the only source of trade for them.

The PCs are able to learn that Koth really is only in charge of the advance party. Norro is slowly being convinced, but he refuses to mobilize his town to evacuate until he gets a number---it's just too much trouble for a possible false alarm. Ashie's able to make a Knowledge (History) check regarding the Ghostlord, and remembers him as a powerful caster from the goblinoid Dhakaani empire and that his contemporaries were the old Dhakaani province of Rhest (had to throw out the idea that they were an ancient human kingdom, since this area had long been under the Galifar kingdom).

Ashie also suspects that while Kharn and Saarvith sound like Goblin names, she thinks Tyrgarun and Ozzyrandion aren't. Koth gives vague answers to this question.

In the end, they decide that they can't do much more. Holden turns Koth over to Jorr. Jorr says that it's no fun killing him with him bound, but Holden warns him that untying him would allow him to cast spells.

Jorr says "This is fer mah daughter!" and plunges his dagger into Koth's eye.

The PCs leave the deed to Vraath Keep with Soranna, and say that she could probably use it to hold the Dawn Way for a while longer; in the mean time, they were headed to Skull Gorge. They buy a few more scrolls and leave Drellin's Ferry at about 1 pm of Day 3. Jorr mentions the effigy tribal marker up north along the Dawn Way, they could check it out too.

"Warklegnaw"

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They travel the whole day, way into the evening. At about 10 pm, they see the marker and decide to walk up the track at Jorr's suggestion.

After two hours of walking into the night, they get to the ruined fortress and find an old human sitting by his cooking dire boar.

They spy on him, listening to his ranting, and eventually they see the bottom half of the Silver Torch tattoo on the man's face. Holden decides to approach in a diplomatic manner, thinking that as a Silver Flame member, the man could help them. He moves without stealth into the clearing, carrying his (Vraath's) axe in a nonthreatening gesture.

The man notices Holden's Silver Flame symbol and goes into a rage.

Holden: The Silver Flame needs your aid.
Warklegnaw: The Silver Flame ABANDONED ME! They TURNED ON ME!

At this point he changes into his werebear form and says he just wants to be left alone, and that he wanted nothing to do with them, while breaking into coughing fits.

Holden makes a diplomacy check ("You did not kill them---the demon that holds your body did. Your soul is innocent of those crimes."), tells him about the situation, and eventually, the werebear says that he was willing to help---if they gave him back his axe. Holden then realizes that Warklegnaw was Amery Vraath, and he offers him the weapon.

Vraath says that he may still be able to find some of his tribe---the tribe that had accepted him after he showed that he repented of slaughtering their children---and that he would be able to fight for justice again. What he really wanted was this---a chance to redeem himself.

"I do not want to go back to Thrane. They will not accept me. They will kill me. But I will fight for justice once more. Only the Flame can judge me. I do not want to go back to the church and suffer their prejudices. Now leave me be. An old paladin has a lot to think about. To pray about."

He offers them some food before they leave, and also says they can stay for the night. The party eats, while Loven attempts to amuse Vraath by telling him about the flying burning owlbear. His miserable façade cracks, just a bit. The party soon leaves Vraath, and continues hiking toward Skull Gorge Bridge.

They arrive at approximately 4 AM.

Here Be Dragons

And they see the bridge. And the hobgoblins. And Ozzyrandion. The party decides that it might be too late if they wait until midday (if they rested), so they decide to pull back about an hour's walk and begin to strategize. An hour before dawn, they get back up and begin the walk back to Skull Gorge.

End of session.

Thoughts

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It just keeps getting better and better. Now that Kikkeni's player knows what her powers do, she's able to function much more effectively. I just fear she may be burning up her points too fast. She's got to learn how to pace herself.
-Burning Owlbear.
-The Vraath = Warklegnaw angle turned out beautifully. Holden really felt that he was serving the greater good by consorting even with a lycanthrope to thwart the much greater threat of a Demon Overlord's cult rampaging across Eberron.
-At first I was a bit troubled that the PCs decided to go back to Drellin's Ferry first, but I realized that I should let the PCs move as they please. It paid off.
-The interrogation was a bit messy---I can't remember half of what they got out of Koth. For the most part, they didn't really get anything---they didn't bother using magic, and frankly, Koth would have made his saves easily if they forced him to drink the elixir. My plan was to make him tell the truth---in Infernal, which nobody in the party knew. It didn't come to that, though, and now, Koth is dead.

The PCs have now bought Drellin's Ferry 3 more days. Let's see if they can raise that to six days by wrecking Skull Gorge bridge.

Next week: Ozzyrandion, betrayer of Siberys

[AslanCross]

Hate to double post, but I'd like to ask if anybody has tried running Ozzyrandion as a Juvenile (Large, CR8) dragon instead of the default (Very Young, Medium, CR 6).

There are a number of reasons why I'm doing this:
1. This is likely our last encounter for the vacation, and it's the climactic encounter (more or less) for Part I.
2. It's the only encounter I'm planning for that day.
3. The PCs have Jorr with them (who will also serve as an XP sink to decrease the amount of XP the PCs will get).
4. I can already predict that the tower snipers will die very quickly.
5. I only have a Large Green Dragon mini.

In this combat, I can see the following:

-Holden, the Dwarf Crusader: Racial stability + Stable Footing feat. He is not going anywhere. He has the highest HP and the best reliable damage, and they plan on making him fly. However, even with all their buffs he can't fly fast enough to catch up with the dragon.

-Loven, the Warforged scout Rogue: I'm worried about him. He'd better tie a bungee cord around his waist, because if Ozzy flings him over the edge (very likely), he's going to end up in some prospector's pan downstream in the form of mithral nuggets.
I'm not sure how well he can contribute---it's going to be almost impossible to flank here, so unless he makes good use of Hide, he's not going to get any Sneak Attacks. His small size makes it worse---decreased weapon damage.

-Ashie, Human Artificer: She wasn't able to restock her offensive scrolls due to their urgent movement from Vraath Keep to town to Skull Gorge. She does have a wand of magic missile, but once the dragon flies out of range she's going to have a problem.

-Kikkeni, Kalashtar Psion: She's pretty much the only person who can destroy the bridge (energy bolt or energy cone dealing sonic damage will pretty much wreck the bridge in short order. Since the party plans on checking out Cinder Hill first, they're going to leave the bridge intact first. The problem is she's incredibly squishy (the party didn't buy the scroll of resist energy in town, and a single breath attack from Ozzyrandion is going to kill her, even if he was his default CR). If they lose her, they're pretty screwed.

-Jorr won't be able to help much, here. He has 12 arrows left, so he might be able to take out a sniper or two, but he doesn't have the same tenacity as the PCs and will retreat to the undergrowth.

-The Hobgoblin Sergeant here has been changed to Warblade 3 (Iron Heart and White Raven), so he has a good amount of tactical maneuvers. I might swap out one level for a level of Fighter so that he can at least use a bow.

-The archers here have more class levels, so I'd think they have a better chance of hitting than the horrible archers in the first encounter. I don't really know just how much good they will be, though.

[Eldariel]

You may recall Saph pondering about buffing Ozyrrandion to Juvenile as well, but ultimately deciding against it. She found it a correct choice as the battle is already tough; your party has little in ways of efficient long range weapon and I'm really, really surprised if they manage to seriously damage Ozyrrandion (Wand of Magic Missiles almost deals negative damage to the Dragon - it's just that bad; and as Ozyrrandion is a skirmisher, chances of Holden ever getting to hit him are miniscule, so we're talking about a level 5 Psion vs. a Young Dragon, it'll be hard enough without additional problems) as it stands; I'd definitely suggest against the buff.

If your party had a bunch of competent casters and efficient ranged characters, it'd be different and as CR suggests, Juvenile wouldn't break the game (although do note that the encounter is already EL 10, slightly over the capabilities of level 5 characters), but as it stands, I'd imagine a smart Juvenile Green would wreck them. With regards to the miniature problem, you could just make him Large. It's not like the party should know his age category anyways, and since he isn't a melee type really, the size isn't all that relevant.


The biggest problem is really the HD increase. They'll have trouble dealing 104 (plus Cure Serious Wounds) damage at range, let alone 140. Slightly less will be enough to drive Ozyrrandion away, but meh.

[kjones]

In my experience, the battle for Skull Gorge Bridge was challenging enough in its own right. Your party sounds like it doesn't have much in the way of ranged-damage capabilities, so if you boosted Ozyrrandion up to a Large, you might want to change his feats to give his tactics more of a melee focus.

Your concerns about having Ozyrrandion throw people off the bridge have a simple resolution - don't have him do that.

Ozyrrandion (and pals) were a challenge for both parties when I ran them through that encounter. Boost him at your peril.

[AslanCross]

They've hit Level 6 already, so I'm going to see what they're going to be taken then. Ashie has Koth's CL 5 wand of magic missile, so at 3d4+3 she's at least going to be doing as much damage as anyone who bothers with ranged combat out to 150 ft. Only 10 shots, though.

I guess I should talk to them soon, as I'm going to be out of town over the weekend and next session is this Monday. I'm not entirely sure if Holden's player has swapped out any of his maneuvers (starting at 4th level, and now 6th).

If I do decide to go against the buff, I guess I could just make the large size a cosmetic thing. That might be the best solution.

[kjones]

It's entirely possible to make him Large without making him Juvenile - you're the DM, after all. You can tweak his stats however you like.

[Coidzor]

You didn't even have your NPC think that maybe it's a bad idea to not get any more arrows before going to attack a bridge with a group of adventurers?

... guh? His INT's not that low, is it?

[LOLC2k]

With that party, I would not boost him to juvenile. But, you might want to consider him having a scroll of shield or some such, and give him ranks in UMD (All dragons should really have that). Don't metagame and make him use it as soon as he sees the PC's, but if the wand of magic missle starts being a hassle, he can fly away and use it.

Strafe, and please, for the love of god, don't play the dragon dumb. If it melees, it was a bad move. Let it fly away and wait for its breath to come back. I'd rather see a DM play a lower CR in a smart fashion than a too powerful one dumb. And if you play it smart AND up it to juvenile, does the party even have a chance? Finally, make the dragon flee the battle if its coming close to dying. I've run this module twice, and neither party was able to kill the dragon. They still handily won the battle, however.

[AslanCross]

Alright, I'm keeping him as it is, though changing his size to Large.

I've run a dragon before, and it was in the air almost all the time. Even when it landed to full attack, nobody dared to actually go near. I think the most dangerous thing about it is still strafing with its breath, though.

Anyway, Holden scavenged 80 arrows from the hobgoblins at Vraath Keep. He can give Jorr some.

[AslanCross]

This was supposed to be the final session for this summer, but it seems that we'll be able to sneak in a couple more sessions before the school year breaks us down with work.

Ozzyrandion
BGM: Locked Girl ~The Girl's Secret Room Betrayers of Siberys

As I'd mentioned, I kept Ozzyrandion's hit dice, but I made him large. I didn't even raise his ability scores; I only wanted higher damage dice and a tail slash attack. I'm glad I didn't use a Juvenile (CR 8) version; this would have killed the PCs. Thanks for the recommendations, guys.

The players decided to wait until dawn (approx 6 am of Day 4) before attacking so that they wouldn't get hosed by illumination disadvantages. At this point they were very close to fatigue, but they didn't want to risk concealment and getting spotted before they could even see their targets. Everything else had better senses than they did.

Ashie the artificer then proceeded to buff the hell out of the party while they stayed in the trees at the very edge of the Witchwood:
Holden: -shield of faith, bull's strength, enlarge person
Loven: -cat's grace, shield
Jorr: -cat's grace
Ashie: eagle's splendor, shield

She also cast haste on everyone and gave Holden the potion of fly.

Dripping with buffs, they rolled initiative, with Ashie, Jorr, Loven and Kikkeni staying in the undergrowth, "hiding" (they didn't know that Ozzyrandion had spotted them all), while Holden and Seiza charged down the stone pathway toward the Hell Hound Scorch Drake. Unfortunately, Ozzyrandion rolled a natural 20 on his initiative.

Immediately, Holden and Seiza were bathed in a shower of supernatural acid. Seiza was instantly reduced into a spitting, hissing puddle of slag, which severely injured Ashie with its death feedback. Holden also failed his save and was left at half HP. He went next and charged the closer scorch drake, pulping it instantly. The other scorch drake also died before it was even able to attack---it ran out of move speed right outside Holden's reach and he burst it like an overripe tomato the next round. (I should have replaced them with Dire Wolves here; Hell Hounds are seriously rather useless.)
The archers in the camp began grabbing their gear (with the one round delay stipulated in the adventure), while the archers let loose. Due to some wise placement, however, the PCs were able to avoid fire from the archers on the far side by placing themselves behind one of the towers. Ashie and Kikkeni ran up the stairs; Kikkeni's speed was up to an amazing 70 feet thanks to Speed of Thought and haste.

Almost immediately the hobgoblins started dying. Kikkeni was able to throw one of the nearer ones into the other with telekinetic thrust, knocking the target out of the tower and to his death at the base. Jorr kept missing this time, and would prove to be mostly a distraction for the archers. He took potshots at Ozzyrandion, but he just kept missing.

And so did the archers. The total AC ratings of the PCs were about as high as Ozzyrandion's, so they'd only hit on a roll of 17 or higher. The Stormtrooper Effect seems to apply to these guys, as they kept rolling badly while their numbers were large and then started rolling better when they began thinning out. The archers in the camp and the sergeant immediately closed in after picking up their gear; the sergeant had no ranged capability (due to being a Warblade 3) and double moved as fast as he could across the bridge in order to take out Kikkeni, while Jorr tried to flank and sneak attack (but he missed).

Kikkeni stayed on the staircase of the southeast tower for a good part of the encounter, as she wanted to avoid the breath weapon and Flyby Attacks coming from at least half of the possible attack vectors. Ashie wasn't so fortunate, as she stayed on the ground. Their combined firepower, however, packed a punch. After Holden had smote Ozzy, who was hovering above him, with a successful Bonecrusher, the two girls were able to blast the dragon down to less than half HP in short order.
Loven just made some rather ineffectual attacks for most of the encounter (having 1d4+2 damage on his CSB is really lame. Any suggestions for making this guy work better? He hasn't really been making an effort to get into sneak attack position.), managing only to crit against the sergeant, who was threatening Kikkeni as she came down the stairs for a better spot.

Kikkeni renders the sergeant useless by making him chase her like a lovelorn stalker by using déjà vu (Seriously, I hate this power now), wasting his turn.

Enraged by the barrage, (and almost getting smacked into a wall with energy push) the dragon flies back to his roost and to drink his potion of cure serious wounds, then his potion of invisibility. Freaked out by the dragon's sudden disappearance, the party attempts to stay put, thinking it mostly unwise to devote all their resources to killing the archers. Ashie casts call lightning from a scroll and begins blasting away while the flying dwarf dive bombs the crossing archers. His Charging Minotaur shatters one's body in several places, sending him flying like a rag doll along the bridge.

Everyone is still frustrated by the dragon's invisibility; they did their best to spread apart to avoid being bathed in acid. To their chagrin, however, Ozzyrandion reappears right beside Kikkeni and proceeds to wail on her. Kikkeni survives the full attack with 5 HP left. Holden, coming from the bridge, dive bomb-charges the dragon, but he fumbles his attack roll.

Kikkeni accomplishes something amazing here. She makes a concentration check to manifest defensively, and uses energy push on Ozzyrandion.

The dragon makes his Reflex Save.
And fails his opposed Strength check---by 10.
The impact of the psionic power sends him skidding 15 feet toward the edge of the map. Using her incredible speed, Kikkeni runs out of the danger zone and towards the bridge itself. Ashie blasts away at Ozzy with her dwindling call lightning shots in the meantime, and finds herself backed into a corner at the edge of the map. Ozzyrandion charges her on the ground. His bite bounces off the edge of her shield. Ashie risks the AOO and she runs as far as she could in the tower's direction---she just really wants to stay away from the dragon's full attacks. Holden runs to her rescue, attacking the dragon but missing once more. This puts Holden and Ashie directly in the path of an acid blast. But we'll get back to that later.

In the mean time, Jorr is exchanging fire with the hobgoblins and taking most of their shots. The archers fire mostly at Holden, the giant flying dwarf, but seeing that this doesn't work too well, go after Jorr instead. Loven simply keeps missing or dealing pitiful damage, though he does manage to KO the sergeant.

Ozzyrandion uses his breath weapon on Holden and Ashie. Both save successfully, but by now are at critical HP levels---however, Ozzy is critically injured as well. Holden retaliates in the most fantastic manner---using Revitalizing Strike, he shoves his maul into the dragon's maw, splitting the dragon's head open. I describe the fatal strike as a surge of warmth and strength while the dragon's polluted life force drains away---the Silver Flame's power fills Holden, rewarding him for smiting this foul, corrupt dragon.

Just as Holden strikes down Ozzyrandion, Jorr takes a fatal shot, dropping to 0 HP. I rule that the extra 2 HP from Holden's Martial Spirit saves his life and gets him right back up, but the cinematic image of Holden turning toward Jorr just as he gets shot down is pretty awesome.

Jorr stands right back up and crits the guy who shot him as he runs away, shooting him through the head.

Ashie, in the meantime, attempts to overtake the hobgoblins by doing the most awesome action movie stunt in the adventure so far. She first wanted to slide down the scree-covered slope in order to get close enough to use her dragonmark's dimension leap power to teleport across, but I rule that she needs to make a Reflex save to avoid falling, then make the Concentration check to cast her spell-like ability in violent motion. I give her an alternative, but she chickens out at first. Then she remembers her action points.

She has an awesome move speed thanks to haste. This gives her a prodigious boost to her Jump check. She rolls a 2 on her d20. She spends an action point to gain an additional 4. Her total Jump check lands her a 13---enough to jump 10 feet off the edge of the cliff. Then she taps her dragonmark to dimension leap the remaining distance and lands right on the edge of the other cliff. She lands with a wand in each hand, ready to kick some Red Hand rear.

Kikkeni, emboldened by their victory over the dragon, runs over the bridge as well, and slams the northeast tower archer with telekinetic thrust into the northwestern archer.

At this point the hobgoblins begin to retreat, but Holden beats them by landing at the base of the stairs of the northwestern tower. Kikkeni lays down psionic grease, and both the hobgoblins slip up and fall. Holden ends them with a full attack.

Cinder Hill

The party apprehends two hobgoblins---the sergeant and one of the archers--and ties them up, hanging them off the side of the bridge while they're unconscious.

Jorr and Loven continue to scout out Cinder Hill, while the rest of the party searches the bridge.

The scouts confirm their worst fears: The Red Hand is a horde, and they have not only thousands of hobgoblin and goblin warrios, but worgs and ogres as well---not to mention a red dragon and at least 3 warforged titans, which Loven spots being stripped of their tattered Cyran battle banners and refitted with Red Hand heraldry.

The party decides to hightail it back to the town, dragging their prisoners behind them. Kikkeni easily destroys the bridge by using energy cone to blast the weak spot, ruining it after 3 shots.

I decide against throwing another random encounter against them since we were running out of real time, so I let them get quickly through the Witchwood back to town.

The party gets back to town at about 10 pm of Day 4 to deposit the prisoners at the Old Toll House and rest for the night.

Jack Bauer. Again.
The next morning, the PCs take Norro Wiston and Sorrana to the interrogation. Wiston expresses his distaste for the torture, but the PCs are determined to do this.

The torture is pretty fruitless by now. The grunts don't know much; all they get from the crazed sergeant are visions of glory that Azarr Kul showed them, of a Dragon-inspired hobgoblin empire greater than Dhakaan, spreading across Khorvaire and Argonnessen. A dragon-inspired hobgoblin empire ruled by Tiamat.

Kikkeni rolls a high enough knowledge check to realize the implications of this crazy idea, but by now the sergeant is no longer saying anything helpful. Both hobgoblins are executed.

Ahead of Schedule
It's only day 5 and the PCs are already itching to get Drellin's Ferry evacuated. This seems to be something that the adventure doesn't expect. I make the lame excuse that they have to wait for two more days since Iormel is out of town and Wiston sort of fears him, and thus refuses to start the town council without him.

The PCs try talking to Sorrana, and although she expresses utmost concern for the safety of the town, she says she ultimately has to follow orders, and that despite Iormel being an unlikeable, proud bastard who is likely to oppose the town's departure, they really have to wait for him.

OOC I tell the players that they're actually way ahead of schedule and that the Red Hand is not going to reach Drellin's Ferry anytime soon. This causes them to relax a bit, so they decide to craft stuff---Ashie wants new homunculi to replace Seiza.

Postmortem
-The PCs performed admirably on the bridge despite the difficulty of the encounter; their strategic discussion paid off.
-The dragon died faster than I had expected---he was already supposed to run away after he attacked Ashie, but Holden and Ashie presented him with such a great opportunity to kill them that I decided to just have him use his breath weapon again.
-I was a bit frustrated by the PCs being a bit too convinced that fighting to save the town was a hopeless cause, their panic really caused me to make some lame, railroading excuses which I preferred not to do. Also, they're way too early---the Chimera attack and the town council would have to be bumped up way earlier. Any suggestions?
-We're about to enter the second part of the adventure, and I'm pretty happy with the progress we've made. As we're approaching the rather loosely-tied threads of Part II's hooks, is there any advice you guys can give?
-I'm really worried about Loven. Since the beginning he hasn't really dealt any fatal damage to anyone. I don't know if there simply isn't enough decent space for him to sneak and snipe. Is there any feat that would help him sneak at a longer distance? Should I just recommend that he tote wands instead?

[Eldariel]

Too bad Big Ozzie died. I was really rooting for a big baddie to survive for a change, and Ozzie definitely seemed like the type to be able to do so, being so well-poised vs. the party. Fine session though; near-TPKs are always fun. Although I'm a bit sad none of the party died. Call me a sadist, but when a Dragon fails to kill even one party member, it feels like a failed Dragon to me. :( But huge fights are still always good!


As far as Loven goes, first step I'd do would be to offer him few gentle nudges on trying more to sneak attack in combat (as a single sneak attack deals more damage than 4 of his standard ones). That is, when possible, find some cover and hide, and use flanking on opposing melee types (he's Holden's adopted brother so I'd expect for them to have learned to coordinate their combat abilities and to fight together) and just to make it a priority to trigger sneak attack.

Second would be to get few Wands. Next level, Ashie could build them (or rather, build a Dedicated Wright that gets them done while adventuring), and a Wand of Grease, Wand of Invisibility and some such could really help (along with one offensive Wand, probably cantrip like Acid Splash, to deliver ranged sneak attacks as touch). Also coordinating a bit with Kikkeni (provided he knows Psionic Grease or some such) could go a long way.

[AslanCross]

I was expecting one death, at least. Loven wasn't even damaged at all (he was out of the sight and attack range of almost all the archers). I did enjoy the looks on their faces when the homunculus died instantly.

As for Loven, I'm going to tell him to flank with Holden more. He's tried too hard to snipe (but he's not familiar with the snipe mechanic), and even then he always finds himself out of range. I recommended Crossbow Sniper, but he's still iffy on that. I might allow him to retrain his feats just for this level.

Would this be a good time to start upgrading threats? I have a feeling that the marauder and chimera attacks on town are just going to be cakewalks (though this could work to the party's disadvantage---if they soundly beat the attacks, the town could get complacent again and delay).

Marauder Attack: First Wave.
-Hell Hound: Useless. Their outsider type is probably the only reason why their CR is what it is. I'm almost certain I'm going to erase them completely and replace them with Dire Wolves. Same CR, much bigger HP and damage.
-Goblin Riders: They were pretty useless in the stables because they were cornered. This time around they're going to be mounted on the worgs, so all of them can outpace the PCs handily. Their damage is pretty pathetic, though. I'm not too sure how this is going to be an EL 7 encounter.
-Worgs: A lot tougher than their CR lets on, but their damage is lame. Their speed will come into play here, at least, since they have a lot of room to maneuver.

Second Wave:
-Kulkor Zhul War Adept: As a caster, he's going to be a pretty serious threat especially if I swap out his spells (lightning bolt? No, thanks. scintillating sphere would be better). Any recommendations?
-Regulars: These guys are going to die. Would it be a good idea to bring less of them and include a couple of bladebearers and/or veterans instead? Even the veterans on Skull Gorge were pretty pathetic. (Then again, the party was overbuffed.)

Chimera Attack:
-I've no idea how this guy will fare. I typically don't run magical beasts, so I can't really tell how well he'll do. If I'm not mistaken, the other campaign journals say that the Chimera was ripped to shreds rather easily.

[Coidzor]

Hmm, some musings, to be taken with a grain of salt due to my own inexperience...

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Warg riders with reach weapons and bows harass the enemy and skirmish against more powerful foes, trying to trip or disarm them depending upon what kind of pole-arm you want to give them, and making use of their mobility and the durability of their mount so that they try to ready actions to full attack anyone who gets through the goblin's reach? Really annoy the PCs by trying to split their attention and peppering 'em with flaming arrows. Not really trying to stand and fight with the party, but more trying to soften them up (as that's their job as outriders for the raiding party), possibly trying to get the party enraged and led into a planned ambush with the main force of the raiding party (say, as soon as the wargriders realize they're facing real resistance, one of them blows a horn and withdraw the next round, seemingly on the run, possibly as a result of the party's first kill)

How easily are the regulars getting slaughtered? It was... pretty fast for my group, but we had a party of 6. Maybe divvy 'em in half, give 'em one sargeant (with the war adept in command of the other half), turn 'em into veterans and give each veteran two regulars? so... 2 sargeants, 5 veterans, 10 regulars...That'll be like...an encounter level of... 10, which would be overpowering without Jorr and Sorrana.

Or, maybe double the number of regulars so that there's ten, give each squad of five a "sarge"(or have the war adept in charge of one) and have one group engage at range so as to both harass the party with fire and back up the war adept that'd be an EL 9, and the PCs may or may not still have Jorr with 'em and would be possibly backed up by Sorrana. Or just make a sarge and corporal(sergeant with veteran), that'd be two groups of seven hobos and the war adept...

So that's a force of 15 hobgoblins to harry at a human settlement and test its defenses or destroy it if it's within their power, with three warg-rider scout/skirmishers... Maybe beef up the warg riders' numbers slightly and have any NPC help you provide the party arrive after the main force of hobbos shows up. Maybe they're busy making sure that the granary they set up isn't completely destroyed by the fire attack. I believe Jorr's survival skill check from his ranger levels would come in handy there.

In any event, it'd be a chance for them to get a taste of the horde's actual organized force(since before they've had, if not the element of surprise, the advantage of not facing the military in regular combat[half-assed ambuscades not withstanding...]), and get them moving again rather than waiting around on their thumbs. At least, I think that's what you're wanting to do with this. Am I right?

Ed1:

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Depends on what you have planned for dragonspawn as well, as using one or two here with a rather fearsome effect....well.... hehe... say, having the kulkor zhul war adept riding a greenspawn and then dismounting after finishing buffing it with mage armor(or arriving with it already buffed and himself as well) and maybe something else you'd like to switch out one of the less usable spells for a good buff to make it a mage and monster battle after the wargriders are vanquished. That'd be about an EL 9... So a bit more powerful than the original EL 7... Or maybe make it the war adept and a group of blackspawn raiders (I mean, it's part of their name!) Maybe out on a test-spin by seeing how much damage the blackspawn will cause before they slip away. 4 Blackspawn would be about an EL 9, so maybe a blackspawn heavy and some minions or 2 Blackspawn with him for EL 8... Hmm...

Maybe play it as they'll only fight to the death if it seems easily within their power to get something out of it, preferring to keep alive and spread chaos to dying for a failed attempt at killing a humie, do a fighting retreat after a certain amount of difficulty/resistance, seeking more to spread fear and chaos than cause real damage? Depending upon whether you want to run something more or less powerful...

Plus they would be wanting revenge for Koth being eliminated and the bridge/Ozzy being taken out, maybe have a tie in where they try to confirm that the PCs were the latest flies annoying the horde, and attempting to get word back to the horde via the adept retreating via fly or some-such, thus leading in to scrying and attacks against the party, as a way to explain random encounters happening sooner if the party is going fast enough that they shouldn't be happening timeline wise.....

[AslanCross]

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1. Worg riders: I'm not so sure if giving them polearms is going to help them in melee. They're small and have got crappy strength. Holden is impossible to trip unless it's done by a much larger creature (hence the Dire Wolf). I'm going to have them stick to ranged skirmishing here.

Question: Does Expeditious Dodge work with mounted combat? This might help these guys live a little longer.

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2. Kulkor Zhul War Adept: I'm thinking of tossing out the default sorcerer stats given in the book and using the Hobgoblin Warcaster from MMV instead, with two Wizard levels. Out of the box, the warcaster is a CR 4 monstrous humanoid that casts as a 4th-level wizard, plus some nifty abilities (Pillar of Magic gives SR 14 to all goblinoids within 30 feet for 1 minute). This will give the caster more options so he doesn't have to blast all the time. I want to show the PCs that the Red Hand has intelligence on their side too. The default stats are pretty good, actually, and the enhanced caster level on the spells might be useful---but just how many times is he going to need to cast summon swarm and mirror image?

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3. MMV also has canned stats for CR 3 hobgoblin duskblades. Their channeled shocking grasps will pack a punch, since the spell gives an attack bonus versus targets in metal armor (all of them have metal armor except for Kikkeni).

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4. I'm not sure whether I want to include dragonspawn at this stage. The Blackspawn Raiders are kind of tough, so I was thinking that I could use Greenspawn Sneaks instead (those guys raid too). They're pretty soft, though, so they're going to have to use stealth---if I use them, they might be able to teach Loven how to actually snipe.

Here are my plans for the marauder attack:
First Wave (EL 8)

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-Goblin Worg Riders---CR 3 (3)
-Worgs---------------CR 2 (3)
-Dire Wolf------------CR 3

Second Wave (EL 9)

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-Kulkor Zhul War Adept (Hobgoblin Warcaster Wizard 2)---CR 6
-Hobgoblin Bladebearer (Fighter 1/Warblade 3)-----------CR 4
-Hobgoblin Duskblades --------------------------------CR 3 (2)
-Greenspawn Snipers (Greenspawn Sneak Rogue 1)------CR 3 (2)

The goblin raid is supposed to come between Day 4 and Day 14 anyway, so it's "on time." The Chimera attack, however, is listed as coming between Days 10 and 14. I'd like to bump it up sooner.

I do think that an exploratory raid on the town is a good idea. By now Kharn would have gotten word of Ozzyrandion's death, and could easily send word to his lackeys to get a feel of how strong the PCs are---this might also explain the Greenspawn wanting a piece of the PCs for killing Ozzy, who was a "big brother" to them.

[Coidzor]

Sounds like a good plan. As I said, I was pretty much throwing out ideas there...

Insomnia'll do that to a guy...haha.

Hmm, now that would be interesting to make up some kind of lieutenant that coordinates an entire group of weaker hobgoblins, giving them access to maneuvers of some sort, but only as long as he's actively maintaining/alive...

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The greenspawn sneak especially seems like a good idea, both tying in the increased interest and Ozzyrandion's death... Heck... could either play it as the greenspawn getting reckless in trying to kill them or basically there as an observer for Kharn that'll take targets of opportunity if they seem weak enough for them to finish off.

Granted, I don't really know anything about them as to whether that could actually work, but, y'know.

[Eldariel]

Worg Raiders as they're printed are pretty friggin' sad. 1d4 damage is rarely enough to even drop a Commoner, and they're supposed to be able to harry real military; as they aren't much better than 50/50 to hit even an average soldier, I just can't see how they'd expect to be an efficient unit against opposing military forces, as their opponents can return fire with twice as powerful bows and without penalties from shooting ('cause they aren't mounted). Medium Longbows at least pack enough punch to make a dent; worth noting that Composite Longbows can be used while mounted.

Honestly though, if they're supposed to mimic Mongol Mounted Archers, they'd need Composite Bows with Str-rating; that could produce stats equivalent to a Recurve Bow. Of course, Goblins are small and have crappy Strength, so I suggest a different approach: Give them a level of Scout. Oh, and **** that errata that states Skirmish can't be used mounted; it's friggin' made to be used mounted. 1d4+1d6 could at least be relevant. Burn Point Blank Shot and Weapon Focus and instead give them Far Shot and Ranged Skirmisher [Dragon SomethingSomethingSomething], so they can operate at range (increases Skirmish-range to 60').

Most efficient would be to base them as Crossbow characters though (fits Eberron anyways; it's a technological world and no matter the "simplicity", a crossbow is technologically more advanced than a Longbow); Crossbow Sniper would single-handedly get you a nice Skirmish range and adds a bit of damage to the roll. Crossbow Sniper and Rapid Reload would make a Heavy Crossbow perfectly usable, and hell, you could even give them Exotic Weapon Proficiency for friggin' Great Crossbow [Races of Stone], which could really put a dent (2d6 base damage for small characters! 3d6 with Skirmish and 3d6+1 with Crossbow Sniper; 3d6+2 if you put 'em on point buy or give them the 4th level). At that point, they might actually have enough damage output to hurt armored soldiers.

And yes, Expeditious Dodge should work while mounted. Unlike Skirmish, it doesn't have the huge amount of specification as to what exactly qualifies as "movement".


And yeah, skirmish tactics obviously. They're mounted archers, and that's frankly the only thing mounted Goblins are good for. They don't have the Strength to pierce people with Lances (although throwing a group of Dragonspawn/Drake-riding Hobgoblins intent on doing exactly that at some point could be interesting; mounted units are extremely efficient in the open), nor to use reach weapons for combat maneuvers or some such. Disarming is a more interesting option though, but it's still hard for them and would require refocusing their feats (Weapon Finesse at least). Also, if they operate on the outskirts of the Horde, I'd make them subject to constant harassment from these new-and-improved Worg Riders. After all, that's outriders' biggest role in an army; to mask the army's movement and to engage opponent's scouts and do harassment of their own on any hostile units in their operational radius.


And I'd go for it with a Dragonspawn already. Make it clear there's more to the Horde than a bunch of Hobgoblins; that Dragons are a major part of it (the fact that they just fought Ozzy should really hammer this point home).

[AslanCross]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I decided to go with composite longbows (thanks for pointing out that these could actually be used mounted, Eldariel) for the riders, as a GreatXbow/Xbow sniper build would consume too many feats and I'd end up having to sacrifice the Mounted Combat feats. I didn't want to have that mounted archery penalty, as the PCs have been able to boost their AC massively so far.

I scrapped the bucklers; while they could work with the bows, again I didn't want to add any penalties. As it is, they're only going to hit Holden on a roll of 12 or better, which leaves a paltry 40% hit rate. They're going to make up for this by being annoyingly hard to kill.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that goblins have bonuses to Ride and Move Silently, and that 5 ranks in Handle Animal gave a bonus to Ride checks as well.

Brushing up on the Ride skill, I remembered that riders can use their mounts as cover (doesn't specify soft cover, which other creatures usually give, which doesn't give bonuses to Reflex saves) as a non-action. This might allow them to survive Kikkeni's artillery; their speed is going to help in this too.

Here are the redone rider stats, constructed with 25 point buy:

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Golin'Dar Outrider CR 3
Goblin Fighter 2/Scout 1
LE Small humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +2, Spot +2
Languages Common, Goblin, Draconic
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AC 19, touch 15, flat-footed 15; Expeditious Dodge
(+1 size, +4 Dex, +4 armor)
hp 31 (3 HD)
Fort +4, Ref +6, Will -1
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Speed 30 ft. (6 squares); 50 ft. mounted
Melee mwk scimitar +4 (1d4+1/18-20)
Ranged mwk composite longbow^1 +8 (1d6+1/x3)
Ranged Point Blank Skirmish +9 (2d6+2/x3: 4d6+6)
Base Atk +2; Grp -1
Atk Options skirmish +1d6, Point Blank Shot (+1 to AB and damage w/in 30 ft)
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Abilities Str 12, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 6
Feats Point Blank Shot(B), Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery(B), Expeditious Dodge
Skills Handle Animal +3, Hide +10, Listen +2, Move Silently +10, Ride +16, Spot +3
Possessions combat gear plus +1 studded leather, small mwk composite longbow^1, small mwk scimitar, 20 arrows

[Eldariel]

Standard Light Crossbow build works too, and you need to only drop Point Blank Shot for it. You'd get 60' Skirmish with:
Mounted Archery
Mounted Combat
Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow
Crossbow Sniper

Basically, costs you Expeditious Dodge. Trade-off, but something to consider. It's a Move Action to load a Light Crossbow as per standard; this'd get you almost identical stats to their present Point Blank Shot stats, up to 60' range. Either way, I'd give them the Scout-level first for the massive skill point bonus; in addition to Hide and Move Silently, they could use Tumble to skirmish without mounts if something happens to them. Balance could also be handy, along with Spot and Listen - they're Outriders, after all. Minor thing either way though.

What you have right now is very servicable. They have enough Hide and Move Silently to do it occasionally, enough Ride to make versatile use out of their mounts (also noteworthy that they can fast dismount and bolt away from their mounts if that's required; they're fine harriers on their own right without their mounts), and a somewhat relevant damage output (now they actually do an average of 9 points of damage within 30', rather than an average of 3.5; a vast improvement, and even outside that range, it's now 4.5 vs. 2.5). Bleh, too bad it's a pain to include the second Scout-level; else they could make awesome runners with their 40' land speed. But it'd cost a feat (though Expeditious Dodge is something to consider), so meh.

Oh, and for if they're forced into melee, you could give them the "Dismount Attack" skill trick from Complete Scoundrel. Really handy to pull off in lieu of the "Fast Dismount & Get Hell Out Of Here"-plan. Not amazing considering their melee capabilities are almost nil, but still something worth thinking about; it seems like just the thing Goblin Riders would use in combat to make up for their shortcomings.


I would suggest a Barbarian-level with Whirling Frenzy if making them just as an encounter for PCs, but such "once per day for few minutes"-capabilities have little use in a military force so I'd say such should be saved for elite troops only expected to be deployed in the thick of the toughest battle.

[Colmarr]

(remember Small-bonuses too)

It would be strange indeed to give a hide bonus based on size to a goblin that is at the relevant time mounted on a warg...

[Eldariel]

It would be strange indeed to give a hide bonus based on size to a goblin that is at the relevant time mounted on a warg...

*shrug* Spotting the Warg =/= Spotting the Goblin on it.

[AslanCross]

One silly trick I have planned is for

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the goblins to use their mounts as cover to hide. While the PCs will be preparing for little guys running around getting killed, they won't expect 4 huge canines waiting for them. The goblins only reveal themselves as the worgs run past the PCs, just in time to pop them with arrows. I'm sure that would count for the +2 on attack rolls, at least.