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

[Saintheart]

I've had a look at it - honestly, I think you've got it under control. Just make sure your encounters ride that tricky tripwire between TPK, cakewalk, and roll-a-thon, and it should build nicely the way you've done it.

[louiscrites]

I can't believe how active this thread still is, in this day & age. I just started the campaign last week under a Pathfinder conversion, all we've done is the initial battle, where I added a war drum bard to buff all the custom hobbos I made.

Haven't used the guide a whole lot yet, but I plan to. The Hellhounds even suck in Pathfinder, though; one was killed before it did anything at all, the other did a net total of 4 damage with its breath weapon, then was killed. CR 3 my ass! I would have replaced them with ogres had I known better.

[Saintheart]

It's only active because Red Hand of Doom is just that good, or at least the overall structure of the game is that good.

[louiscrites]

I've rebuilt Koth as a hobgoblin Sorcerer (Pathfinder), and he looks reeeeeal nasty. I was thinking about lacing some of his sensitive information with Explosive Runes, putting Explosive notes in the Bag of Holding, and just generally being a complete and total jerk with the spell. Thoughts?

[Red Rubber Band]

While Saint has given me some excellent ideas, I thought I might beg help from a few others and see if any more twists can come to light once the creative juices flow.

How I messed up RHoD from the start.

The setting is currently generic fantasy as I know next to nothing about the myriad of worlds (Eberron, Rokugan) that have been created. The campaign was more meant to be a one shot than part of a massive continuous rampage through to 20th level. To see how people optimise (or don't) and work together. And to get my knowledge of rules up to date and to practise DMing.

Edit: Aaaand my campaign journal is up.

[Kasbark]

Has anyone been able to find a good, high quality image of the Elsir Vale map? my google-fu has only led me to high quality images where the city names have been altered.

[BerronBrightaxe]

Has anyone been able to find a good, high quality image of the Elsir Vale map? my google-fu has only led me to high quality images where the city names have been altered.

This might be what you are looking for: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36844791@N00/

Also check out post #9 of the Handbook

[Kasbark]

Yeah, thats the one i got myself. Unfortunately it's only 1024 x 668 - if you print it out on something larger than A4 it becomes a bit blurry. And we like to print our overall campaign maps out on A2, or at least A3.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Just wanted to pop in to say that the Barghest gathered up plenty of Intel on the town, even charmed a guard and had him give a brief tour, and got away without a hitch. The players did some talking and are now going to actively seek out powerful members of the Red Hand to kill.

This party has done nothing in the order the book presents. They're constantly going off in a direction I never expected, carrying the plot with them. It's been interesting to see things unfold that's for sure. I'm not a fan of rail road plots, but I can see how some might be tempted to lay them down.

[Red Rubber Band]

Just wanted to pop in to say that the Barghest gathered up plenty of Intel on the town, even charmed a guard and had him give a brief tour, and got away without a hitch. The players did some talking and are now going to actively seek out powerful members of the Red Hand to kill.

This party has done nothing in the order the book presents. They're constantly going off in a direction I never expected, carrying the plot with them. It's been interesting to see things unfold that's for sure. I'm not a fan of rail road plots, but I can see how some might be tempted to lay them down.

Are you doing a campaign journal?

[Darthteej]

Well, I've been running Red Hand for the second time(first group broke up after Part I), and the ways they've been handling things have been interesting to say the least. Case in point, today they were debating how to head up to Lake Rhestin and decided to go a route that the book didn't take into account at all: by the Dawn Way, straight past the main body of the hoard at Cinder Hill.

I'd told them that the woods around Cinder Hill are likely infested with wolf-riding Hobgoblin scouts, but expected them to skirt past the main hoard by taking the cross country routes. Instead, they reasoned that the patrols at the camp are pretty light, since the hobgoblins there would be complacent and bored-"the closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm!"

Now normally this would have resulted in them getting spotted and captured immediately, but I'd mentioned that it was raining pretty hard, which had the dual effect of keeping Regiatrax snoozing on the ground and drastically reducing the range at which the hoard could make perception checks. Long story short, some bad rolling on my part means they sneak the entire five man party, plus mounts, down a dry riverbed a mere five hundred feet from the hoard and escape into some nearby woods.

For my part, I was so impressed with them that I gave them XP for overcoming an encounter equal to their party level, and they had the distinct pleasure of waylaying the Old North Road blockade a mere day after it had been set up.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Are you doing a campaign journal?

I am not. It was a concept that I had not even come across until we were partially through the campaign. I feel it would be too late to start now, as my memory of the first few sessions isn't perfect. I did ask for advice in this thread however, and I felt it would be appropriate to update those who helped me.

[FuzzyDM]

Running RHOD for the first time here in PbP. Wish me luck!

[Nerd-o-rama]

Running RHOD for the first time here in PbP. Wish me luck!

Good luck!

Wait **** I'm not supposed to be here.

[Antariuk]

I am considering to run RHoD (with Pathfinder) in spring 2014, so thanks to Sainheart and everyone else for this great ressource! It really helped me to identify problems and get a feel of the module's strengths and weaknesses.

What I'd like to ask is: does anyone here have suggestions for what modules to run prior to RHoD? I wouldn't be surprised if my players wanted to starty play at 1st level, and even though I am a fan of diversity when it comes to adventures, it'd probably be best not to stray too far from RHoD's wilderness theme. I am considering to start the game with The Sunless Citadel, because I had good experiences running it in the past and it can be easily connected to RHoD. But my knowledge of d20 modules, be it original 3rd edition or Pathfinder, is pretty dim, so I'd appreciate your ideas here.

[Rogue Shadows]

What I'd like to ask is: does anyone here have suggestions for what modules to run prior to RHoD?

I ran the Fane of the Drow myself, though first I ran a homebrewed module involving a band of kobolds seeking outside aid against a goblin attack; the goblins were a tribe that had been displaced by the Red Hand, so the players got to hear some early hints about the Hand during the course of that, including name-dropping Azarr Kul, whom I feel isn't emphasized in Red Hand enough as being the guy really in charge of the whole operation.

Afterwards, I ran severely level-downed versions of Fields of Ruin and Dragondown Grotto. The former introduced the Earthcrown, which eventually resulted in the death of a PC (long story) before the Red Hand even began; while the latter introduced Meepo and established him as being friendly with the kobolds I metioned above. This came back to save the players because they screwed the pooch with the Tiri Kitor and badly needed help for Brindol; they were able to get the kobolds to help.

[Rogue Shadows]

Anyway. On to the reason I'm here. I just finished Red Hand, and now I have a few things I need to work out. This is just a request for general ideas.

So...a few points.

1) The party consists of a samurai, a monk, a bard, and a paladin, all 11th level once they finish leveling up (except the samurai, who will be 12th). There used to be a druid/rogue, but just before the final battle Scrylia (mentioned below) showed up and offered the PC's anything they wanted in return for just going away and never coming back, and the druid/rogue took her up on the offer (the samurai refusing her on the grounds of protecting Elsir Vale, on the other hand, coupled with his general actions throughout the campaign, prompted an alignment shift from LN to LG). The player of the druid character was mostly just dissatisfied with him and wanted to roll up a new one anyway.

2) Saarvith and Regiarix (who was upped to Young Adult) are both still alive. They hate the PCs but like living a lot more, so after Abithriax died in Brindol, they fled rather than kept on fighting. I'd like to find ways to make them show up more.

3) I was running Hand in a homebrew setting with a homebrew pantheon; there was no Tiamat, and instead the Hand was following Scrylia, Goddess of Conquest. The entire campaign has in fact been a big game between Scrylia and the Lady, the goddess of luck. Every thousand years or so the gods basically have a high-stakes poker game where they bet their divine ranks and send out champions. They can bet as many or as few as they like and can ante up to gain benefits, with the agreement that no deity may ever have more than 19 Divine Ranks, if they earn more, they can spread it out amongst any of the preexisting gods or elevate mortals to divine rank. Most gods only bet a few divine ranks to prevent themselves from losing too much power. Not in this case.

Scrylia was DvR 18, and the Lady was DvR 19. Both were all in. With the death of Azarr Kul, her last champion (which were the five Wyrmlords), Scrylia was forced to surrender all of her Divine Ranks to the Lady (though she gets to remain Divine Rank 0). The Lady has to wait until all the rest of the gods are done with their own games before spending her prize, but the point is that Scrylia has been reduced to the state she was in before starting her path to to godhood 2,000 years ago - that is, a 4-HD Lawful Evil pseudodragon.

Scrylia didn't have time to summon up an Aspect to try and kill the PCs. She tried to do it personally but was reduced to pseudodragon status before she could; while they were flabbergasted, she ran away. The point is that there's a former Goddess of Conquest, biologically immortal pseudodragon with abnormally good ability scores that HATES the PC's, running around but is completely powerless next to them (even with all most of her ability scores in the mid to high 20s). There's got to be something I can do with that.

Oh, and a major deity has gone missing from the world (For the record, one of only about five; most of the deities in this campaign hover at DvR 8-12). That should have some kind of effect.

4) Before running Hand, I ran a severely leveled-down version of Fields of Ruin, mentioned above. As I mentioned above, the players still got the Earthcrown, almost unmodified from its appearance in that mod in that all its spell-like abilities still functioned identically. To balance out the fact that they were getting a fairly powerful magic item at a fairly low level (~4th), I ruled that the dao sultana trapped inside was in fact actively trying to escape and was kind of very evil. Her name was established as being Ramlah al-Ghūl bint Khaldun ibn Saeed ibn Saleh al-Aziz ibn al-Ard ("Ramlah" for short, and according to my probably bad Arabic that should translate out to "Ramlah the Demon, daughter of Khaldun, son of Saeed, son of Saleh the Magnificent, son of the Earth")

Whenever any of the Earthcrown's powers were used, I required the user, a monk, to make a DC 17 Will save (which for him translated into a 50% fail chance). He deduced pretty early on that the sultana was probably trying to take control of his body (she was), but decided to keep using the Earthcrown. Worth noting: he was never compelled to use it, he kept doing so of his own free will even after deducing that a failed save would mean his character's functional death.

Well, long story short, he eventually failed a Will save and the monk (different from the one mentioned above, BTW) functionally died as the dao took over his body.

So I'm thinking that Ramlah will make good Final Boss material. She's probably going to the Great Dismal Delve in the Plane of Earth to rebuild some terrible dao empire or something. This is actually great; the Plane of Earth is underutilized, I feel, so that should be fun. I actually have a great idea in my head to create this planes-hopping campaign that'll take the players through various worlds, but especially Sigil, finally culminating in the Delve.

5) We're about to do the Tomb of Horrors. Mostly because I've never run nor played the Tomb, but I think it's something that all D&D groups should do at some point. Like vising the Statue of Liberty, that kind of thing. Anyway, the PCs while on their way to the Fane of Tiamat Scrylia got a map leading to the Tomb.

The trick is, my players are, well, martial characters, not adept at planar traveling. While I don't doubt that they'll be able to make it through the Tomb, I don't know how to get them from the Tomb to the second part of the campaign, which is to say, Sigil. Right now the best I can think of is a trap at the Tomb's center that teleports them to Sigil or something.

Anyway, open to ideas. There's no real problem or question, I'd just like to hear some light brainstorming.

[Antariuk]

Thanks for your suggestions, I will look into those links!

The trick is, my players are, well, martial characters, not adept at planar traveling. While I don't doubt that they'll be able to make it through the Tomb, I don't know how to get them from the Tomb to the second part of the campaign, which is to say, Sigil. Right now the best I can think of is a trap at the Tomb's center that teleports them to Sigil or something.

Anyway, open to ideas. There's no real problem or question, I'd just like to hear some light brainstorming.

Planar Touchstones? You could seed them throughout the Tomb, with a final teleporting touchstone, so it doesn't feel as forced as just saying "It's a trap, and now you are in Sigil!".

[Coidzor]

I am considering to run RHoD (with Pathfinder) in spring 2014, so thanks to Sainheart and everyone else for this great ressource! It really helped me to identify problems and get a feel of the module's strengths and weaknesses.

What I'd like to ask is: does anyone here have suggestions for what modules to run prior to RHoD? I wouldn't be surprised if my players wanted to starty play at 1st level, and even though I am a fan of diversity when it comes to adventures, it'd probably be best not to stray too far from RHoD's wilderness theme. I am considering to start the game with The Sunless Citadel, because I had good experiences running it in the past and it can be easily connected to RHoD. But my knowledge of d20 modules, be it original 3rd edition or Pathfinder, is pretty dim, so I'd appreciate your ideas here.

Sons of Gruumsh was the most recent thing the group I joined had done before we started up with Red Hand of Doom. I joined about halfway through the module though, so I can't say how good the first half of Sons of Gruumsh is. Got tied in as basically the orc horde in Sons of Gruumsh being egged on by a couple of members of the Red Hand who were trying to manipulate them into forming a buffer to cut off Brindol from anyone to the east and taking out the dwarf holds to the south of Brindol or possibly setting up a situation with a pyrrhic victory for either Brindol or the orcs so that the Red Hand would have a softened up target to fight.

[Antariuk]

Sons of Gruumsh was the most recent thing the group I joined had done before we started up with Red Hand of Doom. I joined about halfway through the module though, so I can't say how good the first half of Sons of Gruumsh is. Got tied in as basically the orc horde in Sons of Gruumsh being egged on by a couple of members of the Red Hand who were trying to manipulate them into forming a buffer to cut off Brindol from anyone to the east and taking out the dwarf holds to the south of Brindol or possibly setting up a situation with a pyrrhic victory for either Brindol or the orcs so that the Red Hand would have a softened up target to fight.

I actually own that module, but didn't even consider using it this way... very interesting idea, thank you!

[Antariuk]

Since I am very unsatisfied with the original map of Elsir Vale, I've started to create my own versions. In anyone is interested, here is the current WIP status:

EDIT: Outdated. Latest version can be found here.

I'm working on a third version with even more information stripped out. I'd like to give my players this bare-bones version at the beginning of the game (or make it available with little effort), and offer them chances to get a better version throughout the adventure.

[Moonlitdreams]

I wanted to say, great job with this guide. It's helped me a lot.

I'm running RHoD right now and considering upping the importance of Tyrgarun. It never struck me as right that a dragon would act subserviently to his son, ally or no. So I am planning to turn him into an something like an Old dragon, give him Trickery Devotion so that the party fights a toned-down shadow illusion of him in front of the Fane, and then use the dragon himself as a hook into later adventures after RHoD is over.

Are there any consequences to this that might mess events in RHoD up?

[Rogue Shadows]

Are there any consequences to this that might mess events in RHoD up?

Not really. Big T is only ever encountered in one location in RHoD, and the fight with him is the next best thing to a random encounter.

[Red Rubber Band]

Since I am very unsatisfied with the original map of Elsir Vale, I've started to create my own versions. In anyone is interested, here is the current WIP status:

GM Version (all locations)
Link 1 - Link 2

Player Version (Ghostloard's Lair, Vraath Keep, Fane of Tiamat removed)
Link 1 - Link 2

I'm working on a third version with even more information stripped out. I'd like to give my players this bare-bones version at the beginning of the game (or make it available with little effort), and offer them chances to get a better version throughout the adventure.

<3 Yaaaaayyyyy

[Antariuk]

Without re-reading the entire thread: has anyone ever modified RHoD to be a Hexcrawl? While reading chapter 2 and 3, and preparing PF creatures accordingly, I realized that it could be beneficial to divide the Elsir Vale map into 6-miles hexagons. This would make it easier to both track the party and coordinate random encounter while they are chasing various Red Hand operatives.

The only argument against this I can see right now is any way the party gets access to long-range flying early (Overland Flight normally comes online at level 9 for Wizards), which I know very little about, shenanigans like re-animated zomboe creatures aside.

[Kasbark]

Since I am very unsatisfied with the original map of Elsir Vale, I've started to create my own versions. In anyone is interested, here is the current WIP status:

SNIP

I'm working on a third version with even more information stripped out. I'd like to give my players this bare-bones version at the beginning of the game (or make it available with little effort), and offer them chances to get a better version throughout the adventure.

You, my good sir, are friggin' awesome!

Thanks for those maps, they where just what i was looking up about a dozen posts up :)

If you create a bare-bones version of the map, or even highers res copies, please do link them here!

[Antariuk]

Thank you!
I actually have updated versions available, with more details and some minor bugs cleaned out, also names should be easier to read when printed. A bare-bones version will be the next thing on the list, so for now this is all I got.

EDIT: New version available, see below



So this is the latest and probably last advancement of the map, with a resolution of 1800x1200px. As before, there is a GM version and a Players version. I cleaned up a few details, shifted Drellin's Ferry and Witchcross closer to the respective streams, and gave the latter the missing cultured land.

GM Version (all locations)
Link 1 - Link 2

Player Version (Ghostlords Lair, Vraath Keep, Fane of Tiamat removed)
Link 1 - Link 2

I also created a Forgotten Realms version, with all the names replaced by those found on the 3rd edition FRCS map (so Elsir Vale is now Cannath Vale), with two additonal features.
First, the village Kormul north of Drellin's Ferry, as found on the FRCS map. You can use it as additional incentive for reluctant players to investigate Skull Gorge and beyond, since it likely is the first settlement to be burned by the horde.
Second, I placed ruins of Old Talar (my own creation, not from the FRCS map) south of the Wyrmbone mountain range, since the Elsir River is now Talar River, and I wanted to justify that fact. The ruins could be used to introduce a bit more background story, for example that Old Talar was destroyed 150 years ago by monstrous raiders, and the survivors rebuilt their village further to the east (opportunity to have guerilla fighters from Talar helping the players, since they have an ancient grudge against the goblins).

GM Version FR (all locations)
Link 1 - Link 2

Player Version FR (Ghostlords Lair, Vraath Keep, Fane of Tiamat removed)
Link 1 - Link 2

[Kasbark]

Once again, thanks for sharing these maps!

And thanks for upping the resolution, they look great when printed in A3 format!

[Red Rubber Band]

Once again, thanks for sharing these maps!

And thanks for upping the resolution, they look great when printed in A3 format!

Ditto.

Much appreciated, Antariuk.

[Antariuk]

Thank you!

Someone asked me about a version for Eberron, so currently I'm looking where people located RHoD in Khorvaire. Also, bare-bones version of the Elsir Vale map is still WIP. I will post an update soon™.

Also, I am thinking about war-in-progress maps, where you can see which parts of Elsir Vale are controlled by the Red Hand. My idea was to make three progressing maps, maybe small resolution and all within the same image (saving printer ink and all). I don't know how you guys handle it, but I imagine running encounters behind enemy lines, or all the random encounters before the battle of Brindol, might profit from such visual references.