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

[The Glyphstone]

Caveat: When I ran RHoD I had heavily modded it for a viking-themed gestalt game.

My "Battle of Brindol" took five three-and-a-half-hour game sessions (17.5 hours). But probably one and a half of those sessions dealt with an additional climactic thing happening in the midst of the battle, somewhat equivalent to if I had added a second "Streets of Blood" series of encounters.

I also used the "Crisis Points" variant that Glyphstone had come up with (noted in post #7 of this thread), but my PC's didn't pick up on the fact that they were supposed to be letting these things play out, and reserve their strength. As I described the initial wall assault, my PC's jumped in; the same with the Hill Giant Battery, etc. Thus we played out every. single. one. of those encounters anyway. I still had the crisis points troop movements play a part in Streets of Blood, and modify the troops and waves as described by Glyphstone.

Edit: When I played through RHoD back in 2007, IIRC, the Battle of Brindol took at least three, if not four or five game sessions. Those games were 3.5 - 4 hours each.

It doesn't hurt to explicitly explain the intent out-of-game, if you don't think they understand those NPCs are available for them to be deployed. Something I never bothered to include was a possible bonus for actually taking the field personally and holding said troops in reserve; maybe some sort of minor benefit during the final battle? But if it worked out regardless, cool.

[Talesin]

It doesn't hurt to explicitly explain the intent out-of-game, if you don't think they understand those NPCs are available for them to be deployed. Something I never bothered to include was a possible bonus for actually taking the field personally and holding said troops in reserve; maybe some sort of minor benefit during the final battle? But if it worked out regardless, cool.

I'm going to do a similar thing but i'm going to give the PCs problems to solve that can be dealt with by the NPCs while they're doing the battles listed in the books. I'll dissuade them from dealing with the problems themselves indicating that they're either too far away in the battle to really make the immediate impact necessary or that maybe their skills are better put to use fighting the dragon rather than dealing with a minor skirmish elsewhere.

Picking the right choices will give them minor buffs in the streets of blood encounter, like extra NPCs from the various groups/town guard (as less of them died defending areas) or a buff for a given combat casted by an NPC that survived the battle and is passing back to the cathedral to get healed up.

I'll post the details about it when i'm done with my plan for it.

[Saintheart]

Saintheart, if I can recommend an alternative for restatting Varanthian:

I rebuilt her as a remorhaz with unarmed swordsage levels and a heavy selection of Desert Wind maneuvers. Since she can use any part of her body for unarmed strikes, she uses superheated bodyslams, adding 8d6 fire damage to attack and getting multiple attacks according to her base attack bonus. Her bite-and-swallow technique actually becomes a secondary natural attack and much less of the main show (and she can reserve the bite-grab combo for an opportunity attack, offering herself a defense against chargers). Further, a remorhaz can burrow, so once she bites and grabs an enemy, she avoids further attack by the simple expedient of burrowing underground, swallowing the PC whole on the next round and burrowing under another PC, then pops up to repeat the trick on the following round. She's very dangerous as an ambush lurker. The swordsage maneuvers like Death Mark, Fire Snake, and Holocaust Cloak improve her ability to attack multiple foes at once.

This could be a really good build - I'll have to go through it and give it some thought.

[Talesin]

Ran another session last night. Again this handbook was a god send for the bits I used from it.

Ran the marked for death encounter and it went really well. I had Jarmaath send the party to go find Miha, I had her in sending contact with Brindol in order to make her a true double agent for the Red Hand. When they turned up she was tied to the tree, instead of the dead farmers, and using a slightly modified (and upgraded level wise) spell list to make herself seem pretty beaten.

They attacked and brought the Hobgoblins down pretty quickly with the Ogre, ran as an Ogre Boss (About half way down on this page, can't get a direct link), lasting an extra round before the Great Barghests attacked.

They charmed the Ranger off the bat and had her full attack the teams Cleric (not sure if this is technically allowed RAW but she bombed her charisma check so I ran with it), this really freaked the group out (most of them are quite new) and they really had no idea what to do with one of their own attacking the team. I broke the charm after 2 rounds, stupidly, by using the dragon's breath from the raiders and hitting her by mistake. It happens but it at least put the scare into the PCs a bit.

Miha broke out of her shackles and cast Mirror Image on herself and then the PCs had the most insane round of combat I think i've ever seen. Everyone hit everything, got 2 crits over the round, didn't miss any attacks due to the blinking Barghests and pretty much cleared up the combat in that round. I should have brought Miha in the round before or had her wait and have the PCs take her back. She survived as I Dim Door'd away so I think I might have her show up somewhere. Maybe instead of Skather/the cleric protecting Skather?

The meeting with the lords went great. They got involved with the defence, writing down troops numbers and how they would react to given situations. KJones' suggestion for building up training points worked wonders as well, was probably the part of the session they were most excited about and they got really in to trying to build up as many point as they could. I slowly revealed more information about what the points did as the days progressed until their final day they knew what all the 1-3 point values did but I didn't tell them how many points they had until the last rolls had been completed.

I left it with the sound of war drums, played them on my laptop, and said i'd see them next time.

Again great job with the handbook!

[Elder_Basilisk]

<SNIP>

ALL OF THAT SAID: I don't think the consequences you're putting forward are all Happy Happy Joy Joy for the players in the circumstances. Reviewing the list of outcomes I don't think you imply at all that the hobgoblin presence is utterly exterminated. I just raise an eyebrow at the number of men required to achieve some of the goals bearing in mind the above.

Thanks for the feedback. I'd been hoping to get a bit of thought on what the VP totals mean. My own analysis, like yours is that anything less than 40 is an epic fail party; it is nearly impossible to fail on VPs alone. In fact, based on my experience, my guess is that most parties probably get within 10 VPs of maximum--maybe losing a couple if one of the named hobgoblins or dragons survives, for failing a skill check or two with the elves, or for thinking that it's really better to have the clerics out facing danger with the soldiers and healing them at the point of attack than functioning as a hospital. (I think the scaled VPs system actually makes sense of the hospital being worth VPs though: more clerics surviving means that the injured can be restored more quickly and it is more likely that the forces of Brindol can pursue the shattered Red Hand army. Even if having them on the front lines makes immediate victory at the battle of Brindol more likely, it makes it more difficult to capitalize on the victory). With that in mind, I think I'm going to go back and radically revise my post so that you need a lot more victory points to get the best results. Epic victory should only be for an actual perfect victory. And I don't think that 50-60 VPs is really too far from the 39 VP epic fail party.

But I'm running the campaign now (I started the group at first level, so we're in the foreshadowing and run-up to the adventure now), so we'll have to see how it goes. My party is fighter heavy and magic light (fighter, barbarian, druid, rogue, NPC inquisitor who may not stick with the party all the way, and a paladin who may join), so they may end up struggling to collect some of those VPs--especially the dragon kills since none of them are ranged specialists.

Regarding the consequences, I wouldn't actually use those consequences in a generic Red Hand campaign for the reasons you cite. In the adaptation, however, the Red Hand is attacking a much more populous and united nation than the generic Elsir Vale. While I think the conversion makes their plan plausible due to disunity and indecision on the part of Sterich, it also means that at least several thousand more soldiers are likely to come to the aid of Bova (Brindol) and not too long after the battle. Once the defense is successful, the other nobles who held back assistance (Count Tondhere of Elnore County in my adaptation) will want to get some troops on the ground as soon as possible in order to demonstrate that A. they didn't really just ignore the invasion for political reasons and B. get some loot, glory, and possibly land concessions on the cheap. Possession is 9/10 of the law and if they liberate it before the rightful Lord, maybe they get to keep it. Also the national government, however slow to respond initially and even if delayed by a small force in the pass leading to Bova will send some substantial troops to meet their feudal obligations and keep the trouble from getting any worse. If the Red Hand had won the battle of Bova, the Marquessa's troops would have been too late to stop them and at best an even match for the victorious Red Hand army. On the other Hand, if the Red Hand loses, they are just in time to pursue and exterminate them and a just defeated army devoid of leadership that has pushed hard into hostile territory quickly might not be ready to take on a sizable fresh army--especially one which at least partially specializes in light cavalry which is the one element that the Red Hand order of battle lacks and the element most useful for harrying a retreating force.

[Talesin]

So I ran the Hill Giant and the Abi encounter last night more or less as written, added some Hobbos into the Hill Giant encounter but even on a roll of 19 they're missing most people. The Hill Giant's were barely a speedbump on the road to them saving the wall. Abi did a TON of damage. His fire breath, which I irritatingly rolled a 4 on my d4 so couldn't blast again, hit the cleric and fighter for around 80 odd damage overall.

I had him in melee as the group had, cleverly, backed him into a ruined building and he couldn't really take off. On his way down he dropped the fighter into negatives and had the Ranger's pet and Rogue into single digits. Overall a great fight and the advice for having them fight in a smokey environment really caused havoc with their tactics and made it a much more memorable encounter.

However I don't think the group have expended many resources up to this point. The group's Cleric has casted maybe 4 spells while the alchemist still has over half his bombs remaining and has only drank 3 of his extracts. They're certainly down on healing but with the Cleric still boasting most of his level 4s and a few of his level 3s, along with 5 of his Channel Energy bursts, they're not completely out of it.

What have people's experiences been with resource expenditure before the Streets of Blood? I know in Saph's campaign they used a lot of things before the Streets of Blood and maybe i'm just underestimating how much of a problem they've had so far.

I've beefed the Streets of Blood up a lot by adding in a significant number of additional Hobgoblin regulars to each wave in order to draw their fire a little away from the bigger beasties and also try and get them over the wall and up the street to trigger the 20 minion lost condition. I think they'll be able to mow through them but they can set up flanks.

At least i've got the ability to drop Hobgoblins from the later waves if they're starting to be overwhelmed.

[Saintheart]

Streets of Blood with its huge numbers of mooks has a big "Now is the time to use your AoE spells" label on it, so expect them to get used somewhat. You might also find them more inclined to burn some resources if they understand they have to stop 20 monsters from reaching the other end of the street, too.

[Myou]

Hello everyone.

I recently managed to get my stalled RHOD game going again, and this thread has been really useful. We've just reached the Tiri Kitor camp. (Is it just me, or does it make no sense that the elves live in tents, when they're premanent residents there?)

We have a gestalt party of four, and the biggest challenge so far has been challenging them properly without overwhelming them. I've been working with the estimate that our 5th level party are actually equivalent to a normal 7th level party, and that seems to be working for the most part - but the warlock//artificer and warblade//factotum have so much burst damage that it can be a bit tricky to prevent encounters ending in the first two rounds.

The razorfiend in the Blackfens is one case that was not much of a threat, as a single spring attack was far too little damage to matter and it had no hope if it tried to trade full attacks with them - so they beat it after a protracted ranged fight by all readying attacks to target it as it emerged from the swamp for its next breath attack. In retrospect I think I should have beefed it up a little more or used two at once, as suggested in this thread. Perhaps something to send at them when they're swimming around underwater in Rhest.

I also cut the mentioned wizard's mansion - it didn't make thematic sense for it to be out there in the fens (even if the area used to be inhabited), instead I had them find a map and a key sealed in a lockbox one goblin had tried to hide from the others at the blockade - pointing to a location in the ruins of Rhest. I initially planned it just as a little side quest - overcome some traps and fight some underwater monsters to get to the wizard's vault and loot the place, but they actually decided that it must be the reason Saarvith is in Rhest to begin with - and I really like that idea! So I'm trying to think of a way to encorporate a wizard's lair into the events.

One idea I particularly like is that the wizard was into some powerful dark magic, and the Hand have unearthed (or drained?) a sort of birthing pool structure in the formerly flooded underwater wizard's lair, used to corrupt and transform creatures into monstrous servants or weapons by the wizard, a pool into which the red hand agents place lizardfolk eggs offered up as tribute to Regiarix, and which transforms them into razorfiend eggs - which are then transported to the hatchery. I like this because it gives a clear source of the eggs for the players to target and a good reason for the hand to set up such a crucial endeavour so far from home. Plus it just sounds cool. I also pondered whether Saarvith himself might have taken a dip in the pool, motivated by his feelings of inadequacy and fear of losing his status - and if so what he might have come out as.

Does this idea sound promising or cheesy to you guys? And if you like it, any suggestions for the mechanics of the process? Should an existing razorfiend be necessary in some manner? Is there a way to direct what sort of creature is made? What sort of substances should be in the pool? Razorfiend blood perhaps?

[Saintheart]

I also cut the mentioned wizard's mansion - it didn't make thematic sense for it to be out there in the fens (even if the area used to be inhabited), instead I had them find a map and a key sealed in a lockbox one goblin had tried to hide from the others at the blockade - pointing to a location in the ruins of Rhest. I initially planned it just as a little side quest - overcome some traps and fight some underwater monsters to get to the wizard's vault and loot the place, but they actually decided that it must be the reason Saarvith is in Rhest to begin with - and I really like that idea! So I'm trying to think of a way to encorporate a wizard's lair into the events.

One idea I particularly like is that the wizard was into some powerful dark magic, and the Hand have unearthed (or drained?) a sort of birthing pool structure in the formerly flooded underwater wizard's lair, used to corrupt and transform creatures into monstrous servants or weapons by the wizard, a pool into which the red hand agents place lizardfolk eggs offered up as tribute to Regiarix, and which transforms them into razorfiend eggs - which are then transported to the hatchery. I like this because it gives a clear source of the eggs for the players to target and a good reason for the hand to set up such a crucial endeavour so far from home. Plus it just sounds cool. I also pondered whether Saarvith himself might have taken a dip in the pool, motivated by his feelings of inadequacy and fear of losing his status - and if so what he might have come out as.

Does this idea sound promising or cheesy to you guys? And if you like it, any suggestions for the mechanics of the process? Should an existing razorfiend be necessary in some manner? Is there a way to direct what sort of creature is made? What sort of substances should be in the pool? Razorfiend blood perhaps?

The first point is that the wizard's mansion is, on the book RHOD, pretty close to irrelevant - it's just there to supply the first razorfiends the party encounters with somewhere to store their vendor trash. The idea of the mansion really has taken on a life of its own in this thread. :) Whenever your party's enthusiastic for something that isn't going to take them wildly off the beaten track, then I tend to say play up to it, because they're more likely to get invested in the story that way. It's a promising side trip to take.

The sort of process you're talking about reminds me of the manner in which the draconian species are created in the Dragonlance series of books, albeit in those instances it's good dragon eggs that are being corrupted into chromatic dragons eggs. I've not gone looking to see if third edition D&D has any particular rules around this process, but you might draw inspiration from that.

Stepping back and seeing how one might do it, let's review why exactly they're out there to begin with: because greenspawn razorfiends are too expensive to call through portals and they breed fast enough that it's worth establishing a hatchery somewhere on the Prime Material Plane. Razorfiends are Spawn of Tiamat, i.e. the progeny of dragons though not of the dragon type. To me the main question that arises is: if this pool is powerful enough on its own to literally change a creature's species -- from lizardfolk to dragon-ish type -- then what's kept it from being discovered and used by someone else all this time? How come the Red Hand is the first bunch to go poking around in the ruins enough to find it, why haven't the lizardfolk found it and utilised it in some way?

These are jumping-off points for inspiration I might add, not criticisms. As to the sort of stuff that might already be in the pool: I'd say you can just make up whatever the hell you like and attribute it to handwavium otherwise. The only thing I'd say is essential is by hook or by crook let your players know what the process is -- maybe by spying out some hobgoblins putting lizardfolk eggs into the pool and having them come out as clearly the eggs of another species. I'd say you do need a razorfiend still; even if the eggs are generated by a magical process, they still need to be hatched by a greenspawn so they're at least partially controllable.

As for what Saarvith might have become: that's easy. Half-dragon.

[Myou]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. :)

Stepping back and seeing how one might do it, let's review why exactly they're out there to begin with: because greenspawn razorfiends are too expensive to call through portals and they breed fast enough that it's worth establishing a hatchery somewhere on the Prime Material Plane. Razorfiends are Spawn of Tiamat, i.e. the progeny of dragons though not of the dragon type. To me the main question that arises is: if this pool is powerful enough on its own to literally change a creature's species -- from lizardfolk to dragon-ish type -- then what's kept it from being discovered and used by someone else all this time? How come the Red Hand is the first bunch to go poking around in the ruins enough to find it, why haven't the lizardfolk found it and utilised it in some way?

I was wondering how the red hand would have discovered it, yes, but as you say, how no-one else did first is the bigger issue there. Perhaps Saarvith found clues that led him to discover the wizard's lair by looking at an old map of Rhest before it fell - perhaps a copy of the same map the PCs acquired. I'm considering making him something of a self-styled prophet - believing Tiamat guided him to the pool, and meant for him to use it, transforming him into a half-black dragon. It also meshes with his status as a wyrmlord and gives him more motivation, in his belief that she has great plans for him, starting with overseeing the birth of her spawn.

These are jumping-off points for inspiration I might add, not criticisms. As to the sort of stuff that might already be in the pool: I'd say you can just make up whatever the hell you like and attribute it to handwavium otherwise. The only thing I'd say is essential is by hook or by crook let your players know what the process is -- maybe by spying out some hobgoblins putting lizardfolk eggs into the pool and having them come out as clearly the eggs of another species. I'd say you do need a razorfiend still; even if the eggs are generated by a magical process, they still need to be hatched by a greenspawn so they're at least partially controllable.

That's a good point, I should make sure the PCs find out about the pool's workings.
I imagine that you would require significant material from a creature of the sort you want to create, probably blood, even some of the acid the razorfiend's spit, and a willing patron in the form of Tiamat to power the process. And I quite agree about still needing a razorfiend present to hatch and raise the eggs.

[Antariuk]

Something for fans of 4E conspiracy theories: RHoD has officially been sorted into the category of Nentir Vale supplements (Source). Honest mistake or proof that the 4E moloch tried to assimilate this great adventure into its PoL setting? ;)

EDIT: Fixed link.

[Myou]

My group have finally finished part two of the adventure - next session they'll be getting their shiny new owls and leaving the Blackfens for the Thornwaste.

I ran with the alterations that I mentioned previuosly - making Saarvith a half-mad half-dragon who had used the Pool of Rebirth in chamber hidden beneath the lake, built by an evil wizard named Aladai Yronwood. The backstory was that Aladai had created it to use to transform subjects into powerful servants and weapons, and when the city fell under attack by the people of the Wyrmsmokes she offered her services to the Emperor of Rhest, suggesting that they use prisoners and captives and materials to transform into demonic servants - and when the full horror of her experiements became clear and the Rhestilorian's turned on her she betrayed them in turn and joined forces with the current high warlord of the tribes to lead the attack on the city - in which she was presumed to have died when desperate soldiers broke the dams to deliberately drown the city in a huge flood.

One mistake I made was in making the ghostlord totally unknown to the valefolk. I mean to remedy this through information the older elves are able to recall, but to help expalin why no-one in the vale seemed to recognise the name, I'm also moving his lair further southwest, into more remote parts of the Thornwaste, and making the northeastern edge of the desert more open and populated, with caravans of traders using the routes marked on the maps of the vale, and some nomadic desert tribes who can supply further information if asked.

Having learned of the Ghostlord, the players mean to head his way - but it ocurred to me that the ghostlord's own Pool of Rebirth is deeply similar to the concept I used in part 2 - and so I'm now considering that perhaps she collaborated with him in some capacity at one point - learning the fundamental magic for her own pool from him, and in turn supplying that to Azarr Kul for his own transformation into an aspect of tiamat later. I particularly like this because the PCs had a strong reaction to her character (even though all they found were her notes) and it also allows Aladai to cast a longer shadow over the campaign, having been involved in his rise too - and now being one of the high wyrmlord's closest allies. As for how she's still alive - that again would be explained by the pool of rebirth, Aladai having undergone a transformation of her own to escape death.

As for the events in the Thornwaste, having reread the section with the PCs in mind, it's going to need to be totally redone - the monks, clerics and Ulwai herself are an utter joke compared to them, and I'll be taking the good advice in this thread and doubling the dimensions of the lair, which will be carved from the rock, not built atop it. The Ghostlord himself will also need to be changed, as his physical defences will mean he drops in a single round and most of the party will laugh off his attacks ("Flame Strike? Really? We fought off a Huge red dragon three levels ago, and you're coming at us with a flame strike as your ace in the hole?") and he'll be shredded by the action economy, but for now I'm not sure what to do with him - there are a lot of ideas in this thread, but given how many creatures I'm restatting or improving for this section I don't want to have to change him too drastically. Of course I don't exactly want the players to fight him, but while they love to get diplomatic, I suspect that given their moral outrage at the pool in Rhest, they will see the lich and roll initiative before I finish the read-aloud text.

One other thing I'm considering is if I should run part 5 before 4 - the players are ridiculously ahead of schedule right now, with the horde still a few days away from Drellin's Ferry (they are taking the invasing deeply seriously), so there is more than enough time to run the Fane dungeon before Brindol, and the suggestions in the OP are interesting. My main fear is that it means that they will face Tiamat (in aspect form), Azarr Kul and Aladai Yronwood before they fight the horde itself, which seems to rather put the cart before the horse - while following the battle with the fane in turns threatens to be an anticlimax, as others have noted.


Boy, you guys were right, that wizard's mansion really does have a life of it's own! It's spawned a new main villain!

[Talesin]

Ghostlord related text

From my experience here I would 100% try and keep them away from attacking the Ghostlord. He's a really bad combat encounter that does need significant rework but I get the impression from the writing in the book that he was never planned to be a fightable encounter. In my run through I took the advice in the thread and had him babbling about murder, lions, how much he hated the Red Hand and then when things stalled a little later on he mentioned his phylactery and that prompted the party a bit.

As soon as they revealed that they had it he basically went a bit Disney villan with the lights dimming and his focus just entirely on having it returned to him. He refused to talk of anything else except an off hand "I'll kill those Red Hand scum myself" when they told him that they wanted him to leave Brindol alone.

One other thing I'm considering is if I should run part 5 before 4 - the players are ridiculously ahead of schedule right now, with the horde still a few days away from Drellin's Ferry (they are taking the invasing deeply seriously), so there is more than enough time to run the Fane dungeon before Brindol, and the suggestions in the OP are interesting. My main fear is that it means that they will face Tiamat (in aspect form), Azarr Kul and Aladai Yronwood before they fight the horde itself, which seems to rather put the cart before the horse - while following the battle with the fane in turns threatens to be an anticlimax, as others have noted.

I would advise against this.

Personally I would flesh out some of the smaller encounters as time sinks and then have them have an impact on the Battle of Brindol:

* Have the PCs find the Mercenary gold and personally escort it to the Dwarven lands. Gives them a place to resupply plus they can engage with the mercenaries they are going to hire. I then threw a Dwarven mercenary into the Streets of Blood encounter, he got a little left behind during the Dwarves' contributions to the battle and found himself here, and this guy was a person they met beforehand. My PCs didn't really care for the nameless NPCs that helped them (like the town guard) but one guy has bonded heavily with this Dwarven Mercenary and I think he would be quite distraught if he died.

* I used Miha as a double agent working with Lord Jaarmath while working for the Red Hand. She sent a sending to Lord Jaarmath that she had run into some trouble in one of the towns along the dawn way. He sent the PCs to save her and I ran a beefed up Marked for Death encounter with her fake tied up against the tree. She was going to burst out of her bonds and engage the PCs with the rest of the troops but I did it a round too late and had her Dim Door out of trouble as she was never going to win with the remaining troops up.

I've buffed her up significantly compared to the book (Pathfinder Arenae with Sorcerer levels) and did bring her back during the Streets of Blood and my PCs truely hate her because she's escaped from them twice now and she'll be making another appearance during the cathedral fight.

* You can also run some of the encounters from the attack on Drellin's Ferry, again beefed up a bit, and if anything survives those encounters then i'd chuck them at the PCs again during the Battle of Brindol. I ran the Chimera while my PCs were looking for Miha. Given it was the only encounter the PCs were going to fight that day I made it a tough fight for them and although it was never going to get away realistically I told them where they would've fought it and they were relieved to say the least.

Also I would run the 'training the troops' part from the initial posts that one of the posters here wrote. I thought it wouldn't work for my group but they really engaged with maximising their points by training different parts to get good numbers and they've been getting involved with using the points for the NPCs. YMMV but I think it really worked.

[Myou]

-Ghostlord-

I actually redid him this morning. I didn't have time to rebuild him from scratch, but I improved his ability scores, gave new feats and another binder level (so he has Harm as his trump card now) and a few levels of monk (fluffed as supernaturally repelling attacks, which goes well with his antilife shell spell), and gave him Fell Drain. I'm actually quite impressed with the result, he seems a lot more deadly now, with his main combat power being in level draining, disease inflicting, paralysing, damaging touch attacks, while if he can hold the PCs at a distance he'll be using less lethal fire based attacks - which lines up with him not really caring about fighting the PCs.

I'm hoping that the players will take the very strong hints I give them that he should not be fought yet, and decide to deal with him after the horde is dealt with (there's no way they'll just ignore him), but if they insist on fighting, I think this should be a very interesting combat.

Emphasising not just that he's rather mad, but how badly he wants to destroy the red hand is a really good idea, I'll definitely do that. That should at least get the PC's attention!

I would advise against this.

Personally I would flesh out some of the smaller encounters as time sinks and then have them have an impact on the Battle of Brindol:

* Have the PCs find the Mercenary gold and personally escort it to the Dwarven lands. Gives them a place to resupply plus they can engage with the mercenaries they are going to hire. I then threw a Dwarven mercenary into the Streets of Blood encounter, he got a little left behind during the Dwarves' contributions to the battle and found himself here, and this guy was a person they met beforehand. My PCs didn't really care for the nameless NPCs that helped them (like the town guard) but one guy has bonded heavily with this Dwarven Mercenary and I think he would be quite distraught if he died.

* I used Miha as a double agent working with Lord Jaarmath while working for the Red Hand. She sent a sending to Lord Jaarmath that she had run into some trouble in one of the towns along the dawn way. He sent the PCs to save her and I ran a beefed up Marked for Death encounter with her fake tied up against the tree. She was going to burst out of her bonds and engage the PCs with the rest of the troops but I did it a round too late and had her Dim Door out of trouble as she was never going to win with the remaining troops up.

I've buffed her up significantly compared to the book (Pathfinder Arenae with Sorcerer levels) and did bring her back during the Streets of Blood and my PCs truely hate her because she's escaped from them twice now and she'll be making another appearance during the cathedral fight.

* You can also run some of the encounters from the attack on Drellin's Ferry, again beefed up a bit, and if anything survives those encounters then i'd chuck them at the PCs again during the Battle of Brindol. I ran the Chimera while my PCs were looking for Miha. Given it was the only encounter the PCs were going to fight that day I made it a tough fight for them and although it was never going to get away realistically I told them where they would've fought it and they were relieved to say the least.

Also I would run the 'training the troops' part from the initial posts that one of the posters here wrote. I thought it wouldn't work for my group but they really engaged with maximising their points by training different parts to get good numbers and they've been getting involved with using the points for the NPCs. YMMV but I think it really worked.

Is there any particular reason you wouldn't run part 5 first?

I do like all of those ideas, and I was pondering an escort quest to the Hammerfist Holds - that could even be expanded into a more major plot line still if need be, as there are likely potential allies for the horde in the mountains there - who might instead be recruited.

With all these cool ideas, I think as you say that I won't put the Aspect of Cart before the Spawn of Horse.

Thanks for the advice!

[Saintheart]

Is there any particular reason you wouldn't run part 5 first?

The main reason against it, to me, is that it's narratively (as opposed to mechanically) wrong. The Fane is "meant" to be the end of the campaign. Azarr Kul is meant to end up dead meat and the party's going to be fighting an Aspect of Tiamat. Going back to a battle where the Red Hand has already more or less lost after this seems to be a bit anti-climactic. And according to the writers' (somewhat naive) intent, it's meant to be too high-level for them to beat prior to levelling up at the Battle of Brindol. The reality, of course, is somewhat different, particularly if you have casters, and particularly if the level involved is 9 vs. 10 -- fifth level spells, in the context of the game and the opposition, change everything.

On top of that, while I haven't gone to run the numbers formally, there's a pretty big whack of treasure in the Fane's treasury for the party to pick up -- without looking, there's from memory a host of +2 and possibly +3 value gear left in the joint. This seems to be the authors making up for the distinct lack of treasure across the campaign, and it might unbalance the party's resources going into the Battle of Brindol.

Mechanically, however, there honestly isn't a big reason against it. If the party captures Ulwai, she explicitly knows the Fane's location, Azarr Kul's plans, and the password to get into the mountain. The only thing that's really meant to be stopping the party kicking in the doors of the Fane of Tiamat is the time limit and the Red Hand's advance on Brindol.

One thought, if your players are determined to kick in the door on the Fane and then head back to Brindol afterward, is to have Azarr Kul conveniently away from the Fane, but otherwise leave the place to be run as set out. Then, during the Battle of Brindol, throw Azarr Kul with (possibly) the Aspect as the final boss, teleporting in after finding the party has crushed his hopes at the Fane -- which then climaxes the campaign out.

[Saintheart]

Bumping to record one of those more unusual occasions in RHOD history: a party that truly doesn't hit anywhere near 40 VP and goes on to fail at defending Brindol.

[Fizban]

Edit: Please excuse me if I sound a bit rant-y, I'll try and turn it around by the end.

I've only reached session #5 of that log so far so forgive me if it already came up in that thread, but with the mass player quit, one cited that the game was "too hardcore." And from what I've read that seems pretty true: he reduced character levels, presumably restricted or removed magic items, and cut the first encounter area of the game to go straight to the bridge. With characters not working as a team (one pointedly stealing loot) or able to survive singly (no super solo builds or gestalts) and having no chance to learn how to approach an enemy camp (remember many of these players were coming from other types of game), I would fully expect them to get wrecked.

Jon_Dahl, in the spirit of the handbook could we get a full list of modifications you made to the campaign and character creation? I'd also be interested in how you were running stuff like the archers at the bridge all firing into the woods, since even with nat 20's a few layers of trees should be giving concealment and/or full cover (you mentioned Mack made good use to terrain in his escape so maybe the other players were standing in the open, see DMG on terrain for what I'm talking about and note encounter distances). I'd also be interested to know exactly how much the players (original and/or current) knew about the campaign before signing up.

Edit: having finished the read, I definitely feel like the group has been set up to fail, both by the DM and the previous players. I don't mean to sound harsh, but there's a difference between "live and let die" with no hints and having the game working against you behind the scenes. The bit I refer to is at the Ruins of Rhest where they returned to search and apparently did not find the phylactery or eggs, making it impossible to solve those conditions (granted, they wouldn't have had time to reach the Ghostlord). One could say they should have searched immediately and forfeited the chance when they left to recover after the fight, but I don't buy that. I guess the lizardfolk that were only there because of the dragon packed up the red hand's stuff for them and left after it died? I think I also saw reference to a critical fumble chart (almost cut his own head off with a scimitar), but that might have just been embellishment.

The group was started at a reduced level to compensate for a large number of players, but was not refunded that level when those players left. The character sheet picture shows a level 6 character that will be coming in after the fall of Brindol, but 6th level was what they should have been at Rhest. Considering the number of times they were attacked and barely escaped with their lives, I'd be changing their effective goal from "beat the bad guys" to "minimum for survival" and award xp accordingly. You made a noble effort at getting them to do the job instead of running around looting by having them join the army and get sent to Rhest, but they had no hope in the main battle at their level anyway. Considering how in the dark the players are about the campaign and even each other's characters I would have given them the extra party size for free, since from what I've seen (read in campaign journals) parties that large tend to not even make use of their extra numbers, and sure enough that's how it went.

That said, I expect they'd have been doomed even with a proper party of appropriate level, which as much as I don't like it, isn't necessarily a bad thing. It shows that your intended darkening of the setting has worked perfectly: the characters don't know anything about each other and are mostly out for themselves, as intended. The result of putting low-magic mercenary back-stabbers up against foes that require teamwork and magic to defeat is that they lose, and they did, and that's the expected result of running Red Hand of Doom darkly (that usually seems to be the expected result of running anything darkly). It almost makes me wonder if Mack's player is a mole, since he seems to be one of the two who's stayed the whole time and was the most dark medieval mercenary of the bunch. After all, if you want to run a dark game but the players refuse to go dark it's not gonna work.

So the question is: will the new party be an actual band of heroes? They'll have to be in order to take on the Fane at level 6 instead of 9. No time to level grind with only 23 days to get there and do the job. I'd be interested in a collection of alterations for making the run winnable by what I expect of dark parties, but unless you basically write a new adventure and give them the time to complete it or de-power the whole Fane they don't stand a chance. If random encounters don't get them the CR11 dragon at the gate will (honestly I wouldn't expect a char-op party to pull it off unless they knew the adventure).

[Saintheart]

I've only reached session #5 of that log so far so forgive me if it already came up in that thread, but with the mass player quit, one cited that the game was "too hardcore." And from what I've read that seems pretty true: he reduced character levels, presumably restricted or removed magic items, and cut the first encounter area of the game to go straight to the bridge. With characters not working as a team (one pointedly stealing loot) or able to survive singly (no super solo builds or gestalts) and having no chance to learn how to approach an enemy camp (remember many of these players were coming from other types of game), I would fully expect them to get wrecked.

Jon_Dahl, in the spirit of the handbook could we get a full list of modifications you made to the campaign and character creation? I'd also be interested in how you were running stuff like the archers at the bridge all firing into the woods, since even with nat 20's a few layers of trees should be giving concealment and/or full cover (you mentioned Mack made good use to terrain in his escape so maybe the other players were standing in the open).

I already noted in it in the journal, but consider the party, too: two monks, one fighter, a druid who didn't seem to have a lot of system mastery, and a DMPC cleric.

[Myou]

The main reason against it, to me, is that it's narratively (as opposed to mechanically) wrong. The Fane is "meant" to be the end of the campaign. Azarr Kul is meant to end up dead meat and the party's going to be fighting an Aspect of Tiamat. Going back to a battle where the Red Hand has already more or less lost after this seems to be a bit anti-climactic. And according to the writers' (somewhat naive) intent, it's meant to be too high-level for them to beat prior to levelling up at the Battle of Brindol. The reality, of course, is somewhat different, particularly if you have casters, and particularly if the level involved is 9 vs. 10 -- fifth level spells, in the context of the game and the opposition, change everything.

On top of that, while I haven't gone to run the numbers formally, there's a pretty big whack of treasure in the Fane's treasury for the party to pick up -- without looking, there's from memory a host of +2 and possibly +3 value gear left in the joint. This seems to be the authors making up for the distinct lack of treasure across the campaign, and it might unbalance the party's resources going into the Battle of Brindol.

Mechanically, however, there honestly isn't a big reason against it. If the party captures Ulwai, she explicitly knows the Fane's location, Azarr Kul's plans, and the password to get into the mountain. The only thing that's really meant to be stopping the party kicking in the doors of the Fane of Tiamat is the time limit and the Red Hand's advance on Brindol.

One thought, if your players are determined to kick in the door on the Fane and then head back to Brindol afterward, is to have Azarr Kul conveniently away from the Fane, but otherwise leave the place to be run as set out. Then, during the Battle of Brindol, throw Azarr Kul with (possibly) the Aspect as the final boss, teleporting in after finding the party has crushed his hopes at the Fane -- which then climaxes the campaign out.

The issue I have narratively is that a huge and hellish battle will feel much more like the climax, at least to my players, than a dungeoncrawl. For what it's worth, I also havn't been giving out the listed treasure generally - my PCs are powerful enough already, without extra magical gear.

Regardless, I think that I can probably keep the players busy with other quests like going to the Hammerfist Holds, long enough that the battle for Brindol can occur - providing the blood sacrifice needed to fuel the summoning on the Aspect. If the players do go to the Fane first then your idea of Kul simply not being there would actually be rather perfect narratively - what better climax than to have it all go down at the battle? But for simplicity I'll stick to the suggested order of things unless the PCs dictate otherwise. Fighting Kul on top of everything else that day sounds like TPK material after all.

[Fizban]

I already noted in it in the journal, but consider the party, too: two monks, one fighter, a druid who didn't seem to have a lot of system mastery, and a DMPC cleric.

Ack, you caught me while editing. More stuff now. I did notice that and considered making a point of it, but then I figured that the dark tone and lack of teamwork/tactics would have crippled them even with a standard party. It also feeds back to the question of how much the players knew before the game: if the DM's running it close enough to the chest they might figure the whole war is just a backdrop for their shenanigans and might not have expected they'd need a heroic team to go stop it. That makes for a very cool read and is an interesting way to use a module, but if the game ends when the module runs out then you get a pretty lame ending if you didn't know you could have beat the army. And the 2 players that joined later ate some serious penalties for parts of the game they weren't even involved in.

Related: I was thinking that 5e, while not so big on omnicompetent builds, does keep characters rather independent enough that I wouldn't mind so much if I had to bail on a fight because the rest of the party wasn't working together. Get a new party, try again, and since your class is supposed to run fine on it's own it doesn't matter if your old friends wouldn't cooperate and your new friends don't combo. Aside from hit points/damage scaling/etc making it less likely a mook will crit you to death with an axe, it's much better for this kind of game (and I don't think a dark tone requires a high chance of instant death like that anyway, loyalties and groups are far more motivating).

[Myou]

Ack, you caught me while editing. More stuff now. I did notice that and considered making a point of it, but then I figured that the dark tone and lack of teamwork/tactics would have crippled them even with a standard party. It also feeds back to the question of how much the players knew before the game: if the DM's running it close enough to the chest they might just figure the whole war is just a backdrop for their shenanigans and might not have expected they'd need a heroic team to go stop it. That makes for a very cool read and is an interesting way to use a module, but if the game ends wen the module runs out then you get a pretty lame ending if you didn't know you could have beat the army. And the 2 players that joined later ate some serious penalties for parts of the game they weren't even involved in.

That's an interesting point. I had assumed that the players were either very into roleplaying their ignorant characters or else simply felt that the challenge of stopping the horde was too much for them - it hadn't occurred to me that they may have been unaware that defeating the invasion was ever on the table. It strikes me as a more likely explanation, and an issue that probably stems from the DM's approach of not railroading, giving suggestion, or advising the players. In my game I told the PCs that they could not take on the entire army - something they were well aware of - but made it clear both in and out of game that their actions would be decisive in weakening the invasion force enough for Brindol to hold out. If I hadn't told them any of that - and indeed had not even hinted that time was short - then they might well have still been dallying in Drellin's Ferry when the attack came, as after all, the written plot hooks have no sense of urgency to them.

[Saintheart]

The issue I have narratively is that a huge and hellish battle will feel much more like the climax, at least to my players, than a dungeoncrawl.

You're certainly not alone. A lot of people have thought the same thing and skipped the Fane or cut it down drastically. I've got a feeling the Fane works better narratively if the party loses at Brindol -- it gives a rather more dark feel to the whole section, more of a sense that you're going to your death with the prospect only of being able to spit in Tiamat's eye.

On the other hand, I've always thought Jarmaath conveniently pulling out the Fane's location after the destruction of Brindol a bit unsatisfying anyway. "Here's some intel we found, guys, and it turns out this whole thing was actually being masterminded from this location right here. No, we figured we wouldn't bother you with it before the Battle. How did we get it? Uh ... because we, um, managed to take down a supertrusted courier who just happened to have the Fane's location when nobody else in the Vale has given it up or knows where it is. Or we had a supersecret spy who was actually hanging around in the backblocks of the Wyrmsmokes for no apparent reason just to confirm the Fane's existence and location. We didn't think it was anything a bunch of people with fourth or fifth level spells could help us with until after they'd pasted our walls."

Papering over the hole with "it's all a big blood sacrifice to Tiamat, you just played into our hands by killing thousands of us, stupid humans," is not optimal either, but it's about the best solution anyone in here has come up with.

[Myou]

You're certainly not alone. A lot of people have thought the same thing and skipped the Fane or cut it down drastically. I've got a feeling the Fane works better narratively if the party loses at Brindol -- it gives a rather more dark feel to the whole section, more of a sense that you're going to your death with the prospect only of being able to spit in Tiamat's eye.

On the other hand, I've always thought Jarmaath conveniently pulling out the Fane's location after the destruction of Brindol a bit unsatisfying anyway. "Here's some intel we found, guys, and it turns out this whole thing was actually being masterminded from this location right here. No, we figured we wouldn't bother you with it before the Battle. How did we get it? Uh ... because we, um, managed to take down a supertrusted courier who just happened to have the Fane's location when nobody else in the Vale has given it up or knows where it is. Or we had a supersecret spy who was actually hanging around in the backblocks of the Wyrmsmokes for no apparent reason just to confirm the Fane's existence and location. We didn't think it was anything a bunch of people with fourth or fifth level spells could help us with until after they'd pasted our walls."

Papering over the hole with "it's all a big blood sacrifice to Tiamat, you just played into our hands by killing thousands of us, stupid humans," is not optimal either, but it's about the best solution anyone in here has come up with.

All very true - I'm not really sure what to tell the PCs if they get the location of the Fane while in the Thornwaste, as while it complicates things it really does make a lot of sense to go there first - and like you say, it's hard to prompt them after the battle without raising the question of why they didn't go sooner.

I'm wavering between encouraging them to take out the Red Hand's base of operations to further weaken the Hand in advance of the battle of Brindol, and trying to find more ways to discourage a frontal atack in advance - such the place being too heavily guarded to attack directly (along with an Unhallow+Nondetection effect over the area to prevent scry and die attacks).

One thought is that the horde is going to attack Brindol no matter what the PC or Azarr Kul himself do - Kharn and Abithriax are leading the army and they can taste victory, they don't even need Kul to take over the vale if they win the battle. This means that attacking the Fane is an extremenly dangerous move - with no real payoff while the army still threatens Brindol.

One pertinent point for my players at least is that Aladai Yronwood, the Restilorian wizard I created in part 2, is probably going to be presnet, and is going to likely have access to 5th, possibly 6th level spells - I'm sure there's something she could come up with to make the Fane a less desireable target.

[Jon_Dahl]

(Feedback)

Thank you, Fizban, for your feedback! I intend to give you a solid and detailed answer when my schedule permits. My intention is to you give you a technical breakdown of the encounters and I'm sure that will clear up some things that are not clear in the journal.

[Saintheart]

I'm wavering between encouraging them to take out the Red Hand's base of operations to further weaken the Hand in advance of the battle of Brindol, and trying to find more ways to discourage a frontal atack in advance - such the place being too heavily guarded to attack directly (along with an Unhallow+Nondetection effect over the area to prevent scry and die attacks).

The section of the handbook dealing with sidequests from Brindol might need some beefing up in this respect. One thought is to give the players free(ish) reign over how they think they can slow down or stop the Red Hand. If you bring them back to Brindol well ahead of schedule, you could have the Audience with the Lords but then append on that the city is still seriously unprepared and not buttressed for battle (seeing as it's never actually fallen under siege in the entirety of its history as far as we're told - the wall itself would be a good three hundred years old if the city has roughly the same vintage as Rhest.)

Allowing the party to have a real hand in slowing down the Red Hand therebys shift the party's focus from hunting down Azarr Kul to buying enough time for the city to fully repair the walls and otherwise build barricades and whatnot. The Red Hand has to cross a good eighty miles of terrain from Drellin's Ferry to the walls of Brindol, and it's given a good few weeks to do so since it's an organised army and it moves fairly slow -- every night it stops and builds a temporary encampment, which takes time.

Hit-and-run encounters, either suggested by the players or subtly pointed out by you, could become a sort of mini-campaign, especially if you've got a creative sort of mage with access to Teleport at this stage. A common "sidequest" that occurs to many parties is to assassinate Kharn within the Hand's own encampment. With Teleport and Scry, it's also frighteningly effective if Kharn hasn't got buffs on and the party can pull out a lot of damage in one round. But intelligence gathering or sabotage missions also become possibilities, so long as the party understands its objective will slow the Hand down by a couple more days, giving the city that much more time to prepare.

Other possibilities are sidequests for the party to help the city itself prepare. Here's some of the stuff my players came up with (not that most or many of them were actually used):

- Redirecting the Elsir River to flow around the walls of Brindol, thus creating a moat. If there's a concern about the wall's structural integrity, checks from a hired expert with Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) could alleviate this. I made a rough calculation that it'd take about 39,000 tons of earth for a moat 30 feet wide and ten feet deep to stretch around Brindol's wall -- didn't get down to the calculations of how long it would take a mob of peasants to dig a trench that big and that wide or how many.

- If the party has teleport capabilities, the purchase and transportation of mercenaries from out of town to buttress Brindol's garrison. With roughly 12,000 gp or so the party can more or less double the size of Brindol's garrison for a month or so with level 1 warriors and arm them all with spears to boot. In my campaign, Brindol was in the Forgotten Realms and became the city of Rethmar -- a teleport spell was enough to go and hire dwarven mercenaries from the Great Rift, and on a forced march those mercenaries could have made it to Brindol in time for the battle. Your party could have some fun doing the calculations of how long it'll take to teleport all the mercenaries in, or get them to come by as soon as possible. Similar comments apply to hiring fewer but higher level adventurers or spellcasters in particular -- Immerstal the Red is the only native Brindolese spellcaster in the place, a couple of level 5 or 6ers on the walls could be sold to the party as a very handy buttress to the garrison. Or look closer in the vale - druids from Witchcross, halfling slingers out of Dauth.

- Appealing to the local thieves guild under Rillor Paln (the Black Knives) to take part in the defence of the city or at least refrain from looting from the city's stores ahead of the battle.

- Negotiating with the churches in town (the Temple of Yondalla, and the Shrine of Wee Jas) to put in anti-undead or extra clerical defences on the walls.

- Escorting foraging parties who're gathering in crops from western Elsir Vale ahead of the Red Hand's advance. The Red Hand burns everything in its path, which would include the vale's immature crops. Some very brave farmers and peasants are going to have to get out there and hump grain and fruit back to Brindol for safekeeping. These are easy ways to recycle the Chimaera Attack and spend a few days on the timeline.

- Scouting out the Red Hand and getting a better sense of its size and composition. As said, infiltration and destruction of crucial supplies -- say the party goes in to burn up the Hand's wagons which contain all the army's clerical or arcane scrolls.

- Mass manufacutre of spell traps, Stone Shape to buttress the walls, install catapults on the walls, brew up mass cauldrons of alchemist's fire to drop on attackers, caltrops and/or spells to muddy the ground as the Red Hand moves in on the wall.

Provided you keep it dramatic and keep the pace up, I could see these easily keeping the party occupied until the Red Hand shows up at the wall.

[Myou]

The section of the handbook dealing with sidequests from Brindol might need some beefing up in this respect. One thought is to give the players free(ish) reign over how they think they can slow down or stop the Red Hand. If you bring them back to Brindol well ahead of schedule, you could have the Audience with the Lords but then append on that the city is still seriously unprepared and not buttressed for battle (seeing as it's never actually fallen under siege in the entirety of its history as far as we're told - the wall itself would be a good three hundred years old if the city has roughly the same vintage as Rhest.)

Allowing the party to have a real hand in slowing down the Red Hand therebys shift the party's focus from hunting down Azarr Kul to buying enough time for the city to fully repair the walls and otherwise build barricades and whatnot. The Red Hand has to cross a good eighty miles of terrain from Drellin's Ferry to the walls of Brindol, and it's given a good few weeks to do so since it's an organised army and it moves fairly slow -- every night it stops and builds a temporary encampment, which takes time.

Hit-and-run encounters, either suggested by the players or subtly pointed out by you, could become a sort of mini-campaign, especially if you've got a creative sort of mage with access to Teleport at this stage. A common "sidequest" that occurs to many parties is to assassinate Kharn within the Hand's own encampment. With Teleport and Scry, it's also frighteningly effective if Kharn hasn't got buffs on and the party can pull out a lot of damage in one round. But intelligence gathering or sabotage missions also become possibilities, so long as the party understands its objective will slow the Hand down by a couple more days, giving the city that much more time to prepare.

Other possibilities are sidequests for the party to help the city itself prepare. Here's some of the stuff my players came up with (not that most or many of them were actually used):

- Redirecting the Elsir River to flow around the walls of Brindol, thus creating a moat. If there's a concern about the wall's structural integrity, checks from a hired expert with Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) could alleviate this. I made a rough calculation that it'd take about 39,000 tons of earth for a moat 30 feet wide and ten feet deep to stretch around Brindol's wall -- didn't get down to the calculations of how long it would take a mob of peasants to dig a trench that big and that wide or how many.

- If the party has teleport capabilities, the purchase and transportation of mercenaries from out of town to buttress Brindol's garrison. With roughly 12,000 gp or so the party can more or less double the size of Brindol's garrison for a month or so with level 1 warriors and arm them all with spears to boot. In my campaign, Brindol was in the Forgotten Realms and became the city of Rethmar -- a teleport spell was enough to go and hire dwarven mercenaries from the Great Rift, and on a forced march those mercenaries could have made it to Brindol in time for the battle. Your party could have some fun doing the calculations of how long it'll take to teleport all the mercenaries in, or get them to come by as soon as possible. Similar comments apply to hiring fewer but higher level adventurers or spellcasters in particular -- Immerstal the Red is the only native Brindolese spellcaster in the place, a couple of level 5 or 6ers on the walls could be sold to the party as a very handy buttress to the garrison. Or look closer in the vale - druids from Witchcross, halfling slingers out of Dauth.

- Appealing to the local thieves guild under Rillor Paln (the Black Knives) to take part in the defence of the city or at least refrain from looting from the city's stores ahead of the battle.

- Negotiating with the churches in town (the Temple of Yondalla, and the Shrine of Wee Jas) to put in anti-undead or extra clerical defences on the walls.

- Escorting foraging parties who're gathering in crops from western Elsir Vale ahead of the Red Hand's advance. The Red Hand burns everything in its path, which would include the vale's immature crops. Some very brave farmers and peasants are going to have to get out there and hump grain and fruit back to Brindol for safekeeping. These are easy ways to recycle the Chimaera Attack and spend a few days on the timeline.

- Scouting out the Red Hand and getting a better sense of its size and composition. As said, infiltration and destruction of crucial supplies -- say the party goes in to burn up the Hand's wagons which contain all the army's clerical or arcane scrolls.

- Mass manufacutre of spell traps, Stone Shape to buttress the walls, install catapults on the walls, brew up mass cauldrons of alchemist's fire to drop on attackers, caltrops and/or spells to muddy the ground as the Red Hand moves in on the wall.

Provided you keep it dramatic and keep the pace up, I could see these easily keeping the party occupied until the Red Hand shows up at the wall.

This is definitely a really good starting point if on returning from the Hammerfist Holds they still have time to spare.

The idea of hit and run strikes is especially appealing given that in my run the horde has a CR 15 adult Abithriax hanging around, serving as Kharn's second in command and the leader of the horde's vanguard - so lingering for more than a few rounds could be very dangerous indeed.

One thing worth noting is that any rebuild of Kharn that gets him 3rd level cleric spells gets him Nondetection from Tiamat's Trickery domain - so if he's a cleric then he does have a decent chance of resisting the party's scrying attempts, as, being a high profile target at the head of a huge army that only he can fully control it would be stupid for him to ignore the possibility of assasination attempts - and with an hour/level duration he can have it active at all times. This combined with Abithrax likely being nearby whenever Kharn is resting makes an assassination tricky at best - but maybe still possible if they're lucky/careful. An interesting note is that the way I've run them, Kharn is actually reigning in Abithriax, who is himself a skilled general (he led an advance force on Drellin's Ferry to wipe it our several days early), but who would happily burn the entire vale to the ground - so killing Kharn might actually result in an even more ferocious attack on Brindol - but one that is more easily broken without Kharn's charisma to rally the troops when things go south.

There's definitely an awful lot the party can do once the wizard gets Teleport, plus we have an artificer, so she can make teleport items two levels early - I should have Jaarmath ask them about teleporting to get allies (we're in Faerun too, so that helps!) the next time they contact him via Sending.

This list of ideas is fantastic, Saintheart, I'm sure we'll end up using at least a few of them.

[Elder_Basilisk]

You're certainly not alone. A lot of people have thought the same thing and skipped the Fane or cut it down drastically. I've got a feeling the Fane works better narratively if the party loses at Brindol -- it gives a rather more dark feel to the whole section, more of a sense that you're going to your death with the prospect only of being able to spit in Tiamat's eye.

On the other hand, I've always thought Jarmaath conveniently pulling out the Fane's location after the destruction of Brindol a bit unsatisfying anyway. "Here's some intel we found, guys, and it turns out this whole thing was actually being masterminded from this location right here. No, we figured we wouldn't bother you with it before the Battle. How did we get it? Uh ... because we, um, managed to take down a supertrusted courier who just happened to have the Fane's location when nobody else in the Vale has given it up or knows where it is. Or we had a supersecret spy who was actually hanging around in the backblocks of the Wyrmsmokes for no apparent reason just to confirm the Fane's existence and location. We didn't think it was anything a bunch of people with fourth or fifth level spells could help us with until after they'd pasted our walls."

Papering over the hole with "it's all a big blood sacrifice to Tiamat, you just played into our hands by killing thousands of us, stupid humans," is not optimal either, but it's about the best solution anyone in here has come up with.

For my part, I tend to think it works best as the final chapter. Azar Kul is the mastermind behind the Red Hand. If he is killed, then defeating the army is more of a mopping up the lieutenant feel than a winning the war feel. To use a (probably flawed) Star Wars analogy, it's like tracking down Admiral Thrawn after killing the emperor, destroying the death star, and convincing Darth Vader to come back to the light. It needs doing, and makes for a good story, but you won't mistake it for the climax of the overall story.

As far as the other questions go:
Why not go to the Wyrmsmokes first if you know where it is:
A. The threat to Brindol is immediate. Even if you kill Azar Kul, the army can still sack Brindol.
B. Passing through occupied territory held by an organized and victorious army that still has a number of dragons and wyrmlords should be much less practical than passing through disputed territory after the Red Hand army is defeated and shattered and most of the dragons and wyrmlords are dead. It can be done (and needs to be if the PCs lose the battle of Brindol) but it should be much harder and more menacing than it will be after the Red Hand is defeated.

What's with the blood sacrifice thing?
I agree with Saintheart that the whole "Battle of Brindol is a giant Blood Sacrifice/Nice Job Hero" thing is a bad idea. In the right campaign (maybe a Warhammer Old World adaptation with Khorne playing the part of Tiamat), it could work, but that should be in the context of an ultra-grimdark setting where any bloodshed empowers Khorne and it should be properly foreshadowed with the heroes perhaps weighing options and the forces of Brindol sanctifying themselves in some manner so that the blood they shed cannot empower Khorne.

My solution is to foreshadow it earlier. Rather than have the blood sacrifice be the battle of Brindol, have the hobgoblins cart everyone they can capture back to the Wyrmsmokes, rip out their hearts at the altar of Tiamat, and cast the bodies down the temple steps to be devored at the bottom. Have mile long chains of prisoners driven by whip-wielding hobgoblins traveling up the mountains and the sides of the road be strewn with the bones of those who couldn't keep up. Have hundred foot tall piles of skulls at the borders of the hobgoblin's former realm. Make it clear from the beginning that the hogboblins are dragging people off for slavery or sacrifice, and that if they aren't stopped at Brindol, they will have all the sacrifices they could possibly want.

[Myou]

For my part, I tend to think it works best as the final chapter. Azar Kul is the mastermind behind the Red Hand. If he is killed, then defeating the army is more of a mopping up the lieutenant feel than a winning the war feel. To use a (probably flawed) Star Wars analogy, it's like tracking down Admiral Thrawn after killing the emperor, destroying the death star, and convincing Darth Vader to come back to the light. It needs doing, and makes for a good story, but you won't mistake it for the climax of the overall story.

As far as the other questions go:
Why not go to the Wyrmsmokes first if you know where it is:
A. The threat to Brindol is immediate. Even if you kill Azar Kul, the army can still sack Brindol.
B. Passing through occupied territory held by an organized and victorious army that still has a number of dragons and wyrmlords should be much less practical than passing through disputed territory after the Red Hand army is defeated and shattered and most of the dragons and wyrmlords are dead. It can be done (and needs to be if the PCs lose the battle of Brindol) but it should be much harder and more menacing than it will be after the Red Hand is defeated.

What's with the blood sacrifice thing?
I agree with Saintheart that the whole "Battle of Brindol is a giant Blood Sacrifice/Nice Job Hero" thing is a bad idea. In the right campaign (maybe a Warhammer Old World adaptation with Khorne playing the part of Tiamat), it could work, but that should be in the context of an ultra-grimdark setting where any bloodshed empowers Khorne and it should be properly foreshadowed with the heroes perhaps weighing options and the forces of Brindol sanctifying themselves in some manner so that the blood they shed cannot empower Khorne.

My solution is to foreshadow it earlier. Rather than have the blood sacrifice be the battle of Brindol, have the hobgoblins cart everyone they can capture back to the Wyrmsmokes, rip out their hearts at the altar of Tiamat, and cast the bodies down the temple steps to be devored at the bottom. Have mile long chains of prisoners driven by whip-wielding hobgoblins traveling up the mountains and the sides of the road be strewn with the bones of those who couldn't keep up. Have hundred foot tall piles of skulls at the borders of the hobgoblin's former realm. Make it clear from the beginning that the hogboblins are dragging people off for slavery or sacrifice, and that if they aren't stopped at Brindol, they will have all the sacrifices they could possibly want.

A is the one I mean to focus on, but B really shouldn't matter at all to any party that can teleport - even if you ward the fane against teleporting you can't ward the entire mountain range.

As for the blood sacrifice thing, it's not about telling the PCs they screwed up - they had no choice but to fight the horde, however Azarr Kul has no reason to send the horde to attack Brindol if he can summon an army of extraplanar monsters to fight for him - if instead the summoning requires immense amounts of bloodshed concentrated in one place at one time then it all makes perfect sense - Azarr Kul hopes to win via the initial invasion, but has the sacrifice as plan B. I'm not talking about some kind of altar with a freaky knife and guys cutting out hearts, I'm talking about so many deaths all at once all together that it has serious effects on the barriers between planes as so many souls pass over. It's not perfect, but I think it makes sense - and also explains what is otherwise a notable plothole.

[Elder_Basilisk]

A is the one I mean to focus on, but B really shouldn't matter at all to any party that can teleport - even if you ward the fane against teleporting you can't ward the entire mountain range.

Maybe not, but just knowing teleport doesn't necessarily solve the problem. You need to have seen an area to teleport to it. So the PC can probably get to Cinder Hill on the viewed once table, but that still leaves a fair distance to cover on foot through heavy patrols. They could try to scry and then teleport, but there is argument about whether scrying allows teleportation (I'm of the opinion it does but I've seen a lot of argument on the Paizo boards). More importantly, they need to pick someone to scry. The only people they could reasonably expect to know about who are in or near the fane at that time are Azzar Kul and Tyrgarun (at least by the standard module). They've got pretty good will saves and can reasonably be expected to have some kinds of wards up even if they fail the saves. But either way, they'd be in the fane, so if it's warded against teleportation, scrying them doesn't help you teleport near to the fane.

Then there are party size questions (can the wizard teleport the whole party including animal companions, etc?) and whether the party wizard is even 9th level before the battle of Brindol. When I played, my fighter/barbarian was admittedly underlevel, but he only made 8th level after all of the module was complete.

As for the blood sacrifice thing, it's not about telling the PCs they screwed up - they had no choice but to fight the horde, however Azarr Kul has no reason to send the horde to attack Brindol if he can summon an army of extraplanar monsters to fight for him - if instead the summoning requires immense amounts of bloodshed concentrated in one place at one time then it all makes perfect sense - Azarr Kul hopes to win via the initial invasion, but has the sacrifice as plan B. I'm not talking about some kind of altar with a freaky knife and guys cutting out hearts, I'm talking about so many deaths all at once all together that it has serious effects on the barriers between planes as so many souls pass over. It's not perfect, but I think it makes sense - and also explains what is otherwise a notable plothole.

I don't think that your logic here necessarily holds up.

1. Azarr Kul could have several reasons to use the horde to attack Brindol rather than summoning extra-planar creatures to do so.
A. Extra-planar creatures require kinds of payment that are more difficult to obtain than hobgoblins who will attack for loot and revenge.
B. He wants to use the extraplanar creatures for something else.
C. He needs the horde to attack the Elsir Vale in order to get the payment for the extraplanar creatures. He doesn't necessarily need to conquer Brindol to get the payment, but he can't afford to leave his army in the Elsir Vale without dealing with Brindol.

In my game, I'm adopting reasons B and C. Azar Kul needs blood sacrifices of the creepy guy with the knife kind on order to summon his extraplanar horde. That's why the caravans of sacrifices are constantly traveling back to the fane. He can get enough sacrifices for a good extraplanar horde without sacking Brindol but he needs to deal with Brindol in order to be able to keep his army in the field and he also needs to deal with it in order to secure a defensible location for when Brindol's allies arrive. (My RHoD is set in Sterich in Greyhawk so the local forces are more responsive than Dennovar's even if they won't arrive in time to change the battle of Brindol). That said, his plan is for the extraplanar horde to enable him to defeat those forces and overrun the rest of Sterich. Using them in conjunction with the hobgoblin horde is his primary plan.

You can use the "Battle of Brindol as a blood sacrifice" plot device if you want. (It's got a lot of history in Warhammer 40k games like Dawn of War Retribution) I just don't think it's the only way to address the question and I think it requires setup in a setting less grimdark than the warhammer settings. The various Warhammer settings are all set up to imply that fighting Chaos empowers it so that there is really no way to truly win long term. It's understood that Chaos space marines might start a battle to make sure that, win or lose there are blood and souls for Khorne. But most D&D settings hold out more hope than that. Defeating evil without empowering it is a real possibility in most D&D settings. There are gods of good as well as evil and the logical/preferred solution to evil cults isn't genocide. In a normal D&D game, I would expect to have some kind of foreshadowing or see ritual preparation if the battle itself is meant to be a blood sacrifice.

Now that's not too hard to foreshadow. Have them erect obelisks around the city and dig trenches in the shape of a thaumaturgic triangle or some other shape with special significance for Tiamat. Have the hobgoblin priests come forward and anoint the hobgoblin blades with a special ungent. Have the entire horde chant and sacrifice for 6 hours, 6 minutes, and 6 seconds before unleashing the attack on the stroke of midnight on whatever passes for your world's halloween. But unlike a Warhammer influenced world, I would expect there to be some special preparations in order for the battle to be the required blood sacrifice.

[Saintheart]

You can use the "Battle of Brindol as a blood sacrifice" plot device if you want. (It's got a lot of history in Warhammer 40k games like Dawn of War Retribution) I just don't think it's the only way to address the question and I think it requires setup in a setting less grimdark than the warhammer settings. The various Warhammer settings are all set up to imply that fighting Chaos empowers it so that there is really no way to truly win long term. It's understood that Chaos space marines might start a battle to make sure that, win or lose there are blood and souls for Khorne. But most D&D settings hold out more hope than that. Defeating evil without empowering it is a real possibility in most D&D settings. There are gods of good as well as evil and the logical/preferred solution to evil cults isn't genocide. In a normal D&D game, I would expect to have some kind of foreshadowing or see ritual preparation if the battle itself is meant to be a blood sacrifice.

The spin I put on it is that Azarr Kul himself has deceived his own people in sending them off to Brindol to die. This is in keeping with Tiamat's domains of Trickery and his status as one of her major clerics. It's not so much a matter of "win or lose you still play into the Red Hand's plans" as "Win or lose you still play into Azarr Kul's plans." While Kul has told the Red Hand he's opening the portal to produce a bunch of demonic allies for them, the reality is that Tiamat won't kick open a door between the planes without a big blood sacrifice, which is generated by the deaths of hobgoblins devoted to her. At the end of the day the entire Red Hand, including Azarr Kul himself, is a pawn of Tiamat. By the module itself she explicitly reaches out from Infernus and chomps Azarr Kul when he fails her.

I don't reeeeally see the Battle of Brindol as a completely grimdark setting. Even if the party has played into Tiamat's hands by fighting at all, they have still saved a lot of innocent lives already -- Brindol has held and the rest of the Vale won't fall without the hobgoblin army threatening it, and the party's attendance on the Fane then secures that peace for good. By this interpretation, the Red Hand's loss at Brindol becomes sort-of tragic rather than simple good triumphing over evil as such.

But the real reason I tend towards the "blood sacrifice" thing -- remembering always there is not a skerrick of material in RHOD to justify it, it is entirely an interpolation created by the wonderful contributors to this thread and endorsed by me -- is because the Battle of Brindol makes little sense without some sort of explanation. Azarr Kul is planning to open a doorway to Infernus. If he waits for a month or so on the timeline, he won't just have ten thousand screaming hobgoblins at his command, he'll have ten thousand screaming hobgoblins and an army of demonic creatures at his command. I just cannot see a plausible reason for why he couldn't hold back his years-in-the-planning world domination scheme for 30 more days in view of that.

That said, the idea of an escaped prisoner of the Red Hand as a mechanism for feeding the Fane's location to the party could work too - perhaps the party or Brindol forces discover a former captive left behind at the walls of Brindol, one who was at the Fane and who was going to be a celebratory sacrifice on the victory of the Hand at Brindol, who then fills the party in. For bonus points it could be someone the party met back in Drellin's Ferry at the beginning of the campaign - maybe the Town Rich Obnoxious Guy, Iormel, suitably chastened after a month or so as a Red Hand sacrifice-in-waiting.