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  1. - Top - End - #1351
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by aReallyGreatAxe View Post
    Sounds awesome! My group kept one and made the (very high) checks our lovely DM had us make to tame him. He was useless until the final battle, where the three casters buffed him to hell and back for laughs, thinking maybe he’d scratch Azar.... he killed the Aspect of Tiamat.

    Glad we weren’t the only ones to try this!
    Captain Bubbles right?

    Quote Originally Posted by thorr-kan View Post
    kuhaica, react to it with skill checks and roleplaying. It's a valid tactic on their part and great outside the box thinking.
    Alrighty. My players will at least be happy that this is plausible

  2. - Top - End - #1352
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    CoffeeIncluded's Avatar

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

    Quote Originally Posted by kuhaica View Post
    Captain Bubbles right?



    Alrighty. My players will at least be happy that this is plausible
    Yep, captain bubbles!

    I had Vinca roll animal handling checks to make sure the egg hatched properly, and then roll another check each day to keep it in control. Failure meant that the greenspawn would act extremely aggressive and greedy, potentially even lashing out at the players. Basically I played baby Bubbles like someone trying to tame a somewhat intelligent, very greedy cornered feral cat. Except the cat is a cross between a green dragon and a Scyther. So difficult and needs a lot of attention and care, but can be done. I think the DC started at 25 and went down as you tamed him though this was 3.5. There was also lots of roleplaying involved; sadly I don't have the time to go into details now because finals.

    Also that ending was glorious.
    Last edited by CoffeeIncluded; 2018-04-19 at 01:52 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #1353
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    I ran this in the Oriental Adventures setting of Rokugan with some pretty solid success. The hobgoblins were members of the Spider Clan, and Tiamat was replaced with Fu Leng the Shadow Dragon (essentially the evil dragon god of the setting). I turned the blade-bearers and sergeants into OA samurai, which went a long way toward solving their usual will save issues. The hobgoblin invasion largely took place in Crab clan territory, except for the part with the Tiri-Kitor who got turned into members of the neighboring Unicorn clan. The Ghostlord got reworked as an outcast Kuni shugenja, which fixed a lot of the flavor issue of an undead druid. At the very least, he was able to put up more of a fight than a blighter would have. The dragons, by and large, just got refluffed as their wingless Rokugan equivalents, and several of the more boring members of the Red Hand (ogres, lizardfolk, etc.) got replaced with Shadowlands oni of various types. Instead of the battle taking place at a Brindol replacement, I upped the scale of the invasion and had it take place along the entire Carpenter Wall to bring home the fact that if the party failed, it wasn't just one city that would be lost. It would be all of Rokugan. Wyrmlord Azarr Kul also got refluffed as a member of the Diagotsu family, and the Avatar of Tiamat/Fu Leng only needed some cosmetic changes to work out fine.

    All in all, I found Rokugan to be a great place for the RHOD.

  4. - Top - End - #1354
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by SleepyShadow View Post
    I ran this in the Oriental Adventures setting of Rokugan with some pretty solid success.

    <SNIP!>

    All in all, I found Rokugan to be a great place for the RHOD.
    A generic Greyhawk 3.5 module retrofitted to a 3.0 sourcebook of a third-party setting, and it ran successfully?

    That, sir, is some next-level DMing and design. And it is awesome! Shows how versatile the RHoD is, doesn't it?

    Is there a campaign log available?

  5. - Top - End - #1355
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by thorr-kan View Post
    A generic Greyhawk 3.5 module retrofitted to a 3.0 sourcebook of a third-party setting, and it ran successfully?

    That, sir, is some next-level DMing and design. And it is awesome! Shows how versatile the RHoD is, doesn't it?

    Is there a campaign log available?
    Thank you

    There's not a proper campaign log online, but I'm a pretty meticulous notetaker when I DM (helps me remember all the weird things my players do). I could definitely talk about some of the highlights from the campaign, if that would be of some interest.

  6. - Top - End - #1356
    Colossus in the Playground
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by SleepyShadow View Post
    Thank you

    There's not a proper campaign log online, but I'm a pretty meticulous notetaker when I DM (helps me remember all the weird things my players do). I could definitely talk about some of the highlights from the campaign, if that would be of some interest.
    RHOD journals are always of interest. Some of the better content online, as the module is actually really well-designed.
    Campaign Journal: Uncovering the Lost World - A Player's Diary in Low-Magic D&D (Latest Update: 8.3.2014)
    Being Bane: A Guide to Barbarians Cracking Small Men - Ever Been Angry?! Then this is for you!
    SRD Averages - An aggregation of all the key stats of all the monster entries on SRD arranged by CR.

  7. - Top - End - #1357
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by SleepyShadow View Post
    Thank you

    There's not a proper campaign log online, but I'm a pretty meticulous notetaker when I DM (helps me remember all the weird things my players do). I could definitely talk about some of the highlights from the campaign, if that would be of some interest.
    You're welcome.

    I'm interested. (My inner voice is going Gimme! But I remembered to use my outer voice. :) )

  8. - Top - End - #1358
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by thorr-kan View Post
    You're welcome.

    I'm interested. (My inner voice is going Gimme! But I remembered to use my outer voice. :) )
    Well, I was running for a group of obsessive optimizers at the time (later in the campaign the party was able to one-round the tarrasque ) so I had to upgrade the vast majority of the Red Hand forces. As for highlights from RHoD itself, here are some of my favorite/hated moments:

    • Karlikan the Minotaur got turned into a wolf totem barbarian tripper, and he had just enough AoO to last longer than two rounds against the party's oppressive melee damage.
    • Koth had his flight dispelled and fell to his death.
    • I learned that our Mailman Sorcerer didn't pay attention when he threw Acid Orb at Ozzy.
    • The frosty bastard sword was dubbed vendor trash because bastard swords are an unoptimized weapon choice.
    • The party's elan binder/psychic warrior was an indestructible tank until the hobgoblins figured out that he didn't do anything useful.
    • Greenspawn Razorfiends impress nobody when they die in one round.
    • The PCs told the Tiri Kitor "Nah, we got this. We don't need the help."
    • I learned that nobody in the party could swim when Reggie sank their boat. Three people drowned.
    • Goblin rangers impress nobody.
    • Ulwai got blasted out of the campaign setting by the wizard's Born of Three Thunders lightning bolt.
    • The wizard had his hand ripped off by the Ghostlord, so he replaced it with an animated gauntlet.
    • The elan asked the shugenja to leave the party because "I don't need healing."
    • The elan died in the first fight at Kaiu Wall. The shugenja wasn't sorry.
    • The sorcerer still wasn't paying attention. He used fireball on Abby.
    • The sorcerer used his last two spells for the day to teleport back to their home base and bring back a samurai NPC they made friends with.
    • I couldn't decide what rework build for Kharn to use, so I used both as separate baddies in the same encounter. It didn't help.
    • The handbook is right. Tyrgarun doesn't need reworked at all! He killed two party members.
    • The Fane is pretty boring. I cut out about 80% of the rooms. I stand by that decision.
    • Azarr Kul made it four whole rounds. I was so proud of him
    • The Aspect of Tiamat Fu Leng lasted one and a half rounds. I wasn't so happy with that one.


    Those are the good bits I had jotted down, anyway
    Last edited by SleepyShadow; 2018-06-12 at 11:07 AM.

  9. - Top - End - #1359
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by SleepyShadow View Post
    Well, I was running for a group of obsessive optimizers at the time (later in the campaign the party was able to one-round the tarrasque ) so I had to upgrade the vast majority of the Red Hand forces. As for highlights from RHoD itself, here are some of my favorite/hated moments:

    • Karlikan the Minotaur got turned into a wolf totem barbarian tripper, and he had just enough AoO to last longer than two rounds against the party's oppressive melee damage.
    • Koth had his flight dispelled and fell to his death.
    • I learned that our Mailman Sorcerer didn't pay attention when he threw Acid Orb at Ozzy.
    • The frosty bastard sword was dubbed vendor trash because bastard swords are an unoptimized weapon choice.
    • The party's elan binder/psychic warrior was an indestructible tank until the hobgoblins figured out that he didn't do anything useful.
    • Greenspawn Razorfiends impress nobody when they die in one round.
    • The PCs told the Tiri Kitor "Nah, we got this. We don't need the help."
    • I learned that nobody in the party could swim when Reggie sank their boat. Three people drowned.
    • Goblin rangers impress nobody.
    • Ulwai got blasted out of the campaign setting by the wizard's Born of Three Thunders lightning bolt.
    • The wizard had his hand ripped off by the Ghostlord, so he replaced it was an animated gauntlet.
    • The elan asked the shugenja to leave the party because "I don't need healing."
    • The elan died in the first fight at Kaiu Wall. The shugenja wasn't sorry.
    • The sorcerer still wasn't paying attention. He used fireball on Abby.
    • The sorcerer used his last two spells for the day to teleport back to their home base and bring back a samurai NPC they made friends with.
    • I couldn't decide what rework build for Kharn to use, so I used both as separate baddies in the same encounter. It didn't help.
    • The handbook is right. Tyrgarun doesn't need reworked at all! He killed two party members.
    • The Fane is pretty boring. I cut out about 80% of the rooms. I stand by that decision.
    • Azarr Kul made it four whole rounds. I was so proud of him
    • The Aspect of Tiamat Fu Leng lasted one and a half rounds. I wasn't so happy with that one.


    Those are the good bits I had jotted down, anyway
    When did an entry for the "Things I may no longer do in my campaign" thread wander in here? Whilst some of these would have been teeth-grinding enough to give you huge dental bills, I am killing myself laughing about some of this stuff, most particularly where the party's boat is knocked over at Rhest and the A-Team suddenly finds it can't swim.

    If you ever have time to drop some detailed builds, we'd love to see them.

    Oh, and hi gang, I'm back! *waves*

  10. - Top - End - #1360
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    When did an entry for the "Things I may no longer do in my campaign" thread wander in here? Whilst some of these would have been teeth-grinding enough to give you huge dental bills, I am killing myself laughing about some of this stuff, most particularly where the party's boat is knocked over at Rhest and the A-Team suddenly finds it can't swim.

    If you ever have time to drop some detailed builds, we'd love to see them.

    Oh, and hi gang, I'm back! *waves*
    Welcome back.

    This list is hilarious. Thanks for the summary.

    We were a fairly bog standard group. Azarr Kul took us a while to wear down. We were buffed; he was buffed and had summons; we couldn't get our fire concentrated. But he went down. That session ended with the Aspect of Tiamat coming through the portal. I got a Dismissal spell off, but it made its save by 1. 1! How epic would that have been?! "Mortals, suffer my wrath!" "Go away, kid, you're bugging me." Oh well.

    Tiamat? Next session we got our act together, concentrated our fire, and leveled it in one round.

  11. - Top - End - #1361
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    If you ever have time to drop some detailed builds, we'd love to see them.
    Sure, I can do that. Any builds in particular, or just whichever I happen to dig up first?

  12. - Top - End - #1362
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Whatever you dig up first, I'd say. We haven't really indexed this thread, so people will flip through and find what they want to find - or I can vary the original thread starter to point to a specific post. Already added brief statement from your post about how to adapt to Rokugan/OA.

  13. - Top - End - #1363
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Whatever you dig up first, I'd say. We haven't really indexed this thread, so people will flip through and find what they want to find - or I can vary the original thread starter to point to a specific post.
    Well, here's what I ended up doing for Koth. Dragon Shaman works out really well for him, since he's mainly running support for a bigger fight anyway. Some things might look a little odd from house rules, but otherwise he should be fine.

    Spoiler: Commanding Officer Koth-Drop
    Show
    Bugbear Dragon Shaman 6
    Str 16, Dex 22, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 16
    HP: 78
    AC: 23
    Saves: F +9, R +8, W +6
    Feats: Dreadful Wrath, Protection Devotion, Imperious Command, Double Draconic Aura
    Abilities: Draconic Aura +3, Totem Dragon (Bronze), Water Breathing, Breath Weapon (30' Line, 5d6 Electricity, DC 20), Touch of Vitality (48 hp)
    Auras: Vigor, Power, Motivate Attack, Motivate Care, Senses


    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Already added brief statement from your post about how to adapt to Rokugan/OA.
    Also, thank you very much! I'm glad I could help
    Last edited by SleepyShadow; 2018-06-18 at 12:12 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #1364
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    EvilClericGuy

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

    Saintheart is back?! Wonderful! Thanks a ton for making this handbook, its been quite helpful thanks to it and the discussion within the thread.

    Spoiler: My last Session
    Show
    Anyways, for others encase they care I took a few suggestions listed when handling the Ghost Lord section, Ex replacing Varra with a Fang Dragon (was a great choice), I changed Ulwuai a bit, making her fit the role of support better, and increased the amount of Redhand operatives, including giving most of them the ability to harm ghosts.

    The reason for that was the module itself states that the ghost lord is being forced to work with the red hand, so I presumed he's not to happy about the situation. Thinking about this I decided to treat all the undead and him as a third party that would only act if it suited them. Ex being if the party looks like there not going to win, he'll side with the Redhand, but if the party is winning, well. Side with them, then stab them in the back if they don't do as he wants.

    I also buffed him up a bit as his current incarceration is kinda trashy... mostly used suggestions here.

    So, the party started the encounter by finding Varra, now a Fang Dragon exiting her 'lair' and looking quite hungry. After the initial first few attacks didn't make her AC, the party was quite concerned and when she successfully hit there barbarian with a full round attack, reducing said barbarian to a quarter of there health. They where quite terrified.

    Meanwhile the Monks on the top floor of the Lair climbed down and went undetected until round 2, at which point two of the players broke off to deal with them. By round three I used the Lions maw as an archers roost with 2 Red Hand Veteran Archers (a suggestion found within this thread) this causing much panic within the six man party. Unfortunately, they didn't have the best line of sight, but the party was to preoccupied with the big dragon

    However, two rounds later Varra was taking a beating and used the cover from the archers and the Monks distraction to fly away with only 9 HP after the AoOs went off. The big scary dragon having run away, and two fireballs later. All the red hand outside and in the lions maw where killed. Party used there last healing potions (lack a healer) and went in. After an ambush set up by Ulwuai one party member went from full HP to KO instantly, and another was knocked down to half there HP.

    Thankfully, the party recovered quickly, and where able to mop everyone up, even capturing Ulwuai as she surrendered. After a very successful bluff check, and the party mage not considering the possibility of magic, they where told many half truths and outright lies. Satisfied with the answers they forced Ulwuai to lead them to the undead man himself, who promptly murdered the tied up women, and threatened the party with the same fate if they don't give him what is his.

    A tense moment later, the party gives into his demands and they are able to leave the probably evil, probably future problem lich alone. All in all, I'd say it was a success.

  15. - Top - End - #1365
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    EvilClericGuy

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

    So, I have postponed the big fight at Brindol by one week, due to the amount of prep time I want to be significant. So, my party has made great time and arrived at Brindol by day 26 initially and were able to convince the Lord and his council on day 27 how much of a problem the Redhand is. And due to some extra events, I added due to the size of my party they have about 60 days in total before the redhand attacks brindol. So plenty of time. They did however skip over the Ghostlord, oping to go to Brindol, then the Ghostlord figuring it was a small detour.

    Now, they've finished up with the Ghost lord and have arrived by day 49. Giving them about 10 days to help bolster defences. There first stop they convinced the Council to do a few things, like recalling the Northern Troops, cutting down the orchards, harvesting crops and removing all nearby trees.

    Using said wood to build some small hoardings upon the wall to give extra cover to defenders and reserves for barricades. Plus having acquired Alandri's help, along with multiple other mages they've managed to dig a moat around brindol plus an irrigation system (which was a little odd, but their logic was sound) for when the war is over and they'll need to rebuild.

    Now, I'm still using suggestions from this thread but I've tried something a little ambitious which I haven't seen mentioned yet. I'm splitting the Siege of brindol into 4 days with different events occurring during each day, while Day 4 is the proper assault. I wanted to do this to make the idea of the siege all the more real, where the players get to experience the effects of leading bands of morally broken soldiers against a superior foe. Or if they do well, chipping away the strength of a monolithic threat, seeing how their actions fill themselves and their fellows with a sense of hope.

    And for this, I would like some suggestions to help to make this not a drag but instead an engaging and nail-biting experience


    Spoiler: What I've done so far
    Show


    A Siege/Event Spreadsheet so I can coordinate what I've done, haven't done and the various effects that different events have

    Unit stats, information and breakdowns

    Separating the City into different districts


    Full Map of the Area

    Ignore my horrid MS Paint skills. Sections 3 and 4 should be touching, but alas, they are not. And the Black Sections are what my players want used to reserves to be stationed

    And the Defending Troops

    Brindol:
    Warriors of Brindol: 800 Level 2 Warriors, 2000 Level 1 Warriors
    Lion Guard: 300 4th Level Fighters, 500 3rd Level Fighters
    Lions of Brindol: 1 Level 7 Fighter, 4 Level 6 Fighters, 20 Level 5 Fighters
    Militia: 1,250 Level 2 Commoners 3750 Level 1 Commoners
    Lady Kaal’s Retinue: 5 Level 4 Rogues, 20 Level 3 Rouges, 75 Level 2 Rogues
    Lady Kaal’s Elites: 1 Level 6 Fighter, 4 Level 5 Fighters
    Light Horsemen: 3 Level 4 Cavaliers 150 Mounted Level 3 Fighters
    Savants of Pelor: 20 Level 5 Clerics, 30 Level 4 Clerics
    Priests of Wee Jas: 10 Level 5 Clerics. 20 Level 4 Clerics

    Mercenaries:
    Spell Binders: 6 Level 10 Sorcerers, 10 Level 6 Sorcerers
    Adventurers from the Thirsty Zombie: (2 Bands of five 7th Level Adventurers)
    Silver Wings Mercenary Company: 230 Level 5 Fighters (150 Halberds, 80 Swordsmen)
    Shining Axes Company: Total 350: 275 Shining Axes (Level 4 Fighters), 50 Shield Breakers (Level 4 Warblades), 25 Great Shields (Level 5 Crusaders)
    Ragies Rangers: (Dwarf Medium Crossbows) 250 Rangers, Level 4 Fighters, lead by Captain Ragie Mudpie level 7 Ranger
    Broken Spears: (Human Heavy Pikes) 300 Pikes, Level 5 Fighters, lead by Captain Oscar Helmsen, Level 7 Fighter

    Others:
    Tiri Kitor: The Tiri Kitor Hunters (150 3rd Level Elven Rangers), Tiri Kitor Owls (50 Giant Owls)
    Warklegnaw’s Forest Giants: 15 Forest Giants
    Owl Claw Brigands: 100 4th Level Fighters, 45 4th Level Fighters (Archer Type), 5 5th Level Marshals
    Last edited by kuhaica; 2018-06-27 at 08:36 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #1366
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by kuhaica View Post
    And for this, I would like some suggestions to help to make this not a drag but instead an engaging and nail-biting experience
    If you want to pad out the siege, perhaps you could use some of the various encounters at the beginning of the Tiri-Kitor section, like the looters and Marked for Death. In particular, now would be the perfect time and place for Miha Serani to join the group and start feeding information to the Red Hand.

  17. - Top - End - #1367
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    EvilClericGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by SleepyShadow View Post
    If you want to pad out the siege, perhaps you could use some of the various encounters at the beginning of the Tiri-Kitor section, like the looters and Marked for Death. In particular, now would be the perfect time and place for Miha Serani to join the group and start feeding information to the Red Hand.
    I've done the Looters already, which sparked a minor subplot. And I can easily shoehorn in a Marked for death during the siege, have the party rush out of the walls to do something, only for it to be a trap. But introducing Miha again will probably be a good idea, seeing as the party didn't think anything of it the first time they where in brindol.

  18. - Top - End - #1368
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by kuhaica View Post
    Now, I'm still using suggestions from this thread but I've tried something a little ambitious which I haven't seen mentioned yet. I'm splitting the Siege of brindol into 4 days with different events occurring during each day, while Day 4 is the proper assault. I wanted to do this to make the idea of the siege all the more real, where the players get to experience the effects of leading bands of morally broken soldiers against a superior foe. Or if they do well, chipping away the strength of a monolithic threat, seeing how their actions fill themselves and their fellows with a sense of hope.

    And for this, I would like some suggestions to help to make this not a drag but instead an engaging and nail-biting experience.
    (Sorry for not coming back here any earlier.)

    So we have two goals:
    (1) Have the players' actions create a visible impact on the morale of the defenders; and
    (2) Make this a suspenseful experience.

    I think question (2) can be answered by liberal application of the Angry DM's principles on building encounters, which in essence come down to: what is the dramatic question in each encounter, and how is it answered -- and what sort of agency do the characters have, i.e. what choices are you giving them and how meaningful are those choices?

    As mentioned in the handbook, the 'Saving the Walls' encounter is a prime example of this. In its unaltered form, it's just a melee grind. The giants don't bring down the wall unless they get 25 rounds of hits on Brindol's brickwork. This ain't gonna happen unless the players really suck and don't have Will-blasting magic. Therefore, the easiest way to introduce tension into that encounter is to introduce a lower time limit: make it that the walls will fall after a low number of rounds, or make it that reinforcements are coming up in X rounds who will overwhelm the PCs unless they take out the giants now. And once it's clear the PCs will bust the giants' heads in, get out of the encounter and get 'em back to the walls with a couple hundred screaming hobgoblins at their heels.

    So the easiest thought is to vary this approach for different days of the siege. Make sure you get to X location within a certain number of minutes. Keep the hobgoblins from getting out of this cordon where they've broken through. Protect X number of catapults from enemy bombing runs (and make sure at least X-2 or so catapults actually go down during the course of the encounter.) Get X number of cauldrons of naphtha to these locations on the walls within X number of rounds, or that wall's going to be overwhelmed. Make sure there is a dramatic question to be answered in the encounters: is X person going to die? Will X items be delivered? Will X items be delivered in Y time? And so on.

    Also in this, you have to simultaneously create a populace that your characters care about as well as make that populace seem at least semi-competent, i.e. if you get the PCs running around solving every crisis during the siege, the other defenders can wind up looking like incompetent clods. Best way I can think of in this is to have a "guide" NPC around; he then becomes your party's barometer for how the troops are doing. I'd suggest a scholar-turned-into-a-soldier sort of character, though anything will do really. Make sure he gets his butt killed during the climactic scenes of the siege. If you like to get across to your players mechanically how their actions are affecting the siege, you might say that because they killed Gobspit the Unlucky, the hobgoblin axe champion (preferably finishing him off with a tagline like "I wanna axe you a question!"), the garrison's Will saves all went up by +1 or so as the word gets around. If they do well, the garrison's attack and damage rolls all go up by +1, similar to a low-level bard's effect. If they find themselves not succeeding well, though, the easiest way to convey a fall in morale is desertions and deaths. They don't have quite as many NPC allies around, because they were killed on the wall or slipped away into the darkness. And so on.

  19. - Top - End - #1369
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    I like Siege as a dependent series of hotspots; depending on how the morale is doing and the breaches around the map the PCs may have more or less to do. Heroes of Battle has decent rules for morale and morale checks. As it stands though, I find the raw victory point calculations a bit of a dull overall calculation (one that the PCs almost certainly win). Rather use those for solving individual phases of the siege; e.g. do the walls fall, can the breaches be contained, does the army morale suffice, do the mercenaries and outside helpers desert or even switch sides, etc. Then use those minor outcomes to sum up the overall outcome and the minor outcomes can in part be solved with simple mathematical comparison of the defender and attacker strength. But yeah, the giant encounter in particular is weird in that you're essentially going deep into enemy territory and yet for some reason the main enemy forces seem to be nowhere to be found! At least quick response units/reserves should head there ASAP - you don't leave your artillery unprotected.

    And yeah, tracking the party travel times within the town walls also makes it more dynamic; the giants and the dragon alike have plenty of time to do damage as the PCs get there. This makes things more tense and rewards the party actually making haste with fast movement options (Owls, other mounts, magical transportation, etc. - of course, living transports can tire). Same with Skather, though that's more of a special case in that Skather can't actually kill anyone, just incapacitate due to the Str damage not being lethal and him never having a chance to actually CdG targets in enemy territory.
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Also realised I forgot to address the issue of character agency.

    This is also covered in part by the "Meeting the Lords" section of the handbook, but I really think you bring things home to the players if you give them a choice they can see is meaningful from the outset. Most of the encounters in the siege are purely reactionary in the sense that the party is told "go here, go there, fix this, fix that". I think the whole scene would work better if at some points you give the characters real choices where they have to balance their own interests against that of the city - for example, the handbook idea of having available healing potions restricted or cut entirely because the town clerics are all at the cathedral, but if they're all spread out the healing potions will be available, but you lose 2 VP because Tredora Goldenbrow is going to wind up dead.

    Choices between encounters do work, for example, "Go fight the dragon or go hold the Dawn Way, which will you do?" -- but I think the optimal situation is allowing the players choices between dangerous vs. faster - for example, do they try and get to the Dawn Way from the south gate through the west end (which is under attack, i.e. more dangerous with falling boulders or whatever) or do they get there via Cathedral Square (much safer, but there are odds they'll only get to the Dawn Way after a few monsters have already gotten through.) Those sorts of choices allow the players agency without having to redesign the entire siege. The key is, whatever the choice, that there are pros and cons to either option - most typically: "Take some potential hurt now, or take some potential hurt later".

  21. - Top - End - #1371
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Apparently I really felt like going over RHoD again, have a detailed breakdown of the battle as written:

    The whole victory point "system" is pretty well borked- Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land has its final chapter try to go RHoD, but with victory points so much tighter and based on so many things the players haven't been informed of, and with the standard victory still being half a loss, that it just comes off as unfair.

    Part of the problem with trying to make a more granular battle for Brindol is that, if we're being honest, the module is probably lying through its teeth that the defenders can actually win that battle even if the PCs hit all their hot spots. Well not so much lying I guess, since the horde automatically breaks through and only loses if the PCs kill all their leaders. . . at which point they mysteriously rout despite having an insurmountable upper hand. They outnumber and outgun a foe who's fortifications are overrun, but apparently the moment you kill their last general all the units which were winning offscreen suddenly give up and run away. Ridiculous.

    Still, fixing that isn't really required. But if you want timings that make sense you've got to actually put everything on the map, which gives you distance, which gives you time. There's a nice pretty map of the city that tells us it's maybe 750' by 1,500' give or take. The PCs start somewhere, giant squads attack the west and south walls (and the results seem to assume the PCs go to the south wall). The giants are a further 1,000' out from the walls, and ought to have the 250ish troops from the sidebar with them. The sidebar says they should be 500' back from the giants, and the 1d4+5 rounds for them to run in is fairly appropriate, but naturally for stronger/smarter parties you'll want to array them defensively around the giants like an actual army would, along with spellcaster/supernatural support so the PCs have more of a puzzle to solve if they don't want to burn all their resources.
    (Pre-edit: and we have to remember that the map is not presented with north at the top, with north instead being off to the right. This takes probably a good 250' off the distances I used below, which is a good 2-4 rounds.)

    So we have the first problem: supposedly it's been 5 minutes since the giants started throwing, but it does not take the PCs 5 minutes to get there (or does it?), so apparently the defenders were dumb enough to not realize what was going on for 5 minutes. Additionally, having the giants spread their attacks is stupid- they should have broken through in the first two minutes, leaving a 10' wide gap that can be barricaded and defended but far less effectively than an actual wall. This gives you a very simple metric for deciding how well the PCs do: how wide is the hole?

    Assuming at least one PC is in heavy armor and they start in the center of the town, they've got to run 1,750' to reach melee with the giants. Now, that is in fact a full three minutes at full run in heavy armor with no speed boosts, or 4.4 minutes hustling. If the PCs were not prepared, then the giants have enough time to collapse two of the four sections they want by the time the melee PCs waddle their way up. But the rest of the module assumes they're mounted most of the time, which cuts that to 2 or 2.5 minutes or so, for only one collapsed section, or as low as 1.5 if they've managed light loads on light warhorses, and the giant owls would get them there fast enough to avoid any loss (of course all those mounts are vulnerable). You can stipulate that the defenders did in fact take a minute or more of scattered attacks before they realized what was going on and reduce the hp overall so that there's a greater chance the giants can put a new hole in while the PCs are closing, and facilitate all that by giving the giants a smarter commander. (There's also a question of how strong the gates are, since they could almost certainly smash the gates in much faster, albeit making a poorer choice of entrance, but a small hole+smashed gate is still pretty good).

    The giants smashing the walls/gates is the first thing that happens and nothing else happens until it's over, Abithriax is supposed to draw people away from the breaches after they're made. The only choice the PCs have is to respond or not. If the PCs ignore the giants, the horde gets massive breaches at both gates and the defenders are effectively surrounded in their own walls- they're not winning now no matter what. The exception is if the PCs personally provide enough firepower to make up for it, but that means holding a breach themselves, ignoring the dragon and possibly the whole rest of the battle. This won't be a fast process either, since the horde won't be stupid enough pack themselves in for the killing, they'll take their time figuring out a response, and hey they've got dragons why rush? If the PCs try to split up or use teleportation to hit both groups of giants before they can breach the walls and succeed, then well, the horde probably breaks off for a day and you rewrite the rest of the adventure.

    Abithriax is quite obliging in a way: he attacks the southern part of Brindol, near where the PCs are expected to be after saving the southern wall. I'm not convinced this makes sense- supposedly it should draw defenders to contain the fires, but if the southern gate held then there should be plenty of spare defenders there. A "better" reason is admitting that they don't actually want the PCs near the chokepoints, because they could very well annihilate the army at the choke, and that's why the dragon is programmed to attack the end of the city they're at and engage them as soon at they confront it. The problem with this one is that I'm pretty sure there's no way anyone could realistically contain those fires without magic. The defenders should still be concentrated by the walls, and as demonstrated it takes at least half a minute for them to get anywhere. By that time the dragon's set another wide swath on fire.

    Once again it looks like the module may have done some of the math: at one breath every 5 rounds, if it takes the PCs 2.5 minutes to get back from the giant scene to Abithriax's target, that's five breaths, and they are at least requiring a full minute per check to put out a fire. But, uh, those aren't little house fires started from a dropped candle: they're massive 40' swathes of potential ignition across rooftops that have been burning for minutes, vs maybe a bucket or two? I don't really know how to fix this aside from deliberately having the dragon breathe only once in order to lure in the PCs, and just bast responding soldiers until they show up. The appropriate result here is that unless the PCs prepared with Quench spells the city burns whether they win or not, but they can still win the fight- which is a heck of a lot better than Shadowdale's gotcha where not doing every bit of unmarked extra credit means the enemy just keeps the fortress. But is there really anything for the PCs to choose? The giants are done throwing so there's no "hazard zone," the horde isn't fully in the walls yet, unless you want to throw other flyers at them or let them spend the owl riders to stall for time, there isn't a logical thing for them to

    For the battle itself, I'd rate this one on how many groups of soldiers the dragon gets to roast if the PCs dawdle about. If the PCs decided to try and blast the horde as the entered the breaches and ignores the dragon, Abithriax gets to burn down the city and slaughter the defenders and they lose: the city simply does not have enough concentrated archers to focus fire 184hp of dragon. How fast the PCs choose to get there/when they choose to engage determines how much loss the defenders take.

    Streets of Blood is where you can really get fancy in the preparation and timing by letting the PCs draw up where they want barricades and fallback points in the city rather than just some random street. You still have to just fiat how long and which barricade it takes them to hit, but you can do it based on their choices, and then have the soldiers fighting during the time it takes the PCs to respond (and those stormlizards will tear a strip if left alone). Once you fix your map orientation this fight makes sense: the west gate is at the top of the map, so west of the marketplace is right between their entry point and the marketplace with its six roads and control of the bridge gates, pretty important.

    On to the end. The horde has pushed in through the west gate and is either regrouping there or consolidating gains, while Jaarmath is regrouping in the cathedral square (16) when the sniper attack happens, and the PCs respond (this should take them X amount of time, during which Y amount of damage occurs to defenders, etc). I suppose the players do have a bit of a choice here since they could ignore Jaarmath and try to take command themselves. If the horde can hold together with any one wyrmlord, the defenders should at least be able to hold as long as the PCs are around. But ignoring the sniper and hidden sorcerers just means they ought to stab you in the back when Kharn shows up. If you've got the ability to collapse the building on him that's always a good option.

    However that resolves, it then says for the final battle that captain Ulverth just fought wyrmlord Kharn "to the north" at the marketplace (5) and that Kharn is coming to attack the cathedral (17). This means that after the PCs left their barricade, Kharn either went through or around it to the marketplace, effectively negating the PCs win there by the module. If the PCs held through Streets of Blood, Kharn should instead be described as coming down one of the other streets straight at the grouped defenders, rather than from the marketplace. This becomes very important. If the PCs held the road to the marketplace and forced Kharn to throw himself straight at them, the horde is still effectively strung out through a chokepoint: they're surrounded, and losing their commanders could feasibly cause a rout, allowing the defenders a crushing counterattack (or at least harrying them on the way out).

    However, if the PCs lost the marketplace, the horde has effectively broken through their lines. They have two entry/exit points in the west gate and the bridges (they should have smashed all the gates but the NPCs somehow killed the giants), and access to the roads to push through to the east gate (while the defenders are supposed to have concentrated on the cathedral plaza, more south-west). The defenders are all but surrounded inside their own walls and have no hope of outfighting the horde- the horde simply should not break no matter how many leaders they lose, while the defenders are only still up because their leaders are. Even if they kill Kharn, if the PCs lost the marketplace during Streets of Blood, they can't win the battle until they retake the marketplace from whatever forces the DM thinks are appropriate- this is a much better place to shove surviving dragons and wyrmlords, rather than stacking them on top of Kharn, and even if the PCs held it that's a good place to throw remaining leaders who the PCs need to hunt. If the PCs know they can't retake the marketplace and/or finish remaining leaders then they boogie on out the south or east gate.

    If you want PC choice, this'd be the big one. They have "less than 10 minutes" to prepare, which is a lot of time compared to the previous parts. Standing and fighting in the cathedral square isn't exactly a great plan- they're attacking the cathedral to remove the clerics, but Brindol has jack all for clerics. A fighting or even flat out retreat to gather more defenders is entirely reasonable. Kharn comes at the PCs with just a small number of mundane heavies, which means a bunch of chumps up on the wall are suddenly pretty important. Just 200' away is the south gate, assuming the PCs held it, down a nice narrow firing line. Ordering the defenders here to do something more sensible than just take it ought to be worth a reduction in casualties, especially if you take out Kharn himself nice and quick.


    The battle flow they've planned is actually pretty decent, the problem simply lies in tying victory to arbitrary points rather than the events as they unfold ('cause the irony is not lost that tracking "defender losses" is point system from the other direction). I've probably said this before in the thread, but the point values on the razorfiends and ghosts is simply ridiculous. Every razorfiend has a breath weapon and DR 5/magic, forcing the defenders to rely on what, boiling oil/alchemist's fire and collapsing buildings? The hatchery had 30 eggs which are worth 2 points? Try 1-2 points per razorfiend if you wanted point values, and that's only because they lack flight- the smaller dragons in the horde are at least lacking in DR. The actual value is essentially no counter=win. The horde has 15 razorfiends (plus the 5 unlisted thunderlizards that must show up right before the battle), 12 ghost brutes, and 3 ghosts. The dragonspawn will annihilate essentially any number of troops on flat ground (and don't forget the horde's clerics), but the ghosts? The ghost brutes literally have the ability to howl and send everyone in 300' fleeing, while the normal ghosts just deal 2d10 damage to anyone that looks at them, and neither can be harmed by anything less than magic. If the Ghostlord is not brought on-side or every single ghost killed before or immediately once the battle begins, the defenders lose, period. This isn't a problem for what seems to be the vast majority of parties, and the Ghostlord is supposed to show up for the final fight to wreck you anyway if you didn't appease him, but still. If the horde has enough dragonspawn to send them through every point of attack, get some past the few who can fight them? The defenders lose again.

    The wildcards are the elves and the dwarves, because we have almost no information about them. 200 dwarven mercenaries (vs the 800 or so militia which is half commoners) are apparently worth four victory points. They're paid 6,000 gold, which is more than you'd expect for 200 1st level warriors (at 40gp per day that'd be 150 days), but unless they have a significant number of magic weapons they won't matter against the ghosts, and without magic or alchemical weapons they won't help much against the dragonspawn either. The elves send "hunters:" the PCs can deploy four owl riders and the vp section claims they're an air force worth 5 points, but The Tiri Kitor Hunters is the name of their full military might of 260 warrior+ classed members. We know they probably have at least 15 giant owls if they can lend 5 to the PCs and still have 6 in the Streets of Blood and 4 more the PCs can assign at will, but how many more? Those owls are far more vulnerable to the bows carried by every hobgoblin regular than the dragons (and spawn and ghots) are to the defender's few crossbows (which also need to be shooting down at the hobbos). Either way they don't have magic bows, so they won't counter the nigh-existential threats of the dragonspawn and ghosts.

    To take it all the way down you could assign all the leveled NPCs with magic and/or gear to certain areas, designate paths of attack for the horde's monsters, and see what happens. Except once again, I'm pretty dang sure the NPCs just straight up can't deal with the monsters they're supposedly dealing with off screen any more than the milita could actually hold chokes against what are essentially the equivalent of Total War mongol infantry.


    I realize that my evaluation is basically that if the PCs don't do everything right, the defenders lose, which is basically the same thing I complain about being in Shadowdale. Except here it makes sense, while over there it's a force 1/5 the size spread out across a wider area with fewer monsters and higher level PCs. The ability of the defenders to stand up to the horde in RHoD is being massively fudged. Even with the dwarves they're outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1, the walls aren't worth nearly their full value thanks to the siege/auto-breach trigger, etc. I can't think of any ways to give the players agency via tradeoffs when the logical reading of things says that trying to make any tradeoffs should result in failure. I suppose if they're on normal mounts you could give them detour/eat AoOs from scattered troops, trading speed now for potential loss of speed later.
    Last edited by Fizban; 2018-07-20 at 07:22 AM.
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  22. - Top - End - #1372
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    ^^^^

    There's a fair amount to think about in there. I haven't gone through it in absolute detail, and I'm not going to perform a point-by-point rebuttal of this assessment, because in all frankness it's reasonably fair. What I did want to do was maybe add some thoughts, ideas, responses to some of this. Sooooo...

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    Apparently I really felt like going over RHoD again, have a detailed breakdown of the battle as written:

    The whole victory point "system" is pretty well borked- Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land has its final chapter try to go RHoD, but with victory points so much tighter and based on so many things the players haven't been informed of, and with the standard victory still being half a loss, that it just comes off as unfair.
    I've noted way back in the past in this thread that the entire concept of VPs in this battle is a bit odd since we take a figure that's granular and turn it into something binary. If you've got X points and kill Kharn, the Hand breaks. If you haven't, it doesn't. But the total is such that - as I think you and I have personally seen before, with Jon_Dahl's campaign - it's only a really, really dumb or entirely self-interested party that's going to fail to hit the VP total. The idea of the VP total is one that probably was meant to suggest a more sandbox-y approach to the adventure, but in practice and since the party generally only plays the campaign once, it's almost a pointless exercise unless you drop the DM curtain entirely and tell the players you're counting VPs and that if they don't get to 40, they're toast ... the problem being that they can easily hit 40 before the Battle begins and therefore most tension is gone.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    Part of the problem with trying to make a more granular battle for Brindol is that, if we're being honest, the module is probably lying through its teeth that the defenders can actually win that battle even if the PCs hit all their hot spots. Well not so much lying I guess, since the horde automatically breaks through and only loses if the PCs kill all their leaders. . . at which point they mysteriously rout despite having an insurmountable upper hand. They outnumber and outgun a foe who's fortifications are overrun, but apparently the moment you kill their last general all the units which were winning offscreen suddenly give up and run away. Ridiculous.
    I agree: under normal conditions, Brindol is realistically lost the moment the exterior wall is breached, whether the party's taken out the razorfiends and ghosts or not. While the wall is intact, though, it's still pretty winnable - there's a reason that until gunpowder came along, the logistics of sieges hugely favoured the defenders. Storming the walls is bloody expensive (in more senses than one) for an attacking army. Logically, then, the real tension comes from whether the exterior wall holds - but I'm guessing there aren't sufficient interesting encounters you can build out of just holding the exterior wall. Hell, Peter Jackson only managed to do about three interesting siege encounters: stop the Orc suicide bomber (failed); hold the bridge with a ranger and fighter (succeeded); roll for crits in mounted combat in a suicide mission (succeeded). :D

    One thought, though: maybe if a GM is willing to rebuild Brindol itself so it has an "Old City" and "New City" with corresponding walls encircling them, there's more capacity for some interest: an encounter or two around the fall of the exterior wall, an encounter or so as the defenders run like hell back to the inner wall, and then a final climactic encounter at the gates of the inner wall. In my own campaign, I would up with something like this in that the Red Hand never breached the exterior wall, and the "Hold the Dawn Way" encounter and the final battle with Kharn were both fought at the western gate. This did feel great to run if very rocket-taggy, because it did actually feel like the battle was going to be won or lost based on Kharn's example.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    Still, fixing that isn't really required. But if you want timings that make sense you've got to actually put everything on the map, which gives you distance, which gives you time. There's a nice pretty map of the city that tells us it's maybe 750' by 1,500' give or take. The PCs start somewhere, giant squads attack the west and south walls (and the results seem to assume the PCs go to the south wall). The giants are a further 1,000' out from the walls, and ought to have the 250ish troops from the sidebar with them. The sidebar says they should be 500' back from the giants, and the 1d4+5 rounds for them to run in is fairly appropriate, but naturally for stronger/smarter parties you'll want to array them defensively around the giants like an actual army would, along with spellcaster/supernatural support so the PCs have more of a puzzle to solve if they don't want to burn all their resources.
    (Pre-edit: and we have to remember that the map is not presented with north at the top, with north instead being off to the right. This takes probably a good 250' off the distances I used below, which is a good 2-4 rounds.)

    So we have the first problem: supposedly it's been 5 minutes since the giants started throwing, but it does not take the PCs 5 minutes to get there (or does it?), so apparently the defenders were dumb enough to not realize what was going on for 5 minutes. Additionally, having the giants spread their attacks is stupid- they should have broken through in the first two minutes, leaving a 10' wide gap that can be barricaded and defended but far less effectively than an actual wall. This gives you a very simple metric for deciding how well the PCs do: how wide is the hole?

    Assuming at least one PC is in heavy armor and they start in the center of the town, they've got to run 1,750' to reach melee with the giants. Now, that is in fact a full three minutes at full run in heavy armor with no speed boosts, or 4.4 minutes hustling. If the PCs were not prepared, then the giants have enough time to collapse two of the four sections they want by the time the melee PCs waddle their way up. But the rest of the module assumes they're mounted most of the time, which cuts that to 2 or 2.5 minutes or so, for only one collapsed section, or as low as 1.5 if they've managed light loads on light warhorses, and the giant owls would get them there fast enough to avoid any loss (of course all those mounts are vulnerable). You can stipulate that the defenders did in fact take a minute or more of scattered attacks before they realized what was going on and reduce the hp overall so that there's a greater chance the giants can put a new hole in while the PCs are closing, and facilitate all that by giving the giants a smarter commander. (There's also a question of how strong the gates are, since they could almost certainly smash the gates in much faster, albeit making a poorer choice of entrance, but a small hole+smashed gate is still pretty good).

    The giants smashing the walls/gates is the first thing that happens and nothing else happens until it's over, Abithriax is supposed to draw people away from the breaches after they're made. The only choice the PCs have is to respond or not. If the PCs ignore the giants, the horde gets massive breaches at both gates and the defenders are effectively surrounded in their own walls- they're not winning now no matter what. The exception is if the PCs personally provide enough firepower to make up for it, but that means holding a breach themselves, ignoring the dragon and possibly the whole rest of the battle. This won't be a fast process either, since the horde won't be stupid enough pack themselves in for the killing, they'll take their time figuring out a response, and hey they've got dragons why rush? If the PCs try to split up or use teleportation to hit both groups of giants before they can breach the walls and succeed, then well, the horde probably breaks off for a day and you rewrite the rest of the adventure.

    Abithriax is quite obliging in a way: he attacks the southern part of Brindol, near where the PCs are expected to be after saving the southern wall. I'm not convinced this makes sense- supposedly it should draw defenders to contain the fires, but if the southern gate held then there should be plenty of spare defenders there. A "better" reason is admitting that they don't actually want the PCs near the chokepoints, because they could very well annihilate the army at the choke, and that's why the dragon is programmed to attack the end of the city they're at and engage them as soon at they confront it. The problem with this one is that I'm pretty sure there's no way anyone could realistically contain those fires without magic. The defenders should still be concentrated by the walls, and as demonstrated it takes at least half a minute for them to get anywhere. By that time the dragon's set another wide swath on fire.
    Way my folks dealt with it was to summon water elementals, who then got busy smashing fires. I didn't do much of the math or logistics on that, mainly because as you say it doesn't invite close scrutiny and all tension in the encounter disappears once the party identifies some method of putting out the fires. The whole fire encounter is just a bit naff - I don't remember anyone who really marks it as a highpoint in the adventure. On top of that, I had Abithriax explode at the end of the battle (Final Strike, Savage Species) which blew out the fires he'd started, but it's not great either way.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    Once again it looks like the module may have done some of the math: at one breath every 5 rounds, if it takes the PCs 2.5 minutes to get back from the giant scene to Abithriax's target, that's five breaths, and they are at least requiring a full minute per check to put out a fire. But, uh, those aren't little house fires started from a dropped candle: they're massive 40' swathes of potential ignition across rooftops that have been burning for minutes, vs maybe a bucket or two? I don't really know how to fix this aside from deliberately having the dragon breathe only once in order to lure in the PCs, and just bast responding soldiers until they show up. The appropriate result here is that unless the PCs prepared with Quench spells the city burns whether they win or not, but they can still win the fight- which is a heck of a lot better than Shadowdale's gotcha where not doing every bit of unmarked extra credit means the enemy just keeps the fortress. But is there really anything for the PCs to choose? The giants are done throwing so there's no "hazard zone," the horde isn't fully in the walls yet, unless you want to throw other flyers at them or let them spend the owl riders to stall for time, there isn't a logical thing for them to

    For the battle itself, I'd rate this one on how many groups of soldiers the dragon gets to roast if the PCs dawdle about. If the PCs decided to try and blast the horde as the entered the breaches and ignores the dragon, Abithriax gets to burn down the city and slaughter the defenders and they lose: the city simply does not have enough concentrated archers to focus fire 184hp of dragon. How fast the PCs choose to get there/when they choose to engage determines how much loss the defenders take.

    Streets of Blood is where you can really get fancy in the preparation and timing by letting the PCs draw up where they want barricades and fallback points in the city rather than just some random street. You still have to just fiat how long and which barricade it takes them to hit, but you can do it based on their choices, and then have the soldiers fighting during the time it takes the PCs to respond (and those stormlizards will tear a strip if left alone). Once you fix your map orientation this fight makes sense: the west gate is at the top of the map, so west of the marketplace is right between their entry point and the marketplace with its six roads and control of the bridge gates, pretty important.

    On to the end. The horde has pushed in through the west gate and is either regrouping there or consolidating gains, while Jaarmath is regrouping in the cathedral square (16) when the sniper attack happens, and the PCs respond (this should take them X amount of time, during which Y amount of damage occurs to defenders, etc). I suppose the players do have a bit of a choice here since they could ignore Jaarmath and try to take command themselves. If the horde can hold together with any one wyrmlord, the defenders should at least be able to hold as long as the PCs are around. But ignoring the sniper and hidden sorcerers just means they ought to stab you in the back when Kharn shows up. If you've got the ability to collapse the building on him that's always a good option.

    However that resolves, it then says for the final battle that captain Ulverth just fought wyrmlord Kharn "to the north" at the marketplace (5) and that Kharn is coming to attack the cathedral (17). This means that after the PCs left their barricade, Kharn either went through or around it to the marketplace, effectively negating the PCs win there by the module. If the PCs held through Streets of Blood, Kharn should instead be described as coming down one of the other streets straight at the grouped defenders, rather than from the marketplace. This becomes very important. If the PCs held the road to the marketplace and forced Kharn to throw himself straight at them, the horde is still effectively strung out through a chokepoint: they're surrounded, and losing their commanders could feasibly cause a rout, allowing the defenders a crushing counterattack (or at least harrying them on the way out).

    However, if the PCs lost the marketplace, the horde has effectively broken through their lines. They have two entry/exit points in the west gate and the bridges (they should have smashed all the gates but the NPCs somehow killed the giants), and access to the roads to push through to the east gate (while the defenders are supposed to have concentrated on the cathedral plaza, more south-west). The defenders are all but surrounded inside their own walls and have no hope of outfighting the horde- the horde simply should not break no matter how many leaders they lose, while the defenders are only still up because their leaders are. Even if they kill Kharn, if the PCs lost the marketplace during Streets of Blood, they can't win the battle until they retake the marketplace from whatever forces the DM thinks are appropriate- this is a much better place to shove surviving dragons and wyrmlords, rather than stacking them on top of Kharn, and even if the PCs held it that's a good place to throw remaining leaders who the PCs need to hunt. If the PCs know they can't retake the marketplace and/or finish remaining leaders then they boogie on out the south or east gate.

    If you want PC choice, this'd be the big one. They have "less than 10 minutes" to prepare, which is a lot of time compared to the previous parts. Standing and fighting in the cathedral square isn't exactly a great plan- they're attacking the cathedral to remove the clerics, but Brindol has jack all for clerics. A fighting or even flat out retreat to gather more defenders is entirely reasonable. Kharn comes at the PCs with just a small number of mundane heavies, which means a bunch of chumps up on the wall are suddenly pretty important. Just 200' away is the south gate, assuming the PCs held it, down a nice narrow firing line. Ordering the defenders here to do something more sensible than just take it ought to be worth a reduction in casualties, especially if you take out Kharn himself nice and quick.
    No argument here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    The battle flow they've planned is actually pretty decent, the problem simply lies in tying victory to arbitrary points rather than the events as they unfold ('cause the irony is not lost that tracking "defender losses" is point system from the other direction). I've probably said this before in the thread, but the point values on the razorfiends and ghosts is simply ridiculous. Every razorfiend has a breath weapon and DR 5/magic, forcing the defenders to rely on what, boiling oil/alchemist's fire and collapsing buildings? The hatchery had 30 eggs which are worth 2 points? Try 1-2 points per razorfiend if you wanted point values, and that's only because they lack flight- the smaller dragons in the horde are at least lacking in DR. The actual value is essentially no counter=win. The horde has 15 razorfiends (plus the 5 unlisted thunderlizards that must show up right before the battle), 12 ghost brutes, and 3 ghosts. The dragonspawn will annihilate essentially any number of troops on flat ground (and don't forget the horde's clerics), but the ghosts? The ghost brutes literally have the ability to howl and send everyone in 300' fleeing, while the normal ghosts just deal 2d10 damage to anyone that looks at them, and neither can be harmed by anything less than magic. If the Ghostlord is not brought on-side or every single ghost killed before or immediately once the battle begins, the defenders lose, period. This isn't a problem for what seems to be the vast majority of parties, and the Ghostlord is supposed to show up for the final fight to wreck you anyway if you didn't appease him, but still. If the horde has enough dragonspawn to send them through every point of attack, get some past the few who can fight them? The defenders lose again.

    The wildcards are the elves and the dwarves, because we have almost no information about them. 200 dwarven mercenaries (vs the 800 or so militia which is half commoners) are apparently worth four victory points. They're paid 6,000 gold, which is more than you'd expect for 200 1st level warriors (at 40gp per day that'd be 150 days), but unless they have a significant number of magic weapons they won't matter against the ghosts, and without magic or alchemical weapons they won't help much against the dragonspawn either. The elves send "hunters:" the PCs can deploy four owl riders and the vp section claims they're an air force worth 5 points, but The Tiri Kitor Hunters is the name of their full military might of 260 warrior+ classed members. We know they probably have at least 15 giant owls if they can lend 5 to the PCs and still have 6 in the Streets of Blood and 4 more the PCs can assign at will, but how many more? Those owls are far more vulnerable to the bows carried by every hobgoblin regular than the dragons (and spawn and ghots) are to the defender's few crossbows (which also need to be shooting down at the hobbos). Either way they don't have magic bows, so they won't counter the nigh-existential threats of the dragonspawn and ghosts.

    To take it all the way down you could assign all the leveled NPCs with magic and/or gear to certain areas, designate paths of attack for the horde's monsters, and see what happens. Except once again, I'm pretty dang sure the NPCs just straight up can't deal with the monsters they're supposedly dealing with off screen any more than the milita could actually hold chokes against what are essentially the equivalent of Total War mongol infantry.

    I realize that my evaluation is basically that if the PCs don't do everything right, the defenders lose, which is basically the same thing I complain about being in Shadowdale. Except here it makes sense, while over there it's a force 1/5 the size spread out across a wider area with fewer monsters and higher level PCs. The ability of the defenders to stand up to the horde in RHoD is being massively fudged. Even with the dwarves they're outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1, the walls aren't worth nearly their full value thanks to the siege/auto-breach trigger, etc. I can't think of any ways to give the players agency via tradeoffs when the logical reading of things says that trying to make any tradeoffs should result in failure. I suppose if they're on normal mounts you could give them detour/eat AoOs from scattered troops, trading speed now for potential loss of speed later.
    About the only thoughts I had here were that maybe some of these problems can be alleviated by upgunning the dwarves in particular and maybe the elves with some magical options if not some decent class levels. (Less so the elves because if you turn them all into ranged terrors there's no reason for the PCs to intervene at Rhest ... sigh ... ) The Red Hand doesn't mess with the dwarves because they've got some magical options and having the little beards in the battle does actually add some serious oomph to the garrison: trained, magic-armed dwarves, added to a few clerics, added to a couple of decent arcanists, all applying dwarven toughness to the sort of siege battle they'd likely have to fight from their clan halls, and maybe it's nowhere near as uneven a fight anymore. Maybe getting hold of the dwarves is the one smart thing the garrison at Brindol decides to do, since the Shining Axes are insular, but they're also the reason nobody from the Wyrmsmoke Mountains has tried messing with them.

  23. - Top - End - #1373
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Speaking of inner/outer city stuff, that's another "missed" opportunity as it were. I'm not convinced a Small City is big enough to have staggered walls, but there is that little bit where Jaarmath wants to fight outside the walls but every other NPC is smart enough to know that's insane. If the defenders were more army and less rabble, a harrying retreat into sally raids would be a lot more exciting.

    If the dwarves are hired for a month that amounts to 1gp/day for each of them. By AaEG that's enough for 5th level medium or heavy foot warriors, but even using treasure rather than NPC wealth they're still way under budget. DMG2 will let you get a 1st level "adventurer," elite PC classed guy for 1gp. Unless you go 5th level warriors sinking all their cash into magic weapons or shorten the contract they can't quite reach. I do like the idea that the Shining Axes got their name from everyone carrying magic weapon though.

    DM abuse of NPC building can come to the rescue as always: 1st level incarnates have high will saves and can have Incarnate Weapons, though 2nd level would be better for Crystal Helm crown binds (warriors could take them as feats, but dwarves don't have innate essentia). The unit could also just have a caster or two with Legion's Magic Weapon, which if deployed well could conceivably deal with some dragonspawn, especially if the hobbos were hanging back to let it do the work.

    Speaking of NPCs, while most of Brindol's presumed NPCs have no mention, there is some amount you can eke out of those named, or presume that they've already thrown in. An 8th level cleric has Divination, Glyph of Warding, and Hallow- the latter of which gives a good reason for fighting in a certain position and has a couple useful spells. The wizard has radial spells instead of the lightning bolts equipped on the horde sorcerers and would be pretty significant if not so outnumbered- has Charm Monster in book though not memorized. More importantly, they drop a little detail (that may have been mentioned before): the gynosphinx isn't in the appendix, but they can throw down one of every symbol simultaneously. That's the highest level magic in the city bar none, and it's no joke.

    So maybe if we assume a number of well placed Hallows for certain buffs, and a bunch traps?
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  24. - Top - End - #1374
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    One option for beefing up e.g. Dwarven NPCs is also giving them stuff like Oil of Magic Weapon in stock. All it takes is some low level casters with Brew Potion in the force. Vs. monsters in the horde, that would be huge. Hammerfist Holds have a blurb in the settlements section and they are honestly rather badass complete with a high level Cleric. AFB right now but done right, they could be a pivotal force in the final battle. I like beefing up elite friendly NPCs just as much as the horde members too, to match PC PB.

    EDIT: Yeah, Hammerfist Holds have a militia muster of 2xCleric 4, 5xCleric 3, 11xCleric 2, and 16xCleric 1. That's pretty darn solid, especially since one of their leaders is also Cleric 7. Brew Potion takes Cleric 3, but chances are they have some. While Shining Axes aren't detailed, chances are coming from such a clanhold, their ranks include Clerics as well. And they also have a Bard 8, who positively dwarfs (*badumtsh*) Trellara and can actually be a relatively massive power boost for a contingent if built with all sources (as per usual, I build all NPCs and monsters with all the sources the PCs are allowed to use).
    Last edited by Eldariel; 2018-07-20 at 04:25 PM.

  25. - Top - End - #1375
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Also, I reckon there's solid ways to consider breaking the normal hiring rules for the Shining Axes - maybe they're willing to commit a very solid contingent of magic-armed dwarves, the elite guard of the Holds, because Jarmaath has offered them something more than five grand in gold. Maybe he's offered a more exclusive trade deal or similar in return for their help, which is enough for them to commit heavily to the defence of Brindol: no city means no trading partner.

  26. - Top - End - #1376
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Also, I reckon there's solid ways to consider breaking the normal hiring rules for the Shining Axes - maybe they're willing to commit a very solid contingent of magic-armed dwarves, the elite guard of the Holds, because Jarmaath has offered them something more than five grand in gold. Maybe he's offered a more exclusive trade deal or similar in return for their help, which is enough for them to commit heavily to the defence of Brindol: no city means no trading partner.
    Considering the differences in having a fanatic Hobgoblin Kingdom bent on world conquest and an open Human/Mixed Kingdom as trading partners too, it seems like they'd be naturally inclined towards preferring the Horde be defeated all else being equal.
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  27. - Top - End - #1377
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    Default Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!

    Quote Originally Posted by Fizban View Post
    Speaking of inner/outer city stuff, that's another "missed" opportunity as it were. I'm not convinced a Small City is big enough to have staggered walls, but there is that little bit where Jaarmath wants to fight outside the walls but every other NPC is smart enough to know that's insane. If the defenders were more army and less rabble, a harrying retreat into sally raids would be a lot more exciting.
    Maybe not two rings of walls, but instead render it so the "old city", which dates back to the time of Rhest, does have a wall around it. But since the city's never fallen under serious threat since that time, the city has gradually grown out from the walls without any battlement to protect it. If we look at the city...



    Say the city wall follows roughly the line of the third street in from the existing wall, and there is no external city wall. This then allows some harrying and a couple of guerrilla missions as the Hand blows through the new city, allowing a few more encounters there, and then withdrawing to the actual city wall and having the climactic battle at one of the gates.

  28. - Top - End - #1378
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    GreenSorcererElf

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

    Heck, the biggest thing you could do would be just make the walls matter- instead of automatically breaching them the horde. . . doesn't. At least, not until after they've actually taken significant losses in the process. I've the precedent of a castle holding against as many as 10x the besiegers, but the horde's numbers aren't near that big. It's the fact that they just auto-breach that makes the fight so one sided even without the monsters. So instead the PCs take out the giants, and as a result the horde starts sending rams and ladders. The PCs can't (or at least shouldn't) be in two places at the same time, so one of the gates can still fall offscreen eventually, possibly by a concentrated attack of the horde's leaders/Su assents deliberately away from the PCs or in such force that the PC's have to pull back and wait for them to separate. Forcing them to actually take a gate means you can start counting the dropped rocks and boiling oil and constant arrow fire as whittling down their forces in a proper asymmetrical manner before the street fighting.

    There's also the issue of siege weapons. I don't think it's properly mentioned in the module so it could be something you're supposed to assume in the background, but the defenders have plenty of time to set up catapults inside the walls: firing down the streets, making it much more costly to take the barricades, and giving logical hardpoints for the aerial monsters to attack and thus a justification for why the defender's elite troops can find and combat them. The militia should be equipped with bundles of shortspears for versatility or at least longspears, not crappy two handed non-long-spears, and of course some polearms on the warriors with the actual armor and shields as well. If the defenders are being modded in an attempt to realistically fight the horde while the horde stays as written (yeah, if the horde is opped you're just screwed), then the horde's main weakness is that they've got no polearms. The horde's bows would annihilate the giant owls, but in the streets they can't shoot through their own guys, while the defenders can fight from behind cover to match the armor with extra row of hail mary longspears to basically double their output.

    Back to the supernatural creatures, that's a big opening for some new player goals: intel. The PCs fight razorfiends but might not even notice they have DR/magic, and this is critical information that must reach the defenders. If they know, then the dragonspawn could be met appropriately with specialized kill positions even without loading the elves or dwarves with magic (and if they are they still need to know who fights what), but if they don't then the defenders will take more damage and the PCs will need to handle it. Moreso for the ghosts if they're showing up: you can't prepare Hallow->Remove Fear to keep people from fleeing if you don't know the ghost brutes howl, and you can't plan around the gaze attack of the ghosts if you don't know about it.

    Although thinking about it, aside from the name Ghostlord, there's no good reason to be throwing ghosts at Brindol. All it does is make appeasing the Ghostlord pretty much mandatory, which has always seemed one of the weaker parts of the module: the DM basically has to telegraph to the players that fighting the Ghostlord is a bad idea (though maybe less bad if you actually run him vanilla?), and so they have to give up the phylactery, because otherwise. . . the unstoppable ghosts they might not even realize are unstoppable will show up. By contrast the lesser bonedrinkers that are specifically mentioned aren't even that scary, no DR or fast healing, roughly equivalent to a pack of slightly beefier dire wolves with scary undeadness, and nevermind that the Red Hand clerics can't actually control any of these. There's got to be some other undead that poses a serious but not insumountable threat which the PCs can afford not dealing with if they don't want to play nice with the ghostlord. Failing that, at least make it so if the PCs clear out the Ghostlord's ghosts when they visit, there aren't any left to join the Hand (or maybe just the one in the pool when they show up)- maybe make the crystal heart tied to the gor whatever easier to destroy so they can smash and run (which puts the ghosts to rest). Or just running the Ghostlord vanilla specifically because it makes him easy enough for them to kill.

    Back to information, if the defenders are deploying the gynospinx's symbols, that's actually important enough info for the whole Miha Serani spy plot to actually matter: where, when, how, passwords, etc. But man, the old symbol on the shield trick (let alone the superball from the comic itself) is brutal. Depending on specific attunement/password security, those could be aggressively used with whole combat groups backing them up, completely changing the battle. A single well-deployed symbol of insanity will essentially cause the horde to tear itself apart, weakness would dump huge numbers of them under the weight of their own armor, just any of the unlimited ones really. Unless you use a harder reading on "enters the area" so you can't use it offensively, probably better to pretend that option isn't in the vanilla module.

    Once you've got an idea of how you think all the matchups should go you could probably assign that "hit point" system based on 100's or 50's or 10's of soldiers and then just flat out track the ticking down of troops over time in each area the PCs haven't dealt with adequately for one reason or another. Just as long as you don't get so granular they can actually beat the horde just by slinging a few fireballs.
    Last edited by Fizban; 2018-07-21 at 02:47 AM.
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    A collection of over 200 pages of individually small bans, tweaks, brews, and rule changes, usable piecemeal or nearly altogether, and even some convenient lists. Everything I've done that I'd call done enough to use in one place (plus a number of things I'm working on that aren't quite done, of course).
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  29. - Top - End - #1379
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    EvilClericGuy

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

    Thanks for the replies to my questions, I'll be sure to look over some of the older stuff in the handbook. Anyways I think I'll weigh in on what I've been doing so far in terms to the siege battle (As surprisingly the party has spent 2 sessions doing the meeting of the lords) and managed to 'kill' my version of Miha the Spy which was an exciting battle, who knew a Gate to Avernus with round based spawn could terrify my players so bad. It was great fun and the players had to use the staff of life after someone got killed by a beefed up Sivak Draconian who had some class levels.

    Anyways, I've used a variant map for Brindol as I didn't like the layout of the Vanilla brindol and didn't have the time nor will to remake the entire city. Would have been quite painful, but I regret not taking the time to do so as I've noticed a few issues. Currently, this is what the 'Battle Map' of Brindol looks like, it may change as they are super paranoid about the Spy being alive.

    Spoiler: Brindol Map
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    Each of those squares is the various 'units' which Brindol has at its disposal, after changing many a number, it clocks in at around 10,385 troops for Brindol (Including all the Mercenaries they brought in and the many peasants 'conscripted' into the army. Each unit has a few primary stats, those being Soldiers/Size of the unit, Attack, Damage, Defense, Armor, Health, Speed and Moral with some lesser stats thrown in there to help out. I will admit, I shamelessly acquired the template from the Total War formula and made it all d100 based for quick action using the states as a framework.

    Heres an example of some of the units

    Spoiler: Units
    Show


    I've also made many new 'missions' and 'encounters' for the players to take part in, with a good chunk of combat going on overall the walls at first, akin to a proper siege. Where the Redhand tries multiple attacks to take the walls or breach them long before the 'Assault' in which the Redhandwill break through and storm the city. Thankfully not nearly close to there full number as the Brindol defenders would be crushed in a full out attack, considering 70% of the defenders are barely trained and could hardly be called an Army. The walls will be there saving grace.

    My players noted this actually and during there first discussion with the lords before they went to meet the Ghost Lord and try to sway the guy to help him (No cleric or Paladin in the party, and the players figured this guy was being blackmailed), they advised the Council to tear down the orchards and nearby woodlands along with harvesting everything so the Redhand would A. Not have any cover B. Be forced to collect supplies elsewhere and C. Find wood elsewhere. Meanwhile, the defenders can use that sweet sweet wood to create Hoardings and Pallaisdes.

    Which brings up an important aspect I feel in this module which is overlooked. The Environment favours the Redhand unless something is done. If those Orchards on the Western side of Brindol have left their hats free cover and concealment right up to the walls. And if the defenders fail to see anything, then you have can have a small yet sizable assault going on without anyone knowing.

    Anyways, my players having arrived at Brindol about six weeks ahead of the Redhand had plenty of time to go ahead to talk to the lords and go deal with the Ghost Lord, they convinced the Council to use the wood for Hoardings across the walls, which offers more cover to archers and make Siege Towers/Ladders less effective. Something which may be enough to even out the 3:1 ratio and Veteran army that the Redhand has. They also had the mages and common folk (a few thousand peasants live in brindol so it's easily accomplished with magic help) to dig a moat, then the stone wall the sides of it. Moat is about 15 wide and 10 feet deep. That along makes attacking Brindol all the harder.

    Now the Redhand has to either fill the damn thing which is time-consuming unless you have magic, which means putting your casters at Risk of the Defenders Casters and Arrow spam. Making it now a costly affair. Or the Redhand can simply do it the old fashion way and use dirt. Or one of the more fun ways! Siege engines! Something the Module doesn't even mention for some reason, where is the Siege Towers? But that's another problem. Anyways, some quite advanced designs that the Redhand could feasibly use if given the time.

    Spoiler: Advance Moat Crossing Siege Engines
    Show



    Seeing that the Redhand has shown the ability to swiftly produce working Siege engines at the beginning of the module, it's not hard to assume they could create some manner of contraption that lets them cross their troops into a breach of the moat. Or even make rafts on the other side of the river and cross like they did at Drellins ferry. Something that would force defenders to deal with, as you at best will have some palisade walls.

    The lack of siege warfare I think is a little saddening which is why I added a few days of besiegement as the Redhand does have a time limit, but they can't just rush the walls without a losing a significant portion of there troops. It makes more sense to widdle down the defenders and make some soft points or even breaches before assaulting the city with everything they got.

    Overall, I feel that the Siege of Brindol in the Module is more of a mad dash rather than a proper siege.

  30. - Top - End - #1380
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    RedWizardGuy

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

    I wanted to run module for my players, as it seems really good, however my cartographic skills are on really low level (I suck from geography and map reading). Is there any place i can find tables on how much distance is there between points?

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