New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 11 of 49 FirstFirst ... 2345678910111213141516171819202136 ... LastLast
Results 301 to 330 of 1465
  1. - Top - End - #301
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    WolfInSheepsClothing

    Join Date
    Jan 2010

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

    ToB is actually NOT a way to increase difficulty for your newbie players, but rather to decrease it a bit, in my opinion. It is much easier for new players to create an at least a playable build from the ToB, rather than trying to make core fighters (and then dying over and over and over and over...)
    Jesus saves, you take half damage.

    The difference between insanity and genius is determined only by your charisma score.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tome View Post
    I recall in one game one of my PCs managed to defeat a succubus using a combination of his Touch Of Golden Ice feat and a Deathward spell. If you know what I mean.

    *Insert "It was hot/cool" pun here.*
    Quote Originally Posted by Mewtarthio View Post
    ...You defeated it with holy STDs?
    Half-Shadow Dragon Vampire Sandwich.

    In Soviet Russia, food eat YOU!

  2. - Top - End - #302
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    GreataxeFighterGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2010

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

    On the note of making things harder, I'm doing this with 6 players with an interesting range of optimization.

    1. Beguiler: wtfpwns just about everything via mostly glitterdust and slow
    2. Monk1/Barbarian X/Bear warrior who grapples anything that resists above glitterdust... He beats large creatures quite often on grapple checks.
    3: Spirit Shaman: competes with the beguiler for most powerful in the party in terms of combat, this is my only long time dnd player
    4: Warlock: she really favors uncomplicated characters that contribute in a consistent way. Warlock makes that work for her.
    5:Ranger: straight ranged combatant with a love for his animal companion (an elf hound). Took the feat to give him a better animal companion, considering house ruling it to give the dog full progression as druid familiar.
    6: Thri-kreen ranger/psiwarr : sadly, he clearly clocks in at last place for power level, he has collected short swords and hits with 3 a turn using multiattack but mostly its a missfest. considering allowing him to turn RHD into a couple levels of something with a solid BAB.

    It became clear after the first fight that just using the encounters out of the box wasnt going to cut it. So i began kicking it up a notch. after a random encounter with a grey render and an owlbear was insufficient, i buffed the fight in vraath keep significantly via giving the minotaur 2 levels of dungeon crasher fighter and shifting the sorc into the dragonfire adept as suggested above.

    Upon arrival at the keep the ranger decided to sneak in close for recon. For some unknowable reason, he brought his dog along. ranger elf? sneaky as hell, sprinty dog? noisy as hell.
    Minotaur spots the group immediately and sounds the alarm. the fight goes downhill from there. After nearly killing our Monkbearian with a charge, the minotaur gets blinded quickly via a venom spit from the spirit shaman. the whole bulk of the enemy crashing down on the party was insufficient to stop the party who eventually have to chase down Koth before he flies away. Our Monkbearian jumps and drags him out of the air to capture him. after interrogating him, they set off for skull gorge. this fight actually felt like it hit the party's sweet spot for difficulty, the debuffs meant that the massive minotaur only hit once every so often, and it kept the spirit shaman busy with heals. important note: i took away the staff of life here, im running with a mixed bag of players who prefer to play it RAW with dice landing as they land or not for players who prefer character development and not rerolling. Because of that easy resurrection is out.

    I upgraded the skull gorge by simply taking the dragon to young adult. this was insufficient as they grounded the dragon quickly by having 2 party members leap off the top of the tower onto dragonback.

    the rest of the encounters were ran more or less as written, being far too easy. I cut it down to one roadblock but i upgraded it by making the ogres fighter/hulking hurler 2's. this also was about where i needed difficulty, there were some near death experiences due to the hard core bonus damage on the thrown spears.

    The encounter with the greenspawn was upgraded to a fight with 2 of them (an escaped breeding pair) which got marginally creepy as i surrounded the hill with swim-able swamp and they did some suspenseful jaws action. Following this they did a decent job impressing elves, and then set off for Rhest.

    Originally i stepped two of the ogres on the roof. One of them became a hulking hurler from the barricade and one became a war hulk. I bumped the dragon up an age category and... after much deliberation, decided to enable ToB. The bladebearer became a scythe wielding warblade who nearly killed the spirit shaman with a lucky crit. The party failed to stop a few lizardmen from making it to the water who proceeded to warn the crew at the ruins. The party decided to approach the city hall underwater, walking along the bottom with some waterbreathing spells and an invisibility sphere. They walked in through the submerged first floor. They bumped face first into the dragon who blasted most of the group with a gout of acid breath then leaped into the air above his lair. The party swam up to the room above and climbed out into the waiting arms of the warblade. The fateful crit lands and the ogres begin trying to squeeze in through the front door on the first level. At this point i cut the 2 souped up ogres.
    This is where i'm at now. We shall see how it goes.


    **Edit**
    I should have mentioned that I ran the first chapter with a 3 person group including one warblade (TOB class). it was clear that the player delighted in the wonderful options that he had in front of him, and even having never seen TOB before, he was able to whip out a devastating character.
    this balance of power shift more than outstripped the fact that he faced a TOB style blade bearer.
    Last edited by Zuljita; 2011-06-03 at 11:14 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #303
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    Oct 2008

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

    Thanks for the Handbook, I'm two sessions in now with a munchkined out group of 3 that came in at 7th level (and a cohort.) I took the base baddies and put most of them with levels of swordsage (normally just the last, added on level for max fighter as well,) and they seem to be enjoying it. The Sargent are actually valid combatants at this level, but will drop off later on (I made them ftr 4 and swordsage 1), much more potent, but an actual challenge for 7th level characters. They also got a nice little buff to their hp, so while they only last three rounds at most, the party knows now not to just shrug them off as slightly less-worthless chunks of meat containing a gooey exp core. Watching the party tank get hit for 30 damage in one round when he missed a charge, got flanked, then hit by two of the Sargent was a nice humbling encounter for the group. The rank and file are now 3rd fighters, yea, too strong for a bunch of townguards to take out, but I'll worry about that when they figure out that little detail.

    The group just reached the Keep and already got noticed because they don't ever cover up campfires. Does anyone have some advice for how this will change the way the defenders act? They aren't only alerted now, but actually know they will be attacked soon and have already sent for reinforcements. Should I have the entire company be ready for the invaders, or loosen up their alertness and give the group a chance to atone for their mistake? I'm leaning toward fully prepped and ready garrison, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to do anything against my beefed up Koth and a flying manticore with the forts own defenders launching volley's.

    Thanks for any advice in advance and for the help that's in this thread.

  4. - Top - End - #304
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    One thought that occurs is that you could have the Keep's defenders take proactive steps against them. Send out the two (sucky) worg riders and maybe a couple of hobgoblins to try and scout/smack the party in their camp. That'll cut the numbers down a bit at least and tag the party into the fact they've been rumbled. If that doesn't tell your party that their attempt at "stealth" is up the proverbial creek without a paddle, then unleash the whole Keep's forces at them when they try and storm the place. Darwin Awards were made for the Chaotic Stupids of the world, y'know

  5. - Top - End - #305
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    Oct 2008

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

    With your permission can I take 'Darwin Awards were made for the Chaotic Stupids of the world, y'know' and turn it into my sig?

    That's probably what will happen, nobody ever remembers that you're out half a party for an hour or so each morning...perfect time to launch an attack.

  6. - Top - End - #306

  7. - Top - End - #307
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2010

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

    Today my group played again. I thougt I'd share their story about their unorthodox tactics. First of all, it turns out this party is rather squishy (missing a tank and all) and slow to move (luckily I do use the rule of 3 concerning giving hints).

    1. So the last time the party unsuccesfully assaulted Vraath Keep and got captured, but broke free. Next day they decided to return to Drellins Ferry and go shopping. Quite logical, now to think of it, but it did cost them some time then.

    2. The party moved on to Skull Gorge (skipping Vraath Keep, as I had Koth retreat somewhere). I didn't buff the enemy, though I had one of the veterans replaced by a bard (didn't matter in the end). The party opened with a fireball on the hobgoblin camp (the tents are all conveniently placed in a 20ft radius...). They didn't press through though. They retreated and made a half-hearted second attempt to attack, trying to single out the dragon, but they scared off after one breath weapon blast (which downed the already-wounded sorcerer). Another notable tactics were to summon a nature's ally inside one of the guardtowers to assault a sentry and to use a flaming sphere to destroy the stairs of both near guardtowers.

    3. After being repelled from Skull Gorge, they returned to Drellins Ferry to seek reinforcements from the militia. I put the Town-Council-encounter here. After a long deliberation (in-game with Teyani, whom I sent to this town to urge the PC's to seek out hobgoblins), they came to a most remarkable conclusion:
    1. Take a stand at Skull Gorge with the help of the militia (!!). 2. Station scouts between SG and Drellins Ferry. 3. Take a second stand at DF. Hope reinforcements from Brindol arrive in time. 4. Run to Brindol.
    They convinced the town council, so ... Well, the stand at SG will fail, because the Horde will arrive on the same day there as the PC's with militia, but my unorthodox PC's gave me some new homework to do!
    Last edited by ka_bna; 2011-07-10 at 04:50 AM. Reason: Edited to add some details

  8. - Top - End - #308
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Bear in mind that if you look close at the map of the Witchwood, Skull Gorge is not the only crossing point: the way the Horde gets over the gorge is to backtrack upriver and cross higher up the stream, which takes them a couple of days and gives you the couple of days' breathing space the book talks about.

    Out of interest, in my own campaign I'm just into the Ghostlord section of the game. Some details to follow later, but for PbP campaigns it might be effective to allow a little rogue recon by a combination of Hide from Undead and Invisibility spells. Really helps to amp up the horror aspect of the tomb by making the lions out to be big, nasty buggers that a rogue pretty much can't hurt. By the time my two rogue scouts got to the Ghostlord's own chamber, I'd thoroughly freaked them out such that they didn't even raid his treasury for goodies.

  9. - Top - End - #309
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Xin-Shalast
    Gender
    Male

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

    Quote Originally Posted by ka_bna View Post
    3. After being repelled from Skull Gorge, they returned to Drellins Ferry to seek reinforcements from the militia. I put the Town-Council-encounter here. After a long deliberation (in-game with Teyani, whom I sent to this town to urge the PC's to seek out hobgoblins), they came to a most remarkable conclusion:
    1. Take a stand at Skull Gorge with the help of the militia (!!). 2. Station scouts between SG and Drellins Ferry. 3. Take a second stand at DF. Hope reinforcements from Brindol arrive in time. 4. Run to Brindol.
    They convinced the town council, so ... Well, the stand at SG will fail, because the Horde will arrive on the same day there as the PC's with militia, but my unorthodox PC's gave me some new homework to do!
    I'd be rather interested in hearing how exactly that plays out.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
    +3 Girlfriend is totally unoptimized. You are better off with a +1 Keen Witty girlfriend and then appling Greater Magic Make-up to increase her enhancement bonus.
    Homebrew
    To Do: Reboot and finish Riptide

  10. - Top - End - #310
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Norway
    Gender
    Male

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

    This guide has thus far in my groups adventure proved to be a real help! Thanks a lot for this awesome thread! Dunno when I'll continue on the log- I'm a bit lazy on such things nowadays. But some of the things I did was:

    -Did the bit with the Skullcrusher Ogres. It didn't work out as well as I'd hoped- rolled hopelessly poor, and then that widened fireball from the wizard came and messed things up :P
    -Changed the lizardfolk to the Posion Dusk variant described in MM III and gave them a powerful druid chief with a crocodile companion (Ysorgoss was his name, he was meant to be a foil for Sellyria.) In retrospect I really should have worked on their tactics beyond "charge en masse" because that night was a massacre if I've ever seen one...
    -Added the age category to Reggie and went with the mounted archer build for Saarvith. That actually worked out pretty well :) The guys and gal had a very tough time with the duo and Reggies metabreath feats. So far, the campaign has been like an inverted Zelda dungeon- they mash through evertything with moderately little effort, but when the bosses come around, they genuinely fear for their lives.
    -Poor Nurklenak. He did'nt get to cast a single spell. The party found him trying to sneak into a more advantageous position and floored him.

    All in all, thing are going pretty well :)

    I have a serious problem with the Red Hand operatives though. Is there possible to make those troops any better without using the Tome Of Battle? I don't have the time to get into that stuff, and I'm not sure I like it either :/ But I need to do something- the gobs and hobs are just tissue to the guys well-rounded might.

    What do you guys think?

  11. - Top - End - #311
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Jenison, Michigan, USA
    Gender
    Male

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

    There are tactics for mooks in the introduction chapter of the module. At the later stages of the campaign, they try pile-on grapples and aid another... though it's unlikely for them to hit.

    My thought as I continue to prep for a Pathfinder RPG "Red Hand of Doom" campaign is to give them alchemical stuff to muck with terrain and their senses, especially things that don't require direct attack rolls. Even better if they require saves, since there's always the chance of a "1"... especially if a bunch of mooks are tossing things about.

    *edit*
    Also, thank you SaintHeart for the fantastic guide!
    Last edited by Golbez57; 2011-07-18 at 10:09 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #312
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Vorteld View Post
    I have a serious problem with the Red Hand operatives though. Is there possible to make those troops any better without using the Tome Of Battle? I don't have the time to get into that stuff, and I'm not sure I like it either :/ But I need to do something- the gobs and hobs are just tissue to the guys well-rounded might.

    What do you guys think?
    There's some suggestions at the start of the thread which aren't ToB related (check under the "improving the Hand forces across the board" header) but probably one of the best suggestions is not to run them tactically as the authors say they should. As written, hobgoblin squads deserve to get caned because they have no canny strategy whatsoever.

    Instead, run them as a team of players would behave tactically. Focus fire, take down casters first. Use concealment and terrain to create additional "layers" of protection. Allow the hobgoblins and their buddies faster response times than the text gives -- several dozen rounds to respond is just plain silly in some cases.

    Go for your players' weak points -- trip attacks or disarms. The players' main advantage is the action economy: they'll use many actions against one foe at a time and drown them in attacks. Wear down the players' bank balance in actions and you'll put things on a more even keel.

    Fix the hobgoblins' Will saves: give everyone potions of Conviction instead of 3 x Cure Moderate Wounds, because odds are on your hobgoblins won't get time to use them anyway.

    In terms of mechanical changes: stick a few extra levels of Fighter and have them use teamwork benefits. Although fixing the vanilla fighter with splatbooks is about as complex as fixing them with ToB

    EDIT: In terms of "quick" fixes, thunderstones and tanglefoot bags are still viable threats at these levels -- especially if you apply the "Agincourt" approach and have all your hobgoblins chuck one each at the opening of an engagement. Sure, the enemy's casters/bards might make one saving throw, but six in a row...?

  13. - Top - End - #313
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2010

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    I'd be rather interested in hearing how exactly that plays out.
    Next session will be this saturday. In order to have some more fun, I've changed the encounter of Skull Gorge into a big-scale encounter. The PC's will have the militia, 103 men big, the Red Hand will defend the bridge with 70 creatures, including Koth´s unit (Koth, Karkilan, worgs). The PC's have a bigger number, but the Red Hand has a bit better quality soldier (meaning: if the PC's only defend, they'll probably hold, but to assault is harder).
    Further changes: the weak spot has been moved from the south tower to the middle tower. The PC's are given 5 blast disks to place at the tower to blow it up, if they want to (the blast disks have to be placed and have to detonate at the same time). Blow the tower up, the bridge goes down.
    Also, the Red Hand has built a few wooden fortifications on the northern side of the bridge, so the PC's can't fire volleys of arrows from the forest at them.
    Oh, and if the PC's defend from the forest? Well, the Red Hand Main Army is on the march and only about 6 hours away...

    This will be my first large-scale encounter, and looking forward to it!

  14. - Top - End - #314
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Looking forward to this one, ka!

    In other brief news, a Hobgoblin Warsoul substituted in for one of the clerics at the stone lion is awesome. Really distributes the arcane load in that encounter.

    For the hobgoblin cleric who basically is a chunk of hitpoints and not much else, the Blasphemous Incantation ACF out of Exemplars of Evil is a nice annoying debuff against large parties: -2 to attacks, saves, etc within 30 feet, and that cleric isn't going to be using rebuke undead anyway.

    Also, Ulwai does, in fact, need some alterations -- chiefly, why the hell doesn't she have Glitterdust? Forget Confusion upgrades, she starts spamming that spell in this one and your players are in trouble. Also, Doomspeak. Fiat it as a swift action per round and you'll have a blast.

    I'll report back when it's done.

  15. - Top - End - #315
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Right.

    First thing to note is that the battle in the stone lion needs a lot of love if you have a large party.

    I had 8 people going in mine, and they downed Varanthian in one round (Barbarian + Cleric + 1 rogue + 1 Avariel Duskblade + 1 bard all getting attacks in - 150+ hp in one series of strikes). My approach was to let the characters start the fight with Ulwai proper, then have Varanthian show up in the third round. Had they not basically shut down the hobgoblins and their casters with Wall of Sand, I suspect they'd have had a much tougher time of it. (In fact, if I hadn't pulled my punches a little and had V grab one of the party's clerics instead of the party mage, they'd have had a much harder time.)

    To even stand up to the first volley of spells, in my view Varanthian needs some slight feat exchanges (or additions, if you're playing under houserules that have feats every second level rather than every third.) Improved Spell Resistance, for one, and Improved Natural Attack (Bite) for the other. SR at least gives you a second chance at beating the party's goddamn Slow spell. Improved Natural Attack helps Varanthian's best attack sequence, which if you've got the right party has some potential.

    This sequence is bite, grapple check for grab, then Swallow Whole and Cleave to start again. Used against the backliners in the party it's a potentially dangerous combination, since not many people optimise towards ubergrappler builds at level 8 or 9. Varanthian's modifer is in the +27 range, so all she really needs is a bit of a bump on her Bite attack to increase her chances of getting a grapple in there. She does suffer, as I said, from being a big and single target, and thus open to action economy bankruptcy, so to speak. On the other hand, if you throw her and Ulwai's party at one party at once, it might be a pretty challenging fight.

    Ulwai's chief weakness is the action economy and that as bards go she's not optimised. She sucks at inspire courage unless you're going to rebuild her from the ground up and optimise her - +1 to attack and damage is pathetic on most parties, let alone three level 4 monks. She also has a considerably uninteresting spell selection: no Glitterdust, for one thing. This needs addressing, especially if you have no other arcane casters in the opposition. I now consider Doomspeak to be almost an essential for her build, as is the need to fiat it as a swift action. Once that's in place, her casting strength gets much, much better and she can at least debuff and smash a charging fighter heading straight for her. She also has no melee options at all.

    The monks I turned into three Unarmed Swordsage 6s, and they're still very unimpressive components to the confrontation. At best they're only irritants to a determined party at these levels, certainly not serious threats. The tactic of having the monks try and hold the doorway is utterly pointless if you've got a Hobgoblin Warsoul in there - just web the door and have them as a second line of distracters.

    The hobgoblin cleric is utterly pointless beyond being a receptacle for Blasphemous Incantation. He's level 3, he won't be hitting or doing any appreciable damage to a pack of level 8 characters. 29 hitpoints is gone in a matter of seconds in melee at this stage.

    The Hobgoblin Warsoul I put in place of the second cleric has great potential, but he needs to get his strikes in first. He has spell resistance, which is nice, and his Soul Tyrant and Spell Eater abilities give him extra capacity to put the boot into saving throws. I had provisional rolls up (it's a PbP party) for him variously dropping Web, then Fireball, then Dimension Dooring behind the party to hit its rear line, and he would have succeeded -- had the party not hit him with Wall of Sand and then sent the Freedom of Movement'd barbarian in to rearrange his face. I'd consider reworking his spell list somewhat, and ignore the Monster Manual's tactics as required, but he has a solid spell selection including Wall of Ice, Web, Grease and other decent spells.

    I've mentioned Wall of Sand in here a few times, and if it's used against your monsters all I can say is that on an 8th level caster it's damn near an 80-foot-long, 10-foot-wide Web spell that will utterly clown your spellcasters unless they've got Freedom of Movement on them. Also be aware that players who do the 'kick in the door' strategy of landing in the lion's mouth, casting Haste, and then running downstairs to meet the enemy are probably still going to take Ulwai and her friends unprepared, since it's about a round of movement to get into that chamber even if they hear the party coming down the stairs.

    I did get one nice combination off with the swordsages in that I flipped the cleric o' war flat on her back after hitting her with Doomspeak, but the fight -- Varanthian included -- only lasted 4 rounds, mainly due to Wall of Sand and then a mass hit on Varanthian.

    I'll look into some changes to the handbook consequent on these insights.

  16. - Top - End - #316
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Well, made the changes, mainly to the Red Hand Operatives section of the Ghostlord lair section of the book.

    Still, there's a vox pop for people: How did you alter Ulwai Stormsinger in your RHOD campaign? Any thoughts for modification or alteration?

  17. - Top - End - #317
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2010

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

    Right, so the battle at Skull Gorge with my players was a bit underwhelming.

    The PC's took their army too Skull Gorge and saw the reinforced Hobgoblin units. They were afraid of a confrontation with it. First they had 6 men and 2 invisible men rush forward to place blast disks, but those men were skewered by the archers in the towers. Next, they had all (around 75) of their militia open fire on the poor 4 hobgoblin guards on the southern part of the bridge. Needless to say, I didn't even roll to hit or damage. Needless to say, they provoked archery fire from the northern hobgoblins, killing a few good militia.

    Then the PC's found an easy solution: bomb the bridge at its weakest point with fireballs. The hobgoblins simply couldn't hit them fast enough to prevent them doing this, and with that, the bridge collapsed.

    It was a fun fight, and they destroyed the bridge, but if I ever run this adventure again, I'll have to find a way to deal with the weak point of the bridge. Either the PC's have a very hard time destroying a tough bridge, or the PC's pepper the weak point and be done with it.

    Oh, and the PC's made a very short stand at Drellins' ferry, and were scared enough by it to be lead into part II without any questions

  18. - Top - End - #318
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Significant note when attempting to play Ulwai Stormsinger as the "masterful liar" the RHOD text describes her as: she has no ranks in Bluff at all.

  19. - Top - End - #319
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Jenison, Michigan, USA
    Gender
    Male

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

    Yeah... that lack of ranks in Bluff is Sonic-level "NO GOOD."

    I'm working on a Pathfinder RPG "RHoD" campaign, and so my feats and class abilities and such will be a bit different. I made her into a Fighter/Bard with focus on disarming. The Monks and Clerics are a bit hardier under PFRPG, and so they along with the unseen servant will be doing their best to move disarmed weapons out of reach of the good guys.

    I did away with her Stormsinger PrC (since I'm going to use next to no 3.5, save for select feats and perhaps some Magic Item Compendium stuff) but gave her whip the shock ability and am toying with keeping the staff with her. I think it'd be a fantastic tool for the heroes to use at Brindol, mostly.

  20. - Top - End - #320
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Norway
    Gender
    Male

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

    Hi, and thanks for all the hints you gave! In the end, I made these modifications:

    NB: If this seems underwhelming to you- my party is well rounded, but not optimized.

    -Varanthian. One thing has been plaguing me all this time: Why isn't there a white dragon in this module? Keeping in line with the five champions of Tiamat, something seemed amiss. So I simply wrote her up as a half-white dragon, a snow-white terror with dark blue spots dotting her almost frozen hide. Having another breath weapon means she delays her bite'n'swallow routine a little while longer, which is good, as the party is seriously unprepared to handle that. The spell resistance isn't anything I'm extremely worried about, the party's wizard is stacking up on spells to fight undead after hearing about the Ghostlord and his minions. I suspect a tough fight that will help later encounters become more of a challenge.

    -The Doom Fist Monks. I made The Doom Fist a cadre of five monks, Ulwais elite guard. I'm going to emphasize the terrible ritual scarring, branding and tatooing they have undertaken in Tiamats name, filling their open sores with the blood of countless sacrifices until their Dragon Queen granted them fell boons. To this effect, I'm keeping them as level 4 monks but adding the Spellwarped template from MM3. Spell resistance, Evasion and Absorpation will make the wizard think twice before she tries to quickly dispatch them with AOE magic. Only two of the Monks will be carrying Dragonchains, the rest will be buffed with Improved Spell Resistance. In addition, each monk will have a small arsenal of masterwork shurikens smeared with giant wasp posion (At DC 18, repeated Fort saves will prove difficult to overcome). The extra Strenght the Spellwarped template offers helps improve the minuscule damage (to 1d2+5), while the extra intelligence ensures the monks are smart enough to target characters who are liklely to fail their saves and/or suffer heavily from Dexterity damage.

    -As for the cleric, I'm increasing him to level 5 and making him a Cloistered Cleric, an expert on draconic lore assisting Ulwai in her works and the Overseer of the Doom Fist. He wouldn't be much good in physical combat anyway. I'm planning on portraying him as a bit old, most likely Middle Aged or even Old.

    -Yeah, I'm gonna do some of the recommended Ulwai fixes.

    The intention of all these encounters is that the party should survive, but be very drained when they reach the Ghostlord. I'm planning to portray him as the Recluse variant the guide suggests, but the party may yet want to fight. Hopefully they'll understand that they have no chance of winning and no time to waste.

    No, I was, kidding, all the modifiers were done for flavor and excitement ^^
    Last edited by Vorteld; 2011-07-30 at 04:51 PM.

  21. - Top - End - #321
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Golbez57 View Post
    Yeah... that lack of ranks in Bluff is Sonic-level "NO GOOD."

    I'm working on a Pathfinder RPG "RHoD" campaign, and so my feats and class abilities and such will be a bit different. I made her into a Fighter/Bard with focus on disarming. The Monks and Clerics are a bit hardier under PFRPG, and so they along with the unseen servant will be doing their best to move disarmed weapons out of reach of the good guys.

    I did away with her Stormsinger PrC (since I'm going to use next to no 3.5, save for select feats and perhaps some Magic Item Compendium stuff) but gave her whip the shock ability and am toying with keeping the staff with her. I think it'd be a fantastic tool for the heroes to use at Brindol, mostly.
    Out of interest, and totally up to you, but would you mind throwing in some scrawlings on doing RHOD in Pathfinder? I'd like to add that to the "other settings" section of the guide, and I'm utterly ignorant of PF...?

    Other than that, nice suggestions. That Staff of Stormclouds is the unspoken key to dealing with the "dragon lighting fires" portion of the adventure, rather like the way the Staff of Life is meant to be the lich-killer..

    Quote Originally Posted by Vorteld
    Hi, and thanks for all the hints you gave! In the end, I made these modifications:

    NB: If this seems underwhelming to you- my party is well rounded, but not optimized.
    Probably I need to add some notes at the start of the guide making it explicit that the suggestions just assume a rather more cynical and experienced bunch of players than RHOD was set up for. I think RHOD would probably work unaltered for a bunch of players who've only been gaming for a few months or haven't worked out the significance of the action economy. Beyond that, add taste or effort to suit your dish. :)

    Quote Originally Posted by Vorteld
    -Varanthian. One thing has been plaguing me all this time: Why isn't there a white dragon in this module? Keeping in line with the five champions of Tiamat, something seemed amiss. So I simply wrote her up as a half-white dragon, a snow-white terror with dark blue spots dotting her almost frozen hide. Having another breath weapon means she delays her bite'n'swallow routine a little while longer, which is good, as the party is seriously unprepared to handle that. The spell resistance isn't anything I'm extremely worried about, the party's wizard is stacking up on spells to fight undead after hearing about the Ghostlord and his minions. I suspect a tough fight that will help later encounters become more of a challenge.
    Not that I've gone searching for random interviews with James and Rich over why they did stuff in RHOD as they did, but my intuition is that it probably seemed like a good design idea at the time: "Well, by the Ghostlord section the characters have fought two dragons. They know Tiamat's involved and therefore that five chromatic dragons are likely to show up, so they'll probably gird up with dragon-based defences for this part of the adventure ... how can we mess them up with that? Huh...how about we skip a dragon altogether, make it another type of monster altogether? Devil? Nah, nothing big or iconic is within CR and we've got lots of them at the Fane. Hey, behir! Not much of a breath weapon, but it's an awesome grappler and it can eat people! Wait, behirs don't associate with dragons ... I've got it! Let's put the half-fiend template on it and make it a servant of Tiamat! Brilliant!"

    Other feeling I've got is that they were looking for some sort of grappling, "swallow whole" type of monster, and dragons don't go for that.

    I also think, because RHOD's set during summer months, they probably came up with the facile justification that white dragons by the MM are only found in "cold mountains" environments. (This being really stupid, of course, since they already had a really bulltwang excuse for a behir associating with a bunch of dragons to start with, so why they wemt with that as opposed to Tiamat demanding a white dragon take some sunblock with it on its travels is still beyond me.) Nothing in the Vale or surrounds fits the description of cold mountains.

    Also, look at what they had available for a white dragon at the Ghostlord's lair: either a Young or Juvenile at Medium size (CR 4 and 6 respectively) or a Young Adult or Adult at Large (CR 8 and 10 respectively) or a Huge Mature Adult (CR 12 and up). Huge would've taken away from Abithriax's impact in Brindol I'm guessing, Large is within range but can't grapple effectively, and Medium size is too damn small.

  22. - Top - End - #322
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Taelas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Denmark
    Gender
    Male

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

    Varanthian is also Huge.

    In fact, she is the only Huge creature amongst the "dragons"; both Tyrgarun and Abithriax are Large. I think Varanthian as written probably takes away from the impact of Abithriax regardless.
    Last edited by Taelas; 2011-07-31 at 11:56 AM.

  23. - Top - End - #323
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2008

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

    Wow. I just read some of the latest posts mere hours too late. My party just got to Chapter 3 and essentially one-shotted Varinthian. It got a breath weapon off on a careless bard who approached first and then one poorly rolled save (and one well rolled SR check) later, it was down with a bad case of the giggles. Even some buffed swordsage monks dropping down from above couldn't save that encounter.

    My party's sorc has taken to spamming Tasha's Hideous Laughter and assorted summons (largely Celestial Hippogriffs and assorted droppings from Bags of Tricks). Any suggestions for a good hard counter? They're not a particularly optimized party, but she's shut down some good boss fights this way. Some foes can get enhanced saves and the like, but outside of throwing up zones of silence around each fight, I'm not yet sure what to do about Tasha.

  24. - Top - End - #324
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Jastermereel View Post
    Wow. I just read some of the latest posts mere hours too late. My party just got to Chapter 3 and essentially one-shotted Varinthian. It got a breath weapon off on a careless bard who approached first and then one poorly rolled save (and one well rolled SR check) later, it was down with a bad case of the giggles. Even some buffed swordsage monks dropping down from above couldn't save that encounter.

    My party's sorc has taken to spamming Tasha's Hideous Laughter and assorted summons (largely Celestial Hippogriffs and assorted droppings from Bags of Tricks). Any suggestions for a good hard counter? They're not a particularly optimized party, but she's shut down some good boss fights this way. Some foes can get enhanced saves and the like, but outside of throwing up zones of silence around each fight, I'm not yet sure what to do about Tasha.
    Forgive my ignorance, but is Tasha the same as the SRD Hideous Laughter?

    If so, boosting will saves is a start: on RAW, if the opponent is of a different type to the caster (i.e. human vs. dragon) the target gets an automatic unspecified +4 to the saving throw, and untyped bonuses stack. Potions of Conviction help with saves across the board. Also, if the opponent's got an INT score of 2 or lower, it isn't affected. Bulettes are as close to mindless as you'll get, and they're ... sort of ... within CR, though they're really just big chunks of HP. Spellwarped template on a bulette aimed right at the party sorcerer might be kind of hilarious, but they're still big solo monsters.

    Other than that: it's not an easy solution because all the sorcerer has to do if the spell fails this round is cast it again next round. So you have to clown the spellcaster. Wall of Sand, as you might guess from my experiences, is so wonderfully vague in its SpC version it canes spellcasters and isn't a very high level spell. A thunderstone volley's another thought. Have your casters throw Silence spells directly on the caster -- yes, he gets a save, but if it gets up it locks him down nicely (unless he's got Silent Spell.)

    On summoned hippogriffs: Magic Circle Against Good. Hedges out summoned creatures, and it's nice and low level.

  25. - Top - End - #325
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Anyway, continuing the slow blog, my party's now pulled out of the stone lion and they're getting ready to go back in and confront the Ghostlord. I say "confront" because I really don't know if they're going to try and kill him, but Ulwai's fed them some lines that he's going to kill them when they give the phylactery back, so who knows.

    Couple of thoughts ahead of the fight, which have been incorporated into the Handbook, and which might have some impact:

    (1) You know what? It's really dumb to take on 8 PCs in a 15 x 15 (or 30 x 30 in my case) room, especially with no allies. So I'm moving into the central chamber with the pool and the 6 bonedrinkers (which they haven't killed yet.) I'm also getting a ghost dire lion to be there as well.

    (2) My previously mentioned tactic of Unhallow + Dispel Magic won't work as effectively as I thought. It doesn't blast buffs off round by round, it blasts one buff off when you enter the Unhallow zone, and does nothing else until you leave the zone and re-enter it.

    (3) Stinking Cloud is not on the druid spell list. Therefore, if upgrading to druid, pump the UMD and get a Wand if you're going with that. However: Wall of Sand is on the druid 6 list, which makes things much more interesting. As does a Lesser Metamagic Rod (Quicken), which I'm putting on mine.

    (4) Elephant Hide doesn't stack with the lich's +5 natural armor bonus, so it's actually only a net +2 to your AC. Hardly seems worth it for a feat slot.

    (5) Antilife Shell probably still works, but it's the most poorly-worded spell description in existence. The bloody spell needs a thread on its own just to figure out how the hell it actually works. But on my reading of it, it also makes Great and Small more or less useless, since you can't hit people from inside it.

    (6) Contrary to what the Druid's Handbook suggests, Initiate of Malar is not going to work with Greenbound Summoning, because Greenbound changes the creature type to plant. Initiate of Malar only works on animals. Thus, no free Augment Summoning for you. (On the other hand, any greenbound creature you summon has Wall of Thorns as a 1/day spell-like ability, which is awesome battlefield control almost as good as Wall of Sand.

    (7) Evolved Undead template!!! Especially given you can pile on a few of them!!!

    (8) Fell Drain + Spell Focus (Evocation) + Metamagic School Focus (Evocation) + Flame Strike, Thunderous Roar, Thunderhead, Produce Flame, Flaming Sphere ... the possibilities are endless, and only at +1 spell level slot rather than +2. Fell Drain Flame Strike in fifth level slots at a +1 DC! Fell Drain Produce Flame for ranged attacks at fourth level slots! Draining levels out of PCs ought to scare the hell out of them. Almost makes Area of Effect spells fun again. EDIT: Although I should point most orthodox character build methods (i.e. no flaws or traits) are probably not going to have three unused feats in 12 character levels to make this combo work. Adjust yours to suit.

    (9) If you wanted to leave him as a Blighter, you could ditch Natural Spell for the Ghostlord's build since it only amounts to this one fight. Yes, I know it's hobbling what's regularly chanted as 90% of the druid's best tricks, but this time is different due to the following:-

    Undead Wild Shape at best it raises DR from 15/bludgeoning and magic to DR 20/bludgeoning for the first 5 then bludgeoning and magic for the last 5. On a living blighter it might make some sense since the creature is still a living target and therefore is cured, not harmed, by positive energy.

    On an undead blighter getting into melee exposes him to touch attacks from anyone who's got a Healing Belt or, gods help us, a Wand of Cure of Light Wounds. And Touch AC for the Ghostlord is low mostly because his DEX sucks. Therefore, in my respectful view, if you're going blighter, or indeed druid, with this encounter you need to focus on summoning and blasting from behind Antilife Shell, maybe only going to paralysing when you've beaten down the melee types sufficiently.

    We'll see how it goes.

  26. - Top - End - #326
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2010

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

    @Saintheart pt 9: As Malevolence mentioned earlier, how will you deal with the Staff of Life from Vraath Keep?

  27. - Top - End - #327
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    It's in the hands of an NPC. If it starts to look like a TPK I'll consider whipping it out, but otherwise the party can't touch it and I think doesn't realise you can use Heal like Harm.

  28. - Top - End - #328
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    *banging head against wall*

    I've committed to a build, so I can't use it, but here's a revelation that might be useful to anyone running the Ghostlord and playing in Forgotten Realms (or indeed willing to import it): Node Magic. It's a brilliant casting solution for the Ghostlord and a great reason for why he hasn't gone anywhere in the past four hundred years or so.

    Node Magic is from Champions of Ruin. (Note this is not the Node Magic of Drow of the Underdark, that's connected to Earth Nodes, which CoR Node Magic is not.) Without expanding on it, it's basically "the energy of a certain place is bad. Really bad. So bad that evil spellcasters can draw on its power."

    Nodes have varying classes, from 1 upwards, and the strength of the node's power varies depending on how close you are to the heart of the node. There's no real indicators for how strong a given node should be, more just indicators that the power level increases the closer you are to the heart.

    Now, in that same book, take two feats: Node Spellcasting and Metanode Spell. Node Magic's more or less a wasted feat, it just allows you access to Metanode Spell. But quite possibly Metanode Magic makes it worth it, because it allows you, when using metamagic, to put the increased levels on the node.

    Let's say you want to Fell Drain a Flamestrike. If you're at the outermost ring of a Class 2 node, you can cast the Flamestrike out of its fourth level slot, with no increase to the spell level at all. This is basically free metamagic. And if you're willing to make the node a Class 6 node, you can Quicken and Fell Drain your spells at the same time, with the node taking the entire metamagic spell load that you'd otherwise have to prepare for. (You have to spend the feat slots to get the metamagic, of course, but given some of the more powerful metamagic requires no prerequisites, or one prerequisite, it might well be a good trade. Quickened summons are invaluable for spamming allies.)

    The drawback of Metanode Spell is that you can't use it outside the node ... but if you are the Ghostlord and you don't get out a lot anyway, who cares? This also explains why the Ghostlord hasn't rampaged over the Vale: because he's at his most powerful in the node, nowhere else, so why would he leave for anything other than grabbing the odd lion?

    Additionally, most players won't be investing feats in Node Spellcasting or Metanode Spell, and thus they usually won't be able to draw off the node's power that easily.

    (Note also that Ulwai or the hobgoblin spellcasters can benefit from this: I haven't looked into it comprehensively, and I'm AFB, but an evil spellcaster who's inside the node -- even if they haven't got Node Spellcasting -- can still pump the CL of their spells by +2 or so on an INT check. That's insanely useful at these levels.)

    If you want to invest even more feats down this line, Node Store allows you to keep up to two spells of any level you know in storage, so the node casts them for you as if they were part of your normal magazine. Hello, two extra level 6 spells for nothing!

    So: recast the stone lion as carved from the ridge itself, not a freestanding statue. Declare the stone lion a class 6 node with its outermost layer including the Heart of the Lion (works thematically, especially given PCs can't move the Heart from the stone lion) re-feat the Ghostlord as a node spellcaster, and away you go.

  29. - Top - End - #329
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

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

    Well, after reading further into node magic, I've decided to make the stone lion a Class 3 node anyway and retcon as needed. The benefits are just too good to ignore for a fixed-position spellcaster like the Ghostlord.

    It's not just the free metamagic.
    It's also not just the addition to ECL you can add to your spells with a Spellcraft check.
    If anything, it's the fact a class 3 node grants 3 spells of 3rd level or lower to an evil caster who's got Node Spellcasting.
    Any three spells that you, as the DM, choose the node to have. Yes, they have to be thematically linked, but otherwise...holy hell.

    This is the RAW-abuse form of Extra Spell times three. If I've read this right, your druid can suddenly cast stuff like Glitterdust, Heroics, or, hell, Grease by virtue of it being granted by the node.

    I also found Sanctum Spell, which for the Ghostlord is basically Spell Focus (Everything). I lose Augment Summoning and Metamagic School Focus (Evocation), but the former is a +1 to attack and 10 hitpoints per summoned creature and the latter a discount on metamagic. With a class 3 node, all my Fell Drains are free. Fell Drained Flame Strike in its original fourth level slot, hell, why wouldn't I?

  30. - Top - End - #330
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Jenison, Michigan, USA
    Gender
    Male

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Out of interest, and totally up to you, but would you mind throwing in some scrawlings on doing RHOD in Pathfinder? I'd like to add that to the "other settings" section of the guide, and I'm utterly ignorant of PF...?
    Sure, I'd be happy to do so! I was considering doing a PFRPG/RHoD guide at the Paizo forums, but really, their messageboards are pretty lousy as far as formatting of posts goes. I've got all the Wyrmlords worked up, and am starting to do some work on other NPCs, then will muck with treasures. I might wait on doing more character work until the just-released Ultimate Combat is available from Hero Lab, since that's the last big Pathfinder hardcover my players would use extensively.

    Node Magic sounds sweet. If the spells available have to be thematically linked, and you want to have them fit with the Thornwaste badlands where the lion fortress is located, you could work in Wall of Sand (is it 3rd or lower?), maybe Fireball, perhaps some enervation or dessication-related spells?

    I can see why you'll really want to buff him up, given that he's going against an 8-person party. Looking forward to hearing how it goes! As I prep for the game, the scene with the Ghostlord is one that stands out really clearly in my mind.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •