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

[Antariuk]

Am I missing someting or is the scale on the blackfens map way off?

No you're right, I noticed this myself when I redid the Elsir Vale map. I assume it is a simple editing error, since otherwise the existence of xenophobic elves with little contact to the vale is to be questioned :)

[BerronBrightaxe]

Well, we played a couple of sessions since my last post and there have been some 'interesting' developments.

The sessions started with the arrival at the Ghostlords. The PC's went head on into the lair and had very difficult fights with the Abyssal Drake (which replaced Varathian, a behir here doesn't make sense) and with Wyrmlord Ulwai and her merry band. At the end of the battle they were victorius, but wounded, out of spells and Ulwai had escaped. Yet they decided to continue.

This lead to the confrontation with the Ghostlord. The Ghostlord in my adventure is a beefed up version of the one in the book, and the party got captured via the 'Blasphemy' spell. Considering the party didn't bring his phylactery with them (they left it in Brindol), the Ghostlord singled out one of the characters and offered him a deal. Bring him his phylactery and he would let them go. Long story short: the character got the phylactery back 3 days later and the Ghostlord let the characters go.

This means that the Ghostlord had 3 days to have his way with the characters, while they were unconsious. This means he had 2 days to one of the things he does best: creating undead. But instead of killing them and raising them, he has inplanted them with something which works either really slow or can be activated whenever desired. I prefer something which works really slow, for it offers more opportunity for mystery, roleplaying, etc. One of the things I was thinking about was some kind of organ, which slowly 'poisons' the body. A bit in the line of a Mother Cyst (LM, p. 28), but involuntary, not noticeble on the skin and which turns you into an undead (and controled by the Ghostlord ((dominated).

I was wondering if you Playgrounders had any new or additional ideas, etc. to make this work.

Cheers,
Berron

[Darthteej]

So my party has recently completed the Blackfens and is now resting at Brindol, waiting to scry on the Ghostlord. I was always very unsatisfied with the Ruins of Rhest segment as presented, and decided to make some very major changes.

1- Setting: One of my major problems with the Rhest sequence as presented was that the setting, despite having a ton of potential, isn't really very exciting. You have an ancient, mysterious ruined city, complete with bone white buildings jutting out of the water and a destruction story to be unearthed, and where does the module set most of the conflict? A frakking town hall. Even discounting the "ruined castle" option(obviously already done), there are so many better settings to have put it in. A ruined mage's university, an ancient temple, anything would be better than a town hall. I just went with an extremely large and impressive watchtower, with a much smaller town hall as the location for the belltower.

2-The Clusterf*ck Factor: Like Vrath Keep, the intent with Rhest seems to be to encourage stealth and smart fighting, otherwise many more enemies will be alerted. Unlike Vrath Keep, the quarters are extremely cramped(and the keep wasn't big to begin with), hardly any of the enemies are sleeping or in a state of extreme unpreparedness, and the "stealthy option" of swimming into the water takes you straight into a dragon's lair or into the belltower anyway. It's not hard to get the drop on the belltower, but from what I've read most parties end up triggering everyone on the town hall and have to fight the combined forces of the tower.
I solved this problem by completely remaking the nature of the encounter...in my party's case, the Tiri Kotor actually joined in on the assault on Rhest, leading Regiatrax, Savvith, and his dire bat mounted scouts on a wild owl chase across the lake while the party went into the Watchtower on Owlback(only to be knocked off by a blast of magic). Even without the elves, my version of Rhest is set up in an encounter to encounter progression...some regulars in the town hall, some Skullcrusher and an adept on the roof, bladebearers and a big smashy ettin in the lowest floor of the watchtower, Saavith and Regi on the second floor, and Nurklenak on the roof. If the players are stealthy enough, enemies can be caught unawares, but if they hear fighting they merely prepare for battle instead of rushing to each other's aid.

3. The Wyrmlord: Simply put, Saavith is kind of a dud in my eyes. As a mere goblin, he explicitly isn't respected much by other Red Hand forces, and this gets even worse in Golarion, where he's one of the very few goblins that's not a psychopathic manchild. Saavith seems more like he'd be a trusted and respected lieutenant who's link to the dragon provides a valuble military asset than be put in charge of a vital operation. So who would? Well, who's a powerful arcanist(or in my case psion) with wits and cunning to negotiate himself into a position of power? Obviously, Nurkelank, the mindbender.
Now in my module I rejiged him into a Telepath psion with an extra level, but even then his stats are unimpressive without an ettin buddy backing him up. So I opted to have an illusory mindscape battle at the top of the watchtower. Basically, the players go into this weird purple archway and suddenly emerge into a tower-top twice as large as it should be, with a pentagram inscribed on it and this weird purple force dome preventing them from leaving.
In this Mindscape, Nurklenak can manifest two powers a turn, has unlimited power points, and any time he dies he just spawns 1d4 astral constructs shaped like Razorfiends and reappears with an Energy Burst once they're dead, at full health again. In order to escape, the players need to make a DC 25 knowledge arcana check and then make individual will saves to snap out of it, but each of those are resolved at a -2 due to the weird, clouding effects of his mind powers. Once they wake up, they can take a move action to get to their feet, at which point they have to fight the real wyrmlord, who has only 20 PP left. Any player who was brought down to negatives wakes up with 1d10 HP left, while anyone who wasn't killed in the dream finds they've only taken half the HP damage. The wyrmlord is an easy kill...and that's when you spring Regi and Savi on them :D

So yeah, that's how I handled Rhest. A very drastic change, but I think it ended up much more dramatic and fulfilling than the scenario set up in the book.

[questionmark693]

I have a question-if the players get the elven bard trellara nightshadow to follow them, do you treat her as a cohort?

EDIT: Assuming nobody in the party has the leadership feat.

[Lachdan]

I have a question-if the players get the elven bard trellara nightshadow to follow them, do you treat her as a cohort?

EDIT: Assuming nobody in the party has the leadership feat.

Yes, since nobody had the leadership feat I treated her as additional NPC.

[questionmark693]

So in that case, does she make the xp split another way?

[Coidzor]

So in that case, does she make the xp split another way?

It's basically up to however you feel like adjudicating it, as the rules are silent for non-cohort NPCs as I recall. She could just count against the difficulty of encounter levels without gaining XP, she could gain XP as if she were a PC, she could gain half-XP, she could gain something along the lines of Cohort XP with her ECL being compared to the average level of the party.

Somewhere someone has put together XP rules for non-Cohort NPCs, I'm sure, but I haven't seen much on the subject, and certainly nothing that I'd have on hand to share as pretty nifty.

[tiercel]

First of all, fantastic handbook and thread.

I'm looking at Ulwai Stormcaller and I can't help but think that instead of "fixing" her by going more "traditional bard," that one could take the "this bard is different" thing up a little closer to 11. Mistress of Shock and Awe, if you will:

1) Dump Inspire Courage. (I can hear the outrage already.) Instead, go with Dragon Magic's Inspire Awe (gosh, is this a draconic campaign? I think it is); while PrCing out of bard will keep the higher-level improvements to the ability from kicking in, the DC still keys off her Perform check, just like her Stormsinger Thunderstrike ability does.

2) Give her Intimidate; I'd probably just fiat it in by swapping out Diplomacy (as per PHB customization guidelines). No more Little Miss Nice Ulwai. Never Outnumbered skill trick, Fearsome armor and Imperious Command from Drow of the Underdark: if Ulwai ever gets surrounded, she fear-novas: maxed Intimidate against everyone within 10' as a move action and then makes everyone save vs DC: her Perform check; as per Rules Compendium fear-stacking, this could keep anyone who fails both saves cowering as long as she keeps singing. (Or if she hands off her Awesome song to a Harmonizing weapon, whichever.) If she needs to be even more... metal... shall we say, give her a Pandemonic Silver weapon (Complete Warrior) with a Least Crystal of Return (MIC) to force even more fear checks (given that Ulwai can create wind effects due to her PrC; consider Quicken Spell Like Ability: gust of wind).

3) Forget one extra level of Bard, give Ulwai one extra level of Stormsinger. Stormsinger 5 lets her bust out control winds at CL 13 (CL 15 if it's cold or there's a storm), which she can increase winds from zero to hurricane strength if you keep it chilly inside the stone lion, or if there ARE stormy conditions, hello tornado strength winds http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#winds , all in a 520' (or 600') radius. Abitrhiax's rampage in Brindol could be seriously upstaged by a flying Ulwai if she winds up there and goes into Living Tornado mode, tearing up the city and scattering defenders like tenpins.

Also taking Ulwai to Bard caster level 10 means that 4th-level Bard spells come online, like fear (if you want to play her fear-stacking to the hilt) or dimension door (what BBEG wouldn't want it?).

4) Torque more bardic options. Is having bardic knowledge +6 really helping Ulwai? No? How about Loresong (Dungeonscape) instead: +4 insight to saves as an immediate action 3/day. Yes please. (It's usable for more than just saves, but that's the obvious survivability play.) Also, it's both thematic and more survival for Ulwai if she is a Savage Bard (UA, SRD), giving her good Fort saves her first 5 levels.

After that, yes, fix up her spells (glitterdust is too useful, charm monster means Ulwai always has bruiser minions—bonus points if they can Intimidate as well for more fear-stacking, improvisation is all-around good and can be used to crank up her Perform checks to boot) and her equipment (MIC's mithralmist shirt is handy and thematically appropriate, any self respecting bard should have some kind of cloak of charisma—especially with offensive bardsong uses—plus a circlet of persuasion, and any BBEG should have a vest of resistance in order to, you know, not die - not to mention Ulwai should be packing a Bat-Utility-Belt of scrolls and wands for her souped-up UMD checks).

In combat, Ulwai tosses down fear and/or hammers the battlefield with windstorms while her charmed minions clean house. Those resistant to these ploys get glittered, get confused, UMD-Bat-Utility-Belted, or simply thunderstruck.

(While I am an amateur at op-fu, this makes me want to see how tightly I can put this full build together now. Hmmm.)

[misalo1]

Part Two: The Blackfens and Rhest

The Roadblocks
For PbP campaigns I’d recommend just having the one roadblock on the Rhest Trail rather than dragging the characters through the second one as well. Tabletop campaigns might also warrant the omission of the second roadblock, too, unless you really want to slow the characters down by a day or so. Just remember to give them 2 VP for breaking the one blockade so they aren't disadvantaged by the omission.

Some campaign journals recommend substituting Skullcrusher Ogres from the MM 4 for the regular ogres at the blockade to turn it into a more challenging match, and I heartily agree. Only thing you then (might) have to explain is why a pair of the most elite ogres in the Horde were assigned to a backwater duty, not to mention the lack of Skullcrusher Ogres later on in the adventure.

Skullcrusher Ogres are in MM3 page 116

Misalo

PS... I love the Handbook. Thanks for all the hard work.

[TheDarkSaint]

I have to say that I was delighted to find this thread still active. I'm running the Doom with my PC's and they are hooked already, marching steadily through the swamps to go find Koth.

The goobers forgot to buy tents and so have been plagued by biting insects all night and have sodden sleeping bags that are going to rot fairly quickly. I've decided to have them start rolling saves against diseases soon.


Anyway, on to my idea that I'm hoping I can get some feedback on.

Ozzyrandarion. By the MM and Draconomicon, green dragons are the politico's of the chromatic dragon world. Duplicitous, cunning and treacherous, they are often more dangerous with their words than anything else.

And yet, RHoD just has it's green dragon sort of mindlessly strafe the party and go guzzle potions if things get bad. To me, this doesn't make very good role-playing sense and it doesn't capture the feel of a green dragon. I want each of my dragon encounters to feel unique, not just strafing runs and full attacks like I'm planning with my red.

I'm also seeing that getting my PC's up to Rhest will be on flimsy excuses if I go by the book. "Keep trade flowing" is....lame.


So, why not kill two birds with one stone? Ozzy, hangs back and orders his hobgoblins to engage the party to defend the bridge to get a good measure of the group. When he see's how fast they plow through them, he makes his move to start parley. Ozzy's goal are complex now instead of just "defend the bridge"

1. He does not want to die. Adventures can do that to a dragon and he's not keen on that idea. If they are here, they probably killed Koth and could do him in as well.

2. While he may fear Tyrgarun, the dragon and his little pet half dragon "stole" his hoard and are keeping it at the fane. He is young like his other brothers and so he is cowed for now, but he see's potential in this group of adventurers.

3. If he let's the party destroy the bridge and gives them vital information on the other wrymlords, (expecting Reggie and his goblin toadie, betraying Ulwai's position by telling the party about the ransomed phylactory, telling them troom movements to get Brindol ready, etc) then he sets the Red Hand up to fail.

His hopes are that this party with take out his competition in the veil, killing Regiarix, Abithriax, the pretender Varanthian and the ultimate goal of killing Tyrgarun. With those dragon's gone, Ozzy figures that vast swaths of the Witchwood as well as Westdeep forest and dominion over the elves there in would be his.

He's hoping that both the party and the dragons will exhaust themselves on each other and he can clean up any remain problems to have it all be his.


So, based on those desires, Ozzy would be looking to cut a deal with the PC's. I have no clue if my group will bite or not. They may just blast him out of existence and move on. But, this does provide a nice, easy package on why the PC's might go to Rhest and interact with the elves, Reggie and Svarth.

It let's me also use Ozzy as a reoccurring character later if I wish.

Ideas? Problems? Something I'm not seeing?

[broodax]

One of my players just asked a great question that I can't seem to find a complete answer to: Why aren't there loads of boats traveling the Elsir, making passage to Drellin's Ferry super easy?

Part of the difficulty is my need to have them on the road to start the adventure.

The best I can come up with is that the river flows west, but most goods need to travel east, so a flourishing river trade just hasn't sprung up.

Has anyone else handled this question nicely?

[Nerd-o-rama]

One of my players just asked a great question that I can't seem to find a complete answer to: Why aren't there loads of boats traveling the Elsir, making passage to Drellin's Ferry super easy?

Part of the difficulty is my need to have them on the road to start the adventure.

The best I can come up with is that the river flows west, but most goods need to travel east, so a flourishing river trade just hasn't sprung up.

Has anyone else handled this question nicely?

I don't actually own the module, but is the Elsir stated to be navigable between the towns? One nice set of rapids or waterfalls between a pair of major settlements might be enough to have no one bother with river trade, if the land around it is also rocky and hard to haul things over.

[broodax]

It's not stated either way. It's meant to be rather large (100+ yards wide) and deep (20'+) for most of its length, and there is no mention of the giant Elsir falls or anything of that sort, either. I can of course add something like this as well - I am mostly confused that the module seems to not mention it one bit.

[Saintheart]

As far as the Elsir running in the wrong direction for easy boat travel, you're entirely right. Take a look at the map of Drellin's Ferry in the module, and have a look at where the ripples are forming. The river's breaking against the northern face of the islet and the pylons that remain of the old dwarven span; the river therefore is running north to south, and thus east to west.

Page 50 of the module specifies that for the party to travel by boat upriver to the Blackfens will leave them a rough speed of 1.5 miles per hour, and thus 12 miles per day. A hobgoblin on foot, encumbered with a speed of 20 feet per round, walks at 2 miles per hour and thus 16 miles per day. It is literally faster for the Red Hand to hit the Vale on foot than to go upriver.

In terms of physical obstacles and why no river trade, take a closer look at where the river runs. It goes right through the heart of the Witchwood -- which the module says (p. 13) is commonly believed to be haunted by druidic spirits, thus the name "Witch". Leaving aside being accosted by passing pedestrians, I can understand why people would be leery of trying to get river trade up and running in the Vale. The Dawn Way stays clear of the Witchwood and is a solid, dwarf-made construction. Trade follows the path of least resistance unless there's good profit to be found otherwise.

[broodax]

Thank you sir. I think that's a good logical explanation, and similar to how I explained it. Note also that the river doesn't go near Terrelton or the dwarven clans, nor does it continue to Dennovar, so it's applications as a major trade route are pretty limited.

You could easily travel west very quickly if you had a boat. But there are no boats because no one wants to travel east with them, so build one if you want, but you'll get there faster just starting to walk.

Also, I find now that I am actually running the module, the initial encounter map leaves something to be desired in terms of representing a major road of solid dwarven construction. I imagine the west end of the vale to have been over-grown and fallen into disrepair somewhat, but the narrow dirt path pictured doesn't really match the description of the Dawn Way elsewhere I think. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be the Dawn Way? This isn't an issue, just an observation.

For those interested, I am now running this in PbP here at GitP: Precursor to Doom - the lead up to this point was a small intro set in Elsircross.

[Saintheart]

The reason is because the Marauder Attack doesn't happen on the Dawn Way.

If you look at the map of Drellin's Ferry, you'll note on the west bank of the Elsir there are three obvious roads by which you can enter or leave town: one to the west (leading out to the Dawn Way), one to the north (which isn't explicit, but in my campaign I had it that this road runs to join up with the southernmost Witchwood trail leading to Jorr Natherson's house), and one to the south.

The campaign assumes a party travelling east and reaching Drellin's Ferry via a road other than the Dawn Way, mainly because the Dawn Way runs straight north-south through the Witchwood and right past Vraath Keep. Most of the hundred-odd hobgoblins in the Witchwood are concentrated around Vraath Keep, and it's because they've shut down all travel along the Dawn Way that causes the town to look for adventurers to clear them out.

By a process of elimination, then, the party "must" have been ambushed somewhere along the south road. A party travelling along the Dawn Way to Drellin's Ferry "should" be wiped out. The Marauder Attack is as "weak" as it is because it's the southernmost reach of the Red Hand to cut off Drellin's Ferry from aid coming from the west.

[Shinken]

First of all, fantastic handbook and thread.

I'm looking at Ulwai Stormcaller and I can't help but think that instead of "fixing" her by going more "traditional bard," that one could take the "this bard is different" thing up a little closer to 11. Mistress of Shock and Awe, if you will:

1) Dump Inspire Courage. (I can hear the outrage already.) Instead, go with Dragon Magic's Inspire Awe (gosh, is this a draconic campaign? I think it is); while PrCing out of bard will keep the higher-level improvements to the ability from kicking in, the DC still keys off her Perform check, just like her Stormsinger Thunderstrike ability does.

2) Give her Intimidate; I'd probably just fiat it in by swapping out Diplomacy (as per PHB customization guidelines). No more Little Miss Nice Ulwai. Never Outnumbered skill trick, Fearsome armor and Imperious Command from Drow of the Underdark: if Ulwai ever gets surrounded, she fear-novas: maxed Intimidate against everyone within 10' as a move action and then makes everyone save vs DC: her Perform check; as per Rules Compendium fear-stacking, this could keep anyone who fails both saves cowering as long as she keeps singing. (Or if she hands off her Awesome song to a Harmonizing weapon, whichever.) If she needs to be even more... metal... shall we say, give her a Pandemonic Silver weapon (Complete Warrior) with a Least Crystal of Return (MIC) to force even more fear checks (given that Ulwai can create wind effects due to her PrC; consider Quicken Spell Like Ability: gust of wind).

3) Forget one extra level of Bard, give Ulwai one extra level of Stormsinger. Stormsinger 5 lets her bust out control winds at CL 13 (CL 15 if it's cold or there's a storm), which she can increase winds from zero to hurricane strength if you keep it chilly inside the stone lion, or if there ARE stormy conditions, hello tornado strength winds http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#winds , all in a 520' (or 600') radius. Abitrhiax's rampage in Brindol could be seriously upstaged by a flying Ulwai if she winds up there and goes into Living Tornado mode, tearing up the city and scattering defenders like tenpins.

Also taking Ulwai to Bard caster level 10 means that 4th-level Bard spells come online, like fear (if you want to play her fear-stacking to the hilt) or dimension door (what BBEG wouldn't want it?).

4) Torque more bardic options. Is having bardic knowledge +6 really helping Ulwai? No? How about Loresong (Dungeonscape) instead: +4 insight to saves as an immediate action 3/day. Yes please. (It's usable for more than just saves, but that's the obvious survivability play.) Also, it's both thematic and more survival for Ulwai if she is a Savage Bard (UA, SRD), giving her good Fort saves her first 5 levels.

After that, yes, fix up her spells (glitterdust is too useful, charm monster means Ulwai always has bruiser minions—bonus points if they can Intimidate as well for more fear-stacking, improvisation is all-around good and can be used to crank up her Perform checks to boot) and her equipment (MIC's mithralmist shirt is handy and thematically appropriate, any self respecting bard should have some kind of cloak of charisma—especially with offensive bardsong uses—plus a circlet of persuasion, and any BBEG should have a vest of resistance in order to, you know, not die - not to mention Ulwai should be packing a Bat-Utility-Belt of scrolls and wands for her souped-up UMD checks).

In combat, Ulwai tosses down fear and/or hammers the battlefield with windstorms while her charmed minions clean house. Those resistant to these ploys get glittered, get confused, UMD-Bat-Utility-Belted, or simply thunderstruck.

(While I am an amateur at op-fu, this makes me want to see how tightly I can put this full build together now. Hmmm.)

Wow, this is awesome.

[Darthteej]

So today my players went through the Defend the Walls and Red Dragon Rampage encounters in the battle of Brindol. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun, and my party's gearing up for the two final encounters next week(the player who wasn't there is going to be a bodyguard to Lord Jarmath, and thus is handling the sniper on his lonesome). There was a lot of fighting beforehand to defeat him, but the highlight of the fight was no doubt the Beam War.
You see, the party druid had transformed into a huge celestial eagle, and the dragon and party had been fighting it out, with various grapples and stunts attempted on either side. Well while they're both a couple hundred feet above the city, the dragon fires an empowered breath at them, threatening several members with instant death. In response, my sorcerer declares his intention to throw a fireball into the dragon's mouth using the feat that lets him ignore half of fire immunity. Thinking quickly, I put on this video to demonstrate what the combat had turned into. I resolved the struggle by making the dragon and sorcerer roll opposed concentration checks, where a failure of 5 or more by one party would shift the beam one "step" closer to an opponent, and attacking the dragon imposed a cumulative -2 penalty. Eventually, the dragon rolled a natural one, taking the full force of the fireball and putting him within killing range.

Another change I made to the battle that was more thought out was increasing Ulwai's visible presence-instead of just fanning fires with the wind, she used Control Weather and conjured up both a lightning storm and a weak tornado, providing weather obstacles that impeded the fight and made the beam war a lot more dramatic. She also used a more powerful, ad hoc version of ghost sound to project both her and Kharn's voice over the battlefield and taunt the defenders.

[Coidzor]

So today my players went through the Defend the Walls and Red Dragon Rampage encounters in the battle of Brindol. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun, and my party's gearing up for the two final encounters next week(the player who wasn't there is going to be a bodyguard to Lord Jarmath, and thus is handling the sniper on his lonesome). There was a lot of fighting beforehand to defeat him, but the highlight of the fight was no doubt the Beam War.
You see, the party druid had transformed into a huge celestial eagle, and the dragon and party had been fighting it out, with various grapples and stunts attempted on either side. Well while they're both a couple hundred feet above the city, the dragon fires an empowered breath at them, threatening several members with instant death. In response, my sorcerer declares his intention to throw a fireball into the dragon's mouth using the feat that lets him ignore half of fire immunity. Thinking quickly, I put on this video to demonstrate what the combat had turned into. I resolved the struggle by making the dragon and sorcerer roll opposed concentration checks, where a failure of 5 or more by one party would shift the beam one "step" closer to an opponent, and attacking the dragon imposed a cumulative -2 penalty. Eventually, the dragon rolled a natural one, taking the full force of the fireball and putting him within killing range.

Another change I made to the battle that was more thought out was increasing Ulwai's visible presence-instead of just fanning fires with the wind, she used Control Weather and conjured up both a lightning storm and a weak tornado, providing weather obstacles that impeded the fight and made the beam war a lot more dramatic. She also used a more powerful, ad hoc version of ghost sound to project both her and Kharn's voice over the battlefield and taunt the defenders.

Sounds like you all had a real... Blast.

[Darthteej]

Sounds like you all had a real... Blast.

Anyway, once the campaign wraps up I'm going to actually post the RHoD in Golarion guide I promised like a year ago. The setting adjustments are small, and my players didn't even really have enough knowledge of the setting to care, so it's not a big conversion at all.

[Shinken]

Anyway, once the campaign wraps up I'm going to actually post the RHoD in Golarion guide I promised like a year ago. The setting adjustments are small, and my players didn't even really have enough knowledge of the setting to care, so it's not a big conversion at all.

Hmmmmm... I might want to take a look at that.

[Coidzor]

Anyway, once the campaign wraps up I'm going to actually post the RHoD in Golarion guide I promised like a year ago. The setting adjustments are small, and my players didn't even really have enough knowledge of the setting to care, so it's not a big conversion at all.

Well, good to know it doesn't require too much time with the monkeywrenches. Also, glad to hear you're still going through with it.

Edit: Ran into this thread about kingdom-building after running RHOD which raised an interesting question in me about the idea of taking over some of the territories vacated by the Horde or the Ghostlord or trying to rebuild Rhest.

[ArendK]

I'd love to see the RHoD for Golarion conversions.
In a few months, I'm going to start a campaign for RHoD using Pathfinder only (as far as I can go with it, so a lot of rebuilding will need to be done).
We're using the Ultimate Series (no psionics), APG, ARG, probably the Blood of Fiends/Angels, and the little guides to the different regions.
I'm looking at the builds and what I'm going to have to do. Here are my initial thoughts/suggestions.
-Azarr Kul- Half-Blue Dragon Oracle of Battle?
-Saarvith-No real change, Archery all the way. Might make him a Hobgoblin instead, but that's about it. Also contemplated refluffling the Ninja class/archetype to get a slightly different style of foe.
-Koth-Sorceror with ? bloodline.
-Kharn- An evil cavalier I thought would be a good choice.
-Ulwai Stormcaller- I'm not sure how to build this one; I definitely like the more druidic/weather based aspects of the bard that was originally presented, but I don't want to try multiclassing druid/bard. Any ideas?
-Ghostlord; I'm thinking straight druid with the abilities refluffed for a darker aspect. Maybe do Lion Shaman or some other thematically appropriate animal.

The regulars/veterans I was thinking doing Phalanx fighters (reach, shield walls, etc. etc).
The bladebearers- Fighters with either mobile fighter or Two-Weapon wielder? Short swords I figured would be a good setup for that build.
The few monks in there I was thinking refluffed as a MoMS monk, focusing on Dragon and Boar style?
And a cleric is a cleric. No real biggy there.

Anybody else got some suggestions that might help out?

[deuxhero]

Pathfinder has a feat for druids that gives them necromancy spells in exchange for [fire] ones, which is a good start for the Ghostlord I'd think (And now I remember that I found that during the downtime and need to add it to my guide), giving him the needed necromancy abilities.

[ArendK]

I think I can make that work very adequately. I'm looking through, and after going through some campaign journals written (especially the excellent ones from SilverClawShift!), and getting some ideas for a few slight alterations.

[russdm]

There is one thing is this module that I would like explained because it is never mentioned in the module and it has always bugged me every time I have read it while thinking about playing it:

Why does the Horde (Red Hand of Doom) put Brindol to the torch? Why do they completely destroy the city rather than take it over and repair it and fortify it if the PCs fail? It makes absolutely no sense given that the bulk of the Horde is all militaristic hobgoblins. Are the Horde's commanders, dragons included, simply so stupid they don't see the benefits of occupying their conquests? The module says that they destroy the towns leading up to Brindol from Dreylin's ferry, like completely destroy.

Even Genghis Khan supposedly only destroyed cities when he had too, but he tried to keep most intact if he could help it. Most Barbarian chieftains frequently did the same; how is the barbarians of the Red Hand so different that they would do differently?

[Starbuck_II]

There is one thing is this module that I would like explained because it is never mentioned in the module and it has always bugged me every time I have read it while thinking about playing it:

Why does the Horde (Red Hand of Doom) put Brindol to the torch? Why do they completely destroy the city rather than take it over and repair it and fortify it if the PCs fail? It makes absolutely no sense given that the bulk of the Horde is all militaristic hobgoblins. Are the Horde's commanders, dragons included, simply so stupid they don't see the benefits of occupying their conquests? The module says that they destroy the towns leading up to Brindol from Dreylin's ferry, like completely destroy.

Even Genghis Khan supposedly only destroyed cities when he had too, but he tried to keep most intact if he could help it. Most Barbarian chieftains frequently did the same; how is the barbarians of the Red Hand so different that they would do differently?

a. Because Tiamat is Chaos. Chaos is destroy!
b. Plus, to hobgoblins, humans are like filthy, diseased rats. Killing the rats doesn't make the rat nest suitable for a bed. It needs to be destroyed because ew.
c. A good tactic to defeat an enemy is burn the crops/towns of enemy so they can't get allies/resupply.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I thought Tiamat was LE?

[deuxhero]

Blight Druid is also an option to get the Ghostlord some undead stuff if you update the RHoD to PF (it can combine with Shade of the Uskwood if you want)

[Starbuck_II]

I thought Tiamat was LE?

Right, it was your barbarian comment. So the Red Hand aren't barbarians
So you need to compare a non-barbarian group not Genghis Khan.