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

[Sir Cirdan]

I'm going to warn my party explicitly that they won't get a chance to rest until after the battle, which might be after a lot of combat, so to play their cards with care. Even so, I'm a little worried about them blowing all their resources by the end of Streets of blood, and then being out of spells and smite evils etc when General Kharn shows up.

[thorr-kan]

I'm going to warn my party explicitly that they won't get a chance to rest until after the battle, which might be after a lot of combat, so to play their cards with care. Even so, I'm a little worried about them blowing all their resources by the end of Streets of blood, and then being out of spells and smite evils etc when General Kharn shows up.

That's the whole point of the Battle of Brindol: epic, continual combat in the face of an overwhelming enemy while defending civilians.

If your players don't feel like the Autobots in Autobot City just before Optimus Prime shows up in Trasformers: The Movie, IMHO, you're doing it wrong.

(Yes, I just date myself there.)

[Golden Ladybug]

So, I just ran Skull Gorge Bridge for my party. It could've gone better for them...

Two-weeks ago, when I ran Vraath Keep, it became clear that they were pretty far above what their opposition could field against them. So, with that in mind, I made a couple of tweaks to the battle to make it a bit more challenging for my Players. This is what I did;

• I rebuilt the Veterans to be either a dedicated Archer or a Longspear Specialist
• I increased the number of Archers by four, putting an additional archer in each tower
• I increased the number of Veterans by 4, placing these on the near side and the remainder on the far side
• I bumped Ozzy up to Juvenile. He is also carrying his potions, rather than leaving them in his nest.
• I added two additional Draconic Hellhounds
• I gave each Archer 10 Dragonsbreath Arrows (Races of the Wild)

A fairly hefty increase in challenge, but keep in mind that I'm running RHoD for eight players, the vast majority of which are quite competent optimisers. I was confident that they would be able to win this fight, if they played it smart and rolled well. I knew it was going to be tough, but they had all the resources they needed to overcome it*

So, the fight opened with the Party buffing up for battle, hidden from view by the last bits of woodland. Extended Haste on everything, with the Druid starting up an SNAII to summon two Giant Centipedes (???), the Gunslinger applying some Oil of Silence to her Musket. Then the Gunslinger opened fire on one of the Hellhounds; three misses. The Hellhounds start to realise something is up, and stand up. Then the Centipedes appear, and start eating one of the unprepared Hobgoblins. His buddy shouts out to raise the Alarm.

Okay, so that could've gone better.

From then on, the party begin to slowly advance out of the woodland and start forging a path outwards. The Magus pushes out quickly, relying on his very high AC (29 fully buffed) to keep him safe. It does, and he starts dispatching Hobgoblins. The others start pushing up slowly, but they're stopped cold when the nearest Hellhounds reach them. They begin to fight, just outside the Witchwoods themselves.

Ozzy has taken flight, and with Shape Breath he manages to snipe the Rogue and the Alchemist with his Entangling Breath Weapon. He takes a huge hit from the Wizard, dropping him to half health (DFI+Empowered Scorching Ray? Brutal). He retreats into the Canyon and drinks his CSW Pot and gets some health back. He then runs the Canyon, preparing to use his speed to go up and around over the woods.

By now, most of the party is out in the open, but not far out of the woods. The Druid, the Alchemist and the Wizard are all within the forest, but all the others are out either fighting the Hobgoblins or the Hellhounds. And, all the while, the Archers have been raining arrows down on them. Arrows that make you catch fire.

Way back when the Party arrived in Elsir Vale, I told them that it was Summer and that the grass, woodland and other related fauna was all very dry away from the riverbanks. I think they might've forgotten, or else they would've made a bit more of an effort to get away from the treeline once the Napalm Hellhounds started breathing fire all over them, and the flaming arrows started hitting them.

Because, you know, the Forest caught fire. With them mostly inside it.

I rolled everything openly, determining the prevailing wind randomly and getting more than enough for the fire to start spreading. Each round, the majority of the party was taking between 1-2d6 damage from the forest fire, more from Breath Weapons and Arrows, and decent amounts from the Spears. They needed to get moving, but they just didn't have the time or the foresight to do so. Party members started dropping from the Forest Fire and the Archers, and only the Gunslinger, Rogue and Magus had even gotten out of there properly yet. The Rogue went off on his own and fought against a Hellhound and two Spearmen; they knocked him down into the negatives after a volley round of Full-Attacks. The Alchemist was down from DoT, the Bard was hit by a Critical Arrow and tried to escape through the forest... and promptly caught fire and went down as well. The Druid tried to get out into the open and away from the flames, but that put him in the line of fire from the Archers.

Things were Not. Going. Well.

The Magus was still up, and some brief out of character discussion, it was decided that the Wizard would Benign Transposition him with the Bard (who'd been knocked out by Heat and Fire damage), rather than the Rogue. Putting the Bard prone behind the Tower would put him out of danger, and it would mean that the Magus wouldn't appear between three foes who could easily flank him. So, he got teleported into the forest and managed to not catch fire, and charged out at one of the Spearmen.

The Rogue was prompty Coup-de-Grace'd by the Hellhound, and with almost everyone else in the party taking steady damage from the Forest Fire, they didn't look like they were going to be far behind Him.

Within the next round, the Alchemist, Druid, Bard and Rogue had all been incapacitated or killed, and the Antipaladin and Wizard had both fled. The Gunslinger and Magus decided to make a glourious last stand against the 7 remaining Hobgoblin Veterans and Ozzy (who'd since returned and Acid'd everyone). They took a few more down before they got wiped out.

So... Dragonbreath Arrows killed 6/8 PCs

*My party consisted of a SNA Focused Druid, an Evoker Wizard, a Musket Master Gunslinger, a Craven Power Attack Rogue, a Dervish Dance Magus, a Bomb throwing Alchemist, a Fear Stacking Antipaladin and a Dragonfire Inspiration (Sonic) Bard, all fairly well optimised. All of them 5th Level, a decent amount above WBL

[RFLS]

-snip-

Wow that's really rough. What're you going to do? Keep going and roll in 6 new characters?

[Golden Ladybug]

Yeah, looks like that's where we're going. The two survivors were really the only ones with a vested interest in stopping the Red Hand; The Wizard's goal is to create a College for the study of Arcane Magic, and sees Elsir Vale as a perfect opportunity to collect recruits or try to convince the existing wizards of the Vale (Sertieren the Wise, Immerstal the Red, Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Module) to join him. Saving the Vale from destruction would go a long way to ensuring his credibility. The Antipaladin wants to rule the world, at some point in the future, and he's decided that after destroying the Red Hand, he will bind the remnants to his side to start his world-conquering Army.

So both of them want to keep going, and the rest of the party is happy to roll up new characters and continue.

So, I did show the remaining two party members Cinder Hill as they flew away to safety, because I really wanted them to understand the level of threat they are facing; they're the only ones who can tell Drellin's Ferry et al the magnitude of the threat they're facing, and I want the players to know it too.

Currently, from what I've said to the other party members, the Alchemist wants to... well, play pretty much the same character as the last Bard The Rogue is going to be an Inquisitor, the Gunslinger a Samurai and the Magus a Soulknife. The others haven't decided what they want to try out next.

I'm going to have a bit of trouble getting the Party to go on to Part II at the moment; both the Wizard and the Antipaladin plan to talk to the town and warn them, then start walking back to Brindol and leave Drellin's Ferry to its own devices. Hmm...

[Sir Cirdan]

I did similar tweaks to my Skull Gorge bridge and it was a cakewalk for the PCs. The archers couldn't hit a thing. (This was what prompted my houserule regarding automatic hits). I really don't think you did anything wrong (unless you didn't follow the rules for fires spreading) so don't feel too bad for your players. From the sounds of things, they weren't very well organized and weren't acting as a team. And Skull Gorge is supposed to be a fight they might not win.

Don't forget to have the hobs loot the bodies of the dead PCs. That could make round 2 interesting.

[Golden Ladybug]

I hope I followed the rules for Fire spreading correctly! I had the DMG open at Forest Fires for most of the encounter

Unfortunately for them, they won't be attempting another attack on Skull Gorge Bridge. They've given up on that idea, and are heading back to Drellin's Ferry to report their failure and figure out what to do next. Its already Day 6, so they wouldn't have had much time to hit the bridge anyway.

But Ozzy did pick up a few useful items from them, like a stock of defensive potions, cloaks of resistance and AC boosters. Ulwai will also be packing a Badge of Valor when the Party meet her

[Golden Ladybug]

A Greenspawn Razorfiend just took out 4 Members of my 7 Player Party.

Putting that fight inside a creatively designed Wizard's Mansion seems to have ended badly.

[Ivellius]

A Greenspawn Razorfiend just took out 4 Members of my 7 Player Party.

Putting that fight inside a creatively designed Wizard's Mansion seems to have ended badly just as planned.

FTFY. Will they have to pull replacements from the elves?

Actually, I'm really curious about the "Wizard's Mansion." My group will probably be at Rhest soon, and a nice set piece might liven things up cause a total party wipe be fun.

[RFLS]

A Greenspawn Razorfiend just took out 4 Members of my 7 Player Party.

Putting that fight inside a creatively designed Wizard's Mansion seems to have ended badly.

...ouch. That's just not pleasant. Did you use the published statblock, or did you swap some of the feats around?

[Coidzor]

A Greenspawn Razorfiend just took out 4 Members of my 7 Player Party.

Putting that fight inside a creatively designed Wizard's Mansion seems to have ended badly.

A Wizard's Mansion, you say?

[Golden Ladybug]

...ouch. That's just not pleasant. Did you use the published statblock, or did you swap some of the feats around?

I used a slightly modified version of Saintheart's Razorfiend, which I'd progressed to 13HD and given Bounding Assault. I keep overshooting what my Players are able to deal with, apparently.

But not really. They could have easily succeeded against the Razorfiend, and Skull Gorge Bridge for that matter, if they had committed. They died both times from indecision.

For those of you interested in my Wizard House (Well, more like Wizard's Bachelor Pad ). Sadly I don't have pictures.

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Well, I designed the Wizard's Mansion to not only be an interesting and lively encounter, but also to be a didactic encounter; I wanted to force my PC's to start responding to threats. Because every single time they find something they don't understand the capabilities of, they end up running around like headless chickens and get wiped.

So, I'm endeavouring to make them do a few things; I want them to, once they realise they're under attack by the Razorfiend, fight it; but not just fight it, fight it smart.

When they, walking through the Marsh, encounter the Wizard's Mansion (they are aware of it, since they'd been sent into the Marsh to try to gain the Wizard's aid against the Red Hand), I described it as being very eccentric; it was painted bright blue and it looked, for lack of a better word, like it had melted slightly. The dimensions of the House didn't look right, and bits were bulging out; it didn't seem like the structure should be able to support itself. It was all twisted up and was covered in protrusions. When they walked up to the door, the doorknob opened its eyes and talked to them, telling them that "The Master is out, but he will surely be back soon". It was a pre-recorded message, as was all that the doorknob was able to say.

The inside of the house was likewise peculiar and esoteric. Unseen Servants, marked with blue bow-ties, floated through the air cleaning things. Two comfortable couches sat across the room from each other, one next to a Bookcase and the other next to a sea-chest. The bookcase couch also had two wooden stools next to it. Across one wall was a long table, with a stack of clean plates on one end, a box of cutlery in the middle and three empty tureens where food would be placed on the end. There was a glass with two flowers in it, also on the table. Finally, on the floor was a clearly visible Trapdoor. When opened, it was revealed that it opened to... floor.

Inside the sea-chest was an Assassin Vine. Its the sort of thing I'd expect a Wizard to keep in his chest of drawers.

The room was 10ft from floor to ceiling.

The second floor was a long corridor. You could enter a room to the left of the corridor which contained a very deep swimming pool. At the far end of the corridor was a ladder, leading upwards.

If you were to jump into the pool and swim down, you would realise that the dimensions of the pool were impossible compared to the dimensions of this floor; it goes down 30ft. You can easily push through the bottom of the pool... which allows you to pop up where the Trapdoor is on the first floor. There is also a highly visible hole in the floor of the corridor, which would allow someone to jump down to a spot in front of the wooden stools back on floor one.

This floor was 30ft from floor to ceiling.

The third floor was where the Wizard's bedroom was, and a separate area contained a Gelatinous Cube held captive in a glass container (it had a few hamster skeletons floating inside of it). Next to it was a black space that would magically remove any material tossed into it.

Like the previous floor, there was a hole that a character could jump down, which would allow them to get into the pool.

This floor was 60ft from floor to ceiling.

Finally, there was an open-topped study at the top of the tower that could only be accessed by creatures with the capacity to fly, since the house-side entrance required a character to get up 60ft with no handholds, and the outside side entrance is 120ft up. The effects of the weather were staved off by a magical barrier which covered the top of the tower.

I designed the House with these four levels to set up a fairly simple principle; each level you go up, makes the fight against the Razorfiend easier.

The Ground Floor was fairly boxy, and the whole place is really clumped and covered in furniture, obscuring charge vectors. It also has two entrances that weren't easily guarded against; a hole in the roof that the Razorfiend can attack down from (which it did to open the combat, insta-gibbing a friendly NPC) and the one-way trapdoor that you can magically get to from the pool. Furthermore, The Razorfiend is fast enough and can jump well enough to dart down from the stairs, hit someone close by, and the retreat back up the stairs.

Staying down there puts the party in a killing box. They can't get out through the door; it has locked itself, telling the party that all doors are locked past sundown. Bashing the door down is all but impossible, it being Magically Treated Reinforced Iron Walls (Break DC60, HP360, Hardness 20, Energy Resistance (All) 30), so they're forced to stay in the Wizard's pad and deal with their problem.

If they go up a floor, they suddenly can't be attacked unaware as easily. It can't get at them from the roof (too far away) and it can't attack from the trapdoor.

They go up to floor three? The Razorfiend is going to get ruined. It can't attack from the walls or ceiling, it doesn't have the AC to engage in a protracted fight. They get it up there, and keep it up there, and the players win.

Guess how many floors my party went up? Not a single one.

Details about how my Party Handled the Wizard House

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They stayed down on the ground floor, and hoped that things would fix themselves, and then as a result had to fight a Gelatinous Cube, the Greenspawn Razorfiend and that Assassin Vine.

The Razorfiend's tactics weren't that advanced; it made its first attack from the hole in the wall above the stools, then Breath Weapon'd them from the trapdoor. So, I'd shown them the two ways that the Razorfiend could access the room without using the staircase. They sat there, readied actions to attack it if it came close, and waited. Only one player, who had actually taken the time to investigate the house earlier, did anything proactive. He crouched on the stair-dog and looked down the corridor. But, since that's right next to one of the doors to the pool, he didn't have time to react when the Razorfiend opened the door and gibbed him. 15-20 Crits on a Wingblade are terrifying.

The rest of the party knew they couldn't get out, and after hitting the door with some concentrated fire and being warned that the house will retaliate if they continue, they decide that the best plan is... to call out to the Wizard and ask him to call off his monster.



So, the Razorfiend is clever, packing 12 Int. It has seen, at this point, the Party slaughter the Assassin Vine with the help of Dragonfire Inspiration. So, it doesn't want to deal with that, and as such, goes upstairs to retrieve the Cube Jar. The party makes listen checks, but none of them can hear the scraping on the floor above them as the Jar is dragged across the floor. So, none of them have any warning when the Trapdoor is kicked open and the Gelatinous Cube Jar flies up out of it. The Trapdoor falls closed... and the Jar smashes on it. The Cube expands outwards, and Engulfs the Party Bard and Wizard in its surprise round. Both of them fail against its Paralysis, and start to melt in the acid.

The rest of the Party kill the cube in short order, but with their two remaining spellcasters downed all they do is just sit around waiting for something to happen. So, the Razorfiend waits for the DFI to wear off, and then darts in, executing both Wizard and Bard in short order. At this point, two of the three remaining characters are sitting pretty in the single digit hitpoints, so it stays where it is, confident it can take them.

All of the Melee Fighters who are still up run in and try to beat the Razorfiend to death. The first damage they do to the bloody thing, and they manage to knock it down to half HP. It retaliates, dropping one character to -6 with a Wingblade, missing with the second and scoring a Crit with its Bite.

I offer the remaining party members a compromise; I'll let them decide who takes the Critical Bite. The downed Swift Hunter, or the Anti-Paladin still on Full HP. In true Anti-Paladin fashion, he refuses to take the hit, so the Swift Hunter is eviscerated.

Next round, the Anti-Paladin hits the Razorfiend with a devastating full attack and drops it to -1. They then cut the Razorfiend's body to ribbons, just to make sure its really, definitely dead. Lanikar's body (and some of his Owl's) erupt out of the digestive tract and we rap up the session.

[Reynard]

Well, I spent today making a map of the Vale, now that my group has reached a point in the campaign where overland travel needs to be better kept track of.

And I decided to share it here (large):

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Notes:
>Unlabeled, since I was planning on printing it out and doing that by hand. But if anyone uses this and wants to rename places, that's a bonus.
>Each hex represents about 5 miles of land.
>Uploading it seems to have caused some artifacts. If you want a super huge super high res version for editing, PM me I guess.
>I think that's it.

------

Progress of my campaign: The PCs are on owlback, heading for Brindol with news for Lord Jarmaath. One Player's back-story made it easier to contact the elves, and they spent the two days after destroying Skull Gorge Bridge filling a decent area of the forest with traps, harassing the Red Hand as they tried to traverse in the gorge, and generally alerting the entire horde to their presence.

Things the players know:
>There's a big Black Dragon around, and up to something in the Blackfens.
>There are a lot of Hobgoblins. In fact, it could be said that there are many lots. And they are coming.
>The Hand worships Tiamat, and clearly has Draconic allies and magic at it's disposal.
>Captain Sarana is now referred to as Captain Scarletpants by the party, and Brother Derny is Brother Derpy after a failed Know:Religion check.

Things the Hand knows about the party:
>ADVENTURERS!
>Their races, most of their abilities, and most of their descriptions.
>That they have access to a fair amount of Divine spellpower, but little to no Arcane magic.
>That one of them really hates dragons, after Ozzy's body was retrived from the rubble of Skull Gorge.

[MandibleBones]

My party just ignored the hydra encounter. They showed up, spotted the hydra, won initiative and decided that since hydras were so terrifying in-canon (we're running RHoD in Equestria), they would just run through. They took some damage as it closed and then continued to withdraw into the forest on the other side of the river.

How did they outrun it? They're on the causeway, the hydra is not, and the way out of the river is difficult terrain.

... well, blast. Now I have to go stat Koth. I thought I had at least a few more days.

[ShriekingDrake]

My party just ignored the hydra encounter. They showed up, spotted the hydra, won initiative and decided that since hydras were so terrifying in-canon (we're running RHoD in Equestria), they would just run through. They took some damage as it closed and then continued to withdraw into the forest on the other side of the river.

How did they outrun it? They're on the causeway, the hydra is not, and the way out of the river is difficult terrain.

... well, blast. Now I have to go stat Koth. I thought I had at least a few more days.

Maybe this foreshadows that they'll also decide not to fight the Lich, which is an approach that will help them. Although if they're too adverse to combat with dragons or the Wyrmlords . . . they may need a confidence boost.

[Doxkid]

Hmm...I think I have an idea for that, MB.

[RFLS]

My party just ignored the hydra encounter.

Don't worry about it XD Mine just bypassed Vraath Keep.

[Ivellius]

Notes:
>Unlabeled, since I was planning on printing it out and doing that by hand. But if anyone uses this and wants to rename places, that's a bonus.
>Each hex represents about 5 miles of land.
>Uploading it seems to have caused some artifacts. If you want a super huge super high res version for editing, PM me I guess.
>I think that's it.

*snipped*

Things the players know:
>There's a big Black Dragon around, and up to something in the Blackfens.
>There are a lot of Hobgoblins. In fact, it could be said that there are many lots. And they are coming.
>The Hand worships Tiamat, and clearly has Draconic allies and magic at it's disposal.
>Captain Sarana is now referred to as Captain Scarletpants by the party, and Brother Derny is Brother Derpy after a failed Know:Religion check.

Things the Hand knows about the party:
>ADVENTURERS!
>Their races, most of their abilities, and most of their descriptions.
>That they have access to a fair amount of Divine spellpower, but little to no Arcane magic.
>That one of them really hates dragons, after Ozzy's body was retrived from the rubble of Skull Gorge.

Nice map. Amusingly enough, I also ran Brother Derny as a slightly dim-witted hick after failing some checks with him. For the most part, my group has left few survivors, although Ozy gave the Horde quite a bit of information about them before his demise.

Don't worry about it XD Mine just bypassed Vraath Keep.

That's awesome, actually. Mine still haven't figured out who exactly Koth is/was (he escaped), so they've been going around OoC accusing everyone of being Koth (e.g., Soranna, Norro, Iormel--basically anyone they've met).

[Altaria87]

I'm currently running Red Hand of Doom in the Legend system, but using the standard 3.5 lore (it's still Tiamat worshipping Hobgoblins etc.) with a few setting changes, the only ones really affecting the game being the giants in the forest being repalced by Werebears, and the Tiri Kotor being civilized harpies.

The party consists of:
- Human Alchemist, fights with traps, potions and poisons
- Skeleton Knight, fairly standard melee guy, ahs a few tricks like being able to attack flying creatures by throwing his own body parts
- Human Swashbuckler, pirate, somehow ended up in the Elsir Vale on a boat
- Werewolf Barbarian, also pretty simple, a ranged fighter with a sling who can turn into a hgue wolf form and be massively tanky
- Human Assassin, not yet introduced, is replacing a Golem who shot fire who was itself replacing a Unicorn healer - this player prefers the more strange character concepts Legend allows.

Anyway, everything went pretty normal up until Vraath Keep (where I made a running joke of every NPC referring to it as 'the old haunted castle', despite everyone's protestations that it clearly wasn't going to be). Then the party got a random encounter against a Troll while camping just under the hill from Vraath Keep. Now, they remembered that Trolls regenerate unless you set them on fire or use acid and they didn't have any acid (actually, the Alchemist did, but they didn't realise at the time). Cue half the woods being engulfed in a fire, all the Worg Riders from Vraath Keep getting picked off as the came to scout, the party trying to coax a Grey Render to attack the Keep, and eventually opting to simply walk in the front door. After the Swashbuckler challenged Koth to a one-on-one fight and only barely won, the Werewolf played out the most spectacular bluff ever:
Karkillan the Minotaur: *shouting at the Werewolf who just appeared in Koth's bedroom* What are you doing here!?
Werewolf: *indignant* Wait, what are you doing here?
Karkillan: *annoyed* Getting rid of the intruder
Werewolf: I'm not an intruder. I'm Count Vraath.
Karkillan: Where did you come from then?
Werewolf: *currently having no idea there's a trapdoor, lying through his teeth* Downstairs, of course.
Karkillan then went down the trapdoor, perplexed, and the Werewolf pushed Koth's bed over the trapdoor, trapping the Minotaur.

Skull Gorge Bridge also went surprisingly well, even with Ozzy re-tricked out as a grappler who simply tried to throw the party down the gorge, a combination of position-switching magic and telekinesis saved them. Ozzy got away though. The Unicorn was then killed as part of a personal side quest while the rest of the party were heading towards Rhest (luckily the party is okay with just following the plot hints, and didn't need much convincing to go there), and was replaced by the Golem they found at the Wizard's manor during the Razorfiend fight. I managed to make the Razorfiend seem threatening enough that, even though it didn't cause a single death, the party really didn't want to fight one again (it took the Golem, who was built for tankiness, down to single-figures before it was bursted down in an enclosed space by the whole party).

Rhest, though, was the highlight of silliness. Having secured help from the Tiri Kotor despite refusing to take part in the funeral (which I think is going to cause them to lose the Alliance in the end), they sent the Alchemist and Swashbuckler in first on owls, where they spent the six hour wait systematically taking out the Lizardfolk huts with gas that caused the Lizardfolk to trip out (and the Swashbuckler as well). Despite that, once the rest of the party arrived they decided to forgo stealth entirely, stealing a raft and rowing right to the town centre. Halfway there the bells rang and they saw a raft of Hobgoblin Veterans supported by a Black Dragon come towards them. In the ensuing fight, the Golem was killed by Reggie, who almost killed the Werewolf as well before going down (Saarvith was killed earlier on). The thing is, in Legend all intelligent Undead can animate like Necromancers, and they'd picked up some Black Onyx from the Razorfiend treasure. This lead to the Skeleton leading the charge to the town hall on the back of a zombiefied Regiarax, fighting Nurklenak, then leading the retreat the moment the Razorfiend got let out, which announced its entrance by getting two crits on Nurklenak from behind and taking the Skeleton down to 1 HP.

Also, they did get the phylactery, but the Skeleton wants to eventually become a Lich, and is the only one that knows that it's a phylactery, and isn't aiming on telling the others, so I'm not sure what they're going to do from here.

[Fyermind]

So I've been restatting all of the opponents to deal with a gestalt RHoD I want to run. I'm trying to work out what I want for Koth's other half. I like the idea of him being a mindbender as using debuffs. His tactic will be slow through a window followed by a full buff routine (3 rounds probably) then opening fire with fell drain magic missiles. Of course, having a second half let's me augment that a lot. I'm open to suggestions, but things that use move and swift actions rather than standard or full round would be preferable.

[EccentricOwl]

This remains my favorite thread on the site. "The Red Hand of Doom" is an adventure of such quality and substane - yet also of such concept - that it can be run as a stupendous and amazing 3.5 fantasy adventure, yet also used in so many other settings in so many other games.

Even Equestria. :P

[RFLS]

So, the players in my #2 group

1. Skipped Vraath Keep after acquiring the map.
2. Got to Skull Gorge.
3. Tore down the bridge.
4. Let Ozzyrandion escape.

Where would Ozzy go? I'm debating beteen having him show up at a much later date, or having him go to Vraath Keep. Thoughts?

[Golden Ladybug]

Hmm... for me, Ozzy managed to easily fend off the attackers and saved the bridge, so he just stayed there until the rest of the Red Hand arrived and joined the rest of the army.

For your situation though, that's not as clear cut. Ozzyrandion is a smart cookie, I think he would jump to the assumption that if these PCs that trashed his bridge made it to him, then they probably got past Vraath Keep. So, thought process would probably go; they've hit me hard, presumably killing all my underlings. Unlikely that Koth fared any better.

That done, he returns to the main body of the Red Hand, apologises and returns later. Perhaps he's assigned to one of the other areas in the campaign? Perhaps he shows up again in the Final Battle? Perhaps he harries the party as they travel throughout the lands.

Brief recap of what's happening in my Campaign:

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The party met up with the Tiri Kotor, got really weirded out by their customs (I have some weird Wild Elf fluff that I felt like using), and got off to a bad start with them. They manage to press them into lending them an Owl to go scout out Rhest, where they've learnt the Razorfiends are being bred.

The Antipaladin (who is Aquatic) decides to take a walk across the lake to the centre, where he has a bit of a look around and decides not to investigate the big hole in the town hall alone. He then goes to look for a Razorfiend. He tries talking to it, with rather poor results.

So, another party member is flying over on the Giant Owl, sees the corpse of the Antipaladin and returns to the party. They stage a daring rescue, alert the Red Hand operatives to their prescence, murdercate some innocent Trogdolytes and skedaddle back to Starsong Hill. They get the Antipaladin reincarnated into a Half-Elf, and then back to Rhest the next day.

And they decide to fly in with a V-Formation; a Giant Eagle, two Dire Bats, a Panther with Fly Cast on it and a Wizard that was described as "No-Clipping its way through the air"

They wiped the Belltower, and were feeling pretty happy with themselves; they could surely deal with the Skullcrusher Ogres throwing chunks of Masonry at them.

Then Regiarax, with Saarvith atop with bow in hand, burst out from the Water behind them. And they realised they might have made a mistake.

[Altaria87]

I seem to remember Ozzy's role being as a messenger for the Hand, so my idea for if he escapes is that after he apologises to Hravek Kharn, he goes back to messenger duty, flying on paths between the Fane, the Ghostlord's Lair, Rhest and the Horde's current position, possibly being encoutnered if the party walk across those lines, or at any of the key areas. If they do intercept him, he might surrender his message and try to get away - if he ran away from the party, he probably isn't too keen to fight them alone. If they never see him again, he can pop up outside the Fane as scripted in the module with any other surviving Dragons.

[Ivellius]

So, the players in my #2 group

1. Skipped Vraath Keep after acquiring the map.
2. Got to Skull Gorge.
3. Tore down the bridge.
4. Let Ozzyrandion escape.

Where would Ozzy go? I'm debating beteen having him show up at a much later date, or having him go to Vraath Keep. Thoughts?

He escaped Skull Gorge in my campaign as well but did a tremendous amount of damage to the group. I thought it would make him fairly arrogant, so I had him lead the raid on Drellin's Ferry after they got back. I'd think for your case he would probably go back to the main Horde before flying down to check on Vraath Keep (he's a dragon; he can scout it pretty safely).

[Reynard]

It's Day10, and the hobgob horde has reached Drellin's Ferry to find it empty and largely on fire, with the ferry itself on it's merry way to Lake Rhest, so the party has bought themselves a few more days. The Hand DOES have riders on the eastern bank, but those largely haven't been a problem yet. Regiarix paid a visit to Vraath Keep after the PCs tried to stall the advance force of the Hand there, but arrived too late to actually kill and eat all of them. The party caught a Spot Check of him, though, so they know he was in the area.

But, this is the current list of party locations:
>Ranger and Cleric are in Brindol, having delivered a report to Larmaath about the Hand, way in advance of any other news about it. Now they're attempting to get access to Shank's private stock, as the ranger wants a better bow.
>Dragonborn Paladin is with the giant refugee convoy, currently passing through Nimon Gap. I'm thinking of having her encounter the Spy or the Riots on her way to Brindol, just so she has something to do.
>Elf Druid is on his way to tell Sellyria about what he has learned of the threat posed by the Hand. The player is savvy enough that, as a Druid, there's a good chance he could do a stealth run of Rhest alone. I'm going to present the opportunity to him, see what the player wants.
>The Battle of Vraath Keep claimed a party member, so his player's new character is just waiting for the chance to group with the others. Currently in Brindol, unaware of the Hand, most of his time last session was spent helping set up for the not-yet-cancelled summer fair.

[Amnestic]

So I've been restatting all of the opponents to deal with a gestalt RHoD I want to run. I'm trying to work out what I want for Koth's other half. I like the idea of him being a mindbender as using debuffs. His tactic will be slow through a window followed by a full buff routine (3 rounds probably) then opening fire with fell drain magic missiles. Of course, having a second half let's me augment that a lot. I'm open to suggestions, but things that use move and swift actions rather than standard or full round would be preferable.

I'm running a Pathfinder Gestalt PbP on these forums which just got to Vraath Keep. Rather than make Koth gestalt I took the option suggested in the handbook to make him a Hobgoblin Warsoul (MMV). Between a high AC, DR/10, SR 18 and decent saves (plus his Spell Eater ability), he's putting up quite a fight. Except for being disabled by a fully augmented Collapse for 5 rounds, but he's got enough distance from a pre-buffed Haste increasing his move speed that he can outlast it without taking any real damage.

If you're looking for a high power Koth, a Warsoul seems like a really effective option so far. Gestalting with the 10HD Warsoul would be even stronger ;p And having Dimension Door on his spell list means he can run away pretty easily too.

My regret, thus far, is not making opponents stronger. My party has pretty decent damage output and a lot of healing (Bard//Paladin, Cleric//Vitalist, Aegis//Psywar and Oracle//Sorcerer). It's highly likely at this point that Koth will toss out a few more spells then escape to Skull Gorge Bridge to give them warning preparations which should allow me to tune up the difficulty a bit.

[TheSpriggan]

First, a huge thank you to Saintheart and the rest of my fellow DMs who have given me so many ideas for this campaign.

I've run this campaign for 10 months now and the party is completing the battle of Brindel after 10 sessions just on that day. The Ghostlord is present and the party decided to taunt the lich by destroying his phylactery within sight of the fellow (not the best idea but I don't micro manage).

My party consists of: Elf Rogue, Human Barbarian, Half elf Druid, Half elf Ranger, Halfling Fighter, Stryx Dragon Disciple, and Human Artificer. All of them are level 12 at the moment.

I have altered every single encounter except the run of the mill hobgoblins and they have steam rolled it all. By way of example, I added a strike force of razorfiends (not the ones in the book they are far too weak) to attack Brindel from the river side while some living artillery (constructs) hurls house sized boulders at the west wall. They found out about the strike force and sent three party members to deal with it--the druid, artificer and dragon disciple.

I had 15 of my CR 14 Razorfiends ambush the three with their spells and breath weapons...the fight was over in 5 rounds, only one of the PCs really took damage.

The party got back together and decided not to wait for the next attack on the city so they used invisibility to infiltrate the Horde's camp. Then they had the dragon disciple and druid (wild shaped as an air elemental) wreak havoc from the air hurling spells and causing confusion while the rest of the party full on attacked command tents.

Chaos. The barbarian alone (using his vorpal great sword) successfully crit and vorpalled the Wyrmlord, his second in command, two bugbear elites, and the Marilith they summoned to help. The ranger and fighter decimate everything that moves to fight the melee with ranged shots. Even the spell casters with ridiculous protection magic and meat shields are going down in 1 or 2 rounds to the sneak attacking rogue, paladin and barbarian. If the party can't shoot it (wind wall, protection from arrows, wall of force, etc) the party uses other means to kill them (i.e. the Rogues boots of teleportation--he has 3 pairs to cycle the charges on while invisible to sneak attack them from behind).

So now, with the main threat of the hobgoblin army destroyed they have only the Lich (whose phylactery they just destroyed) on the battlefield. I've added several powerful ghosts to help him out, but the first thing my party did when they heard about the Ghostlord was go out of their way to get a couple of ghost touch weapons.

Any ideas you might have would be lovely. They have not yet been to the Thorn wastes of the Fane...but as they stand in the book my party would steamroll both in a few rounds.

[BerronBrightaxe]

Where would Ozzy go? I'm debating beteen having him show up at a much later date, or having him go to Vraath Keep. Thoughts?

He escaped Skull Gorge in my campaign as well but did a tremendous amount of damage to the group. I thought it would make him fairly arrogant, so I had him lead the raid on Drellin's Ferry after they got back. I'd think for your case he would probably go back to the main Horde before flying down to check on Vraath Keep (he's a dragon; he can scout it pretty safely).

In the book it states that the dragons which escape, gather at and guard the Fane. That said , I can imagine using Ozzy as a re-occuring villian. You can use him for scouting/tracking the adventurers, guerrilia the evacuation, a member of the 'Marked for Death' team, as bodyguard of Wyrmlord Kharn.

You will need some finetuning of the encounter if you are going to add Ozzy to these. He is pretty powerfull around these lvls.

He also seems to be the 'fight another day' kind of dragon, so he'll withdraw when decently injured (over 2/3 of his HP) and don't hesitate to use his knowledge for a next battle. He is smart, so play him smart (fg. specificly single out the party wizard to try to kill him and then withdraw, or send in a someone to steal the fighter's mighty sword).

All in my humble opinion ofc

Tonight my group will (probably) start with the assault on the Ruins of Rhest. Ofcourse with some finetuning of the mobs... I'll post my specifics and what happened here when it is over..

I wish them luck, for...

Our Queen Tiamat, may She live forever, shall come.
She shall take our eyes, for our souls shall bow before Her,
and She shall take our skin, for our flesh shall serve Her,
and She shall take our lips, for only Her will we praise.

And Her Chosen shall bring the Weapons and free the Broken Ancient and bring us the Darkness so beautiful.
Let the screams begin, O followers of the Light.
Beg for your destruction!

[MandibleBones]

I've decided that, should the game actually last long enough to get the party through the Fane of Tiamat, that the Aspect of Tiamat isn't going to show up. I've started dropping hints that the known gods (specifically Celestia and Luna, but it applies to Tiamat as well) can't interfere directly with each other's people. I've also been laying down seeds that this entire invasion (and other things happening in the background, for that matter) is planned by a mysterious "other," which has ties to the Plane of Shadow — and that this other figure is what corrupted Luna more than a thousand years ago.

I'm imagining the look on Azurr Kul's face when, instead of a friendly dragon, Tirek shows up through the portal... and I'm imagining the look on my players' faces will be even more surprised.