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

[BerronBrightaxe]

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.

First of all good luck.. Seems like your party is very good geared for lvl 12

And for ideas.. I'll throw a couple at you and hope you can uses some.

• Use spectral undead (lions would be appropriate) which attack from within the ground (you should get some ability damage in the surprise round);
• Upgrade the Ghostlord to lvl 16ish and give it some decent minions;
• don't give them time for find, buy or build ghosttouched weapons (or very few)
• If they are good: give them several things to worry about. for example give the Ghostlord an item or aura that everybody which dies within an area is risen a round later as a [insert appropriate undead] and have some of the minions go rampart in the city

And for the dungeon... Nothing directly comes to mind, besides making a Antimagic Field with some hard hitting mobs and poison traps.

[shaddy_24]

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.

Use a cool arrangement of the Forbiddance spell read about, Leon's Teeth (I don't know if they've got another actual name). Make a solid plane with the blocks of the spell, then have a series of blocks with 5-10 foot gaps between them. Means every time someone moves through the gap they'll take some more damage. You can also put traps in those spots, so that even if the party members figure out where they are and try to teleport though, they get hit with something right when they land.

[TheSpriggan]

First of all good luck.. Seems like your party is very good geared for lvl 12

And for ideas.. I'll throw a couple at you and hope you can uses some.

• Use spectral undead (lions would be appropriate) which attack from within the ground (you should get some ability damage in the surprise round);
• Upgrade the Ghostlord to lvl 16ish and give it some decent minions;
• don't give them time for find, buy or build ghosttouched weapons (or very few)
• If they are good: give them several things to worry about. for example give the Ghostlord an item or aura that everybody which dies within an area is risen a round later as a [insert appropriate undead] and have some of the minions go rampart in the city

And for the dungeon... Nothing directly comes to mind, besides making a Antimagic Field with some hard hitting mobs and poison traps.

Some great ideas...the problem:
They aren't that spectacularly geared (they aren't min/maxers, they are just incredibly paranoid), the problem is that each character has spent virtually every single scrap of gold they've gotten to specialize (The paladin didn't buy a single thing besides his room and food at the inn until he could buy a holy avenger, the rogue didn't until he got a ring of invisibility, etc). The ranger and fighter doesn't have anything special besides quivers that give them infinite arrows but if you're familiar with what a full ranged fighter can do with all of his feats and a ranger can do going full ranged then you will see they don't need sick gear because they get 4-5 shots a round.

As ghost touch is only a +1 bonus, not only could they afford it (even limiting their loot) but the Dragon disciple could do the enchantment with the help of the cleric (who died and left the party due to scheduling difficulties) 3 levels ago. They put ghost touch on three weapons just because they heard about the Ghostlord (not knowing he is a lich, but because they are paranoid).

I've been using spectral undead. Surprise rounds do very little against this party because of the tanky front line (Paladin, Dragon disciple, Barbarian) and because of the damage output they bring to the table. Our fighter alone can easily put 100+ damage out in a round without crits.

The Ghostlord has been drastically upgraded and has sick minions with class levels. I already altered his pool of rebirth to affect anything that dies within the lair, to rise as the Ghostlord's minion.

I've had limited success with anti-magic field simply because the dragon disciple, druid and paladin can all greater dispel magic (especially the paladin who can do it once a round with his holy avenger for free and who will sit there round after round until he does dispel it).

Forbiddance has been the best spell to use against them with the increased caster levels I gave to the lich it's a much higher DC than they can easily dispel. But the Lich is the only opponent who can cast it against them thus far and they have not yet been to the thorn wastes where I have expanded the traps (magical and physical).

[Saintheart]

Hey guys -- I'm back, once again after a very long hiatus, but I've been watching this thread on and off. Anyway, I'm back to "managing" it, and I'm really, really glad to see the discussions are continuing.

As promised, I'm now casting Wall of Text to discuss bits and pieces of my loooong-running campaign which is finally heading down to the Battle of Brindol.

Most of this is about the down time between when a party deals with the Ghostlord and when the Red Hand arrives at Brindol. Maybe some of this material might be of assistance to the rabid timekeepers out there. Anyway, the way things panned out with the party travelling on owlback and their wizard achieving level 9 and therefore picking Teleport with its 900-mile-radius, the party began asking what it might be able to do before the Red Hand arrives at Brindol.

It was in studying this topic I realised that with a party of creative thinkers and some tier 1 casters, these guys could actually do some serious damage to the Red Hand, and if well-resourced could actually make the Battle of Brindol a much more even fight. Some of these I thought up, many of them were suggestions from the party.

So here's some unleavened thoughts if you need to occupy your parties with stuff to do ahead of the Red Hand's arrival...

-- Wizards with Teleport, at least in Faerun if not other reasonably well-populated settings, have some strong potential at level 9 to add some serious backbone or at least get some serious help for the Vale's defence. 900 miles in a single Teleport casting is surely going to get a wizard to some other major population centre where, you guessed it, the party can start hiring its own mercenaries to assist in the city's defence.

For example, going by the "orthodox" placement of Elsir Vale in Faerun, a level 9 wizard casting Teleport from Brindol has virtually anywhere from the Lake of Steam to the Great Rift with its population of thousands of dwarves to draw on as hirelings. If the party's accumulating WBL, as mine was, then even if the party's got a full 12,000 gp in spare change lying around that's enough to actually double the size of Brindol's garrison in level 1 warriors for a month of fighting on DMG rates, even buying a spear for each and every one. Fortunately my guys didn't go looking for mercenaries, but I calculated out that with the time they had left, the wizard could go to the Great Rift, hire out a bunch of additional dwarves, and then leave the dwarves to hoof it on foot to the Vale. On the time they had, that "extra" dwarf force could have made it to the battle in time. The possibilities get even better if you choose less numbers and just hiring, say, another level 6 wizard or something to help in the battle.

-- Digging a moat around Brindol's walls (using the Elsir River that runs on the city's north side) was suggested. I calculated this one out: for a moat about 30 feet wide x 10 feet deep redirecting the Elsir River around Brindol's walls you'd need to move 39,000 cubic tons of earth (and therefore would need to find sufficient manpower to do it: the only spells moving earth around like this are Druid spells and shouldn't be available to the party). I also ruled the party would need an expert with Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) to make 10 successful checks so that massive water inflow didn't erode the wall itself. (And experts are also very, very cheap on DMG rates).

-- Using Stone Shape castings to buttress the city walls from assault (which could add some hitpoints to the walls for the Giant Artillery encounter).

-- Brewing up mass Alchemist's Fire cauldrons to tip over the walls.

-- Mass production of caltrops to throw across the Red Hand's path to the wall, dropping their movement speed.

-- Using Ulwai's Staff of Stormclouds to create thunderstorms over Brindol, thus cutting the movement rate of the hobgoblins advancing on the walls by making the ground muddy.

-- Appealing to the Black Knives (Rillor Paln's guild of thieves) to assist in the defence of the city: this could be a nice Diplomacy encounter for the party rogue.

-- Getting the clerics of Wee Jas and/or Yondalla to assist in the city defence by casting Consecrate on the city graveyard, thereby preventing undead being raised during the attack.

As for "outings" from the city itself:

-- Scouting out the Red Hand's precise disposition as it approaches the city walls. I didn't have a specific encounter in mind for this, again it could be a useful rogue-ish sort of thing for the party to do. Another alternative is if the party's got Scrying as a spell, since that's an appallingly wide spell to use and the party has some knowledge of some of the figures in the Red Hand (or should do by now).

-- Protecting foraging parties. The RHOD text refers to the fact Jarmaath orders an early harvest in every town ahead of the Red Hand on the assumption the Hand will either take that produce or burn it outright; they need every piece of fruit or grain they can get against the next winter. I had it that Jarmaath's foragers would cut it pretty fine, trying to harvest everything only about three days ahead of the Hand's arrival in an area. The party is a natural choice to intervene if any of the Red Hand's outriders try to accost the foragers.

-- Depending on the timing, guiding the Shining Axes by a safer path back to Brindol if it looks like they're going to run into the Red Hand before they reach the city. Dwarves can move at about 2 miles per hour, so 20 miles per day, which means a good 5 days travel to reach Brindol from the northernmost settlement in the Hammerfist Holds.

-- Bloodying the Red Hand's nose: basically, there's something to be said for the fact that a well-resourced or teleport-capable party can very feasibly perform a series of hit-and-run operations against the Hand, especially if they've got Scrying available. A party should never be left with the impression it can personally defeat the massed Red Hand on its own, of course, but it's easy for the party to do a few morale-sapping missions that don't actually change the encounters at Brindol but do have an effect -- for example, the party torching the Red Hand's wagons that contain their divine scroll library. Or assassination (see further on.) Or (shudder) the party performing asteroid strikes by a combination of Major Creation and Teleport.

-- Assassination, Wyrmlord Kharn specifically. It's feasible to a party with Teleport and Scrying and who have a method to deal out a big number of hitpoints in a single round. Wyrmlord Kharn tends to wind up as the target a lot. Given the way he's travelling with the Red Hand I would definitely have a contingency plan in place for the party taking him out, mainly because the Red Hand only has one cleric with sufficient levels to cast Raise Dead: Azarr Kul, who's obviously otherwise occupied. Quick workarounds are to have a few Raise Dead scrolls with the Red Hand: warpriests can cast them so long as they pass a CL check, because they all have WIS 16. In my case, because I've got a strong party, I've opted for a "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero" thing: they assassinated Kharn, but when the warpriests raised him, a spell mishap occurred that brought Kharn back as a Death Knight (MM 3, I think, AFB). That should make for a more interesting fight towards the end of the Brindol battle.

Lastly, assuming a Faerun calendar which has the month of Mirtul lasting 30 days and the month of Kythorn lasting 30 days also, with the Red Hand burning Drellin's Ferry on or about the 23rd of Mirtul, here's the rough itinerary I had for the Red Hand:

Foragers pull back from Terrelton fields -- 25 Mirtul.
Absolute earliest possible date the Shining Axes could reach Brindol -- 29 Mirtul.
Hand reaches Terrelton -- 1 Kythorn.
Foragers pull back from Nimon Gap fields -- 4 Kythorn.
Hand reaches Nimon Gap -- 8 Kythorn.
Brindol is evacuated of its civilians -- 9 Kythorn.
Foragers pull back from Talar fields -- 11 Kythorn.
Hand reaches Talar -- 14 Kythorn.
Foragers pull back from Brindol's fields -- 28 Kythorn.
Hand reaches Brindol -- 30 Kythorn.

I'm looking forward to this, I must say - my campaign's been running 5 years, and we're finally close to the Brindol battle, too. I'll go into how I structure the encounters after they're done, mainly because I'll have a better feel for whether they worked after that. Realistically, with the options my party has and Action Points, I don't think they're going to fail, but I do hope to stretch them a bit.

[BerronBrightaxe]

Some great ideas...the problem:
They aren't that spectacularly geared (they aren't min/maxers, they are just incredibly paranoid), the problem is that each character has spent virtually every single scrap of gold they've gotten to specialize (The paladin didn't buy a single thing besides his room and food at the inn until he could buy a holy avenger, the rogue didn't until he got a ring of invisibility, etc). The ranger and fighter doesn't have anything special besides quivers that give them infinite arrows but if you're familiar with what a full ranged fighter can do with all of his feats and a ranger can do going full ranged then you will see they don't need sick gear because they get 4-5 shots a round.

As ghost touch is only a +1 bonus, not only could they afford it (even limiting their loot) but the Dragon disciple could do the enchantment with the help of the cleric (who died and left the party due to scheduling difficulties) 3 levels ago. They put ghost touch on three weapons just because they heard about the Ghostlord (not knowing he is a lich, but because they are paranoid).

I've been using spectral undead. Surprise rounds do very little against this party because of the tanky front line (Paladin, Dragon disciple, Barbarian) and because of the damage output they bring to the table. Our fighter alone can easily put 100+ damage out in a round without crits.

The Ghostlord has been drastically upgraded and has sick minions with class levels. I already altered his pool of rebirth to affect anything that dies within the lair, to rise as the Ghostlord's minion.

I've had limited success with anti-magic field simply because the dragon disciple, druid and paladin can all greater dispel magic (especially the paladin who can do it once a round with his holy avenger for free and who will sit there round after round until he does dispel it).

Forbiddance has been the best spell to use against them with the increased caster levels I gave to the lich it's a much higher DC than they can easily dispel. But the Lich is the only opponent who can cast it against them thus far and they have not yet been to the thorn wastes where I have expanded the traps (magical and physical).

First of all, unless Houseruled: Holy Avenger, the greater dispel magic is a SA at the Paladin classlvl and area only. Items can only be affected via targeted dispel magic. So an sword isn't surpressed by it. Also... the spell states: "You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself". If the paladin casts this spell when he's in the area, he targets himself (and maybe allies) and automatically dispels his highest spell (see the text if he's buffed by another spellcaster.

Presuming they meet the Ghostlord in his Lair: check out the Ghostlord part in this guide. Some great ideas there. Also, the Ghostlord is crazy, smart and paranoid, especially if he knows the party and is coming (and knows how strong they are) you can prepare some nice stuff. Also considering the Ghostlord has lived there for 100's of years, he is prepared for and has access to almost everything. Some more thoughts on traps and stuff:

• going after ability damage is pretty good way of 'inpending doom': have the group trapped in a room with a combination of stuff like 'Solid fog', 'Cloudkill', etc.
• have room flooded, and have them battle undead crocs (or whatever you fancy) and ghosts while drowing. Underwatercombat should be fun, considing ranged is hardly possible, melee much harder, spellcasting much harder and if they survive there is a big chance they catch a cold being all wet and stuff
• have a big undead golem (or 2) behind illusionary walls paired with antimagic zone (if you want to be extra nasty, have the flooded room flush out in this one. If the characters don't succeed on a strength check (or have stuff like freedom of movement) they are flushed here.. Char with low strenght probably end up here and then get stumped.
• have a room do negative enery damage. any undead they fight here gets healed while they get extra damage
• have spectral ghosts do blits attacks in hallways and rooms. Have them make one attack and then withdraw (it won't do much damage, but it does some and makes the whole dungeon more creepy). You can combine this with other encounters
• have the weapons of certain undead coated with poison which do abilitydamage
• have a room filled with spikes (stuck to the floor) and have them fight an undead with damagereduction. If they move they get a bit of damage, can do only half move and can't run or charge. Have the monsters do Spring Attack.
• have certain walls resist spells like 'stone shape' (I don't know if there is one at the top of my head)
• I know there are other adventures out there with some nasty traps or monster, etc.. Borrow some, there are a lot more nastier people out there then me :)

The whole idea is 'death by a thousand cuts'. When they meet the Ghostlord they should be weaken and spend a whole bunch of their spells, etc. You can give the party some downtime (10 min) but don't give them a chance to regain things like spells, items, etc. Good luck

@Saint: WB!!

[Golden Ladybug]

My party wiped in the Ruins of Rhest, after hitting it head on. They did good, and got it down to just Regiarix, Saarvith and one Razorfiend. They managed to fight through everything else, but they couldn't go that extra mile. So, that's me done.

I really appreciate all the advice given in this thread by Saintheart and all the other posters; it provided me with a lot of insight into how to best run this adventure. Through continued misfortune and poor planning, my party managed to bumble through it to get to the end of part two, and the advice here made it work.

So... so long, and thanks for all the fish!

[TheSpriggan]

First of all, unless Houseruled: Holy Avenger, the greater dispel magic is a SA at the Paladin classlvl and area only. Items can only be affected via targeted dispel magic. So an sword isn't surpressed by it. Also... the spell states: "You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself". If the paladin casts this spell when he's in the area, he targets himself (and maybe allies) and automatically dispels his highest spell (see the text if he's buffed by another spellcaster.

WB Saint,

Berron, I should have mentioned we're playing Pathfinder rules, so the rule for Holy Avenger reads:
"This +2 cold iron longsword becomes a +5 holy cold iron longsword in the hands of a paladin.

When wielded by a paladin, this sacred weapon provides spell resistance of 5 + the paladin's class level to the wielder and anyone adjacent to her. It also enables the paladin to use greater dispel magic (once per round as a standard action) at the class level of the paladin. Only the area dispel is possible, not the targeted dispel or counterspell versions of greater dispel magic."

As anti-magic shell, forbiddance, and most defensive spells I would use are area spells...so his habit of sitting in the back using it once per round would probably continue.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the other trap ideas, some I already had, others I will incorporate. Thank you.

[BerronBrightaxe]

My party wiped in the Ruins of Rhest, after hitting it head on. They did good, and got it down to just Regiarix, Saarvith and one Razorfiend. They managed to fight through everything else, but they couldn't go that extra mile. So, that's me done.

I really appreciate all the advice given in this thread by Saintheart and all the other posters; it provided me with a lot of insight into how to best run this adventure. Through continued misfortune and poor planning, my party managed to bumble through it to get to the end of part two, and the advice here made it work.

So... so long, and thanks for all the fish!

Hi Ladybug.. sorry to hear the party didn't make it.. Misfortune can indeed

If you want to continue the adventure, you can have a new group start off in Brindol and run some of the other encounters (Miha, mercenary's gold, etc), mayby downgrade the Ghostlord, so they can defeat him and make it back on time to Brindol for the battle of the city (with an army of Razorfiends ofc (and maybe some iconic items from the other party)).

Berron, I should have mentioned we're playing Pathfinder rules, so the rule for Holy Avenger reads:
"This +2 cold iron longsword becomes a +5 holy cold iron longsword in the hands of a paladin.

When wielded by a paladin, this sacred weapon provides spell resistance of 5 + the paladin's class level to the wielder and anyone adjacent to her. It also enables the paladin to use greater dispel magic (once per round as a standard action) at the class level of the paladin. Only the area dispel is possible, not the targeted dispel or counterspell versions of greater dispel magic."

As anti-magic shell, forbiddance, and most defensive spells I would use are area spells...so his habit of sitting in the back using it once per round would probably continue.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the other trap ideas, some I already had, others I will incorporate. Thank you.

Np, have fun with them.

There are a few point's I'm trying to make about the dispelling ability of the Holy Avenger. First it is an areadispel. You need to have a line of effect and sight to position the point of origin. This means that the Pally need to position it correctly. Second: when the area would hit one (or more) of his allies, all the rules of dispelling apply to the ally (so if the highest spell is cast by the Pally, it automaticly dispells). Third: there are certain areaspells, which can't be dispelled via the Holy Avenger, like the Anti Magic Shell(I wonder if even a targeted dispel magic would work against one of those).

Also, you could have one of the NPC's counterspell with the same spell (which will automaticly succeed).

Hope it makes sense

[Saintheart]

On to the "Saving the Walls" encounter at last as the battle begins. *Uses Pearl of Power, casts another Wall of Text...* For those of you wondering what the hell I'm talking about, this is that part of the Battle of Brindol where you're ordered outside the city to take down four hill giants that are throwing big rocks at the wall, said rocks being big enough to break the walls if they're left long enough.

My roster was relatively straightforward: 2 hill giants unmodified, a Skullcrusher Ogre, an Ogre Tempest from the MM3 with an extra level on him, 10 hobgoblin regulars with the Massed Charge team tactic, and a Hobgoblin Crusader 3.

This one was a three-rounder for my party, mainly because of the large open ground distances involved (encounter starts at 480 feet out from the giants) and because of the spells they used. Confusion, Sudden Widened, took out any coordination my hobgoblin squad had in mind, and the rest was one-shotting by optimised Duskblades and Barbarians (with an honourable mention to the drow Fighter/Wizard/Warblade, who sniped one giant from 240 feet away with a hand crossbow, thanks very much Mr. Optimised Bard with your +6 to attack and damage rolls.)

Here's some thought I had while running this encounter and afterwards:

• Haste and spells like Air Walk, Overland Flight, and so on make a big difference to closing with the giants. Haste all but doubles your movement speed, so if your party takes the Run action (x4 movement, full round action, x3 if you're wearing plate) while Hasted they're clearing a good 240 feet per round assuming a movement speed of 30 feet unmodified -- which means they come to grips with the 'giant artillery' much faster. This may or may not suit your plans.
  
  
• Overall, on "by the numbers" D&D the encounter could probably do with more GM fiat than it has as written. It's pretty obvious to me the encounter was intended as a nail-biting countdown to the fall of a wall, because the whole idea of the "start the encounter at 480 feet out" is to give the giants a few more rounds to chuck boulders at the walls, and the hill giants being programmed not to stop throwing boulders until they're wounded to about 50 hitpoints or so. The whole dramatic question to be answered here (see the Angry DM for details) is: "Does the party stop the walls falling by stopping the stream of boulders?"
  
  Thing is, as written it's still a time limit designed for a Fail Party: 25 rounds of uninterrupted throwing to bring a wall down, which I would have thought is never going to happen.
  
  (I mean, on reflection with 25 straight rounds of throwing to take down a wall it's hard to see how exactly the other sortie by Jarmaath's people to take down the giants failed: at 100-odd hitpoints each, even if he Jarmaath only sent 15-20 guys and just pulled ranged attack after ranged attack in skirmish, Jarmaath's squaddies could just run around fishing for crits and kill one giant every 10 rounds with light crossbows just on statistical probability. If they focus their attacks and stop one giant at a time, that extends the lifespan of the walls since James and Rich calculate that lifespan on average damage per round from four giants. Less sources of damage = less damage per round = more rounds the wall survives.)
  
  So I think you wouldn't be overdoing it to significantly lower the time before the wall falls in order to up the urgency of this encounter. Or at least bring it home to the party that time is getting short: perhaps tell them during the combat that one boulder you see puts a substantial crack in the wall or something. As written, four hill giants are just big trundling lumps of hitpoints which players have a lot of options to take out.
  
  The computations of "25 rounds before fall of wall" made by James and Rich are (probably) dead-on rules legal by the DMG. I think they exist to beat off (er...yeah) the rules lawyers in your party. If you have one who's apt to question that sort of thing, then you have two options: either fiat that the masonry of the wall is poor (the city being three hundred years old and never having fallen under attack in its life) rendering it more vulnerable to bombardment, or give the Hill Giants a single level in Hulking Hurler from Complete Warrior and use CW's rules for thrown objects. This is pretty easy since Hill Giants already satisfy all but one prerequisite for the PrC. Sub out Point Blank Shot for the giants' Improved Sunder, and you're done. Now your hill giants are throwing real boulders at the walls and at the party, not those little pebbles that do just over the damage of a low-level fighter's greatsword.
  
  
• Do you alter their tactics? I'd argue yes. These guys are INT 6. Dumb as, well, let's not go with Robert Downey Jr.'s dialogue from Tropic Thunder, but it strikes me that without some sort of handler around they're out of character to just keep throwing at the walls while being attacked. I'd have thought they'd rather SMASH PUNY HUMANZ and then start throwing rocks again, but I'm open to persuasion on that. Do you throw rocks at the party as they close? On reflection I'd say "Hell, yes" if they're an optimised party. Hill Giants on the SRD like to throw rocks from outcrops where they limit the risk to themselves, so they've got at least that much strategy to them.
  
  
• I would also consider having the giants aim not at the stone walls, but rather at the gates of Brindol themselves (West Gate and South Gate, respectively). Wood's a lot easier to break than stone, even if it's a bit harder to hit, and a breach is a breach.
  
  
• If your players need support from Brindol, and they've picked up the Tiri Kitor, don't forget about them. Remember, this battle is happening under a full moon, meaning anyone with low-light vision (i.e. any elf, which includes the Tiri Kitor) can see as clearly as if it were daylight. If the Tiri Kitor are stationed along the walls, they've got longbows which can hit at 500 feet albeit at low probability unless you've got a bard around or something.
  
  
• On reflection, for a party that's got a lot of options I'd probably do Spell Turrets next time with a force defending them. More about that next time I post, I've got some thinking to do on it and it could use some explanation.
  

[Saintheart]

So anyway, on Spell Turrets for the "Saving the Walls" encounter. (Spell Turrets coming from the DMG 2, for the scorekeepers out there...)

For a start, if you wanted to take this option, they wouldn't be spell turrets as such. Spell turrets are basically a magic trap that activates when an unrecognised target comes with 120 feet and have four spells that fire off once per round. Those four spells have to come off the same list, have to be the same level, and have to come from different schools. It fires these spells off one by one, round by round, and takes a fifth round to repair itself 4d8+20 damage to itself.

So to use one for this encounter, you right away have to mess with the conditions under which the turret fires, since if you're using them as siege weapons they're placed at least 500 feet from the walls.

The second issue is which spell to use. A 500-foot range is Long range, which surprisingly few direct damage spells actually have -- the ones capable of hitting objects, anyway. The only one I could track down out of the SRD and scanning through the SpC before getting utterly bored with the whole thing was Fireball. And even then you need to be a CL 10 to actually have the weapon get to 500 feet. Heroes of Battle, which I checked through, wasn't much help on this either, with a decidedly sucky spell collection bar Resounding Voice that the party bard is presently abusing the hell out of to make the defenders of Brindol all level 6 fighters at least

One thought around this is to reduce the distance from the walls for the turrets. I think James and Rich picked 500 feet out from the walls as the applicable distance for the encounter solely so the party has to spend a couple of rounds running towards the giants. The distance otherwise is really meaningless.

See, the human defenders of Brindol have light crossbows, which means although they take big range increment penalties, they still have an 800 foot maximum range from the walls -- but they're also utterly blind past about 120 feet even with the full moon, not having lowlight vision. So against them the giants could be 150 feet out and the humans simply would have no way of responding. The Tiri Kitor do get to see further, of course, and have composite longbows with an absolute maximum range of 1100 feet, but even at 340 feet from the walls they're taking -4 on every shot they make from the wall against an AC of 20, for a plinking max damage of 11 assuming no critical hits. Either way, human or elf alike ain't hitting a spell turret, which is deemed as diminutive when it actually fires. That's a +4 to its AC for size alone, and then, of course, it's healing every fifth round and has 200 hitpoints.

So you could move the spell turret in closer to the wall if you correspondingly increased the damage (whether implied or real) it does to the wall. At Medium range (100 feet plus 10 ft/CL, or 200 feet plus 20 ft/CL if the spell is Enlarged) more interesting stuff comes into play: Crumble, for one, which seems thematic and does tie in with blasting a wall down.

That gives the players less rounds to close in and for the turret to fire, certainly, but you should be emphasising, even overstating, the damage the spell turrets do to the wall. The main thing is that the collapse of the walls should be a near-run thing, a countdown to destruction in you would hope single figures.

It also presents I think a more interesting combat challenge for players since you can disable it, too -- something for the rogue to do in combat, perhaps.

[ShriekingDrake]

Thanks, as always, for a great discussion Saintheart. I am wondering about your thoughts--or anyone else's--on something here. I have always thought of the attack on the walls as a mechanism to tap party resources and to test the party's ability not to over extend itself. The big battle lies ahead, this is just the appetizer. But using lots of good spells, charges, etc on this battle will leave the party with less for the onslaught that is about to fall upon Brindol. I know that Rich and James say that the party has a lot of resources at hand, which may certainly be true for arrows and potions of healing/heroism, etc. But there are only so many spells available in a day and unless you give the party some very useful scrolls, those giants and each wave of the battle ahead will tap resources. The few minutes between the walls coming down/or not and the next battle is not enough to regain quotidian spells and abilities. Anyway, I guess I'm just wondering about upping the battle of the wall too much.

[Saintheart]

Thanks, as always, for a great discussion Saintheart. I am wondering about your thoughts--or anyone else's--on something here. I have always thought of the attack on the walls as a mechanism to tap party resources and to test the party's ability not to over extend itself. The big battle lies ahead, this is just the appetizer. But using lots of good spells, charges, etc on this battle will leave the party with less for the onslaught that is about to fall upon Brindol. I know that Rich and James say that the party has a lot of resources at hand, which may certainly be true for arrows and potions of healing/heroism, etc. But there are only so many spells available in a day and unless you give the party some very useful scrolls, those giants and each wave of the battle ahead will tap resources. The few minutes between the walls coming down/or not and the next battle is not enough to regain quotidian spells and abilities. Anyway, I guess I'm just wondering about upping the battle of the wall too much.

I think it depends on your party's numbers and resources, and how you generate tension in the encounter.

If you've got an optimised barbarian or charger build in the party, for example, their abilities are practically endless: they can keep pulling out Power Attack/Leap Attack/Combat Brute/Pounce (why did you give him Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian, you silly DM? :D ) all day long. Sure, a barbarian is only going to have, what, about 4-5 rages per day to work with by these levels, but one rage per fight is not that much to ask.

If the party has any Will-blasting magic like Confusion or the like, this fight becomes a no-brainer (no pun intended). Like I said, the party basically shredded my encounter with two castings of Confusion because it destroyed my monsters' ability to coordinate and even attack the wall. That's not a lot of resources spent in that case. (If you wanted to make the Hill Giants more resistant to that tactic, you'd sub in Endurance and Steadfast Determination at least, if not give them potions of Conviction. And even then you're looking at a 1d20+8 or so Will save).

But, having read some Angry DM recently, I don't know if it's necessarily wise to make the Hill Giants much, much tougher than they are. The Battle overall has a lot of melee grind to it, and this one has capacity to be yet another one. I think the answer with this particular encounter is to focus on the real question that needs answering: Does the party stop the wall being knocked down?

If you approach the encounter with that as the issue to be resolved -- causing the party to fight the clock and see they're fighting the clock -- then that is what creates the suspense of the encounter. Fighting the clock might entail the party smacking the hill giants until they break off their attack on the wall, but it might also just involve one quick casting of Confusion and four failed saves.

Indeed if the latter happens, you could be justified in finishing up the encounter with "You ride the giants down while they babble incoherently and take them out," because the source of drama in the encounter has been resolved: 8-9 (or 10) rounds of successful Confusion guarantees the wall is going to survive with a 25 round limit, because Confusion will only allow the giants to continue their wall-wrecking mission about 20% of the time (the "Act normally" result).

See what I mean? If there's anything to enhance about this particular encounter, it's the time constraints the party is under, not the monsters as such. Enchancing the time limit might require you upgrade the monsters a bit. But you could generate the same tension from making the walls weaker so long as the party is aware of their weakness and can see the clock ticking. That, indeed, could be an approach the party considers: can you use Stone Shape to buttress the walls and thus buy the party a couple more rounds of time, for example?

I hold the time constraint of this encounter is what generates the most tension and the most drama in that fight, on reflection.

Without a real, visible time limit for the players, Saving the Walls is nothing but a random encounter -- and a badly designed one since the giants won't even defend themselves until you've carved 50% of their hitpoints off them.

Spell Turrets I would consider as a replacement for giants -- if for whatever reason you didn't want the fight to be a one-rounder by way of Will saves. Turrets either require large quantities of hitpoint damage (200, and then defeating 4d8+20 healing every fifth roun) or a good disable check.

Sorry, that was a big Wall of Text again, but I wanted to try and clarify what I was saying: when you're "fixing" the encounter, fix the time constraints, not the monsters as such.

[ksbsnowowl]

The second issue is which spell to use. A 500-foot range is Long range, which surprisingly few direct damage spells actually have -- the ones capable of hitting objects, anyway. The only one I could track down out of the SRD and scanning through the SpC before getting utterly bored with the whole thing was Fireball. And even then you need to be a CL 10 to actually have the weapon get to 500 feet. Heroes of Battle, which I checked through, wasn't much help on this either, with a decidedly sucky spell collection bar Resounding Voice that the party bard is presently abusing the hell out of to make the defenders of Brindol all level 6 fighters at least

Minor nitpick - I think you melded long and medium range in this statement. Long is 400 ft +40 ft per level. By third level a Wizard's long range is 520 ft. By the time he can first cast fireball at 5th level, his range is 600 ft.

[Saintheart]

Minor nitpick - I think you melded long and medium range in this statement. Long is 400 ft +40 ft per level. By third level a Wizard's long range is 520 ft. By the time he can first cast fireball at 5th level, his range is 600 ft.

Huh- you're absolutely right!

That makes putting Fireball in a spell turret easy, certainly. The problem then becomes: are there three other direct damage spells working on objects which aren't Evocation school and of the same level as Fireball that can be launched at Long range? I'd love to hear it if there are such a three.

Like I said, any spell turret you choose is probably going to have to operate at a Medium range with every spell in it Empowered for this to make sense. Medium range seems to have a much, much bigger selection for direct damage stuff than Long.

[ShriekingDrake]

I think another thing to think about with this encounter is that the giants are at least 20 ft apart. So it will take anywhere from 2-4 Confusions or Fireballs to address them. At the levels we're talking about, these are important resources, not their most important, but still of considerable value.

[Ivellius]

Huh- you're absolutely right!

That makes putting Fireball in a spell turret easy, certainly. The problem then becomes: are there three other direct damage spells working on objects which aren't Evocation school and of the same level as Fireball that can be launched at Long range? I'd love to hear it if there are such a three.

Like I said, any spell turret you choose is probably going to have to operate at a Medium range with every spell in it Empowered for this to make sense. Medium range seems to have a much, much bigger selection for direct damage stuff than Long.

Acid Arrow is one. Looking through core spells, I don't see anything else that fits the bill, though.

[Saintheart]

I think another thing to think about with this encounter is that the giants are at least 20 ft apart. So it will take anywhere from 2-4 Confusions or Fireballs to address them. At the levels we're talking about, these are important resources, not their most important, but still of considerable value.

True - so if you want to ensure an easier victory for your party, stand one or more giants closer together. Even if they're at the minimum 20 feet apart, 2 Confusions will hit them all: 15 foot radius spell means a 30 foot diameter, and all you need to do is nick one of the squares a giant is standing in and it's hit with the spell. Fireball is even wider: 20 foot radius spread, so even if the giants stand 20 feet apart you'll nail at least two of them with one shot.

[ksbsnowowl]

Huh- you're absolutely right!

That makes putting Fireball in a spell turret easy, certainly. The problem then becomes: are there three other direct damage spells working on objects which aren't Evocation school and of the same level as Fireball that can be launched at Long range? I'd love to hear it if there are such a three.

Like I said, any spell turret you choose is probably going to have to operate at a Medium range with every spell in it Empowered for this to make sense. Medium range seems to have a much, much bigger selection for direct damage stuff than Long.

Yeah, something like a Maximized Fireball and a Disintegrate gets you half way there, though it's likely too high of a level for RHoD.

[MandibleBones]

Just a thought: for those of us running RHoD by PbP, it's worth skipping the Jorr encounter entirely if your party, like mine, dredged Drellin's Ferry for every possible bit of information before leaving for Vraath Keep.

My players were slow in exploring the town, and talked to everybody, so there wasn't much Jorr (or "old Wood Watcher," as he's been renamed for the setting) could tell them — and there were already more than four of them, so the extra body wasn't needed. Thankfully, they just had one of their flyers let him know hobs were about and then proceeded onward.

(They also skipped the hydra encounter by running full-tilt across the causeway, using the withdraw action where necessary, and continuing on into the woods — I'd forgotten Hydras are a known and dreaded enemy in Equestria, while these new hobgoblins and even the dragons are generally less well known and thus less dreaded).

[shaddy_24]

So, I put together a build for Varanthian that managed to intimidate and overpower a party of 8, albeit with surprise on her side. The party foolishly clumped up as they approached the lion, and she leaped out of her cave right on top of them.

I used Inkeyes suggestion of using a fang dragon rather than the fiendish behir, and gave her the feats Improved Multiattack, Improved Natural Attack, Multiattack, Power Attack, Practiced Spellcaster, 2xRapidstrike (claws and wings). Gives her, all said and done, 8 attacks per round, 6 at +23, two at +18, four of them tripping and one draining Con. With blood wind as one of her spells, they can't just stand back to avoid full attacks, and she can make Con draining opportunity attacks as they approach.

The party basically lost the initial exchange, and she captured their cleric and demanded the phylactery that the rogue was holding as they approached. They dropped the phylactery and she let the cleric go, but their about to begin attacking again, and she's ready for it. Unfortunately, the session ended there, so we'll find out on Sunday how this plays out.

[Saintheart]

Just a thought: for those of us running RHoD by PbP, it's worth skipping the Jorr encounter entirely if your party, like mine, dredged Drellin's Ferry for every possible bit of information before leaving for Vraath Keep.

If he doesn't add anything to the adventure, then by all means skip him since he then just resembles a DMPC.

On the other hand, I think more can be made of him -- if he's presented to the party as a viable option with pros and cons for finding Vraath Keep.

(If you've got flying players, of course, it makes things a bit trickier since as you say Norro Wiston helpfully says there's an old keep about 15 miles out west along the Dawn Way, which gives the party a point at which to start searching for the place. That could be worked around by making the Keep hard to spot from the air unless you're right over it because of the size of the Witchwood's trees.)

Basically, if you want to keep Jorr relevant, I think you set up a series of choices for the players to consider: either hire Jorr who can take you to Vraath Keep via the back trails with a minimum of time lost for a certain fee -- perhaps a slice of the rumoured treasure that's there -- or leave the party to stumble around on the back trails on their own (requiring Survival checks at least), or let the party traipse on up the Dawn Way which may lead them to the keep, but will bring down hobgoblin patrol after hobgoblin patrol on them and which has the consequence of making Vraath Keep more heavily defended when they get there.

That set of choices works much better if the party's under time pressure and if there are consequences for any choice they have. Time pressure can be created if you drop hints from the Marauder Attack that hobgoblins are coming to destroy Drellin's Ferry. In this case the Chimaera and/or Raid on the West Bank encounters indicate the increasing ferocity of the attacks and get the players to believe they have to get moving, and soon.

[awesomesmasher]

I've been a playing DnD as a player for 20 years, i decided to give running a game a chance. as a first time DM i'm going to try and run RHOD. i would like to personalize it a bit. mostly i'm going to change character names. i'm potentially going to switch the dragons out for other creatures. i'm replacing the high dragon lord with a stranded space traveler, molded after Darth Vader. please let me know if that is too strong, or not strong enough. i initially just built a character as i would a PC but was told that he was too week on another forum. i did my best to create a sith class that uses DnD 3.5 rules.
i'm also using this forum as a guide for changing some things, adjusting NPCs and what not. My party will be 5th lvl going into it. i plan on replacing tiamat with a c'thulhu type elder god that my Badguy is trying to summon, to harness the energy so he can go home. and the dragonspawn with equivalent demonish type of characters. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Saintheart]

Right. There's a fair bit to talk about in there, and hopefully others will help me out on it. So...

(1) I can't find (on a quick search) a class in D&D called "Sentinel" that matches what you've got here. Even the Dragon 310 Sentinel doesn't seem to match it. Is this class a homebrew or something? I haven't looked at the d20 SW Saga edition, but does it come from there?

(2) It's hard to assess whether a character is too strong or not unless you know the party you're facing. Classes and their abilities make a huge difference.

(3) All of that said: I personally see him as a bit weak on some aspects and too strong on others, simply because he's more or less an 18th level fighter.

His Will save appears solid enough -- your party's casters by level 9 or 10(where the module tops out) will be flinging DC 14+ on their spells, so he has a better than 50% chance of beating a Will-targeted spell. On the other hand, if he fails that Will save then he really has no mechanic to get back into the action. A failed Glitterdust means he's done and dead, even if he has three digits in hitpoints.

And with an attack bonus of +25 to start with he's 95% certain of hitting against all but the most ultrabuffed party at level 9-10, for 3d10+4d6+16 damage. Concealment and critical fails are the only things that stop that. That's pretty strong numbers. On a full attack, if he gets the chance, it's again pretty strong chance of hitting and probably dropping or killing something that only has about 9d12 in Hit Dice at best. God knows what happens if he uses Power Attack. I'm not sure if you necessarily want to hit that hard.

(On the other hand, if a Slow spell gets up, again, he's not killing anybody and he's most likely dead. And unless your players are really dumb they won't be standing close enough together to give him a Full Attack option or a Cleave. Realistically he's down to two melee strikes per round: his primary attack, and then his AoO. He doesn't even have Combat Reflexes, so once his first AoO goes off, he's done for attacks in the round and people can clear away from him quick time. He also doesn't have a 10 foot reach or better, so he can't hit people unless they're next to him.)

His AC is a bit off. He's in armour that only allows a +3 max DEX bonus, he doesn't get to apply his whole +6 in DEX to his AC. More problematically, an AC of 29 means a character with a total attack bonus of +19 can be expected to hit him about 50% of the time, with the percentages dropping off as the attack bonus falls, so use that for the comparison. For comparison, the best possible BAB a 10th level character can achieve is a +10, and that's a fighter or other melee-focused type, of course, and your players should be pulling in roughly +4 STR boosters and then +2 weaponry or so, so they may well be below thoseodds. At AC 32, the odds become much less: even a kitted out 10th level melee type with a +6 STR bonus total and a +3 weapon is only going to hit your dude about 35% of the time, statistically. Again I don't know if you want him to be this buff.

As I said, he also has no options for shrugging off being clowned on his Will saves. In passing, having high Reflex saves (Evasion, Uncanny Dodge) are really pointless to my mind; for the most part Reflex only mitigates direct damage, and he has hitpoints to burn here.

I would look to at least one or two feats out of Tome of Battle if you wanted to strengthen him against Will problems. But really several of his feats could go in place of battlefield controlling stuff like Improved Trip, Improved Bull Rush and so on.

[awesomesmasher]

Right. There's a fair bit to talk about in there, and hopefully others will help me out on it. So...

(1) I can't find (on a quick search) a class in D&D called "Sentinel" that matches what you've got here. Even the Dragon 310 Sentinel doesn't seem to match it. Is this class a homebrew or something? I haven't looked at the d20 SW Saga edition, but does it come from there?

(2) It's hard to assess whether a character is too strong or not unless you know the party you're facing. Classes and their abilities make a huge difference.

(3) All of that said: I personally see him as a bit weak on some aspects and too strong on others, simply because he's more or less an 18th level fighter.

His Will save appears solid enough -- your party's casters by level 9 or 10(where the module tops out) will be flinging DC 14+ on their spells, so he has a better than 50% chance of beating a Will-targeted spell. On the other hand, if he fails that Will save then he really has no mechanic to get back into the action. A failed Glitterdust means he's done and dead, even if he has three digits in hitpoints.

And with an attack bonus of +25 to start with he's 95% certain of hitting against all but the most ultrabuffed party at level 9-10, for 3d10+4d6+16 damage. Concealment and critical fails are the only things that stop that. That's pretty strong numbers. On a full attack, if he gets the chance, it's again pretty strong chance of hitting and probably dropping or killing something that only has about 9d12 in Hit Dice at best. God knows what happens if he uses Power Attack. I'm not sure if you necessarily want to hit that hard.

(On the other hand, if a Slow spell gets up, again, he's not killing anybody and he's most likely dead. And unless your players are really dumb they won't be standing close enough together to give him a Full Attack option or a Cleave. Realistically he's down to two melee strikes per round: his primary attack, and then his AoO. He doesn't even have Combat Reflexes, so once his first AoO goes off, he's done for attacks in the round and people can clear away from him quick time. He also doesn't have a 10 foot reach or better, so he can't hit people unless they're next to him.)

His AC is a bit off. He's in armour that only allows a +3 max DEX bonus, he doesn't get to apply his whole +6 in DEX to his AC. More problematically, an AC of 29 means a character with a total attack bonus of +19 can be expected to hit him about 50% of the time, with the percentages dropping off as the attack bonus falls, so use that for the comparison. For comparison, the best possible BAB a 10th level character can achieve is a +10, and that's a fighter or other melee-focused type, of course, and your players should be pulling in roughly +4 STR boosters and then +2 weaponry or so, so they may well be below thoseodds. At AC 32, the odds become much less: even a kitted out 10th level melee type with +6 STR-booster and a +3 weapon is only going to hit your dude about 35% of the time, statistically. Again I don't know if you want him to be this buff.

As I said, he also has no options for shrugging off being clowned on his Will saves. In passing, having high Reflex saves (Evasion, Uncanny Dodge) are really pointless to my mind; for the most part Reflex only mitigates direct damage, and he has hitpoints to burn here.

I would look to at least one or two feats out of Tome of Battle if you wanted to strengthen him against Will problems. But really several of his feats could go in place of battlefield controlling stuff like Improved Trip, Improved Bull Rush and so on.

First off, thank you very much for your input.
Sentinel is a made up rip off of a homebrew sith class that I found online. I just really like the idea of the space traveling outsider and vader was just the obvious choice for me when it comes to an intergalactic badass. Not to get hung up on the that aspect, but do you think it would be better for me to achieve my goal by importing darth vader's stats directly from the Star Wars source book. Or just work on adjusting what you have pointed out.



Also I seem to remember seeing somewhere a suggestion for other monsters to use in place of the dragons. Anyone have any insight there?

[Saintheart]

Honestly (and I'd wait for advice from other people on this) I'd rework it to full D&D terms. For the most part origin is flavour - the mathematics of a build determine how effective it is in combat, which is all your Badguy is really meant to do in the adventure. Importing Vader's stats direct from a d20 book might seem superficially attractive, but it's like saying an apple is the same as an orange on the assertion that they're both fruit.

Does your party play with psionics much? That's one way to introduce a different, "alien" feel to a character if nobody in the party uses them. Psionics is a subsystem of D&D 3.5 so it's (well, theoretically) built to balance with the more regular elements of magic and melee. Other thoughts are to pursue "outsider"-ish character options: Lords of Madness has a lot of references to extradimensional beings such as aboleth or illithids; maybe you can work with some of that to get an "alien feel". I like the space traveller idea as well, it's attractive. The trick is just getting it to work on D&D terms.

On other monsters to use in place of dragons: RHOD is much more about the overall narrative structure of the campaign than the fine details, which is why it translates so well across settings IMHO. Frankly, if the CRs match up, you could sub in any big beastie for a dragon and it should work. Pick devils, or demons, and just work your way up the challenge ratings.

[King-Strawberry]

I just recently started dming a RHoD for 3 Gestalt characters. The marauder attack was a good challenge with dire wolf trip tactics causing the party quite a bit of grief. They were eventually able to finish it off with only one pc falling unconscious.

I've been reworking Koth as a white dragonspawn (dragonlance campaign setting) fluffed as a spawn of the 5th white dragon who has yet to reach the vale. With practiced spellcaster and spell shield ACF, I think this should make him a fairly formidable opponent even to level 5 or even 6 gestalts. I'll keep you guys posted on how this works out!

This guide has helped me a ton, and the campaign journals are a blast, thanks a ton for the great resource!

[Saintheart]

Glad you like it, King-Strawberry; always interested to hear how RHOD works from other players!

("Oh, no," the Playground whispers. "It's that damn Saintheart again. He's finished another encounter and is about to cast Wall of Text again...")

Well, yes. Because my party's just finished up Abithriax's Rampage, and there's some thoughts I had on it to share...

Strategy and Motivations:
To me, this encounter in its vanilla form strikes me as an attempt to channel Bard vs. Smaug at Dale out of The Hobbit, which is noble enough, certainly ... but it's also a bit weak on motivations for Abby in particular as written. Nobody writes fifty page backstories for every NPC the party comes across, of course; that's not what I'm talking about. In essence this encounter is written a bit vague on location which I think springs out of it being weak on why Abithriax would be doing what he's doing, and why the Red Hand is dumb enough to employ him that way.

I mean, let's think about it. You have a big flying flamethrower that for all practical purposes is invulnerable to the plinky arrows Brindol can throw at it. Said flamethrower projects dragonfear against low Will save fighter types whenever he charges, attacks, or flies overhead. Said flamethrower is also different from most of his species in that he's religiously committed (to the point of death) to your cause and therefore is much more amenable to command and tactics than an arrogant dragon otherwise might be.

Now, as a fairly competent general (as Kharn surely is) how do you use a resource like that? Would you not use the dragon to actually hit some of the defenders' resources that actually matter, like, say, wherever Brindol's garrison is staging from, or from their field hospitals? Would you really just give him vague instructions to wander off and flame a few buildings on the hope some of the defenders will think putting out fires is more important than stopping the hobgoblins with swords trying to swarm over your walls? Especially if, say, one of the walls your hill giants tried to break has in fact held?

Admittedly I'm on a tangent from the vanilla RHOD campaign because in mine I've fiated that Brindol's defenders manage to hold off the second artillery unit of giants -- and that indeed the entire giant artillery thing was a gambit by the Red Hand to get the party out of the city so Abithriax would have a freer hand to clear the West Gate of Brindol's troops with dragonfear and dragonfire and then hold it open for the Red Hand to storm in. So in my own campaign, personally I think it has a much tighter storyline: Red Hand fools party into leaving the city, which allows Abithriax to storm the West Gate and cut off the Brindolese troops who went out to deal with the giants at that gate. Which then forces the party to come to the West Gate to deal with the dragon on its own terms.

Tactics:
There were probably four salient points I picked up on tactics for this encounter, bearing in mind I'm dealing with a horrendously broken action economy of eight players including three Tier One casters and a ToB type who uses White Raven Tactics a lot, which makes them even more brutally strong. In my game with action points, feats every second level, and higher than usual hitpoints, he wound up a 19 HD, Young Adult Red Dragon at CL 5 and still wound up knocked down in three rounds because I'm a slow learner at how to fight properly. On the other hand I learned a lot about tactics in that fight. So, that said:

(1) Abithriax is put in a very less-than-ideal position for this fight. He's not in his lair, so he doesn't have home ground advantage. He also doesn't have a lot of time to prepare the ground in any event; on the book RHOD, the fight just happens over a random part of town. And this is fiated by RHOD as a fight to the death more or less because of Abithriax's immense pride, so it's a bit cheesy to use a double or Run move to stay ahead of the party. In any event if the party's flying or gets a tier one caster with Medium range spells to a high point, that 150-foot move allowance is not necessarily good enough to stop him getting sniped by spells. Given these disadvantages, I think if you have an optimised party or a party with 6 or more characters that can cast fifth level spells, you should definitely up him an age category at least or make him a better caster.

(2) With those disadvantages in mind, I believe the way to run Abby is to skirmish with him and concentrate on blasting with a breath weapon from as far away as you can conceivably get. Metabreath feats, though, don't necessarily make this as easy as it sounds: they impose seriously long recharge times in actual battle, especially if you're going with Heighten Breath to ensure nobody saves against the full breath. The problem is, as always, the action economy. He's never going to get a full attack option off because even with Combat Reflexes he has no AoOs to burn on your party. Dive in, blast with breath weapon, then get the hell out of there while your breath weapon recharges.

(3) The easiest way to make the fight a bit more challenging for the party is to have the fight take place in a section of town that's actually burning. Why? (Especially why if the party's done the smart thing and put its Resist Energy bling on, which makes it immune to housefires and dragonfire alike?)

Because, to coin a phrase, where there's fire, there's smoke. Specifically, smoke as an environmental effect out of the DMG. It grants 20% concealment -- good as a fog or mist, cutting across critical hits and preventing sneak attack -- in your favour, and it hits the party with Fort saves every round that start out low-ish (DC 15) but increase by +1 with every save attempt and which are going to start snagging your party's casters if they don't get busy and take out the dragon quickly. It messes with the party's action economy because all it does is take out a player coughing and choking for the whole round: it imposes no effect as such, so stuff like Healing Lorecall doesn't counter it.

You, of course, being a dragon who smokes like, well, a smoky-nosed dragon, can be fiated as immune to this effect since you're immune to the fire you produce. And your dragon breath is not affected by the concealment chance. Unless you're desperate you will not be making icky melee attacks. The Battle for Brindol happens in high summer. You can easily fiat it as a still, windless night to ensure no pesky questions about the wind carrying the smoke away.

If you can, use that flight movement allowance to your advnatage. Don't go maintaining that 50% movement allowance to stay in the air, hop around the battlefield from fire-shrouded alley to fire-shrouded alley by 150-foot leaps. Make Hide checks; with smoke and distance it actually starts to get sort of respectable, and a caster who can't see you has no line of sight and therefore no line of effect to you.

(4) Magic choices: Scintillating Scales, Shield, and Mage Armor are all essentials. Conviction potions help with your Will save, Resist Energy: Cold will mitigate the damage from pesky Mass Fire Shields, and Blindsight as a scroll will let you go mano a mano in smoke if that's your thing. But forget Blood Wind. I'm changing my recommendation on that soon. The range for it is too short -- within charge range at least -- and allows a Will save, which means you won't be taking out your biggest opponents, PC casters, with it. Wings of Cover, though, is a lifesaver, the ultimate raised middle finger to a caster who just wants to spam Dispel Magic on your position.

(5) Feat choices: for those of you who hate the fact Abithriax is obliged by the RHOD text to stick around and commit suicide-by-adventurer, I got your solution right here: Final Strike from Savage Species. Damage is keyed to your HD, and the saving throw keys off your CON and your HD, so it'll be a big boomer. Sure, the party will probably have Resist Energy or something to mitigate the [fire] damage it causes as you explode on death, but it won't have anything to mitigate the "Light" damage that operates as a secondary effect. And if you've gotten annoyed with a party that's used to yawning and raining melee attacks on you, blowing the sods up ought to get a few mouths gaping open on a bad Reflex save :D

On other feats: on reflection I'd seriously find a way to shoehorn in Persistent Refusal out of the Fiend Folio 2 to at least give yourself another saving throw against a gimping spell like Hold Monster. Or indeed a Martial Study feat that allows you to get a better Reflex save. Power Attack you can almost go without since Abithriax ain't got a two-handed weapon and thus is not adding anywhere near as much damage as he could put out against multiple targets with a better breath weapon. I'd also look at the (very cheesy) option of Empower Supernatural Ability feat from the Tome of Magic since it gives your breath weapon (a (Su) ability) more oomph without increasing the breath recharge time.

More thoughts in a couple of days.

[Lachdan]

But forget Blood Wind. I'm changing my recommendation on that soon. The range for it is too short -- within charge range at least -- and allows a Will save, which means you won't be taking out your biggest opponents, PC casters, with it.

But the Will-save only applies for the target of the spell, which would be the dragon. And why would you want to resist your own spell?
So it is just the crappy range.

Since I think of this guide as quite useful I will try to add some of my choices:
Hobgoblin-Sergeants
I gave them Fearless (revamped to be possible for the Hobgoblins from this mountain), Shield Specialization and Shield Ward and changed their weapon of choice to Longsword, since it requires one less feat.
He got smashed without problem, but like the rest of the hobgoblins with Palanx-Fighting, slowed the party down.

Hobgoblin-Bladebearers
The Bladebearers got restattet to Hobgoblin-Soldiers, using Greatswords and Improved Disarm. In the first fight it was quite nice to see the one of the PC have to resort to unarmed combat.

Doom Hand Clerics
I changed primarly the spell choice:
II: Aid, Cure Moderate Wounds, Invisibility
I: Inflict Light Wounds, Bless, Faith Healing
and one Scroll: Bull's Strength and Scroll: Magic Circle against Good since I think Summon Monster and Spitirual Weapon to be not the best choice.
Instead of Toughness I gave them Law Devotion as little buff. Their Invisibility is very nice for the buff and healing role, since such spells do not breakt it. Faith healing is very useful, since the hobgoblins all worship Tiamat.

Ozyrrandion
I increased his age and gave him Flyby Attack, Lingering Breath, Clinging Breath, Wingover and Awakened Spell Resistance. Since he rolled poorly on his first breath weapon recharge he spent most of the combat biting at PC with flyby attacks, but they managed to get the bridge destroyed nonetheless, so Ozzy retreated after all hobgoblins died. For his spells I went with Shield and Nerveskitter. Quite touegh, but lacks offensive potential to keep good players away from the bridge.

Also my PC convinced Warklegnaw that the Vraaths returned with an army of hobgoblins and they needed his help to destroy the bridge. I thought that quite a smart way to get help, since they did not ask Jorr to come along. Otherwise it would have been hard for them to destroy the bridge in combat.

Kulkor Zhul War Adept (Goblin Raid)
He ran out of friends before spells (one fireball turned all 5 hobgoblins to ash). And it was a mistake to not give him Shield which protects from Magic Missiles, otherwise he would have gone away.
III: Lightning
II: Electric Loop (for the Lightning theme), Mirror Images
I: Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Lesser Orb of Electricity, Ray of Enfeeblement
Scolls as usual. I used a White Abishai as summoned creature, since they serve tiamat and I thought of it matching the theme.

For the rest of the creatures I started restatting, but since my PC just left Drellins Ferry, I got no feedback on that choice yet.

[Big Fau]

Two questions, specifically regarding a low-optimization party (the highest optimization level they have is a Crusader with Stone Power and a Dread Necromancer with the Corpsecrafter line):

1. Would it be too overwhelming of a change to turn Varanthian into an Adult White Dragon instead of the Behir (and remove the Half-Fiend template)?
2. (Eberron-specific) Would changing some of the dragons of this module into the Metallic equivalents make them too difficult (due to the secondary breath weapons)?

[MandibleBones]

Two questions, specifically regarding a low-optimization party (the highest optimization level they have is a Crusader with Stone Power and a Dread Necromancer with the Corpsecrafter line):

1. Would it be too overwhelming of a change to turn Varanthian into an Adult White Dragon instead of the Behir (and remove the Half-Fiend template)?
2. (Eberron-specific) Would changing some of the dragons of this module into the Metallic equivalents make them too difficult (due to the secondary breath weapons)?

I'd kind of wonder why a white dragon is in the middle of the desert, honestly. You might be better served to switch out with the blue from the Fane (making Azurr Kul's daddy a white dragon and descaling the blue for the Ghostlord area). As for the second, as long as you match the metallics appropriately to their chromatic counterparts (CR-wise), I don't know that the secondary breath weapon is a game-breaker.