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

[Saintheart]

Thiago, what I think he's talking about is the extent to which fluff and crunch might have to be changed. The overall plot structure of RHOD is beautifully flexible in that it builds nicely in intensity from beginning to end, but putting it in Krynn is going to take a bit more retrofitting than, say, an Eberron version might be.

As to a time period, all I can think of off the top of my head is that you put it roughly around the time of the War of the Lance, but either stick it somewhere utterly meaningless like Kendermore (where you'd surely be running it mostly for the laughs) or you just flick it to another continent entirely - Taladas?

[ThiagoMartell]

But that's what I meant, Saintheart. Red Hand of Doom basically follows the Dragonlance premise anyway, so you just throw it at some corner and let it roll.

[Saintheart]

Sounds good.

In other news, I'll be back soon-ish with some discussion on pesky parties that decide to try and take the fight to the Red Hand ahead of the Battle of Brindol

[sincerely]

I just found this guide yesterday. I'm running a pathfinder game in a homebrew setting, and I haven't really changed anything major yet, besides updating the NPCs to PF and making a few of them tougher.

The party is fairly optimized.
Sylph (formerly Tiefling) Witch (control/back up heals)
Human Rogue/Wizard/Arcane Trickster (strikes)
Dwarf fighter (tank)
Half-elf ditz/flame-mystery Oracle (more strikes) who likes to spam fireballs at the expense of healing anyone, including herself.

They were doing alright until last session. They'd been pretty much wiping the floor with everything and I hadn't really implemented anything to change that yet. They let Koth escape, but took out Ozy, then boated up to the fens. They just massively screwed up when they assaulted Rhest, or more specifically when they left.

Trellara went with them to the ruins and saved their asses from Nurklenak (but he still escaped and stole the Witch's extremely thorough journal for a little light reading). They waited until Reggie and Saarvith were out hunting and then blew their entire load on the assault. They quickly looted the place and then ran (I put the fear of god into them the last time they fought a black dragon underneath the Forge of Fury), but they didn't look at anything they looted and they didn't go after Reggie's hoard because they were afraid it might be guarded by more razorfiends.

I'm not sure if they assumed that Reggie and Saarvith would just sit around waiting for them to come back or if they didn't care. They went back to the ruins the next day and found that the dragon had looted everything they hadn't (they'd destroyed all of the eggs that were visible from the surface of the water, but hadn't even bothered looking for more, so Saarvith ran off with at least half of the eggs intact).

Two days later, as they're getting ready to leave--having told the elves that they were victorious (not enough alliance points to get owls, which I'm glad for 'cause making them walk around will eat up some time)--they finally opened the delicate-looking wood and silver box and realized how badly they ****ed up. Well the witch realized and then explained to everybody else.

I think their plan now is to continue on to Brindol to research liches and figure out how to take out a lich without taking out his phylactery first (they gave up on the thought of stealing it back when they realized that the dragon had a two day and 120 fly speed head start on them).

I hadn't realized how loosy-goosy the timeline was until now, 'cause as it is, the Red Hand just left Drellin's Ferry yesterday. The party sent plenty of word ahead of them, so I'm thinking about having the Audience with the Lords basically as soon as they get to Brindol so that the PCs have plenty of time to figure out how they're going to deal with ALL of the Wyrmlords + Ghostlord walking up for the final fight. though they might still make an attempt on the Ghostlord and possibly take out Ulwai (but I took this guide's advice and leveled her up--I couldn't NOT give her dimension door!) and Varanthian out before it's too late. They're tough, but are they THAT tough?

I definitely want to try to fix the lame tactical options in the audience sequence...

I kind of like their failure, though. They're definitely going to see the repercussions of their screw ups at least. I think they've gotten very laissez faire about consequences and this should be a decent wakeup call (but hopefully not a TPK).

I'm also planning on having Reggie be in the final fight with Saarvith, 'cause they feel like a unit. I figure the two of them will run away to the Fane like little girls if either one of them gets moderately hurt.

Speaking of which, I turned Tyrgarun into a gold dragon because I want Azarr Kul to be fireproof. I'm planning on reusing him as the BBEG from Lord of the Iron Fortress after a certain Pit Fiend resurrects him. I picked gold instead of red because I'm gonna run them against Ashardalon as the final boss and I wanted a bit of variety. Plus, I think my players will piss themselves if they have to fight an evil gold dragon.

Somebody on here suggested having the dark dwarves from Forge of Fury be supplying the Red Hand, and I am punching myself for not having thought of that now.

[Darthteej]

Little useful bit of advice to all DMs running the campaign that I saw a while back in the thread: USE FLOWCHARTS.

Vrath Keep, Rhest, and The Ghostlord's Lair all have a number of enemies with complicated and variable tactics, and each of them might or might not react in a certain way depending on whether they're alerted. Building a flowchart of who does what and why will be a major assist in running those dungeons.

BTW Saintheart, can I post my own "running RHoD" in Pathfinder for use in the handbook?

[Saintheart]

Little useful bit of advice to all DMs running the campaign that I saw a while back in the thread: USE FLOWCHARTS.

Vrath Keep, Rhest, and The Ghostlord's Lair all have a number of enemies with complicated and variable tactics, and each of them might or might not react in a certain way depending on whether they're alerted. Building a flowchart of who does what and why will be a major assist in running those dungeons.

BTW Saintheart, can I post my own "running RHoD" in Pathfinder for use in the handbook?

You mean a separate handbook for Pathfinder RHOD? Sure, I don't mind, and it's not like I could stop you even if I wanted to I'll just link to it in the front page of this Handbook.

I hadn't realized how loosy-goosy the timeline was until now, 'cause as it is, the Red Hand just left Drellin's Ferry yesterday. The party sent plenty of word ahead of them, so I'm thinking about having the Audience with the Lords basically as soon as they get to Brindol so that the PCs have plenty of time to figure out how they're going to deal with ALL of the Wyrmlords + Ghostlord walking up for the final fight. though they might still make an attempt on the Ghostlord and possibly take out Ulwai (but I took this guide's advice and leveled her up--I couldn't NOT give her dimension door!) and Varanthian out before it's too late. They're tough, but are they THAT tough?

I definitely want to try to fix the lame tactical options in the audience sequence...

I kind of like their failure, though. They're definitely going to see the repercussions of their screw ups at least. I think they've gotten very laissez faire about consequences and this should be a decent wakeup call (but hopefully not a TPK).

I'm also planning on having Reggie be in the final fight with Saarvith, 'cause they feel like a unit. I figure the two of them will run away to the Fane like little girls if either one of them gets moderately hurt.

Putting Reggie in the final fight's going to be a powerful addition, particularly if they have to deal with all of the Wyrmlords at once. When you put the Wyrmlords together they form a not-bad sort of party: sorcerer + ranger + bard + meatshield (at least, on default builds). And that's before you account for the Ghostlord and the four or so giants who are also in that encounter.

[shaddy_24]

It might be an idea to give Saarvith another mount for that fight. A mantacore or maybe a big wolf of some variety. Much weaker than the dragon, but lets him take advantage of his mounted combat abilities.

[Runestar]

It might be an idea to give Saarvith another mount for that fight. A mantacore or maybe a big wolf of some variety. Much weaker than the dragon, but lets him take advantage of his mounted combat abilities.

As a ranger, he gets an animal companion, but that's probably too weak to be of any help against the pcs.

What if he were to use the black dragon as his mount?

[Saintheart]

As a ranger, he gets an animal companion, but that's probably too weak to be of any help against the pcs.

What if he were to use the black dragon as his mount?

Depends how you build him. Saarvith using the black dragon as his mount necessitates him having the Ride skill at least. But the problem with Saarvith is that he's meant to do credible damage as an archer, which is damn hard to pull using only 7 levels in D&D and goblin as your starting race.

Saarvith as written is not optimised for mounted combat, for a start. One of the Saarvith builds in the Handbook is meant to address some of those issues. But mounted archery's hard to make decent at the best of times, mainly because WOTC has ruled that a mount's movement doesn't count for triggering a Scout's skirmish feature.

The trick to doing damage as an archer is similar to the trick with rogues: you have to try and trigger as many chances for bonus d6s of damage on each shot since archers can't Power Attack and can't add STR to their damage rolls as a rule. This is easier with Scout in the build. The only other way to build it is to do an appalling amount of damage or debuff with one shot, which would be easier with a poisoning build, or ranger as we're stuck with here.

The animal companion is pointless either at Rhest or at Brindol. Swap it out for the Distracting Shot ACF - that way you can sort-of melee buff your allies with an auto-flank.

The other thing to consider is whether, by the time of the Battle of Brindol, you pump a couple of extra levels on Wyrmlords the party's already met or missed. By the battle, the party's getting on towards level 9 or 10, which means 5th level spells: the geometric progression of power has already begun in a substantive way, so much so that your party might well be able to bulldoze previously-threatening types like Koth/Saarvith/Ulwai. On the other hand, maybe you'd prefer to not build them better and thus give the party a better sense of its power increasing.

[shaddy_24]

So, I'm running RHoD in Eberron, and I figured I'd put in one quick thing I thought of before I start my own campaign journal. I figured I'd explain the surplus of vendor trash magic items the Red Hand has by having them rob a House Cannith warehouse. Tyrgaren, a few of the other dragons and elite units broke in and stole a whole bunch of low level weapons, armour, scrolls, potions and just to round things off, a few golems that I'll throw at the party later on. This also served as a plot hook for two of the party members, as they were hired by Cannith to go and try to find where these items went. It'll give the party someone to hand these items off to, and a possible way for them to send requests for specific or unusual items when they get a fair amount of money.

[shizukanashi]

Wow Saintheart! This is an awesome guide, thank you for compiling it, and my thanks as well to all the hard work everybody has put into contributions. It is actually the reason I have decided to join the forums here rather than just lurking and reading OotS.

I have run RHoD twice before once as 3.5 in 2007 when I first got it and once as a 4e conversion. As of Wednesday Jan 16th I will be running it again as a Pathfinder campaign with 4 players and then I will go right into a Scales of War (hopefully by April or May) Campaign with the same players as well as some others that will joining at that time. I have still not decided if I will run Scales as 4E or convert to Pathfinder as well. It depends on how RHoD goes I guess.

My plan is to set Scales of War 50 years after RHoD and use my logs as history, hopefully I can convince my return players to play decendants of thier original characters. I am hoping to have completed both of these campaigns by Jan 16th of next year...A bit ambitious but I plan on playing weekly for about 4-6 hour sessions.

I will be using your guide extensively, and leave feedback as issues arive. As of right now I am pretty sure my Players will be right out of the Pathfinder core book, so I am going to run it pretty close to standard, unless things get to easy (pathfinder PCs being slightly better than their 3.5 conterparts)

[Saintheart]

Most welcome, shizukanashi, and I hope it's of assistance. Look forward to feedback from you anytime!

[ksbsnowowl]

If they leave the lair, will there be a ghost Varanthian? Ghostlord would love a new minion.

When I played RHoD back in '06, my DM did something similar. Varanthian has 10 HD, which is just low enough to turn her into a 20-HD Zombie...

[ksbsnowowl]

Yeah, no dragons, no goblinoids, no looting. You're going to change so much that it either ain't RHoD or it ain't Rokugan.

It can be done. I just finished running an adaptation of RHoD in a viking-themed setting, and I replaced the entire goblinoid army with Tanarukk (reflavored as being demon-infused trolls rather than orcs), and I replaced all the dragons with demons and half-fiends.

Use a few different of the shadowlands Oni, along with maybe the half-dragon template, and I think you could build a pretty good campaign around it.

[shaddy_24]

It can be done. I just finished running an adaptation of RHoD in a viking-themed setting, and I replaced the entire goblinoid army with Tanarukk (reflavored as being demon-infused trolls rather than orcs), and I replaced all the dragons with demons and half-fiends.

Use a few different of the shadowlands Oni, along with maybe the half-dragon template, and I think you could build a pretty good campaign around it.

I can see using Oni of some kind to replace the dragons. They're comparable, not quite the setting specific equivalents, but cover the same sort of roll. It would play very different, but you could use the same storyline.

[ACSherman]

First off, I just wanted to thank Saintheart for this guide. I've wanted to run this campaign ever since finding it, and now that one of my players bought me the book for Christmas, I've been running it this semester. We're about to begin our third session, and we've enjoyed every minute of it.

Unfortunately, my players have run into a bit of a snag. Our party is:
-True-neutral Aasimar Favored Soul. who's fairly unoptimized and focuses on summoning and healing.
-Neutral Good Tiefling Factotum. focused on knowledge and sneakery.
-Chaotic Neutral Jaebrin Warlock much more optimized than the rest of the party
-Lawful Evil Silverbrow Human Hexblade weilding a halberd and harpoons; the "Hexicutioner"
-Chaotic Neutral Human Duskblade weilding double-handaxes with TWF and Two Weapon Defense
-Neutral Good Human Bard fairly optimized for melee and songs over magic (arcane strike, snowflake wardance, etc.) He's one level above the rest of the party.

At Drellin's Ferry, the players asked for Norro's help in lending an merchant wagon. Our warlock's plan was to have them drive around in the caravan in order to 'counter-ambush' any marauders that thought they'd attack the wagon under the assumption that it was a merchant vehicle. All-in-all, it was not a bad plan.

When they got to the causeway, however, they ran into a problem. As most of the party was in the back of the wagon, only 2 spot checks were able to be made and neither saw the hydra. The duskblade and the warlock went to check out the submerged wagon, and ended up getting ambushed by the hydra. The players aren't too big on metagame, so they didn't realize they could take it, and none of them rolled a good enough Knowledge Nature check to identify it. So the factotum cast darkness from the wagon and started handling the horse and using ride checks to make sure they could get out as easily as possible.

Unfortunatly, none of the guys in the darkness could see through it. They ran out, missing the treasure in the wagon along the way (the warlock reached back in in the darkness to try to grab the Adamantine Axe I had inside, but failed a % check and grabbed a bone from the skeleton instead. He's decided to keep it and try to get it made into a warlock's scepter. Cheeky little bastard, but his player's my roommate, so what can I do?). They all hopped back in the wagon and were able to escape.

The problem comes from their escape and their following from the hydra:
-The party's wagon moves at the same speed as the hydra does, so it's a pretty even chase.
-The party in the caravan doesn't have enough ranged firepower to take out the hydra while it follows them, but the warlock is fairly content to keep on firing until the hydra goes down. They don't know about its regeneration, so this is never going to end. The only other characters with ranged capability are the bard (bought the +1 arrows in Drellin's Ferry for his masterwork longbow) and the factotum, who weilds a cutlass with a wand chamber installed with a wand of Magic Missile (I forget the exact level, but the one with 3 missiles). I'm aware that this will become a problem when they start dealing with dragons, but I'm hoping their initial encounter with one will be enough for them to start picking up wands/scrolls/spells to help them combat this. I'm hoping to invoke the "RHOD Arms Race" on my party for good.
-Our bard has an instrument that allows the party to continue travelling without getting tired indefinitely. This was given to him as a handwave during a weird campaign we did last year, but is kind of biting me in the ass. It doesn't reduce the need of sleep or anything like that, however. It was just to help us not have to keep track of fatigue before. All in all, I don't think it's too big of a deal. Unfortunately, this means that the hydra and the horses can run until they get to Varaath Keep in our next session.

The next session is the attack on Varaath Keep, and I'm not sure how to run it. I've played the hydra as too stupid and too angry to not give in to the provocation of the warlock keeping it on their tail, and my players have kinda tapped into the fact that, by leaving off with a party with a hydra on their backs, next session will most likely be them charging into Varaath Keep with a 'pet' hydra in tow, causing mayhem and destruction. This is gonna turn the fight at Varaath Keep into a 3-way battle between the hobgoblin forces/Koth/the Minotaur, the party, and the Hydra.

I'm thinking about restatting Koth as the Fire Dragonspawn thing from MMIV, just to give it a little more literal firepower for the fight, seeing as a hydra will be present.

Is this a good idea? And is there any other advice you can give me?

[ka_bna]

First of all ACSherman, thanks for the good story
As for advice, why will the hydra follow the party indefinitely? Unless he is extremely starved, he will simply give up his prey and return to his native "home". After all, the hydra has 10 Wis, so he'll know by instinct that he is disadvantaged in other terrain than his marsh and that he'll have plenty chances for good food... perhaps even an abundance of hobbo's?

[ACSherman]

First of all ACSherman, thanks for the good story
As for advice, why will the hydra follow the party indefinitely? Unless he is extremely starved, he will simply give up his prey and return to his native "home". After all, the hydra has 10 Wis, so he'll know by instinct that he is disadvantaged in other terrain than his marsh and that he'll have plenty chances for good food... perhaps even an abundance of hobbo's?

I was reading it more as a creature with 2 Int, so he'd be dumb enough to stay mad at the creature that keeps 'poking' him with eldrich blasts, especially when it's so close and taunting him.

[ACSherman]

Sorry about the double post, but I'm a bit worried about the Skull Gorge Bridge fight. The party doesn't have much in the way of ranged combat skills or arcane magic. They have some semi-magical characters, but not much that would be good fighting dragons. The players also don't KNOW that dragons are going to be playing a major role, but I'd assume that they'd assume, seeing as Tiamat is in play.

Does anyone have much experience with a party that doesn't have many ranged or magical options in RHOD? I'm a much more knowledgeable DM than they are knowledgeable players, so they're not too optimized, and I don't want that to lead to a TPK, especially running things from the book. Any advice?

I've been thinking about modifying the Dragons to the "Dragons of the Great Game" in MMIV or V in order to compensate for the lack of magic. I understand that my players have not prepared for these magical assaults, and I don't want to hold back during the hobgoblin hoards with magic. I just realize that a lot of bosses here are creatures they're utterly unprepared for, simply by character choice. The whole party likes their characters, and I'd hate to wipe them out just because they chose fairly unoptimized choices.

[Kuulvheysoon]

While Xorvintaal is pretty decent depower for a Dragon, a few of the abilities can still wreck unprepared parties.

I'd warn you about the consequent lack of scintillating scales (given as you have a moderately optimized warlock), but UMD is a class skill for Dragon RHD.

[Rogue Shadows]

Skull Gorge Bridge is going interestingly for my players. We had to break off the session at the following cliffhanger:

THE PARTY (Pathfinder classes all around for the most part, at level 7)
- Half-orc Paladin: Fell off the bridge when it was destroyed, but survived the fall and is currently standing at the bottom of Skull Gorge
- Elf Bard: Unconscious and at -5 hp; SEE Ozyrrandion
- Elf Evoker: hiding behind a tower
- Human Samurai: 15 hp left
- Human Monk: 14 hp left

THE BAD GUYS
- The Bridge: destroyed thanks to a well-placed usage of a bard spell.
- Hobgoblins: Mostly dead, save two archers on the other side of the bridge, neither of which have a real chance of hitting the heroes save on a natural 20.
- The Horde: one hobgoblin has escaped on horseback to warn the Horde that the bridge is out. This is Day 5 of the campaign.
- Ozzyrandion: Alive, but only has 37 hit points, and is currently dangling the party bard over the edge of the cliff. The bard will not survive the fall, obviously, since he only has -5 hp.
- Wyrmlord Koth: Survived the attack on Vraath Keep and fled here earlier. Has barely begun to fight and is flying.

So, yeah, basically what happened was the bridge was destroyed and the paladin somehow survived the fall, but most of the hobgoblins didn't. Wyrmlord Koth sent off a hobgoblin to warn the Horde while staying behind to fight the PCs with Ozyrrandion's help. Ozyrrandion, as per RHoD recommendations, drank his potion of invisibility, got behind the party, and Bull Rushed the Bard, the Bard being the most convenient Bull Rush target. The Samurai, at the Bard's urging, made an Attack of Opportunity at Ozzy, and even scored a critical...but, as per Bull Rush's rules, he had a 25% chance of hitting the bard instead...and he did. So basically it's the samurai's fault that the bard is at -5 and dying.

Ozzy didn't actually bull rush the bard off the cliff, though: the Samurai and the Monk both got attacks in on him, and each connected, lowering his hp from 70something to its current 37. Meanwhile, Koth had been stunned due to a Bard spell and was injured by the Paladin's bow from the bottom of Skull Gorge, but he's unstunned now.

Ozzyrandion knows that he probably can't win this fight if it's a straight slug match, but he doesn't want to flee, either. So, he grabbed the dying bard, and is currently holding him out over the edge of Skull Gorge as a hostage.

The session ended there.

...okay, I know as a DM I shouldn't really be taking any kind of joy from this situation...but I am.

As far as giving away the "game" of it being about dragons too early? That's kind of obvious in any event. The Marauder Attack -- the first encounter of the adventure -- has a cleric with a holy symbol of Tiamat, and if your hobgoblins aren't shouting to the Five Chromatic Glories or something as they run in to die, you're doing something wrong

Well, in my campaign world, there isn't a Tiamat, or even a goddess of dragons. So the Red Hand is instead oriented around Scrylia, the Goddess of Conquest. They still like dragons, although I've changed Abithriax to be a Young Adult Brass dragon rather than a Juvenile Red.

I've also started dropping hints, though, that this whole thing is a "game" being played between Scrylia and The Lady - that is, Lady Luck, the Goddess of Fortune and one of the two most powerful gods in my pantheon, alongside Lord Fate. Basically Azar Kul and the Wyrmlords are Scrylia's champions, and the PCs are the Lady's champions. Every thousand years, all the gods get together and basically play Celestial Poker, betting their Divine Ranks in great contests between each other, the contests being played out in the mortal world by mortal champions. They can bet as many or as few Divine Ranks as they like, but the more they bet, the more they can take away and the more favors they can grant to their champions.

Scrylia is kind of in deep. Most of her Divine Ranks are in the pot right now, but the potential reward right now, if Azar Kul triumphs, is that she'll get a huge number of Divine Ranks from the Lady - enough to become an overdeity.

[MandibleBones]

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't managed to read through the entire thread yet (working on it). But I do have a question I could use some help with.

As you might know, I'm running a Red Hand of Doom campaign set in Equestria. This raises the interesting problem of a full 1/3 of the population having constant flight of varying degrees, including at least one member of the party.

Any quick suggestions to account for this? I've managed to keep the one pegasus in our party from playing messenger pony across the Vale by giving the hordes some air support in the form of goblin mounted archers on half-dragon Hell Hounds (and I've gotten miles and miles out of the napalm hound idea, incidentally), but once she's capable of soloing a party of them, that becomes less of a plan.

Not to mention that, as I expect they will, the party befriends the Tiri Kitor and gets their owls, I fully expect most outdoor combats to have an aerial component.

... and yes, I've realized I should have accounted for this well before I started running the campaign. Thankfully they're not even to the Witchwood yet, so I've got a bit of time.

[Rogue Shadows]

As you might know, I'm running a Red Hand of Doom campaign set in Equestria.

...

****ing.

EPIC.

Any quick suggestions to account for this?

Well, the obvious solution is to change the makeup of the horde to include a sizable number of dedicated fliers on its own: Griffins, hippogriffs, etc. Thus the pegasus party member could fly across the Vale/Dream Valley willy-nilly, but he runs the risk of running into a Red Hand (Hoof? Claw?) scout/raiding party of fliers and being overwhelmed.

Heck, throw in some younger dragons as well. Basically make overland flight dangerous enough that the party pegasus won't want to do it on his own.

[MandibleBones]

Heck, throw in some younger dragons as well. Basically make overland flight dangerous enough that the party pegasus won't want to do it on his own.

Her own. And that's where we're at now. As for other encounters, I think I'm going to see how the party handles Skull Gorge (upgraded for them being optimized, of level 6, and there being six of them, of course) before I tweak it too much. Meteor's not all that great a flyer yet.

The Battle for Bridle, on the other hand, is going to need other encounters to account for air support on both sides. I think establishing air superiority is going to be its own encounter series, especially with Hello My Name Is Strafing Run I Am A Red Dragon flapping around.

Griffons are actually not available as antagonists just yet for setting reasons (and for adaptation reasons: they're replacing the dwarves, so either they sit out of this or they get recruited, depending on the PCs). But you're right, there's plenty of other flying creatures, from the Draconomicon alone. Once the dragonspawn are revealed, too, I can use those for air support.

Notes so far:

On Setting Adaptation:

1. Where is the Elsir Vale? I put it at the westernmost edge of Equestria, fiat-ed the plains of Zebrica to replace the Endless Plains, made everyting west of the Old North Road and south of The Endless Plains Zebrica “Dragon Lands” (including the Thornwaste), and made a note that the Wyvernwatch Mountains are home to the southern griffon tribes. The city of Brindle becomes Bridle, the city of Dennovar becomes Stalliongrad, and the rest of the towns keep their names.

2. The ponies of the vale are used to dragons existing, but they never seem to come down from the Wyrmsmokes (until the events of Red Hand of Doom). These “hobgoblins” are totally new to them, however: creatures out of myth and legend from pre-Discordian times.

3. My party was starting out from Bridle (Brindol), so they were a little more familiar with it to start with. Some of them lived in the city prior to the events of the Red Hand, so they know the basics of the citizenry. I use a wiki to keep track of things; it helps my players as well.

On Statistics

1. Initially made the mistake of taking the cover at face value; all my PCs start at 6, and there are 6 of them. Adaptation is obviously required.

2. I wanted to see how the PCs handled combat together before tweaking too much. Uth-Larr got boosted to be a Spellscourge (MMV), and the cleric remained a cleric, though I gave Zarr level 6 and the Law and Trickery. I took the advice from this thread, made the hell hounds draconic, and swapped out some feat to make them Napalm Hounds. The regulars got to be Fighter 1s instead of Warrior 2s; I gave them max HP. Two of them got Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot and did some fairly decent damage with their longbow (one of them critted); the other four got Power Attack and Weapon Focus: Longsword.

• The melee hobs got killed / knocked out pretty quickly; the archers were further back and managed to retreat behind Uth-Larr once he came out. Napalm Hounds got to deal some damage before getting cut to ribbons by the barbarian. Zarr managed to hit the NG Magical Girl and the CG Barbarian with a scroll-based Word of Law from under Invisibility, which wasn't terribly fun for them.
• Turns out my party is also fairly optimized, and while it was a good fight, the party won it pretty handily despite it being EL8.
• Because the party has a Magical Girl, they took one of the regulars and Uth-Larr alive. I've been having a great deal of fun running Kerak (the name I gave the regular) and fanatic Uth-Larr as Shining Hope tries to make friends with them. It's not going so well, but at least they're locked up in Drellin's Ferry now.

3. On the Witchwood: I'ma give that hydra more heads. Hydras love heads. Action-economy being what it is, I figure aiming for a higher CR is better than a lower one, so an 8- 10-headed cryohydra is headed the party's way. I actually think this is going to be a ridiculous challenge. Edit: Actually, a cryohydra would kill them outright. A 24d6 (reflex half) breath weapon as a CR9? Really? But an 8-headed hydra is... underwhelming without the scary breath weapon, even with Fast Healing and regenerating heads. A ten-headed is an attack for everybody and two for four of them, so this should go well.

[Rogue Shadows]

Interestingly I had the opposite problem with the hydra...I was certain that none of my players could possibly take it, as they simply don't deal enough damage to get past the fast healing, and aren't very good at sundering. So I replaced it with a chuul.

Naturally, the chuul nearly killed them. But, at least I learned that they're super-vulnerable to grappling.

Interesting question you'll probably want to resolve RE: Dragons...why are the dragons doing this? The dragons we've seen in FiM seem to be ornery but not exactly hostile. There were thousands of them that were part of the migration, but they left the pony lands beneath them alone. Red from "Dragonshy" just mostly wanted to sleep and used only smoke, trying to scare the ponies away and not really looking like he was intending on harming them seriously (knocking them around, maybe, but not kill them), and Green from "Owl's Well that Ends Well" was defending his cave from a rival dragon (Spike), and otherwise had probably lived in the region for years without hurting anyone.

And, of course, there's Steven Magnet, who's probably a dragon. For a certain value of "dragon."

Point being that you'll probably need to come up with a good reason for dragons to be attacking Equestria, as they don't really seem interested in doing such in the show.

As for the hobgoblins...I'm guessing, they're coming in through a portal? From Golarion, perhaps? After all Golarion apparently has a connection to Great War Russia...

[MandibleBones]

Interestingly I had the opposite problem with the hydra...I was certain that none of my players could possibly take it, as they simply don't deal enough damage to get past the fast healing, and aren't very good at sundering. So I replaced it with a chuul.

I have an angry barbarian who, in the Marauder Attack encounter, would have one-shotted Uth-Larr the Spellscourge had I not switched out his feats to be a tripper. The pegasus is no slouch on the damage front herself. But yeah, they can't kill it fast enough for me to give it a breath weapon that can literally TPK the party (on a failed save for some, on a successful save for at least one of them, though thankfully she has Evasion and that's not an issue) every 1d4 rounds.

Interesting question you'll probably want to resolve RE: Dragons...why are the dragons doing this? The dragons we've seen in FiM seem to be ornery but not exactly hostile.

You're right. This is actually one of the reasons I'm not including any dragons except the ones written into the module: these are either devout followers of Tiamat thinking that they're working her will, or they've been heavily bribed. Azarr Kul is not doing this for Tiamatic reasons, but she's cautiously backing the Son of the Dragon just as Celestia and Luna are backing the ponies. There's a hidden hand behind this, playing a game of "Let's You And Him Fight" between Tiamat and Celestia to weaken them both — Luna's the only one who's really noticed, and that will come into play around the time of the Battle for Bridle.

And, of course, there's Steven Magnet, who's probably a dragon. For a certain value of "dragon."

"Mustachioed Sea Serpent" needs to be a dragon type. It probably is, somewhere. Regardless, he's Sir Not Appearing In This Campaign because it's not set near Ponyville or the Everfree (unless the PCs fail, at which point the Horde overruns Stalliongrad and we move into Equestria proper).

As for the hobgoblins...I'm guessing, they're coming in through a portal? From Golarion, perhaps? After all Golarion apparently has a connection to Great War Russia...

I've thrown into the canon that goblin races were stories told to colts and fillies to scare them as young ponies, and were probably based of real events that happened long before the first Hearth's Warming. The long Ice Age drove them to build mighty colonies underground in dragon lands, and Discord kept them there (a horde of lawful creatures messes with his chaos). Over time, Equestria forgot about them. Now, under Kul's leadership and with the shadowy influence of a sinister figure in the background, they've emerged out of cavern and myth to claim what they see as theirs.

[Carth]

Here's an amusing scenario. How would you handle a party that used their staff of life to resurrect the adult bronze dragon in the barracks of the horde's lair?

[Rogue Shadows]

Here's an amusing scenario. How would you handle a party that used their staff of life to resurrect the adult bronze dragon in the barracks of the horde's lair?

Well, by the time they get that far they're in Final Boss Mode anyway. So...I dunno, probably I'd have it be grateful, eager for revenge against the Hand, and willing to aid the heroes if that is their goal. Then just throw something in to make Azar Kul more challenging...maybe a cornugon, or else just raise Azar Kul's level, or something.

Alternatively, have him come back to life...and then we learn that HE was the fifth dragon, but was ornery and wanted to run the Horde and so the other dragons and Kul had to kill him and get the behir instead. When he comes back, he just wants to kill him some adventures and then get revenge on Kul.

Or a combination of the two.

[MandibleBones]

Here's an amusing scenario. How would you handle a party that used their staff of life to resurrect the adult bronze dragon in the barracks of the horde's lair?

I'd consider it a party member and adjust their XP gain accordingly. Also I'd be thrilled they didn't just use it to one-shot the Ghostlord :-)

[Saintheart]

Quick post just to say I'm still watching, working, etc -- and loving the adaptation to Equestria. Very strongly considering that one going in the Handbook because AWESOME.