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

[Talesin]

I'm thinking of restatting Kharn into a Dragon Disciple in my Pathfinder game. Either running him Paladin of Tyranny 2/Sorc 3/DD5. This will give him 6th level wizard casting, grants him a single 3rd level spell (Haste/Displacement) and two 2nd level spells (Mirror Image/Bulls Str) as well as a strength potentially as high as 28 when he's buffed up.

Not a complete stat block but here's a basics of it:

Spoiler: Kharn

Show

Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn, CR 10
Male hobgoblin Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 3 / Dragon Disciple 5
LE Medium Humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Blind Sense 30ft;
Languages Common, Draconic, Goblin, Infernal

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 24
HP 114 (2d10+3d6+5d12+60)
Resist fire 5 (Cold 10)
F/R/W +18/+9/+18

Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 wounding heavy pick +15/+10 (1d6+12 + 1 Con / x4) (Wields pick 2h)
Or
Claw +14/+14 (1d4+8/x2), Bite +14 (1d6+12/x2) (7rds/day)
Breath Weapon: 30ft Cone 8d6 (DC:17 Ref for 1/2)

Has Power Attack so can push the damage up, also has Arcane Strike so as a Swift Action can increase his damage done by 2 per hit

Base Atk +6/+1

Spells (CL 6l)
3rd: 4/day, DC16
Haste, Sorc Bonus: Fly (Alternative 3rd: Displacement, Heroism)
2nd: 6/day DC 15
Bull's Strength*, Mirror Image, Sorc Bonus: Resist Energy* (Alternative 2nd: Blur, False Life)
1st 7/day DC 14
Shield*, Enlarge Person, Magic Missile, True Strike, Sorc Bonus: Mage Armour

*Already Cast

Abilities Str 28, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 18
Feats: Power Attack, Combat Casting, Arcane Strike, Arcane Armour Training, Toughness Improved Initiative, BLANK (still need 1)

Gear: +2 Mithril Chain Vest, +4 Con Belt, +2 Cha Headband, +2 Cloak of Resistance, +1 Ring of Prot, +1 Nat Armour Amulet

So the purpose of this Kharn would be to buff himself up with Haste/Displacement and then Mirror Image before wading into melee. Drop his pick, grow claws and a bite attack and just go to town with his 28 strength, power attack and arcane strike providing the damage. Full power attacking with arcane strike he has 3 attacks all at +12, Claws dealing 1d4+14 each and the bite 1d6+18, that he can do for 7 rounds a day, which should be plenty before they drop him.

If he can cast Haste then the Giants etc with him become a serious problem (I know the party has a few dispels left but he can always cast it again) plus with Mirror Image up, or Blur if I drop Bull's Str and change the Con Belt into a Str Belt to keep his damage up, he should be a relatively hard target to hit. Then could go Enlarged if I wanted to be extra mean and throw more damage in.

Alternate build uses Barbarian instead of Paladin for a few rounds of Rage, extra rage as the feat i've not picked, but that drops his saves down a fair amount as Paladin's are crazy for saves in Pathfinder but would be quite a fun touch.

What do people think? It keeps the dragon theme, though the breath weapon is fairly awful at this stage with a DC of only 17. He's got some nice buffs on him with the % miss chances helping keep him alive, despite his 114 HP total. I think he'd be a good end boss for the battle but might be a little too powerful.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I'm thinking of restatting Kharn into a Dragon Disciple in my Pathfinder game. Either running him Paladin of Tyranny 2/Sorc 3/DD5. This will give him 6th level wizard casting, grants him a single 3rd level spell (Haste/Displacement) and two 2nd level spells (Mirror Image/Bulls Str) as well as a strength potentially as high as 28 when he's buffed up.

Not a complete stat block but here's a basics of it:

Spoiler: Kharn

Show

Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn, CR 10
Male hobgoblin Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 3 / Dragon Disciple 5
LE Medium Humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Blind Sense 30ft;
Languages Common, Draconic, Goblin, Infernal

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 24
HP 114 (2d10+3d6+5d12+60)
Resist fire 5 (Cold 10)
F/R/W +18/+9/+18

Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 wounding heavy pick +15/+10 (1d6+12 + 1 Con / x4) (Wields pick 2h)
Or
Claw +14/+14 (1d4+8/x2), Bite +14 (1d6+12/x2) (7rds/day)
Breath Weapon: 30ft Cone 8d6 (DC:17 Ref for 1/2)

Has Power Attack so can push the damage up, also has Arcane Strike so as a Swift Action can increase his damage done by 2 per hit

Base Atk +6/+1

Spells (CL 6l)
3rd: 4/day, DC16
Haste, Sorc Bonus: Fly (Alternative 3rd: Displacement, Heroism)
2nd: 6/day DC 15
Bull's Strength*, Mirror Image, Sorc Bonus: Resist Energy* (Alternative 2nd: Blur, False Life)
1st 7/day DC 14
Shield*, Enlarge Person, Magic Missile, True Strike, Sorc Bonus: Mage Armour

*Already Cast

Abilities Str 28, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 18
Feats: Power Attack, Combat Casting, Arcane Strike, Arcane Armour Training, Toughness Improved Initiative, BLANK (still need 1)

Gear: +2 Mithril Chain Vest, +4 Con Belt, +2 Cha Headband, +2 Cloak of Resistance, +1 Ring of Prot, +1 Nat Armour Amulet

So the purpose of this Kharn would be to buff himself up with Haste/Displacement and then Mirror Image before wading into melee. Drop his pick, grow claws and a bite attack and just go to town with his 28 strength, power attack and arcane strike providing the damage. Full power attacking with arcane strike he has 3 attacks all at +12, Claws dealing 1d4+14 each and the bite 1d6+18, that he can do for 7 rounds a day, which should be plenty before they drop him.

If he can cast Haste then the Giants etc with him become a serious problem (I know the party has a few dispels left but he can always cast it again) plus with Mirror Image up, or Blur if I drop Bull's Str and change the Con Belt into a Str Belt to keep his damage up, he should be a relatively hard target to hit. Then could go Enlarged if I wanted to be extra mean and throw more damage in.

Alternate build uses Barbarian instead of Paladin for a few rounds of Rage, extra rage as the feat i've not picked, but that drops his saves down a fair amount as Paladin's are crazy for saves in Pathfinder but would be quite a fun touch.

What do people think? It keeps the dragon theme, though the breath weapon is fairly awful at this stage with a DC of only 17. He's got some nice buffs on him with the % miss chances helping keep him alive, despite his 114 HP total. I think he'd be a good end boss for the battle but might be a little too powerful.

I don't think you need to worry about him being too powerful unless your group runs on less than normal optimization.

My only semi-optimized pathfinder Inquisitor version of Kharn clocks in at AC 30 and +24/+24/+19 for 1d6+16+2d6 damage per hit before applying Power Attack. Now that's pathfinder and some additional optimization beyond the base game so it's not necessarily the best comparison point but it is a good place to start looking at how tough a character might be. (Then again the sorcerer bonus spells and d6 sorcerer HD suggest yours might be pathfinder too)

But if you want a default comparison, the base game Kharn is going to be pulling AC 28 or so with no build changes and minimal play optimization (like using that deathknell spell on a hapless soldier offscreen and having shield of faith, aid, entropic shield, and bear's endurance up. If he spells up with divine power and divine favor, he's attacking at +21/+16 (or +22/+22/+17 with haste--he's got a potion and may have an ally who can cast it) for something like 1d6+9+1 con per hit. Your version hits harder, but is a lot less accurate. Mirror image and/or displacement make your version somewhat more durable, but he's dispel magic bait anyway so I'm not certain how much it will help him and the death knelled caster level of 9 on the base game Kharn is a lot more resilient vs dispel magic than clvl 6.

I'd look at your Kharn as more of a lateral move than a power up. The lateral move might be good in terms of making the fight mechanically distinct from the later fight with Azar Kull who is also, in the base adventure a buff and bash divine caster with draconic features and might otherwise seem repetitive.

[Elder_Basilisk]

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.

An alternate explanation for why he would have to wait is that individual blood sacrifices power the portal and he can only summon one devil per ten or hundred sacrifices. Perhaps more powerful devils need special victims: especially pure (the traditional virgin sacrifice--paladins work too), significant (nobles), or powerful (high level). Azarr Kul therefore needs the Red Hand army to send back sacrifices in order to benefit from the portal. If he doesn't send out the hobgoblin army, he can't get the infernal army. By the time the hobgoblins get to Brindol, he has enough for an infernal army, but not nearly as big an army as he would have if he won.

The explanations aren't mutually exclusive, but that explanation would explain some of the monsters that Azarr Kul has been able to summon already (the Erinyes, the barghests, some of the spawn of Tiamat, the hellhounds, etc--obviously the portal is at least partially functional before the invasion) as well as the reason that he sent the hobgoblins into the vale without waiting for the full complement of infernal aid. I also like it because it is consistent with other calling mechanisms in D&D (planar binding, planar ally, gate, etc) which require payment for calling outsiders and the history of most campaign worlds which suggest that summoning armies of outsiders is not an everyday occurrence. (I presume that Azzar Kul's portal is not an artifact of the same magnitude as the book of infinite planes, the crook of Rao, the fiendseeing throne, etc).

[Saintheart]

An alternate explanation for why he would have to wait is that individual blood sacrifices power the portal and he can only summon one devil per ten or hundred sacrifices. Perhaps more powerful devils need special victims: especially pure (the traditional virgin sacrifice--paladins work too), significant (nobles), or powerful (high level). Azarr Kul therefore needs the Red Hand army to send back sacrifices in order to benefit from the portal. If he doesn't send out the hobgoblin army, he can't get the infernal army. By the time the hobgoblins get to Brindol, he has enough for an infernal army, but not nearly as big an army as he would have if he won.

The explanations aren't mutually exclusive, but that explanation would explain some of the monsters that Azarr Kul has been able to summon already (the Erinyes, the barghests, some of the spawn of Tiamat, the hellhounds, etc--obviously the portal is at least partially functional before the invasion) as well as the reason that he sent the hobgoblins into the vale without waiting for the full complement of infernal aid. I also like it because it is consistent with other calling mechanisms in D&D (planar binding, planar ally, gate, etc) which require payment for calling outsiders and the history of most campaign worlds which suggest that summoning armies of outsiders is not an everyday occurrence. (I presume that Azzar Kul's portal is not an artifact of the same magnitude as the book of infinite planes, the crook of Rao, the fiendseeing throne, etc).

Good points. Or maybe the Red Hand army has to be sent out because the cost of summoning the same creatures through the incomplete portal grows as time goes on -- while Tiamat gives you the first greenspawn razorfiend for free or for a hobgoblin's life, if you want ten more of them it's going to take a hundred villagers. Or something.

[Jon_Dahl]

Feedback

I’d like to start with a very good observation made by Myou

An issue that probably stems from the DM's approach of not railroading, giving suggestion, or advising the players

There you have it. I tell my players that this game is called The Red Hand of Doom, then I go to an in-game mode and just tell players what their characters see. Whatever they do, is fine with me. Well, not always, but I don’t say anything in off-game. A player can say that his paladin suddenly stabs Lord Jarmaath in the back. I will not comment this in off-game at all, I will just tell them what happens. You can do anything you want whenever you want, I won’t say what you should or shouldn’t do. This is how I roll. Quite frankly, if I had to direct the players in any way, I wouldn’t play this game.

The general issue here seems to be that the opponents are too difficult for the PCs. That’s relative. I will now show you a detailed breakdown of every encounter so far. If you find some of them unfair, please tell me.

Please note: With PCs, level effectively means ECL.

Spoiler: The encounter list

Show

1st encounter:
PCs and allies: Five 4th-level PCs, one 6th-level PC and an undocumented NPC hireling.
First wave:
Six hobgoblin regulars
Second wave:
Doom Hand cleric
Bladebearer
Wardog in chainshirt barding

2nd encounter:
PCs and allies: Five 4th-level PCs, Jorr and an undocumented NPC hireling.
Ozzyrrandion without any magical items at all
One hell hound
Eight hobgoblin veterans
Hobgoblin sergeant

3rd encounter:
PCs and allies: Three 4th-level PCs
Five NORMAL goblins
Five worgs

4th encounter:
Jorr’s dogs got killed. Does this even matter?

5th encounter:
PCs and allies: Two 4th-level PCs, one 4th-level DMPC
Six-headed hydra

6th encounter
PCs: Two 4th-level PCs
Hobgoblin sergeant
10 hobgoblin regulars

8th encounter:
PCs: Two 4th-level PCs
Hobgoblin sergeant
Four hobgoblin veterans
Wardog in chainshirt barding

9th encounter:
The entire Red Hand army

10th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Miha

11th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Dirty Rotten Looters

12th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Brown bear

13th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Four goblins
Ettin

14th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Greenspawn Razorfiend

15th encounter:
PCs: Two 5th-level PCs
6 lizardmen

16th encounter:
PCs: Three 5th-level PCs
Bladebearer
Three hobgoblin regulars

17th encounter:
PCs: Three 5th-level PCs
Regiarix (young)
Saarvith

18th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs
Two manticores
Hobgoblin sergeant
Three hobgoblin regulars

19th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs
Four Bloodghost berserkers

20th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs
Two Ghost Brute Dire Lions

21st encounter:
PCs: Two 6th-level PCs
Badly wounded Koth without spells

22nd encounter:
PCs: Two 6th-level PCs
Slightly wounded Kharn without spells

23rd encounter:
PCs and allies: Three 7th-level PCs and two low-level followers and a 4th-level cohort
Tyrgarun (Juvenile)

24th encounter:
PCs and allies: Four 7th-level PCs and two low-level followers and a 4th-level cohort
Four Blackspawn Raiders

I didn't include the giant battery and Abithriax, but Abithriax was young.

For instance, someone mentioned that the level on the picture is 6. In fact, the character is an aasimar. That makes the character 7th level, and viable to enter the Fane, considering that I've readjusted the enemies and made them a lot weaker.

Answers to your questions:

The modifications I made to the character generation and to the campaign… The post #2 has them all, but for some reason I have forgotten to mention that players voted that we have fumble rules in the game. I have some very modest fumble tables, but still Mack managed to skewer himself, which was very rare. Please note that this was voted and accepted by the players. I just didn’t put that in the post #2, which I do apologize.

Archers firing into woods had 20% miss chance every single time they fired. Sometimes the trees helped too, but not always.

The players had absolutely no idea about the campaign when they signed up. I explained the history of the Elsir Vale very carefully, but that’s it.

On thing that the journal doesn’t explain is the loot. The players received handsome loot, such as wand of cure moderate wounds (44 charges) from Regiarix and +1 mithril chain shirt. They had lots of good stuff.

About not being able to find the phylactery and the eggs… On the page 59 under the title “Leaving the job unfinished” it says that if Saarvith or Regiarix get killed, the survivors will flee. Someone might read that differently, but since BOTH were killed, I just had the survivors gather what they could and flee back to the High Wyrmlord. They had 24 hours to do that, and in my book that was enough.

The adjusted Fane would be appropriate even for four 7th-level characters.

[Starbuck_II]

I'm thinking of restatting Kharn into a Dragon Disciple in my Pathfinder game. Either running him Paladin of Tyranny 2/Sorc 3/DD5. This will give him 6th level wizard casting, grants him a single 3rd level spell (Haste/Displacement) and two 2nd level spells (Mirror Image/Bulls Str) as well as a strength potentially as high as 28 when he's buffed up.

Not a complete stat block but here's a basics of it:

Spoiler: Kharn

Show

Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn, CR 10
Male hobgoblin Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 3 / Dragon Disciple 5
LE Medium Humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Blind Sense 30ft;
Languages Common, Draconic, Goblin, Infernal

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 24
HP 114 (2d10+3d6+5d12+60)
Resist fire 5 (Cold 10)
F/R/W +18/+9/+18

Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 wounding heavy pick +15/+10 (1d6+12 + 1 Con / x4) (Wields pick 2h)
Or
Claw +14/+14 (1d4+8/x2), Bite +14 (1d6+12/x2) (7rds/day)
Breath Weapon: 30ft Cone 8d6 (DC:17 Ref for 1/2)

Has Power Attack so can push the damage up, also has Arcane Strike so as a Swift Action can increase his damage done by 2 per hit

Base Atk +6/+1

Spells (CL 6l)
3rd: 4/day, DC16
Haste, Sorc Bonus: Fly (Alternative 3rd: Displacement, Heroism)
2nd: 6/day DC 15
Bull's Strength*, Mirror Image, Sorc Bonus: Resist Energy* (Alternative 2nd: Blur, False Life)
1st 7/day DC 14
Shield*, Enlarge Person, Magic Missile, True Strike, Sorc Bonus: Mage Armour

*Already Cast

Abilities Str 28, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 18
Feats: Power Attack, Combat Casting, Arcane Strike, Arcane Armour Training, Toughness Improved Initiative, BLANK (still need 1)

Gear: +2 Mithril Chain Vest, +4 Con Belt, +2 Cha Headband, +2 Cloak of Resistance, +1 Ring of Prot, +1 Nat Armour Amulet

So the purpose of this Kharn would be to buff himself up with Haste/Displacement and then Mirror Image before wading into melee. Drop his pick, grow claws and a bite attack and just go to town with his 28 strength, power attack and arcane strike providing the damage. Full power attacking with arcane strike he has 3 attacks all at +12, Claws dealing 1d4+14 each and the bite 1d6+18, that he can do for 7 rounds a day, which should be plenty before they drop him.

If he can cast Haste then the Giants etc with him become a serious problem (I know the party has a few dispels left but he can always cast it again) plus with Mirror Image up, or Blur if I drop Bull's Str and change the Con Belt into a Str Belt to keep his damage up, he should be a relatively hard target to hit. Then could go Enlarged if I wanted to be extra mean and throw more damage in.

Alternate build uses Barbarian instead of Paladin for a few rounds of Rage, extra rage as the feat i've not picked, but that drops his saves down a fair amount as Paladin's are crazy for saves in Pathfinder but would be quite a fun touch.

What do people think? It keeps the dragon theme, though the breath weapon is fairly awful at this stage with a DC of only 17. He's got some nice buffs on him with the % miss chances helping keep him alive, despite his 114 HP total. I think he'd be a good end boss for the battle but might be a little too powerful.

Well for comparison mine was:

Spoiler

Show

Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn: CR 8 + MR 1
(God Blooded: Tiamat) War-Priest 8
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft, Low-light vision.; Perception +5
Defense
AC 30, touch 13, flat-footed 29 (+1 Dex, 2 Deflect, +4 Shield, 11 Full Plate, 2 NA), DR 11/-; Morale 9
hp 73 (8d10+32). Fort +10 (+12), Ref +3 (+5), Will +10 (+12); Speed: 20 ft, Resist Fire/Cold 5
Offense
Melee +2 courageous (+1 morale bonuses) Wounding (each hit causes 1 bleed, stacks) Heavy Pick +16/+11 (1d8+8+1 cold, x4) or (PA) Heavy Pick +13/+8 (1d8+14+1 cold, x4)
(Vital strike) +2 courageous (+1 morale bonuses) Wounding Heavy Pick +16 (2d8+8+1 cold, x4) or (PA) Heavy Pick +13 (2d8+14+1 cold, x4)
Melee: +1 Greatsword Hit +12/+7 (2d6+8) or PA: hit +9/+4 (2d6+14)
VS: Hit +12 (4d6+8) or PA: Hit +9 (4d6 +14)
Ranged Mstk Heavy Crossbow Hit+ (1d10+0), Range 80 ft,
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Divine Reduction: Free action, raise DR by 10/- for one round, once blocked 40 of that template gone.
Tiamat powers: Once/day for 1 rd, deal 25 Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire in a 20 ft burst (free action), Reflex 1/2, DC 17.
Aura of Save: Allies within 10 ft get +2 saves, 1 Mythic spell (Augment spells), Mythic (1/day, surge 1d6)
1/day, gain extra turn in a round.; 1/day, Fast Heal 5 for 10 rounds.
Special: 2xBlessing (7/day), Fervor (7/day, Swift, 3d6 hp damage touch or use a self buff)
Dragon (Tiamat):
Energy Weapon: Swift, Grant self, 1 minute, deal +1 Acid, Cold, Fire, Electric with attacks.
Breath Weapon: 60 ft Cone, Deals 4d6, Acid, Cold, Fire, and Electric Reflex DC 17
Healing: Swift, cast cure spell on self
Standard action grant Fast Heal 3 for 1 minute.
Channel Energy: Uses 2 Fervor, all 30 ft burst, 3d6 damage. Will ½ DC 17.
Scared Weapon: Swift, +2 bonus to Weapon or special enhancement. Dur 8 rd (non-consecutive)
Sacred Armor: Swift, +1 bonus to Armor or special enhancement. Dur 8 Minute (non-consecutive)
Spell: Caster 8, Concentrate +11
0th (5): Virtue, Guidance, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Spark
1st: (4+1) Divine Favor, Moment of Greatness, Command (1 target/lvl; succed on save =stagger 1 rd), CLW (2d8+10), Bless (hit/dam/saves)
2nd: (4+1) Bull’s Str x1, Align Weapon x1, Resist Energy x1, CMW (4d8+16) x2
3rd: (2+1) CSW (6d8+16)x1, Blindness/Deafness (both effects) DC 17 x1, Dispel Magic (2 spells lost, 1d4 hp heal per spell lv), Prayer (+2ally/-2 enemy; allies healed 2 hp/enemies 2 hp dam)
Stats:
Str 16, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 16. Base Atk +8; CMB +11; CMD 1
Feats Bonus-WF: Heavy Pick, 1st-Mauling Gauntlets (+3 dam), 3rd-?, Bonus: PA (3/+6), 5th- Extra Essentia, Bonus:Extra Spell slot, 7th: Vital Strike, SF: Necro, Improved Blessing.
Trait: Fate's Favored, +4 dam on a Crit
Skills
Languages: Common, Goblin, .
Treasure +2 red Dragoncraft Full Plate, Gauntlet of Ogre Power, Cloak of Resist +2, Ring of Protection +2, +2 White Dragoncraft Heavy Pick, +2 Blue Dragoncraft Heavy Shield, Ioun of Dex +2, Headband of Wis +4, Amulet of NA +2, Mstk Heavy Crossbow with 20 bolts, Scroll Invisibility Purge x1, Protection from Energy (Electric) x1, Deadly Juggernaut x1, Forceful Strike (caster 7), Aura of Doom, Divine power x1, Pale Green Prism Flaws Ioun Stone (28K, +2 hit/saves//checks), Bane Baldric (Swift, Bane 5 rd)

But then mine is Mythic, Godblooded and level 8 (since this is E8)

[Fizban]

Thank you for your extremely complete response Jon_Dahl. It has been a pleasure getting to see more of the mechanical setup behind a journal than is normally available!

This is how I roll.

And my hat is off to you for being able to maintain that, it would drive me absolutely nuts

The general issue here seems to be that the opponents are too difficult for the PCs. That’s relative.

Indeed. Part of the problem is coordination and part of it is just plain lack of power, ECL doesn't really mean squat unless the party is balanced, so I'll try and cross-reference with the journal for what classes where in play, noted in italics. As for being unfair, well the whole playstyle is opposite of what I do but it's not unfair. I would be adjusting encounters on a session by session basis myself, but if the players are paying attention to their attendance or lack thereof they should know how it's gonna affect difficulty.

One more question then: do your players know that DnD is meant to be a cooperative and often tactical game, and it is assumed the party will have 1 each of the big four? I feel this is required knowledge for building characters, otherwise you can't expect any of the default CRs to work. Even if it's in the PHB that doesn't mean everyone's taken proper note of it.

Spoiler: The Blow by Blow

Show

2nd encounter:
PCs and allies: Five 4th-level PCs, Jorr and an undocumented NPC hireling.
Ozzyrrandion without any magical items at all
One hell hound
Eight hobgoblin veterans
Hobgoblin sergeant

The adventure lists this as EL10, which is frankly madness for what is basically the second *real* fight of the campaign which starts at 5th, but that's not any DM's fault. Now that I've checked, you were quite right that Jorr will mention the bridge rather than the keep, so if the players weren't specifically set on the keep then yeah they'll run straight into that first thing. The unfair thing about this fight is simply that they don't have 3rd level spells, which are needed to take on multiple opponents at range. Instead they have extra fighters and monks, which means a bunch of mooks with longbows really will tear them apart, when a Fireball or Stinking Cloud would have solved them quick. The players still could have handled it better by having actual ranged weapons, focus firing the archers, and using Resist Energy so the dragon wouldn't one-shot half the party in a single breath as it apparently did. If they were inside the forest rather than on the edge they really should have had +4 cover to AC, not that it would have stopped those 20's. I'd absolutely consider a group of archers with towers and a ravine vs. a party with no ranged power a tactical advantage so they'd get bonus xp if they actually won. The party loses both their actual spellcasters here, pretty much dooming them from here on.

3rd encounter:
PCs and allies: Three 4th-level PCs (monk, fighter, and ranger, all low on hit points)
Five NORMAL goblins
Five worgs

That's the maximum roll for worg riders on the random encounter chart. Even using normal goblins that's still five CR 2 worgs plus change, maybe EL7, heavily outnumbering a party with no spellcasters or hit points remaining. They ded. Is is unfair? Technically no, and honestly this should happen pretty much whenever adventurers face an army, but still tastes pretty bad.

4th encounter:
Jorr’s dogs got killed. Does this even matter?
5th encounter:
PCs and allies: Two 4th-level PCs, one 4th-level DMPC (DMPC cleric and 2 somethings)
Six-headed hydra

I'm surprised they survived the dogs at this point. The hydra was extremely tactical and then decided not to rush them, which is good because I expect it would have killed them all no problem unless that cleric was packed like a boss.

6th encounter
PCs: Two 4th-level PCs
Hobgoblin sergeant
10 hobgoblin regulars

8th encounter:
PCs: Two 4th-level PCs
Hobgoblin sergeant
Four hobgoblin veterans
Wardog in chainshirt barding

I'm not sure where these encounters came from, but they're obviously lethal and so they ded. This is where I'd bring up encounter distance and stuff again, but the horse made hiding impossible so the players once again made a bad situation worse.

9th encounter:
The entire Red Hand army

This was a pretty cool segment. Almost no-one ever has the horde catch them here, and you did an excellent job catching the players with the edge when they didn't run immediately. Raphael was asking for it. I was gonna say it was a bit unfair that losing like 4 party members in as many days didn't make the town retreat, but the players themselves voted to stay. Was Serene player or DMPC'd at this point? She's clearly the only nice person in the party, and amusingly the only one who didn't vote to stand and fight like idiots (even though later she starts looting with the rest).

10th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs (two mooks monks, a cowardly fighter, and a druid)
Miha

At this point the player group seems to have stabilized at four players. This is when they should be refunded their oversized party penalty, and I see they're up to 5th. I'd still say they should be halfway to 6th, with refund+survival xp. Depending on how much xp they've actually earned so far and what level they are going forward, encounters should start being adjusted if the game is meant to be complete-able.

As for Miha herself, I don't think this can really be called an encounter. You ran her perfectly, but deception plays can only be contested by a properly unified party, which this is not. Aslak apparently vanished before they met her, and Serene was elsewhere (possibly also roleplaying Miha when copied), so that's two 4th level PCs vs an 8th level ambush specialist successfully ambushing them. Each character failed a save while completely isolated. I'm curious: was this scene done secretly in notes, or in the open with the players accepting their mind control and playing out their own fight? With the latter at least they get to join in the fun, but otherwise it's basically just "nope you get screwed bye."

13th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Four goblins
Ettin

This is where the crit fumble turned up, and you can see how it turned the battle. Mack dropping wasted a good 2-3 actions when the Ettin was low on hp, which gave it time to start rolling high and turn the fight around. The pair of monks in the party doesn't help, monk AC vs Ettins is a bad matchup. Of note: EL7 vs party level 5 should be about half the day's survival. Since they only had one fight they pulled through okay.

14th encounter:
PCs: Four 5th-level PCs
Greenspawn Razorfiend

No details given for this fight, but it's easy to see how it went. Much like the Ettin we have a CR 7 foe, except better in every possible way. I found it hilarious that the druid hid underwater from a creature that has a swim speed and water breathing! Totally understandable that it worked since the razor had a perfectly good feast already killed.

15th encounter:
PCs: Two 5th-level PCs (monk and druid?)
6 lizardmen

This dance happens under extremely unfavorable circumstances, PCs caught swimming or isolated on boats. Apparently no real damage traded.

16th encounter:
PCs: Three 5th-level PCs (two monks and a druid)
Bladebearer
Three hobgoblin regulars

This description also does not do the situation justice: two PCs (also monks!) advanced with no cover under arrow fire, then engaged the undamaged enemy in melee outnumbered 2-1. The third shows up afterward and is immediately ganked 4-1. This is basically all player fault though (the whole problem could be solved by bringing a tower shield, unless the DM switched the sentries to Skullcrusher Ogres), and the battle finally turns around when the druid finally uses a decent spell, Summon Swarm. This fight was not unfair, but the players clearly had no idea what they were doing, wasted a ton of resources, and still lost a character.

17th encounter:
PCs: Three 5th-level PCs
Regiarix (young)
Saarvith

Ah, you downgraded Regi, I agree perfectly. You also basically gave them the fight by having the dragon fight on the ground instead of strafing them with breath and bowfire, but even then that's EL8 vs party level <5. About right for a dragon fight. I'll note here about the phylactery: you're right again, I missed that they left more than lizardfolk alive. I'd still say an argument could be made that the ogres probably wouldn't know about the phylactery, but if any hobbos survived it's definitely a reasonable outcome.

I would say that they were baited into it, however: you had the dragon and wyrmlord fly out to meet them and fight in melee until they died, at which point the party absolutely couldn't take any more. Normally the pair would skirmish from their fort until defeated, so the party is forced to chase them into the tower to finish them off, at which point they could loot immediately.

18th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs (monk, fighter, and druid)
Two manticores
Hobgoblin sergeant
Three hobgoblin regulars

Few details on this fight, but it sounds like the manticores basically just shredded the NPCs for atmosphere and the PCs killed a few hobos. Unlike the last 3 reg/1 sarge fight at the lake, this time the PCs have the terrain advantage and are united, so I'd expect them to win handily.

19th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs
Four Bloodghost berserkers

Few details again, but four guys at CR 4 each is EL8, and is about half the days fight right there. Reasonable on it's own but I'd expect less in a large multi-wave battle. I'd figure the barricade would help quite a bit here too.

20th encounter:
PCs: Three 6th-level PCs
Two Ghost Brute Dire Lions

Ghost Dire Lions (no brute), by the strength damage in the journal, or you accidentally gave the Ghost Brute Lions a str damaging attack when they actually deal normal damage. Oh boy this one's a doozy. Incorporeal stat draining foes are never fair unless the party has at least one ghost touch weapon and two spellcasters by my count, and this party does not. Their only option was to run, instead they fought and ate stat damage they could not afford. Bad player choice on top of what I think was an unfortunate DM accident.

21st encounter:
PCs: Two 6th-level PCs (str drained monk and battered druid)
Badly wounded Koth without spells

Not so bad, I like how you had him down to the wand. It's still unavoidable damage but they weren't on their last hp yet.

22nd encounter:
PCs: Two 6th-level PCs
Slightly wounded Kharn without spells

At this point it just kinda feels like BM though, another medium target when they're out of resources (I expect that Summon Swarm on Koth was Serene's last spell), which they can only beat with dice luck. At this point the player is forced between being "heroic" and running, and since we've got a dark setting that means good guy dies while everyone else runs.

That's where I'd left off reading, I'll put the newest session below.

For instance, someone mentioned that the level on the picture is 6. In fact, the character is an aasimar. That makes the character 7th level, and viable to enter the Fane, considering that I've readjusted the enemies and made them a lot weaker.

In precise RAW only, it is well known that Aasimar is one of the weakest LA races. There's an official variant in Races of Faerun that loses nothing other than the outsider type (immunity to Charm Person type stuff) and is LA+0, though that was back when they had Light instead of Daylight. I would strongly urge you to allow Lesser Aasimar and give him that extra level, this group has been drastically lacking in magical power and they need every ounce they can get. (Edit: eh, too late)

I have forgotten to mention that players voted that we have fumble rules in the game. I have some very modest fumble tables, but still Mack managed to skewer himself, which was very rare. Please note that this was voted and accepted by the players. I just didn’t put that in the post #2, which I do apologize.

I can respect it if the players all wanted it, but this is where I start tangling with voting. It's a fact that players are punished more by crit-fumbles than monsters simply because PCs aren't supposed to die as often, and if any player is not okay with that I don't think it should be forced in by a vote. At least you can dodge it by sticking with spellcasting

On thing that the journal doesn’t explain is the loot. The players received handsome loot, such as wand of cure moderate wounds (44 charges) from Regiarix and +1 mithril chain shirt. They had lots of good stuff.

Forgive me, but Wands of Cure Moderate and +1 Mithril Chain Shirt are not very good in this context. The wand is too weak for emergency healing, making it basically just two Cure Light wands taped together. Mithril is only useful with absurdly high dex scores, usually obtained through magic item bonuses, and I don't think anyone in the party really needed light armor at all. At least not anyone that lived long enough. The mainstays were a monk who can't use armor, a druid who can't use metal armor, and a fighter who should be wearing full plate but is instead probably wearing light armor so he can run away better Granted that's a tiny sample, and they didn't have much victory to really earn any magic items, but there's the spiral of defeat again.

Spoiler: latest session

Show

23rd encounter:
PCs and allies: Three 7th-level PCs and two low-level followers and a 4th-level cohort (paladin [cohort?], sorcerer, cleric? and bard? trapfinder?)
Tyrgarun (Juvenile)

Party literally does almost nothing and a bunch of their mooks die. I think they deserve it at this point.

24th encounter:
PCs and allies: Four 7th-level PCs and two low-level followers and a 4th-level cohort
Four Blackspawn Raiders

And then they walk into a lightless cave without a light-source and all die, except a rogue of some sort I guess? They definitely deserved that.

Are your players starting to suffer from fatigue? It looks like after a long string of defeats they decided to put together a leadership+bard+minions power group because it looked good, and completely failed to actually use any of it. They actually walked around blind in a cave. I think they may have decided they don't care anymore.

It's a shame because now that I've gone over everything in detail, it's quite possible to lay half of the blame on the players. The only things I think you really messed up are: ganking them in the woods after escaping the bridge and again when investigating later, str-damage ghost lions, and forcing them into a corner by presenting the leader at the end of the battle when they were past their limit (I'd have just left him out and let them run after Koth, then play it off that they never had a chance of stopping the horde). The Miha encounter seemed like great fun, as long as they got new gear quickly. The vast majority of the problem is players making a terribad party and then not working together work a damn.

. . . Except, you can only expect the players to learn and teambuild and strategize if they have the time to do so. You've had many player changes and it sounds like they're all quite busy outside of the game. The DM does prepwork for the game every week, while sadly most players just show up without any thought between games. Without the DM giving advice and reminding them of the obvious, there may be little hope for improvement. That's how you get a string of monks and people forgetting they can't see in the dark but going in anyway. That's the practical reasoning behind why I'd recommend my DM-style for most games, though it does of course have it's own problems (requires a DM with system mastery, extra time, and can suffocate players that aren't that interested).

[Myou]

We had a fantastic session today, and we finally wrapped up part 3! Thanks for the ideas and suggestions from this thread, they were very helpful. I'm sorry this post is rather incoherent and poorly formatted, we spent a long time playing.

Spoiler: The events of the session.

Show

Today my players reached the Thornwaste and the Ghostlord's lair - and what a thrilling fight it was! I redid Ulwai to have a lot more levels of stormsinger and drink a number of buff postions, including fly, and had her join Varanthian a few rounds into the battle, opening with a summon monster 4 behnid the warlock and wizard. (the PCs tried to sneak inside with an Invisibility Sphere, and she smelled them coming). She managed to drop the warlock, to -1 with her lightning attacks, while Varanthian, seriously injured by a brutal par of critical hits from the crusader's opening charge and following full attack, retreated into the stone lion, followed by the crusader. With almost no HP left - depsite having given her a huge HP boost and fast healing - she resorted to using her Darkness ability, attacking the vampire from the darkness with her scent ability, while he struggled to locate her and she slowly healed from her wounds - he responded with the bead of force I gave out in the loot at Rhest, which dropped her to -9 with the detonation, but also caught her inside the protective sphere, which he could not dispel! Unable to tell if she was even still alive he drank a potion of fly and went back outside to help fight Ulwai, who after a devastating critical hit from a maximised eldritch blast retreated into the sky to hide in the clouds and heal herself, while the monks and clerics joined the battle on the ground, the monks proving oddly effective against the warblade. The wizard flew up after her into the storm and demanded a duel, declaring that he was the one who slew Koth and Ozzyrandion - which is true - and she decided to take advantage of his foolish hubris by hurling lightning at the area his voice came from - which turns out to be exactly what he wanted, and after easily making the reflex save he used Downdraft, Celerity, Downdraft to slam her into the stone lion, where the crusader elected to use what I've ended up calling a 'falling charge', a tactic he likes a lot, falling on her for 10d6 combined with a divine surge attack, killing her outright.

With her and her mooks dead the party healed up and the wizard dispelled the darkness and the sphere. Varanthian was waiting for this however, and finally manged to roll better than a 3 on her grapple check after hitting the crusader with her bite atack. The party desperately tried to make her drop him, aware that she could easily swallow him whole, but she survived their attacks long enough to win another grapple check, and down he went. This is where the gestalt nature of the party came into play again - the crusader is a vampire//crusader (we came up with a fun racial progression) and as such has both a bite attack, and the ability to gain short term strength boosts by expending the life force he drains from victims. He did a full power attack divine surge bite, dealing over 50 damage. I had a lot of fun describing how that went - imagine the chest burster scene from Alien, except this time a human does it to a freaky snake thing instead of the other way around.

After that they headed into the lion, where they learnt the approximate location of the Fane from one of Ulwai's maps (because really, how the hell else were they supposed to?) and after some great spellcraft rolls, found and identified the Forbiddance spell that covered the Ghostlord's private rooms - and then ran through it anyway, tanking the 12d6 each.
They used hide from undead to avoid fighting the ghosts, and acquired lots of juice exposition on ritual sacrifice and the like, as well as the ghostlord's backstory as well as exploring every secret door they could find - they actually managed to loop all the way around through the shrine and treasurey and just wander into the ghostlord's sanctum while he was meditating. The ghostlord was incensed, but as they suspected after reading his rambling, contradictory journals, also rather insane, and some very carefully chosen words managed to persuade him not to murder them just yet - and after some great roleplaying he ended up deciding that as they had killed Ulwai and her cadre and were offering him ihs phylactery for nothing, that they must be worshippers, come to petition him for boons - and so each of them left with a hearty share of treasure from the mad evil lich!

Anyway! As great as that session was, I'm now left trying to fill the next month before the horde actually reaches Brindol!
The party has a letter of introduction to the leaders of the Hammerfist Holds, so I suspect they will head there first (Jaarmath will ask them to escort the gold, and also mention that the horde appear to be conducting some sort of ritual before and after attacking each town, complete with shrines engraved with magical runes - thanks for that idea, Elder_Basilisk) to try to recruit the dwarven mercenaries - but the plan I have is for them to meet with complications that prevent the dwarves easily coming to Brindol's aid. Yes this is very like what happened in Rhest, and what happened with the blockades, stop pointing out the repetitiveness of the subplots.
The trouble is that I'm not sure what sort of complications these should be. The party have already dealt with swamps, forests and deserts, and will also experience mountains later, so I was pondering some sort of underground menace, perhaps something involving drow from the underdark (we're in Faerun), to make a nice contrast. What do you guys think?

[Elder_Basilisk]

We had a fantastic session today, and we finally wrapped up part 3! Thanks for the ideas and suggestions from this thread, they were very helpful. I'm sorry this post is rather incoherent and poorly formatted, we spent a long time playing.

Spoiler: The events of the session.

Show

Today my players reached the Thornwaste and the Ghostlord's lair - and what a thrilling fight it was! I redid Ulwai to have a lot more levels of stormsinger and drink a number of buff postions, including fly, and had her join Varanthian a few rounds into the battle, opening with a summon monster 4 behnid the warlock and wizard. (the PCs tried to sneak inside with an Invisibility Sphere, and she smelled them coming). She managed to drop the warlock, to -1 with her lightning attacks, while Varanthian, seriously injured by a brutal par of critical hits from the crusader's opening charge and following full attack, retreated into the stone lion, followed by the crusader. With almost no HP left - depsite having given her a huge HP boost and fast healing - she resorted to using her Darkness ability, attacking the vampire from the darkness with her scent ability, while he struggled to locate her and she slowly healed from her wounds - he responded with the bead of force I gave out in the loot at Rhest, which dropped her to -9 with the detonation, but also caught her inside the protective sphere, which he could not dispel! Unable to tell if she was even still alive he drank a potion of fly and went back outside to help fight Ulwai, who after a devastating critical hit from a maximised eldritch blast retreated into the sky to hide in the clouds and heal herself, while the monks and clerics joined the battle on the ground, the monks proving oddly effective against the warblade. The wizard flew up after her into the storm and demanded a duel, declaring that he was the one who slew Koth and Ozzyrandion - which is true - and she decided to take advantage of his foolish hubris by hurling lightning at the area his voice came from - which turns out to be exactly what he wanted, and after easily making the reflex save he used Downdraft, Celerity, Downdraft to slam her into the stone lion, where the crusader elected to use what I've ended up calling a 'falling charge', a tactic he likes a lot, falling on her for 10d6 combined with a divine surge attack, killing her outright.

With her and her mooks dead the party healed up and the wizard dispelled the darkness and the sphere. Varanthian was waiting for this however, and finally manged to roll better than a 3 on her grapple check after hitting the crusader with her bite atack. The party desperately tried to make her drop him, aware that she could easily swallow him whole, but she survived their attacks long enough to win another grapple check, and down he went. This is where the gestalt nature of the party came into play again - the crusader is a vampire//crusader (we came up with a fun racial progression) and as such has both a bite attack, and the ability to gain short term strength boosts by expending the life force he drains from victims. He did a full power attack divine surge bite, dealing over 50 damage. I had a lot of fun describing how that went - imagine the chest burster scene from Alien, except this time a human does it to a freaky snake thing instead of the other way around.

After that they headed into the lion, where they learnt the approximate location of the Fane from one of Ulwai's maps (because really, how the hell else were they supposed to?) and after some great spellcraft rolls, found and identified the Forbiddance spell that covered the Ghostlord's private rooms - and then ran through it anyway, tanking the 12d6 each.
They used hide from undead to avoid fighting the ghosts, and acquired lots of juice exposition on ritual sacrifice and the like, as well as the ghostlord's backstory as well as exploring every secret door they could find - they actually managed to loop all the way around through the shrine and treasurey and just wander into the ghostlord's sanctum while he was meditating. The ghostlord was incensed, but as they suspected after reading his rambling, contradictory journals, also rather insane, and some very carefully chosen words managed to persuade him not to murder them just yet - and after some great roleplaying he ended up deciding that as they had killed Ulwai and her cadre and were offering him ihs phylactery for nothing, that they must be worshippers, come to petition him for boons - and so each of them left with a hearty share of treasure from the mad evil lich!

Anyway! As great as that session was, I'm now left trying to fill the next month before the horde actually reaches Brindol!
The party has a letter of introduction to the leaders of the Hammerfist Holds, so I suspect they will head there first (Jaarmath will ask them to escort the gold, and also mention that the horde appear to be conducting some sort of ritual before and after attacking each town, complete with shrines engraved with magical runes - thanks for that idea, Elder_Basilisk) to try to recruit the dwarven mercenaries - but the plan I have is for them to meet with complications that prevent the dwarves easily coming to Brindol's aid. Yes this is very like what happened in Rhest, and what happened with the blockades, stop pointing out the repetitiveness of the subplots.
The trouble is that I'm not sure what sort of complications these should be. The party have already dealt with swamps, forests and deserts, and will also experience mountains later, so I was pondering some sort of underground menace, perhaps something involving drow from the underdark (we're in Faerun), to make a nice contrast. What do you guys think?

Personally, I wouldn't involve drow. I think that stories tend to be better when they stick to theme rather than throwing the kitchen sink into everything. The base Red Hand of Doom is about a hobgoblin invasion planning to eradicate humanity from the Elsir Vale. If you add drow into it, you need to be careful to make sure that they still fit into the hobgoblin invasion story.

That said, since you have already introduced the ritual blood energy idea, if you want to add the drow or some other party in, one option that you have is to have the players or Immerstal the Red discover that the blood energy rituals appear to tie to two nexuses. One is in the mountains--at the fane of Tiamat and is too far behind enemy lines to locate and deal with. Another is... insert somewhere accessible here. That is where the drow or whoever are trying to siphon off a portion of the energy hobgoblins' sacrifice--or possibly all of it--for their own nefarious purposes which might be even worse than opening the portal to Avernus like Azarr Kul wants to do. When the PCs get there, you have the opportunity to do a running three way battle between the drow (or whoever is doing the siphoning), the hobgoblin strike team or regiment sent to take them out, and the PCs.

Assuming the PCs win, you can also help set the tone of your setting. Do they stop the energy siphon, giving all the power to Azarr Kul? Are they able to seize it for themselves? If they are, is there any possible use for that kind of blood energy that is not evil and destructive? Or is simply grounding it and letting the souls go to Kelemvor the best possible solution. In terms of the scenario, it might be that the best possible outcome is a draw where there the energy is dissipated, the second best outcome is it all goes back to Azarr Kul and accellerates his time frame, and the worst possible outcome is that whoever was siphoning energy off gets to accomplish their purpose. In a darker setting, you might even decide that the energy is not possible to use for good--or even for a good or neutral person to control--and is impossible to dissipate, so the best possible solution is that it empowers some other evil who is at least not quite as bad as the Drow and is not immediately threatening the PCs like the Red Hand.

[Myou]

Personally, I wouldn't involve drow. I think that stories tend to be better when they stick to theme rather than throwing the kitchen sink into everything. The base Red Hand of Doom is about a hobgoblin invasion planning to eradicate humanity from the Elsir Vale. If you add drow into it, you need to be careful to make sure that they still fit into the hobgoblin invasion story.

That said, since you have already introduced the ritual blood energy idea, if you want to add the drow or some other party in, one option that you have is to have the players or Immerstal the Red discover that the blood energy rituals appear to tie to two nexuses. One is in the mountains--at the fane of Tiamat and is too far behind enemy lines to locate and deal with. Another is... insert somewhere accessible here. That is where the drow or whoever are trying to siphon off a portion of the energy hobgoblins' sacrifice--or possibly all of it--for their own nefarious purposes which might be even worse than opening the portal to Avernus like Azarr Kul wants to do. When the PCs get there, you have the opportunity to do a running three way battle between the drow (or whoever is doing the siphoning), the hobgoblin strike team or regiment sent to take them out, and the PCs.

Assuming the PCs win, you can also help set the tone of your setting. Do they stop the energy siphon, giving all the power to Azarr Kul? Are they able to seize it for themselves? If they are, is there any possible use for that kind of blood energy that is not evil and destructive? Or is simply grounding it and letting the souls go to Kelemvor the best possible solution. In terms of the scenario, it might be that the best possible outcome is a draw where there the energy is dissipated, the second best outcome is it all goes back to Azarr Kul and accellerates his time frame, and the worst possible outcome is that whoever was siphoning energy off gets to accomplish their purpose. In a darker setting, you might even decide that the energy is not possible to use for good--or even for a good or neutral person to control--and is impossible to dissipate, so the best possible solution is that it empowers some other evil who is at least not quite as bad as the Drow and is not immediately threatening the PCs like the Red Hand.

The magic to make use of the death and destruction is pretty specific and obscure, so I don't think I want to have other factions also trying to do so, but I do like the idea of the Hand and the PCs also fighting with some third faction - I might want to try to throw in some sort of three-way conflict.

My general thinking is that the dwarves, who can provide some 500 well armed and trained footsoldiers, are facing some threat that is connected to the rise of the horde and which must be eliminated if they are to leave the holds for Brindol.

Right now my favourite idea is something focused on vampires - the wizard working with Azarr Kul, Aladai Yronwood, is going to be a vampire, so I think it makes sense that she would have sought to aid her allies in their invasion by opening up a second front to the south. She turns some of the leading figures in the Hammerfist Holds, and they start turning more people - and soon she has an army of 500 vampire dwarves. The vampires we're using are killed by direct sunlight but can just cover up with clothes, and can tolerate small amounts of direct exposure. They also have animate dead as an SLA, an at will charm person effect if they can talk to a target uniterrupted for a little while, and those they turn rise under their control as dominate person.

The dwarves would probably realise something was wrong, but perhaps not what exactly - but with people disappearing in the streets and undead roaming the hills at night they certainly won't want to send all their soldiers north unless the problem is seen to have been resolved. I'm imagining something investigative, with the PCs looking into suspects they think may be vampires and/or trying to track down people who went missing. And of course, all the while, trying to hide that one of them is himself a vampire.

One open question would be why she hasn't done this elsewhere however - a few vampires could be a huge problem in advance of the battle for Brindol. One thought on that front is that perhaps, given that there is in my game a history of vampire's showing up in the northern vale, perhaps people in Brindol would be more aware and better able to combat such things - plus an overground city has fewer places for the vampiresto hide, where as the hammerfist holds I envision as misty and riddled with underground caves and mines, making for much better terrain for vampires.

I'm not going for anything super dark here, but rather a change of pace from wrecking goblins and dragons before the big battle for Brindol. Thoughts? Comments? Better ideas?

[ComaVision]

Forgive me if this is covered in the thread somewhere because I did not check all the pages but: Has anyone ever run the campaign from the baddies' perspective? It seems to me it would be pretty fun to play the other way with the final event being killing the NPC heroes at Brindol.

[Saintheart]

Forgive me if this is covered in the thread somewhere because I did not check all the pages but: Has anyone ever run the campaign from the baddies' perspective? It seems to me it would be pretty fun to play the other way with the final event being killing the NPC heroes at Brindol.

Try pages 19 and 26 specifically. Running the campaign from that angle has not to my knowledge been done, but there's been a little bit of thinking done on the subject there.

The encounter areas are not that hard to repurpose from an evil perspective if you're playing a group of evil PCs. I'd suggest PC characters have to be drawn from one of the major races of the Red Hand, i.e. goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, maybe an ogre character depending how lax you want to get with LA. The party becomes the Hand's go-to special forces team. Here's my back-of-an-envelope thoughts...

(1) The attack on Vraath Keep in vanilla RHOD becomes the Hand's first scouting out and taking Vraath Keep - maybe the stories of Vraath Keep being haunted are true after all.

(2) The assault on the bridge in vanilla RHOD is replaced (eventually) by a rescue mission to get Koth. The good PC party attacks Vraath Keep and takes Koth prisoner and hauls him back to Drellin's Ferry. The evil PCs then have to infiltrate the village, bust into the Old Toll House, and get Koth out, with Ozyrrandion being the method of extraction.

(3) The assault on Rhest in vanilla RHOD becomes the evil PCs taking on the lizardfolk forces and elven forces dug in at Rhest and thus securing the hatchery for Saarvith and Regiarix to come in and defend it.

(4) The Ghostlord section becomes the evil PCs -- rather than Skather -- infiltrating Zarl's lair to get hold of his phylactery while Ulwai keeps the Ghostlord occupied.

(5) Other sidequests from Brindol become interdiction -- get hold of the dwarven gold, ambush and take out the good party of PCs in what would have otherwise been the "Marked For Death" encounter. To provide some diplomatic options, there could be a revolt among the tribes constituting the Red Hand which the PCs have to stop.

(6) The siege of Brindol could have the evil PCs either dropped in as a sabotage squad to clear the way for folks like Abithriax, or to help Skather on his duties. They could be called on to be the spearhead of the Red Hand in a Streets of Blood-equivalent encounter, and maybe have the glory (?) of going in with Kharn in his final assault on Brindol to smash the hell out of the good PC party.

(7) The Fane of Tiamat could be the evil PCs rushing back to rescue Azarr Kul, who's been betrayed by sleeper agents -- clerics of Maglubiyet who have turned against Tiamat with the Fane becoming a battleground rather than just a passive fortress to be infiltrated.

[Starbuck_II]

Try pages 19 and 26 specifically. Running the campaign from that angle has not to my knowledge been done, but there's been a little bit of thinking done on the subject there.

The encounter areas are not that hard to repurpose from an evil perspective if you're playing a group of evil PCs. I'd suggest PC characters have to be drawn from one of the major races of the Red Hand, i.e. goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, maybe an ogre character depending how lax you want to get with LA. The party becomes the Hand's go-to special forces team. Here's my back-of-an-envelope thoughts...

(1) The attack on Vraath Keep in vanilla RHOD becomes the Hand's first scouting out and taking Vraath Keep - maybe the stories of Vraath Keep being haunted are true after all.

(2) The assault on the bridge in vanilla RHOD is replaced (eventually) by a rescue mission to get Koth. The good PC party attacks Vraath Keep and takes Koth prisoner and hauls him back to Drellin's Ferry. The evil PCs then have to infiltrate the village, bust into the Old Toll House, and get Koth out, with Ozyrrandion being the method of extraction.

(3) The assault on Rhest in vanilla RHOD becomes the evil PCs taking on the lizardfolk forces and elven forces dug in at Rhest and thus securing the hatchery for Saarvith and Regiarix to come in and defend it.

(4) The Ghostlord section becomes the evil PCs -- rather than Skather -- infiltrating Zarl's lair to get hold of his phylactery while Ulwai keeps the Ghostlord occupied.

(5) Other sidequests from Brindol become interdiction -- get hold of the dwarven gold, ambush and take out the good party of PCs in what would have otherwise been the "Marked For Death" encounter. To provide some diplomatic options, there could be a revolt among the tribes constituting the Red Hand which the PCs have to stop.

(6) The siege of Brindol could have the evil PCs either dropped in as a sabotage squad to clear the way for folks like Abithriax, or to help Skather on his duties. They could be called on to be the spearhead of the Red Hand in a Streets of Blood-equivalent encounter, and maybe have the glory (?) of going in with Kharn in his final assault on Brindol to smash the hell out of the good PC party.

(7) The Fane of Tiamat could be the evil PCs rushing back to rescue Azarr Kul, who's been betrayed by sleeper agents -- clerics of Maglubiyet who have turned against Tiamat with the Fane becoming a battleground rather than just a passive fortress to be infiltrated.

I love these ideas.

I long way back after replaying Warcraft 2, made a adventure but never got past first part.
"This adventure begins as the many monstrous tribes of the region (for this campaign, it’s the Elsir Vale, which features prominently with the Red Hand of Doom and the 1st Scales of War adventure Path module) listen to their respective tribes’ Elder/Shaman, and (with their tribe) set off to the Moot (which is surprisingly held where the Red Hand has first gathered before their eventual invasion), hoping to covet an alliance with the many other tribes making their way there. Hopefully, once an alliance has been set, can battle preparations be made to invade the foreboding Keep that has terrorized the character’s family, friends and tribe for generations. The negotiations will be overseen by each of the tribes’ respective elder, acting as arbitrators of sorts and hoping to create an air of neutrality between the tribes. Make no mistake, even with the threat of the ominous Keep and its decadent forces, the native tribes of the Vale have been at each other’s throats for generations, warring for slaves, land, resources and more. Tensions are high, but with the portentous sign from the heavens and the elders’ visions, it looks like generations of conflict will soon end, hopefully creating an alliance against a common foe, and potential peace.

You should create characters that have good reason to be at the signing of the alliance. One might be the potential heir of the tribe’s elder or the tribe’s favored (or rivaled) champion and therefore their representative. You could be a simple soldier or grunt (or even an apprentice for a local shaman) following their chieftain and elder to the Moot, hoping to earn glory and fame in the ranks by defending the tribe’s representative... or maybe you are one of the many sons and/or daughters of one of the warchiefs attending."

Voice (haven't decided who gives you these orders): "Azarr Kul Doomhammer, Warlord of the Red Hand, has ordered you to take the bridge at Skull Gorge. This is necessary in order to reach the main mission: reach the Vraath Keep. Only a small contingent of soldiers guards the bridge. While Doomhammer suggests stealth, I say just charge and smash them all, but the choice is up to you."

Party has WBL 3 + 5 draconic alchemy items

Each tower has an archer on it, one side (side where players start) 1 guard dogs and 2 guards, and other side just has a guard and a sergeant.

Next would be securing the Keep. I like the haunted idea. Maybe a few bandits live there as well.

[Saintheart]

I think there's also a unique angle that might be explored by a DM who wants to really refit the campaign to suit evil PCs --in that the missions the party undertakes in vanilla RHOD are unequivocally for the good of the Vale and the lords of Brindol as a whole, who are basically united against the menace of the horde.

By contrast, the Wyrmlords under Azarr Kul are not necessarily so. Koth is unequivocally low man on the totem pole and knows it. Saarvith's position as Wyrmlord more or less hinges on his position as Regiarix's buddy. Ulwai has charmed her way into the High Wyrmlord's graces such that she even knows the location of the Fane, and Kharn seems to hold his position as the greatest Wyrmlord by benefit of being seven feet of sheer hobgoblin awesome. It might be that different Wyrmlords have different outcomes they want the characters to pursue in a given encounter; for example, Saarvith might want the Rhest mission to succeed because he came up with the idea, but Koth wants it to fail because he wants to rise higher in the Hand. Alternatively, Saarvith and Koth might want Ulwai's mission to fail because it allows their contributions to rise higher, and Koth might then want Saarvith to be implicated in the failure of the Ghostlord's mission since it then allows him to rise above both of them. And Ulwai might want the PCs to ensure Kharn dies at Brindol so she can take his place and become Azarr Kul's mistress. Or maybe Skather is the one with the greatest ambition of all -- per the vanilla RHOD, if Kharn dies and the other Wyrmlords have been taken out, he then is promoted to Wyrmlord in his own right. Perhaps his mission is to dispense with all of the other four Wyrmlords so he then can challenge Azarr Kul.

These could be interesting avenues to pursue if you want to seriously reuse the Wyrmlords as more than just trundling lumps of hitpoints and VPs. They could become questgivers. Hell, your VPs could go up and down depending on who you choose to support. But as said, this all presumes a DM who's inclined to take the time to introduce these sorts of Machiavellian schemes.

Indeed these elements could be handy for a good-aligned party in vanilla RHOD if the party gets itself captured. Perhaps the party doesn't conduct a thrilling escape, but is rather let go to carry out a lower level Wyrmlord's fiendish scheme to assassinate his immediate superior, thus pointing the party in the direction of the next major encounter location.

[Talesin]

Forgive me if this is covered in the thread somewhere because I did not check all the pages but: Has anyone ever run the campaign from the baddies' perspective? It seems to me it would be pretty fun to play the other way with the final event being killing the NPC heroes at Brindol.

I think in a lot of ways, as has already been discussed by some other posters, the game could run as aligned for an evil party. You could actually just repurpose most of the encounters straight out of the box. They have to assault Vrath Keep, then defend Skull Gorge Bridge against an attack etc

Obviously you could make a real revamp of the campaign, like Saintheart suggested, and I think that would arguably be more awesome but then you're looking at a fair amount of work overall. I would love to see this done though. Seeing the PCs as part of an invading army having to following orders, of sorts anyway, would be a lot of fun and will stop them just aiming for the leadership of the army.

[ComaVision]

I think if I were to do this (I won't be DMing again for probably another year), I think that I would have the PCs essentially replace the Wyrmlords (except for Kharn and maybe Ulwai). I would track VP the same as I would for a normal running of RHoD, so the PCs would be trying to prevent the acquisition of VP by the humans.

I don't think I'd end it at the Fane (unless the party went extra evil and wanted to usurp leadership). I think it would cheapen the victory at Brindol to immediately have them try to rush back to save Azarr Kul.

I'd like to throw in a good dragon they have to fight at some point too but it might be overkill with everything else going on at Brindol.

Just some thoughts though. I appreciate you directing me to the other posts Saintheart, as well as your ideas and everyone elses.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I think if I were to do this (I won't be DMing again for probably another year), I think that I would have the PCs essentially replace the Wyrmlords (except for Kharn and maybe Ulwai). I would track VP the same as I would for a normal running of RHoD, so the PCs would be trying to prevent the acquisition of VP by the humans.

I don't think I'd end it at the Fane (unless the party went extra evil and wanted to usurp leadership). I think it would cheapen the victory at Brindol to immediately have them try to rush back to save Azarr Kul.

I'd like to throw in a good dragon they have to fight at some point too but it might be overkill with everything else going on at Brindol.

Just some thoughts though. I appreciate you directing me to the other posts Saintheart, as well as your ideas and everyone elses.

Another running the bad guys option would be to run the Fane more or less as written--except rather than killing Azarr Kul in order to stop the ritual and save the vale, the PCs are wyrmlords or agents of a wyrmlord seeking to kill Azarr Kul and take his position. Maybe that requires that the stop the ritual. Maybe it enables them to take the ritual over. Either way, stabbing the leader in the back and taking over the Red Hand wouldn't be anti-climactic.

[the_david]

Has anyone tried running RHoD in the Birthright campaign setting? I'm interested in the Birthright setting and I was wondering what kind of adventure would fit the theme.

[Saintheart]

The magic to make use of the death and destruction is pretty specific and obscure, so I don't think I want to have other factions also trying to do so, but I do like the idea of the Hand and the PCs also fighting with some third faction - I might want to try to throw in some sort of three-way conflict.

My general thinking is that the dwarves, who can provide some 500 well armed and trained footsoldiers, are facing some threat that is connected to the rise of the horde and which must be eliminated if they are to leave the holds for Brindol.

Right now my favourite idea is something focused on vampires - the wizard working with Azarr Kul, Aladai Yronwood, is going to be a vampire, so I think it makes sense that she would have sought to aid her allies in their invasion by opening up a second front to the south. She turns some of the leading figures in the Hammerfist Holds, and they start turning more people - and soon she has an army of 500 vampire dwarves. The vampires we're using are killed by direct sunlight but can just cover up with clothes, and can tolerate small amounts of direct exposure. They also have animate dead as an SLA, an at will charm person effect if they can talk to a target uniterrupted for a little while, and those they turn rise under their control as dominate person.

The dwarves would probably realise something was wrong, but perhaps not what exactly - but with people disappearing in the streets and undead roaming the hills at night they certainly won't want to send all their soldiers north unless the problem is seen to have been resolved. I'm imagining something investigative, with the PCs looking into suspects they think may be vampires and/or trying to track down people who went missing. And of course, all the while, trying to hide that one of them is himself a vampire.

One open question would be why she hasn't done this elsewhere however - a few vampires could be a huge problem in advance of the battle for Brindol. One thought on that front is that perhaps, given that there is in my game a history of vampire's showing up in the northern vale, perhaps people in Brindol would be more aware and better able to combat such things - plus an overground city has fewer places for the vampiresto hide, where as the hammerfist holds I envision as misty and riddled with underground caves and mines, making for much better terrain for vampires.

I'm not going for anything super dark here, but rather a change of pace from wrecking goblins and dragons before the big battle for Brindol. Thoughts? Comments? Better ideas?

I like thie idea - insofar as I see any real issues it's only in making a short adventure that can be solved before the Red Hand makes passage back to Brindol impossible, and in modifying your vampires so they're not unbeatable by the party at these levels. Full vampires are devastatingly strong around these levels even allowing for their weaknesses -- vampire spawn might be a more fight-able opponent for a level 8-9 party or so, especially in large numbers.

Otherwise, I've always wanted a bit more expansion on the Hammerfist Holds -- the authors do suggest the area can be expanded, and it's an intriguing little statblock composed of a group of clans rather than under a bog-standard dwarven king and what have you. This looks like a good way to do it. I think your call on an investigative series of encounters is the right way to go, too -- the rest of the adventure is pretty hack and slash with a bit of roleplay here and there, a little nightstalking investigation sounds like a good change of pace.

[Myou]

I like thie idea - insofar as I see any real issues it's only in making a short adventure that can be solved before the Red Hand makes passage back to Brindol impossible, and in modifying your vampires so they're not unbeatable by the party at these levels. Full vampires are devastatingly strong around these levels even allowing for their weaknesses -- vampire spawn might be a more fight-able opponent for a level 8-9 party or so, especially in large numbers.

Otherwise, I've always wanted a bit more expansion on the Hammerfist Holds -- the authors do suggest the area can be expanded, and it's an intriguing little statblock composed of a group of clans rather than under a bog-standard dwarven king and what have you. This looks like a good way to do it. I think your call on an investigative series of encounters is the right way to go, too -- the rest of the adventure is pretty hack and slash with a bit of roleplay here and there, a little nightstalking investigation sounds like a good change of pace.

Thanks for the feedback! We should be fine on the power side of things - since one of the PCs wanted to play a vampire, we made it a racial progression, so the newly made vampires won't be that dangerous.

The plan I have right now is for them to arrive in the main village, home to a few hundreds dwarves, and find that everyone is in hiding, a lot of dwarves including Hammerfist himself holed up in the town inn, others in the chapel, most of the rest hiding in their homes. 5 days ago the head of the local theives guild went missing, but 4 days ago she appeared before the local cleric, Thaardin, claiming that she had broken into Hammerfist's house and found out his terrible secret - he was a necromancer creating undead in his basement! She claimed he wanted her dead for this discovery and vanished, and a day later as she warned, undead began to walk the streets and attack people at night, while a thick mist, not unusual for the altitude, blanketed the streets.

Both the group in the church and in the inn suspects eachother, those in the chapel thinking Hammerfist is behind it al, while he claims that those in the chapel are acting strangely and are probably the real culprits. With niether side willing to venture out and risk being atacked, it's up to the PCs to find out what's going on.

I have plans for the investigation itself, but it's all getting rather convoluted so I won't type it all out - suffice to say it should prove a fun little investigation that ends with them tracking the head vampire to an abandoned, frozen mine high in the mountains where they'll be set upon by bluespawn burrowers in the tunnels (refluffed as whitespawn) and an entombed (interesting ice zombie from Frostburn) before discovering the reason the mine was actually abandoned - the whte dragon hatchery, guarded by the head vampire.

[Saintheart]

Thanks for the feedback! We should be fine on the power side of things - since one of the PCs wanted to play a vampire, we made it a racial progression, so the newly made vampires won't be that dangerous.

The plan I have right now is for them to arrive in the main village, home to a few hundreds dwarves, and find that everyone is in hiding, a lot of dwarves including Hammerfist himself holed up in the town inn, others in the chapel, most of the rest hiding in their homes. 5 days ago the head of the local theives guild went missing, but 4 days ago she appeared before the local cleric, Thaardin, claiming that she had broken into Hammerfist's house and found out his terrible secret - he was a necromancer creating undead in his basement! She claimed he wanted her dead for this discovery and vanished, and a day later as she warned, undead began to walk the streets and attack people at night, while a thick mist, not unusual for the altitude, blanketed the streets.

Both the group in the church and in the inn suspects eachother, those in the chapel thinking Hammerfist is behind it al, while he claims that those in the chapel are acting strangely and are probably the real culprits. With niether side willing to venture out and risk being atacked, it's up to the PCs to find out what's going on.

I have plans for the investigation itself, but it's all getting rather convoluted so I won't type it all out - suffice to say it should prove a fun little investigation that ends with them tracking the head vampire to an abandoned, frozen mine high in the mountains where they'll be set upon by bluespawn burrowers in the tunnels (refluffed as whitespawn) and an entombed (interesting ice zombie from Frostburn) before discovering the reason the mine was actually abandoned - the whte dragon hatchery, guarded by the head vampire.

I know it's a hell of a lot of work, but if your investigation works out and seems to function well, would you consider drafting it out here or in its own homebrew thread somewhere so I can link to it in the handbook?

Seriously, a fleshed-out side quest into the Hammerfist Holds would be a glorious and useful resource, and this sounds like a pretty nice idea. It might need some modification for general use since not every campaign has vampires as a racial progression and/or depending on the strength of the party that runs into it -- I'd be happy to assist or provide feedback with that, certainly -- but this does sound pretty nice as a concept.

[Talesin]

I finally got a chance to run the final Streets of Blood wave and the Sniper attack.

The final wave I ran the 8 Ghostblood Beserkers but I gave them DR5/- and a feat that gave them a standard action even if they were below 0hp and technically dead. This actually worked quite well because the looks on their faces when the creatures "Should 100% be dead" was priceless and it actually gave them a huge amount of durability because they frequently just dropped an extra 30-50 damage into the "already dead" beserkers, which gave the others a few more rounds of damage before they fell to the same fate.

I had Ozy return to the battle, though he was delayed 2 rounds by them using their points on keeping him off the board. He was utterly underwhelming but I left him as he was in the book and for a party at level 8 he was rolled over in a single round after using his breath weapon.

Miha also returned in the battle. She got a pair of fireballs off (i've beefed her up compared to the pathfinder/book version), which drained plenty of resources before they piled on her and finally brought her down. They wanted to capture her for interrogation but the Ranger's multishot dropped her to -21.

The Sniper attack was ran more or less as is but using Sticky Floor from Races of the Dragon. I was able to keep the 3 members of the group who didn't fly up to the window locked down on the bottom floor for 3 rounds, the ranger dispatched the adepts in short order as soon as she'd got inside the ground level. But the flying Alchemist and Rogue killed Skather in 2 rounds despite poisoning the Rogue for a few strength damage. Underwhelming fight but we were running out of time so I pushed it so we could get it done. If I had time then I could've made it a more memorable encoutner.

Next week we've got the final fight!

I think I'm going to change the battle a bit to make it a "make or break" fight. This group will probably disband after this week as people are moving away (so probably no Fane encounter) so I think i'm just going to throw a horde at the group and their NPC allies and even if people go down it'll be an epic conclusion and a hard fought encounter.

[Myou]

I know it's a hell of a lot of work, but if your investigation works out and seems to function well, would you consider drafting it out here or in its own homebrew thread somewhere so I can link to it in the handbook?

Seriously, a fleshed-out side quest into the Hammerfist Holds would be a glorious and useful resource, and this sounds like a pretty nice idea. It might need some modification for general use since not every campaign has vampires as a racial progression and/or depending on the strength of the party that runs into it -- I'd be happy to assist or provide feedback with that, certainly -- but this does sound pretty nice as a concept.

Absolutely, I'd be happy to! I'll let you know how things go.

[Red Rubber Band]

Any quick tips/reworks when running this for a party that is currently running full on melee form?

Either tips for the players, or reworks to the enemies/fight locations so the group doesn't have another "run away!" session.*
Perhaps there are items/spells that should be a priority?

The PCs are: a Druid (bear companion), Barbarian, Rogue (TWF), and Healer (SAD, expanded spell list). They have also managed to convince Jorr to accompany them for a while despite him nearly dying each time they set out.
Highest optimised would be the Healer and the expanded spell list has jack all offensive spells.



* They assaulted the Skull Gorge bridge and destroyed it using a tree token that one of the players had. Jorr dealt about 6 damage to Ozzy over the course of ~10 rounds of combat. All Ozzy did was strafe and breathe acid until all of the hobgoblins fell. He challenged them to fisticuffs when he saw what they were trying to do to the bridge, but they destroyed it and ran off.

[Saintheart]

Any quick tips/reworks when running this for a party that is currently running full on melee form?

Either tips for the players, or reworks to the enemies/fight locations so the group doesn't have another "run away!" session.*
Perhaps there are items/spells that should be a priority?

The PCs are: a Druid (bear companion), Barbarian, Rogue (TWF), and Healer (SAD, expanded spell list). They have also managed to convince Jorr to accompany them for a while despite him nearly dying each time they set out.
Highest optimised would be the Healer and the expanded spell list has jack all offensive spells.



* They assaulted the Skull Gorge bridge and destroyed it using a tree token that one of the players had. Jorr dealt about 6 damage to Ozzy over the course of ~10 rounds of combat. All Ozzy did was strafe and breathe acid until all of the hobgoblins fell. He challenged them to fisticuffs when he saw what they were trying to do to the bridge, but they destroyed it and ran off.

Nothing wrong with this approach by the players in my view. It means they understood clearly that they lacked any practical way of killing a flying target and therefore opted to get the hell out of Dodge once they'd accomplished what they set out to do. I don't really think you've got that much to worry about. The rest of the campaign isn't going to allow them the "run away" option as such. The party failing to kill Ozyrrandion is not a fatal blow to the campaign by any stretch of the imagination, not for the 2 VP or so he represents out of the 74 total available. In fact on the book RHOD he won't show up again until after the Battle of Brindol, when the party -- at level 10 or 11 -- should be able to handle him fairly easily. If you're worried about his loss of treasure, throw it into the next major encounter location somewhere -- it's not like the players will realise the difference.

Their next stop should be Rhest, which they have to go into. There isn't a convenient Load Bearing Plot Point to collapse there. The Ghostlord part also necessitates them finding the Ghostlord, so not much chance to run away there -- but one might note the module does contemplate the party timing its approach on Rhest for a moment when Regiarix and Saarvith are away hunting, which, again, is a legitimate strategy for a prudent party. And the Battle of Brindol also doesn't really allow them to run either.

Give the dragons some credit for their own hides. Regiarix is "programmed" to flee at Rhest if he's hit with a serious fusillade, and the dragons are just playing to their strengths by strafing and getting the hell out of range. Abithriax at the Battle of Brindol could be a problem if the players haven't wised up and started finding some solid ranged options or spells, but one DM way around that is to play him as arrogant: he's more or less programmed on RHOD to commit suicide by adventurer, so you should be more inclined to have him land and start unloading full attacks on a hapless party member or two. The dragons are more or less the only significant enemy with decent ranged damage options that the party will run into. The rest of the campaign they'll be fighting melee types for the most part.

If, however, you're determined to give the players some options for knocking a dragon out of the sky, I've got two options that I have seen work myself: Downdraft (druid 3, so your party druid should be able to cast it) and good old mundane Tanglefoot Bags, which still works on all dragons up to Abithriax (and including Abithriax if you don't upgrade him) because they're all Large size or smaller. The first of these was used by my party's cleric against Ozyrrandion, which pancaked the dragon into the ground, and the second was used on Regiarix when they caught him inside the Rhest Town Hall, which then glued him down for long enough that the party TWFer was able to unload a full attack on him.

If you feel the party's short on very useful spells the traditional way to get around their deficits is supply a convenient NPC to cast for them, of which the campaign provides a few.

[Red Rubber Band]

Nothing wrong with this approach by the players in my view. It means they understood clearly that they lacked any practical way of killing a flying target and therefore opted to get the hell out of Dodge once they'd accomplished what they set out to do. I don't really think you've got that much to worry about. The rest of the campaign isn't going to allow them the "run away" option as such. The party failing to kill Ozyrrandion is not a fatal blow to the campaign by any stretch of the imagination, not for the 2 VP or so he represents out of the 74 total available. In fact on the book RHOD he won't show up again until after the Battle of Brindol, when the party -- at level 10 or 11 -- should be able to handle him fairly easily. If you're worried about his loss of treasure, throw it into the next major encounter location somewhere -- it's not like the players will realise the difference.

Their next stop should be Rhest, which they have to go into. There isn't a convenient Load Bearing Plot Point to collapse there. The Ghostlord part also necessitates them finding the Ghostlord, so not much chance to run away there -- but one might note the module does contemplate the party timing its approach on Rhest for a moment when Regiarix and Saarvith are away hunting, which, again, is a legitimate strategy for a prudent party. And the Battle of Brindol also doesn't really allow them to run either.

Give the dragons some credit for their own hides. Regiarix is "programmed" to flee at Rhest if he's hit with a serious fusillade, and the dragons are just playing to their strengths by strafing and getting the hell out of range. Abithriax at the Battle of Brindol could be a problem if the players haven't wised up and started finding some solid ranged options or spells, but one DM way around that is to play him as arrogant: he's more or less programmed on RHOD to commit suicide by adventurer, so you should be more inclined to have him land and start unloading full attacks on a hapless party member or two. The dragons are more or less the only significant enemy with decent ranged damage options that the party will run into. The rest of the campaign they'll be fighting melee types for the most part.

If, however, you're determined to give the players some options for knocking a dragon out of the sky, I've got two options that I have seen work myself: Downdraft (druid 3, so your party druid should be able to cast it) and good old mundane Tanglefoot Bags, which still works on all dragons up to Abithriax (and including Abithriax if you don't upgrade him) because they're all Large size or smaller. The first of these was used by my party's cleric against Ozyrrandion, which pancaked the dragon into the ground, and the second was used on Regiarix when they caught him inside the Rhest Town Hall, which then glued him down for long enough that the party TWFer was able to unload a full attack on him.

If you feel the party's short on very useful spells the traditional way to get around their deficits is supply a convenient NPC to cast for them, of which the campaign provides a few.

Thanks for your reply. If Druid expresses a sudden hatred of dragons I'll recommend that spell. Else, NPCs may start carrying around some scrolls/wands for UMD users. The Rogue may like some Tanglefoot bags regardless... she seems to enjoy using caltrops and doing things other than carving up flesh.

It's not so much a problem with their approach, I just don't want them to get the sh*ts up because there are dragons running around that they have no chance against. I'm definitely playing the dragons as intelligent beings, but with their own foibles and flaws. Ozzy has been shown to be smart, but prideful, and with some twisted sense of honourable combat. He strafed until he could strafe no more, and only when hand to hand was a last resort did he attempt it. He proceeded to get angry when the PCs ran away, as if they had hurt his honour by refusing to fight him mano a mano... even though he had been quite happy to soften them up while they were facing off against the hobgoblins.
Hell, even the hobgoblins are apt to run away if they're being slaughtered or their commander falls down. Zarr(?), the cleric from the first battle, lived to see the PCs again at Vraath Keep and nearly escaped a second time - only foiled because of a crazy high listen check and a lucky arrow hit him through invisibility. (I will mention here that I love having the blademaster dude a Warblade with that swift jump maneuver. I've run him like that with two different groups and both of them have panicked when he suddenly rockets towards the frailest target and wails on them)

VP isn't an issue for me. The different VP goals will mostly be optional quests that raise or lower the difficulty of the end scenario, not a Pass/Fail mechanic. Luckily my PCs seem to be happy leaving more menial tasks to NPCs and don't feel the need to stick their nose into everything that happens.

[Saintheart]

It's not so much a problem with their approach, I just don't want them to get the sh*ts up because there are dragons running around that they have no chance against. I'm definitely playing the dragons as intelligent beings, but with their own foibles and flaws. Ozzy has been shown to be smart, but prideful, and with some twisted sense of honourable combat. He strafed until he could strafe no more, and only when hand to hand was a last resort did he attempt it. He proceeded to get angry when the PCs ran away, as if they had hurt his honour by refusing to fight him mano a mano... even though he had been quite happy to soften them up while they were facing off against the hobgoblins.

I'd have to say pretty well none of the vanilla RHOD dragons are much for a party to really get that worried about. As written they're very young and pretty fragile; from memory not one of them has spell resistance until you hit Tyrgarun guarding the Fane. Most of the stuff in the handbook about upgrading them envisions a party with a couple of tier one or tier two casters who know what they're doing.

[Fizban]

good old mundane Tanglefoot Bags, which still works on all dragons up to Abithriax (and including Abithriax if you don't upgrade him) because they're all Large size or smaller. The first of these was used by my party's cleric against Ozyrrandion, which pancaked the dragon into the ground, and the second was used on Regiarix when they caught him inside the Rhest Town Hall, which then glued him down for long enough that the party TWFer was able to unload a full attack on him.

Tanglefoot bags do have a very short range with harsh range penalties, compared to ranged dragon breath and high fly speed. Savvy players may seek out a Rod of Viscid Globs, which gives you 3/day at 100' range for dirt cheap. I instantly regretted suggesting or giving it to them, however it happened. Alternatively, a wand of the Launch Item cantrip can probably do the job of tossing the bags.

[Talesin]

So my group is definitely going separate ways after the final session, which has been delayed a week. We're about to start the final battle in the cathedral square. What would you do if you had this as the final encounter of the campaign?

I'm going to bring the whole ritual forward and have it occur in the Battle of Brindol and throw Azarr Kul at the group at the same time as Warlord Kharn. This will up the difficulty of the fight considerably but I quite like this idea because if they come through the battle then it'll give the ending a real epic feel.

I was thinking I would have Azarr Kul stand behind the lines slightly and start channeling the ritual. If he can get off 5 rounds of channelling without taking damage, or being impeded in some way, then he'll succeed and it'll open the portal that allows demons and other things to erupt into the prime material plane. I can tie this into the whole "Ritual of Blood" thing and that justifies him getting himself into the city as soon as possible.

I'll be able to get off some good narrative talking about how after every round he succeeds the sky seems a little redder and talk about demonic corruption in the immediate area, maybe throw some evil damage around in the later rounds to emphasise that this guy means business and that they should stop him. When he's brought down i'll have the aspect attack as normal but send the rest of the horde that are still alive (assuming Kharn is down) running for the hills as they fear the aspect as much as the PCs should.

That should bring a fitting end to the campaign but also gives the final battle a proper buffer for the first couple of rounds before he starts channelling the ritual.

Obviously it does make the ritual casting seem very very easy but it also opens up a nice avenue showing that the PCs were absolutely essential in saving the Vale and I can fluff the ease by mentioning the blood sacrifice and maybe it has to be at dawn immediately after the sacrifice or something silly.

What do people think?

[Elder_Basilisk]

So my group is definitely going separate ways after the final session, which has been delayed a week. We're about to start the final battle in the cathedral square. What would you do if you had this as the final encounter of the campaign?

I'm going to bring the whole ritual forward and have it occur in the Battle of Brindol and throw Azarr Kul at the group at the same time as Warlord Kharn. This will up the difficulty of the fight considerably but I quite like this idea because if they come through the battle then it'll give the ending a real epic feel.

I was thinking I would have Azarr Kul stand behind the lines slightly and start channeling the ritual. If he can get off 5 rounds of channelling without taking damage, or being impeded in some way, then he'll succeed and it'll open the portal that allows demons and other things to erupt into the prime material plane. I can tie this into the whole "Ritual of Blood" thing and that justifies him getting himself into the city as soon as possible.

I'll be able to get off some good narrative talking about how after every round he succeeds the sky seems a little redder and talk about demonic corruption in the immediate area, maybe throw some evil damage around in the later rounds to emphasise that this guy means business and that they should stop him. When he's brought down i'll have the aspect attack as normal but send the rest of the horde that are still alive (assuming Kharn is down) running for the hills as they fear the aspect as much as the PCs should.

That should bring a fitting end to the campaign but also gives the final battle a proper buffer for the first couple of rounds before he starts channelling the ritual.

Obviously it does make the ritual casting seem very very easy but it also opens up a nice avenue showing that the PCs were absolutely essential in saving the Vale and I can fluff the ease by mentioning the blood sacrifice and maybe it has to be at dawn immediately after the sacrifice or something silly.

What do people think?

A few things here:

1. Whether or not this is doable will depend very much on your party and how they play.
When I played through the game, Kharn and his group didn't last through the second round. Tossing Azarr Kul at us as well would probably have been workable. Tossing him at a group like the one I am running seems to be shaping up to be (minimal magic, relatively low optimization, no ranged focused characters), might not be doable for them.
In addition to power level, there is abilities to consider. A group that can clip Azar Kul with a fireball or lightning bolt (that also hits Kharn, et al) to interrupt the ritual is going to have a much easier time of it than a group without the ability to make Azarr Kul collateral damage.

1.5 In the normal scenario, the abishai, etc and the fane itself with the unhallow give Azar Kul a big advantage. So, you'll want to consider the new encounter you are creating on its own rather than just tossing Azarr Kul in and presuming that it still works.

2. You need to decide what happens when the party damages Azarr Kul. Does he need to restart the ritual? Does it just delay him for one round?

3. You probably want to consider other methods of disrupting the ritual. Would a silence spell do it? How about a dispel magic? Can a PC channel energy or something to disrupt it? What would the mechanics be?

4. You also probably want to consider making the ritual less binary. Pass/Fail in round 5 is less interesting than a scenario where the reinforcements start in round 4 and the PCs can still disrupt the gate in order to prevent more from coming. I would give the PCs at least several rounds where it is possible to disrupt the gate but failing to do so allows reinforcements to come through.