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

[ksbsnowowl]

Thank you for the detailed advice!

I think I'll definitely use the Dead Party hook. What do you think about having them take a boat down the River Talar from Sheirtalar? I'm thinking I can change that first encounter to an attack from the shores. I'll probably have to switch the heckhounds to some type of flying creature...

A boat trip up the Talar River to Drellin's Ferry would certainly work, especially if the collector that had hired the dead party of adventurers actually lived in Drellin's Ferry. Of the "notable figures" in Drellin's Ferry, Norro Wiston (5th level NPC, & the "mayor"), Delora Zann (7th level retired adventurer), Kellin Shadowbanks (5th level innkeeper), and Iormel (3rd level NPC), all members of the Town Council, would be good options for who could have hired the dead party. Just be sure to have some story for the retired adventurer as to why she didn't go get the goods herself (sick mother, has a child now, etc.) if you choose to make it her.

One thing to keep in mind is that the PC's and this (Elsir) vale are supposed to be sort of cut-off and remote. If the PC's arrive by boat, make that a rare occurrence. Don't have the boat stick around for days, and don't have it continue upstream with plans to come back through Drellin's Ferry in a week. The module doesn't once talk about boat traffic coming through the village.

It may be best to have the river impeded by waterfalls that prevent boats traveling all the way up the river to Drellin's Ferry. That way the PC's can get most of the way there via boat, and would allow you to have some interesting river encounters unrelated to the Red Hand, but then the PC's would have to divert to land travel for the last bit, which would keep the initial ambush on land. If you look again at that Forgotten Realms version of the RHoD map that I linked to, there is a road coming south out of the Misty Vale that leads into Assardoth from the north. Maybe the reason that road is there, is because straight north of Assardoth there are some falls on the Talar River, which make boat travel further upstream impossible. Thus, those traveling by boat have to disembark there, and continue traveling east via road. Alternatively, have falls blocking the river, but instead a bit further east, where that road crossing down through the Wyrmsmoke/Wyrmbones Mountains crosses the Talar River. Maybe that crossing is at the falls, which is why the boats end there, and roads heading north and south branch off from the "dead end" of the navigable river.

Just be VERY careful if you decide to make the initial ambush into a river ambush. Yeah, dealing with the stock ambush in the module is tough, given the undergrowth and difficult terrain advantages the hobgoblins have, but that same ambush in a situation where the PC's can't get to the bad guys because the Fighter's Swim modifier is –10 or something like that, will be a LOT harder. Just think of the issues people have posted about in this thread and others concerning ~7th level PC's having trouble in the ruins of Rhest, due to the water, and PC's getting knocked in while armored, etc.

[thorr-kan]

So, day 12 of the Red Hand of Doom has the PCs in Drellin's Ferry as the Horde makes it's first appearance in the Vale. The authors repeatedly caution against trying to make a stand here. The picture on top of page 40 is particularly evocative. Standing and fighting is a Bad Idea. Run, little PC, run!

Of course, players being players, somewhere there's a table where somebody made a stand. Maybe they were desperate, maybe they were misinformed, maybe they were dumb. If this was your table, I'd like to hear what happened.

My table flirted with making a stand. We'd smashed up Koth, but the dragon at the bridge had us worried. But we'd botched some Diplomancy rolls trying to get the Council to evac. So we stepped back, let Soranna do the arguing, and went to buy some time. We were successful in some cat and mouse across the river, but the odds kept going up. We rabbitted back across the river to find the evacuation under way. But we had to fight the first two waves off after a day of guerilla fighting. It was brutal, but we triumphed and then ran. Again.

We were all pretty mad at this point, until the DM showed us the picture on page 40. That's when we realized what the Vale was facing. That's when we realized there was nobody else. That's when we stepped up and answered the Call.

It was the first campaign the Monday Night Group went on together. We started as strangers. But we ended as heroes.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I notice the Pathfinder section is mostly about mechanical changes. Has anyone considered running RHoD in Golarion? Considering the state of the River Kingdoms I think they’d be a decent place to set it, or perhaps Isger or (for a whole different flavor) the Hand could be representative of Kaoling’s expansionist forces over in Tianxia.

As one of the people running RHoD in Pathfinder, the reason I didn't consider running in Golarion is because I don't really like Golarion. I prefer Greyhawk, I'm more familiar with Greyhawk, and the amount of effort I have to spend adapting Greyhawk to Pathfinder rules is minimal (pretty much just deciding which deities have which domains) compared to the effort I would need to spend to become more familiar with Golarion.

As to the specific suggestions, I think you'd need to put some serious thought into making the river kingdoms work. The Vale in base RHoD is disunited (check) and peaceful/unprepared for conflict (not my impression of the River Kingdoms). So if you want to keep the scale of the base Red Hand, you'll need to put thought into why the Red Hand thinks it can win and why the kingdoms can't work together we'll enough to defeat the Red Hand prior to the battle of Brindol. You'll want to develop the net of rivalries and treasons so that, you know why the nearby cities can't help, won't help, or can't get an army together before it's too late.

I faced a similar challenge in adjusting the Red Hand of Doom to Sterich in the Greyhawk setting and it paid off recently when my players were at the council and asked, "why can't we get reinforcements from the north?" The count mentions "Well, Count Tondhere does have the Ebon Hawks mercenary company stationed there..." At this point another player asks, "didn't we fight those guys before we ran into the Red Hand?" First player: "Oh. I see. Yeah, we're not getting any help from there." So, that kind of adaptation can be done and will probably pay dividends if you do it, but it does have to be done.

[Eldariel]

I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that there are three major antagonists, Kharn, Azarr Kul and Ghostlord, who are all best statted as Clerics. Favored Soul is just a plain dumb class that really occupies no space outside the Cleric niche and does everything worse so that swap feels rather automatic. And Blighter is a terrible class that fails at everything it sets out to do while Cleric is the only really functional Druid-like class that can reasonably fall into an Undead-spewing abomination (and as a bonus, it's the best undead producer in the game). While all of them are certainly very different: last I ran Azarr as a caster Cleric (Outsider summoner with lots of save-or-Xs entering battle personally only as the last resort though still potent in melee - stole Death Dragon and Fortunate Fate from AslanCross), Kharn as a bruiser Cleric (Ruby Knight Vindicator to be precise) and Ghostlord as a necromancer Cleric.

While these are quite different and Cleric is indeed probably the class with the most internal variety, I can't but find my inner aesthetic a bit offended by the fact that there's only one of everything else in Team Evil but there just so happen to be 3 Clerics. As such, are there any classes (prestige or not) I'm overlooking that could realize one of these characters keeping their nature in the story the same while performing adequately?

[Elder_Basilisk]

In my Pathfinder adaptation, I made Kharn an Inquisitor (I thought about making him a warpriest and decided against it) and left Azar Kuul as a cleric. I didn't want to adapt the blighter class so I made the ghostlord a druid with the death domain and ignored the code of conduct etc with the rationale that the same dark forces that enable his lichdom are supporting him as essentially an anti-druid. In 3.5, what I would do is just increase the blighter level until the ghostlord is where he is supposed to be. At one point I created a pretty successful bad guy using blighter but treating it as a non-associated class for the nymph I used (since it negated her druid spellcasting). Treating druid as a non-associated class would give you a 9th level blighter who would be a much more interesting challenge. Alternately, you could convert druid levels to blighter like a paladin becoming a blackguard. That would probably yield a high enough level blighter to be interesting.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Dread Necromancer could fill in for the necromancy if you want to narrow the focus a bit. Ghostlord would also gain unlimited self-healing from it.

[Horatio@Bridge]

I'm trying to put together a conversion guide for 5th edition over on the 5e boards, and one of the things I'm trying to do is give some ideas on how to tie Red Hand to some of the 5e adventures. I'm mostly mining those adventures for setting material, so for instance using Tomb of Annihilation would be less about tying the Tomb to Red Hand and more about putting the Red Hand adventure in Chult. Similarly, Hoard of the Dragon Queen can be used to lead directly to Red Hand, but also has lots of great setting material and NPCs from the Sword Coast. Has anyone here got any experience running Red Hand with some of the 5e setting material?

[Eldariel]

Dread Necromancer could fill in for the necromancy if you want to narrow the focus a bit. Ghostlord would also gain unlimited self-healing from it.

In my Pathfinder adaptation, I made Kharn an Inquisitor (I thought about making him a warpriest and decided against it) and left Azar Kuul as a cleric. I didn't want to adapt the blighter class so I made the ghostlord a druid with the death domain and ignored the code of conduct etc with the rationale that the same dark forces that enable his lichdom are supporting him as essentially an anti-druid. In 3.5, what I would do is just increase the blighter level until the ghostlord is where he is supposed to be. At one point I created a pretty successful bad guy using blighter but treating it as a non-associated class for the nymph I used (since it negated her druid spellcasting). Treating druid as a non-associated class would give you a 9th level blighter who would be a much more interesting challenge. Alternately, you could convert druid levels to blighter like a paladin becoming a blackguard. That would probably yield a high enough level blighter to be interesting.

Thanks. Yeah, Kharn feels like the easiest one of that bunch to modify though I am kinda fond of RKV (I want to keep all the Wyrmlords as casters for theme reasons). I do want to stick to high magic casters though as the campaign is so heavily weighted towards mundane types otherwise. Which really brings up the question of what alternatives really exist. Warleader, strategist and Tiamat's devoted, only Cleric really feels right on all counts.

Far as Ghostlord goes, I really don't like Blighter so I'd rather not use it. Too many levels and he's spamming 9th level spells for no good reason for stupid strong SODs. And simultaneously underpowered. Dread Necro would work but it's a far less natural path for a fallen Druid, a divine caster. I guess Cleric is just too natural not to go with.

That got me thinking about Azarr...as a caster, he could certainly be a non-Cleric as well. His role as the conduit of Tiamat works just as well as a...say, Archivist. Dark Knowledge might add an interesting aspect to the combat too, not to mention all the off-class spells.

[Rerednaw]

Thanks. Yeah, Kharn feels like the easiest one of that bunch to modify though I am kinda fond of RKV (I want to keep all the Wyrmlords as casters for theme reasons). I do want to stick to high magic casters though as the campaign is so heavily weighted towards mundane types otherwise. Which really brings up the question of what alternatives really exist. Warleader, strategist and Tiamat's devoted, only Cleric really feels right on all counts.

Far as Ghostlord goes, I really don't like Blighter so I'd rather not use it. Too many levels and he's spamming 9th level spells for no good reason for stupid strong SODs. And simultaneously underpowered. Dread Necro would work but it's a far less natural path for a fallen Druid, a divine caster. I guess Cleric is just too natural not to go with.

That got me thinking about Azarr...as a caster, he could certainly be a non-Cleric as well. His role as the conduit of Tiamat works just as well as a...say, Archivist. Dark Knowledge might add an interesting aspect to the combat too, not to mention all the off-class spells.

Well....the PHB2 has rules for class level retraining. If you didn't just rule 0 it like I did and said "this is more thematically appropo and sounds more exciting so I'll do it." Alternatively you could twink the ghostlord with lots of bluff...and everyone believes he's this horrific dreaded superevil mastermind with godlike power...but nah he's a pushover and just a really really good con man. But only if you want more comic relief...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that there are three major antagonists, Kharn, Azarr Kul and Ghostlord, who are all best statted as Clerics. Favored Soul is just a plain dumb class that really occupies no space outside the Cleric niche and does everything worse so that swap feels rather automatic. And Blighter is a terrible class that fails at everything it sets out to do while Cleric is the only really functional Druid-like class that can reasonably fall into an Undead-spewing abomination (and as a bonus, it's the best undead producer in the game). ...

The Ghostlord can easily keep the same flavor, but lose the gimped PrC, by going with the Talontar Blightlord PrC from Unapproachable East. Granted, he wouldn't get the Create Undead spell that the Blighter gets, but he can make Blightspawned Creatures out of animals and plant creatures, which would become Juju Zombies eventually. Giving him the Fell Drain feat would be a way to legitimately allow the Ghostlord to make Wights, instead of Lesser Bonedrinkers; the Wights would be uncontrolled, but so are the Bonedrinkers. The Ghostlord creating the Lesser Bonedrinkers is a giant hand-waive anyway; his Lion's Heart magic "artifact" is the only reason he meets the Caster Level requisite for making Lesser Bonedrinkers, and he flat-out doesn't possess the requisite 7 ranks in Knowledge (Religion) that the MMIII states is required to make them.

If you want to legitimately have a Talontar Blightlord version of the Ghostlord have Create Undead, and the requisite 7 ranks of Knowledge (Religion) that the MM3 says is needed to make a Lesser Bonedrinker, then giving him the Knowledge Devotion feat (or either of the versions of the Education feat) could get him Knowledge (Religion) as a class skill. Then he could just qualify for Contemplative, and fit it in as his last class level at 11th level, and take the Death domain. Human Lich Druid 7/Talontar Blightlord 3/Contemplative 1.

When I ran a Rashemen/Norse-themed gestalt game through a heavily revamped version of RHoD, I made the Ghostlord into the Rotting Man, and made him a Human Spirit Shaman 13//Favored Soul 8/Talontar Blightlord 5 (or something close to that). Instead of Bonedrinkers, he had an "artifact" that made "Hel-Spawn" (Dolghasts from Magic of Eberron). Basically he could only do it because of the large stone magic item, a hand-waive just like the Ghostlord.

Alternatively, for an Eberron version of RHoD, I'd make the Ghostlord a Planar Shepherd of ... Mabar (?)

[Eldariel]

Thanks! That's actually precisely the kind of thing I was hoping for. Talontar doesn't seem to relax Druid vows regarding undead but I suppose that's easy enough to handwave. That would leave him with full Druid casting at some minor adaptions and enough interesting stuff to make his minions a tad more varied, and a direct engagement with him quite perilious. Obviously Ghost Companion ties in perfectly!

[kuhaica]

Read through this before throwing my party through this and I'm glad to say I've learned quite a bit. However I'm curious how to effectively deal with a 10 man party with 8 active players (not including NPCS/Cohorts). While my party is not optimized to well besides a single PF Cavalier and a decently made PF Fighter, they do have the seer advantage of action economy.

Reading through this guide I've found that most seem to lean on throwing in more baddies or buffing them up. However I'm afraid that doing so will tip the balance and destroy the party as so far the after buffing all the enemies slightly and making them more tactical (teamwork feats and the like), the party took quite a bitch of pain from the marauder attack. It may just be due to bad coordination, or not expecting enemies who can do some of the things they can do. But I'm concerned that this will either be a walk in the park or a completely steam roll against the players.

So basically I'm wondering how I should handle this. As I want Rohd to be challenging just not so challenging that it'll be impossible to win later down the line.

Any will will be appreciated.


On another note, I'm thankful for everyone that contributed to this, its already been a huge help.

[Elder_Basilisk]

10 man/8 active player party is a lot. My party is six characters including one cohort and at times an extra NPC or two. Since you listed two pathfinder characters, I assume that you're doing some work converting the adventure to Pathfinder already.

My take on it is that you have to adapt the encounters for the extra party members. Eight party members is a huge action economy advantage and you need extra stuff to mitigate it. I think the best way to do that is with extra monsters. Technically, since the base adventure and encounter level calculations are for a four man party, and you typically have eight, you could double all the numbers and be done. If you find that this results in the party having too hard a time of it, dial back the optimization and tactical awareness of your monsters--converting the optimization level of the original adventure monsters instead of making them good is probably a good way to do that.

A. the reason to use extra monsters is that doing so introduces the fewest balance issues to the combats. (It also makes the most narrative sense--it is a hobgoblin invasion after all; the more hobgoblins the more it feels like an army. Finally, extra monsters is also less work in conversion). If you figure that a double size party adds to the party's APL and just advance all the monsters, you end up with several things:
a. the party still has a huge action economy advantage
b. Sometimes the scaling produces abilities that are just imbalanced: bad guys might be impossible for the PCs to hit or might one-shot them regularly. They might have spells that the PCs have no answers for.

B. There are a few encounters that you can't simply double everything for (but not many). Mostly these are going to be encounters with named NPCs and dragons. In a lot of them, you will want to add a hobgoblin lieutenant and more mooks to get to the appropriate encounter level. Varanthian, the Ghostlord and Tyrgarun are really the only encounters where I don't see adding minions as an option and it's probably OK to have a couple encounters that are just advanced two ELs. You can pay extra attention when planning those to think about whether the abilities they bring to the table will be insurmountable for PCs. And if the Ghostlord ends up being a huge challenge, that's OK--he's supposed to be out of the PCs' ability range anyway.

C. Lots of smaller enemies will also make a lot of strategies most people think of as "less optimal" but that come naturally to players (like a blaster wizard) more effective. Given a group of non-optimizers, that's probably a good thing.

[Elkad]

Some experience of my own from running big parties (my RHoD game is actually my smallest game ever. 4 players until Rhest, now 5.)

When adding monsters, if you aren't sure about power level, put lots of cheap filler in. Standard 2hd hobgoblins aren't a threat to a 7th level party, but they clutter up the battlefield. Use lots. Play them tactically smart, they are supposed to be well-trained at least. Spread them out vs AoEs, take readied shots at casters (or shock troopers - I love making them pay for dumping their AC), gang up on people that get in range, stand between chargers and their own casters, etc.

Ghostlord needs an upgrade for sure. But you can also pile on LOTS of ghost lions.

If you aren't sure about an encounter, split it into waves and adjust on the fly. If the party is having trouble, skip (or weaken) the 2nd wave. If they are stomping the initial guys, send the 2nd wave early, or have it attack from the flank/rear or something.

Bosses get max hitpoints (or more - upgrade their Con). It won't save them from a concentrated assault, and doesn't make them any more deadly, but it minimizes the random crit-deaths.


KillerDM mode. Change the Staff of Life to have a bunch of charges of Close Wounds and Revivify (preferably Psionic for the extra rounds). Take away the Heal charges. And then go ahead and upgrade all your encounters. Let characters drop, someone can fix them.

[kuhaica]

Well a bit to think about. I'll try the suggestions on Sunday and see how it goes. Thanks again.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Might have been mentioned somewhere, but about how long does it typically take to run RHoD? Could a party of five be reasonably expected to complete it in around 5 sessions? I ask because there are five players asking me to run a game on Thursdays over winter break, and I'd like to wrap it up before classes resume.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I don't know how long it typically takes. A lot would depend on you the players, how on task you are and how much you adapt it. If you add bits it gets longer. If you make the combats tough it gets longer. If you ignore random encounters and hand wave travel it gets shorter . If your players are on point and take 30 seconds to do their combat rounds it will go faster. If your players get distracted or can't do math quickly and take two minutes to roll three attacks and add up damage (and still don't get it right), it will take longer. You know your plans and your group so keep those in mind.

My first group that I played with was overpowered, on point, and playing an unadjusted vanilla module. I think it took 8 3-4 hour sessions but we might have got it done in 6. It was a long time ago. The group I'm running now is adjusted, pathfinderized, and with a little bit of difficulty dialed up. It's taken more than that to get halfway through it.

[Elkad]

Random tidbit from my 3.5 RHoD campaign.
Air Mephling bard, Druid, Goliath Crusader, Wizard, Dwarf Warblade with an Ardent dip. They just got to the Ghostlord lair.

My players puzzled out the phylactery with basically no help from me. They did find the note, and only made DC20 on the backstory check, so they only got part of the information.
They've been running around collecting allies of course. Dwarves, Elves, and the Forest Giants (who they really liked, and decided the Vrath people were idiots, and probably evil besides, picking on poor sick Warklegnaw) are all onboard.
They jump to the conclusion that Ghostlord is Good. Or Neutral at least. He just wanted his Nomads left alone, and the dirty humans ruined everything.
Their plan is if they just return the phylactery, he'll immediately switch sides, so this is just a mail-drop quest.

They took their new giant owls to the Thornwaste and fly around a bit (I had to fudge and give one of the Owls a stolen-from-PF Ant Haul item to carry the Goliath) . Spot the location from several miles out, circle around and approach from behind, landing on the lion's back. At this point I'm demonstrating the scale by putting minis on the back of my 85lb (40kg) Labrador Retriever.
They walk up on the shoulder and see the head entrance. I announce the "rough stone - DC15 climb checks". Dwarf can walk down the stone (earth mantle). Mephling has flight. Druid has wildshape flight (she actually elected for a climbing form). Wizard has Fly memorized.
I'm mentally preparing for an upper level assault, with the party missing out on Varanthian completely.

Before any of them can say anything, the goliath crusader decides he's going to climb (in full plate) down the side of the head to the mouth. Without any ropes, or consulting the party, or waiting for people to buff, or anything else. He just announces it and says "here is my climb check". And throws a SIX and falls 70' to the ground.

So he lands just outside Varanthian's lair with a crash of platemail and greathammer and all.

I tell him "Roll a d10, you want a high number" (checking to see if Var is out hunting). 4, Var is home.

ROAR. Initiative. Var beats the Goliath, moves to the door. Goliath stands up, dusts himself off, collects his Goliath Greathammer, and yells "Get behind it!". Others say "Get behind what?" Var says "Thanks for the warning". Shock from the players as it talked. Var wanders out, bites the Goliath, turns a 45 on his Grapple Check. Rest of the party is just figuring out something bad is happening and starting to fly down. Bard barely gets LOS and throws a glitterdust. And blinds the Goliath but not Var! Goliath tries to escape the Grapple (technically possible, +16 vs +27) and fails.

Dwarfsader ran most of the way down and is holding the phylactery yelling "if you want this back, spit him out!" - not that Var cares, but nice try. At this point we had to stop the session for the night.
The rest of the party is still a round away, so I'm going to get a full attack (Constrict+6xRake). Statistically that should drop him to about 20hp remaining, and some hot rolls might take him out.

The only way I can think of this could be more hilarious is if he wasn't a Goliath (treated as Large when advantageous) so I could swallow him before half of the party could even see the fight.
The Goliath can likely 2-hit Var. Or could if he wasn't blind and grappled. Druid's Large Tiger is still folded up for owl-riding (PF Shrink Companion spell). The rest of the party is going to have to chip away at Var for a while...

I can't wait for next week.

[kuhaica]

So a quick update on my last session.

I had only 6 players due to Christmas related family business however i have most of the players stats, skills and combat written down. I meanwhile had the people present do the rolls.

I beefed up the Maruader Attack by using ToB classes. Which did shock the players, but I really scared them with Draconic Template Hellhounds with clinging meta breath.

The terrain was also unfavourable for the parties two damage dealers because of that little dc check to get to the Regulars. And when the reinforcements arrived no one spotted the half in the trees still so they got a few shots off.

All in all I only added an extra hellhound, and gave everyone a small buff. And it worked out pretty well. They even captured Zar and had fun being called names.

I decided to end the session at the keep as it was getting late, and i ran all the encounters from up to that point out of the box. And everything was slaughtered. Hydra was dead in two rounds before it could even go.

I have sense choosen to make the Keep ans bridge a little harder. However I'm off put by the bridge as I've aged up Ozzy and the parties wizard is a dedicated summoner. So they have no quick fixes and I fear chip damage from mooks may kill them.

The keep however I think is fine by adding the three regulars that ran from the Marauder attack and a few other low ranks.

[tiercel]

Spycraft: the problem of Miha Serani

RHoD calls Miha the horde’s “Mata Hari” and goes so far as to say that “Azarr Kul is fortunate to have found a spy as skilled as Miha Serani.”

There’s just one problem: Miha is a terrible spy.

Forget the crunch: look at the introductory fluff. When the PCs meet her, she’s been made by a random mook town guard in any generic podunk town — no, scratch that, a town guard so notorious for being drunk and incompetent that he’s been dead for several days and no one cares.

Furthermore, Miha is so bad at defending herself that said random incompetent mook guard broke her arm (?!) before she was able to slay him with a magic missile... or... well something else, because Miha doesn’t know that spell, and turning to Miha’s statblock it’s not actually obvious if she could kill (as opposed to disable and escape) a random town guard, with her magic or otherwise.

First off, lose the broken arm. It arouses too much suspicion for a game which does not have “broken bone” as a standard combat outcome of its abstract hit points system.

Secondly, change Miha’s introductory backstory. Seriously: getting made by a nobody-mook is pathetic. Leave Miha as a travelling sorceress, but have her simply be still bandaged from a recent Red Hand raid (which she helped to repel with, say, a splash of showy magic, say, illusion) in order to help gain credibility.

Thirdly, figure out what the point of the encounter is supposed to be. If Miha is actually supposed to be able to try to infiltrate the PCs’ party, she needs to up her espionage game; at minimum, she really, really, REALLY ought to have a Ring of Mind Shielding (DMG); it’s not THAT expensive (cf. the +1 frost bastard sword handed out in Act I, also considering that Miha is supposed to have a reasonable chance of evading detection or simply escaping combat), and if the Red Hand has ANY way of putting its claws on an essential Core magic item for its “Mata Hari,” it should. If Miha is actually supposed to have a reasonable chance of having to “break cover and attack” — much less if she is going to try to join the party and prove her worth to the PCs — she should be less helpless in combat than a newborn kitten in a grease barrel.

If Miha’s meant to be a super sneaky spy:
1) Ring of Mind Shielding
2) Consider tweaking her aranea racial spellcasting to be Beguiler (PHBII) casting, and make her class levels be in Beguiler. Hello, skill points. (Maybe having some actual Gather Information and Sense Motive would be good for a spy?). Hello, “spy” spells. (She can then at least cast Undetectable Alignment on herself, for starters. Also? Glibness, in non-potion form.)
3) Give Miha an extra level. 4th level spells mean Charm Monster (yay making your espionage targets into your disposable minions! One of those clerics of Pelor, the Burning Hate, would make a good starting point), for one....

If Miha’s meant to be a buff femme-fatale credible combat threat (against, or even temporarily alongside, the party):
1) Rewrite Miha’s spell list, if she’s to stay sorcerer. Give her an item (Figurine of Wondrous Power: Silver Raven? Possibly refluffed) and wipe out Whispering Wind and Secret Page; for that matter, she can be a spider, so why bother with Mount? There’s some room for combat spells: pick some sorcerer favorites. Alternatively, let the Beguiler spell list (see above) do the heavy lifting.
2) Consider a rewrite: dopplegangers arguably make better infiltration spies than araneas. Make Miha an itinerant adventuring swordswoman and rebuild her as a Doppelganger/Swordsage 1/Mindspy (CW) X, say.
3) Plan meta; “Miha the NPC party member” will fly more easily if the party is used to recruiting other NPC allies along the way, and especially if you don’t hand the players those NPCs’ stats (since you probably don’t want to hand “fake stats” to your players for Miha). Super bonus points if Miha can tag along all the way to Brindol’s Defense Council audience.... she vanishes soon thereafter, giggling hysterically all the way back to the horde and takes a whole bucket of VP with her.

Also: those feats. Turning a viper (Skill Focus you can kill!) into Fiendish form isn’t worth a feat, and don’t get me started on a +2/+2 feat.

[Eldariel]

Let's see now, Miha is quite the thing. As opposed to Beguiler though, there's another option: make her an Unseen Seer! That works with her default chassis, gives her those vaunted skill points and lets her Advanced Learning for Divine Insight, which seems quite worthwhile. As a devoted of Tiamat, she could also make use of Arcane Disciple to further expand her spell list. In any case, Aranea 3/Sorc 2/Unseen Seer 2 would probably be quite solid for her. Sadly this still leaves out 4th level spells; I'd probably just add them in with 1 more level. Mindbender 1 would also fit in really well and I'd be sorely tempted to use just that. Her spell list definitely needs a rework unless you do change the innate casting. And yeah, unless she knows Undetectable Alignment, Ring of Mind Shielding is beyond obvious.

It might be worth it to specialize her list a bit. Currently it contains a bunch of clutter; Mount, Hideous Laughter, Mage Armor, Acid Splash are all quite weak for her intended purpose. For her task she should definitely have:
- Prestidigitation: Seems beyond obvious.
- Amanuensis [Spell Compendium]: Seems extremely useful.

- Magic Aura: Hide your items, spells and stuff.
- Power Word: Pain if you want her to kill people. Though the spell is kinda broken strong.
- Instant Search [Spell Compendium]: When snooping around, you want to search a place fast.
-

- Baleful Transposition: Great with familiar, great with enemies you wish to drop. Since she can only know one she should probably pick this.
- Detect Thoughts: This seems beyond obvious and it's very surprising that it isn't on her list.
- Alter Self: Magical Beast prevents using this to masquerade as a humanoid but she already has her Change Shape. This spell allows her to access numerous fast flying forms like Pegasus, Griffon, Spider Eater, etc. for 10 min/level. Also some pretty good fighting forms though you'll have to give her Strength if you want her to pull that card.

- Shrink Item: For grand theft door, wall, etc.
- Spymaster's Coin [CS]: One of the best ways to get your eyes to any place. Combine with ranks in Sleight of Hand to slip this on people.

My own notes on deploying her in Elder_Basilisk's journal:

Spoiler

Show

Miha Serani activity clues:
- Changes shape; spider form is inconvenient in a town, as is hybrid. I'd assume she mostly uses humanoid forms and takes disguises. Webs at her home are too much of a dead giveaway and she isn't that dumb - some spiderous shapeshifter having lured and killed someone of consequence in a back alley might be more interesting. Preparing back alley traps for her prey with her spider powers is more than logical and of course, the usual "tempting femme" card gets you great many male victims of some significance.
- Invisibility; most notably this means she'll be sneaking around places she shouldn't be. Detect Magic might catch a glimpse of an illusion aura occasionally. In places where this is actually not okay, that might tip someone off.
- Charm Person and Suggestion; someone new of little account getting accepted quickly in certain circles causes word to go around. She's probably used any number of personas she's Grand Theft Persona'd and charmed and suggestioned people into giving extra information occasionally - particularly the ones she's killed. But people she's kinda stolen into will cause others to perhaps feel jealous and perhaps notice people acting weird at places.
- She has a Fiendish Viper familiar that can do all sorts of eavesdropping a humanoid cannot. However, someone spotting a viper in e.g. royal halls slipping between rocks or whatever is quite the tip. Of course, others may or may not laugh it off, particularly with some choice words from a Miha persona.
- Disguise Self grants a massive but not insurmountable bonus. Someone may have seen through it.

Other than that, yeah, definitely play her as a spy and one that's likely to get into the party. Or at least one who isn't entirely hopeless. Divine Insight or similar is almost a must-have I think (thus Unseen Seer), since there's no way she can manually pump all the relevant skills up enough with the Magical Beast HDs shackling her down to 2+Int per level for her first level leaving her fairly low even with 18-20 Int. PF version is actually likely way more competent as a consequence. Obviously she should have the Diplomacy/Bluff/Sense Motive/Disguise quadfecta and Intimidate wouldn't go amiss. At least basic Knowledge (Local) & Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) is also a gimme and some skills in Search/Spot/Listen are likely also quite necessary, and Sleight of Hand is a must-have. She could use Wands and magic items in general to bypass much of the other skillifying that needs doing though.

One of her feats should likely make some of the social stuff class skill for her HD and Sorc-levels and the others could be stuff like Invisible Spell, etc. The feats warrant closer scrutiny, which I won't do right now. I didn't ever really think about those too closely but they are indeed all worthless, and there's a lot of stuff she could do. Mindsight seems great for her.

[kuhaica]

As a quick tell of what my lovely part is up to, they've so far managed completely all of the tasks in Part one except for killing Ozzy and evacuating Drellin Ferry. The battle of Skull Gorge was a little underwhelming for my larger party, only Ozzy truly terrified them, but as the books insisted Ozzy and the other dragons like to live another day. Thus he escaped when he was taken down to 1/4th his HP.

All of this aside, it is now Day 6 of the Campaign and my party wants to defend Drellins ferry. Full out defence even though I've strongly hinted via the NPCs and their own experience of looking at the Horde. That the fight is unlikely to win. So my question comes to, has anyone actually run the 'Defesnse of Drellins Ferry'? and if so how did it play out and do I need to change anything?

[Eldariel]

As a quick tell of what my lovely part is up to, they've so far managed completely all of the tasks in Part one except for killing Ozzy and evacuating Drellin Ferry. The battle of Skull Gorge was a little underwhelming for my larger party, only Ozzy truly terrified them, but as the books insisted Ozzy and the other dragons like to live another day. Thus he escaped when he was taken down to 1/4th his HP.

All of this aside, it is now Day 6 of the Campaign and my party wants to defend Drellins ferry. Full out defence even though I've strongly hinted via the NPCs and their own experience of looking at the Horde. That the fight is unlikely to win. So my question comes to, has anyone actually run the 'Defesnse of Drellins Ferry'? and if so how did it play out and do I need to change anything?

It's supposed to be an overwhelming encounter and it likely is. Everything can be changed as per the advise in this guide and I'd use any rank'n'file updates and monster updates everywhere for consistency's sake. Note, the party is supposed to escape after it becomes clear they can't hold the Ferry. I recall one Char Ops group got pretty far down the waves until Abithriax showed up. Even then, they were routed. Thus you should plan their escape, and you could afford to fortify the waves even further. We're talking about them taking on the whole Hand after all with Drellin's Ferry's pitiful defenses. The PCs would have to cut down a large part of the Horde single-handedly to truly stymie the advance, which should be impossible.

Kharn should definitely join in in the latter waves too if they somehow hold off Abithriax and company. Further, taking the fight at the Ferry and losing with their lives should lose them a big amount of victory points since so many of the personnel resources are lost in a hopeless fight not really inflicting relevant harm to the Horde. This would also further hurt the morale of the Vale defenders with so many being slaughtered, and I'd apply penalties in future encounters. Of course, the escape itself would be difficult since the Horde has many fast-moving forces that might give chase.

[thorr-kan]

<SNIP!>... So my question comes to, has anyone actually run the 'Defesnse of Drellins Ferry'? and if so how did it play out and do I need to change anything?

I asked the same question years ago and never really got any response. But I think the picture on p40 and the sidebar on p41 sum it up pretty well. Show'em the pic, let them decide, then let the cards fall where they may.

(edited to add): I was on the players' side. We wanted to stand at Drellin's Ferry as well and were ticked at the DM with the escalation. He showed us the pic on p40, we took out a loan, and we bought a clue. With player expectations set at that point, we rolled up our sleeves and went to work. It was personal, you see.

[thorr-kan]

<SNIP!>...I recall one Char Ops group got pretty far down the waves until Abithriax showed up. Even then, they were routed.

I don't suppose you have a link for that? I'd be interested in reading it.

[Eldariel]

I don't suppose you have a link for that? I'd be interested in reading it.

It was never written into an online journal, but it was some forumite describing how their party fared in the campaign. The same post mentioned coming from underwater to Rhest and grabbing the Ogres to drown them silently and few other things but since it's probably been close to a decade since I read it, I unfortunately cannot point you in the right direction. I'm not even sure if it was on GitP, Gleemax, or MMB.

[thorr-kan]

It was never written into an online journal, but it was some forumite describing how their party fared in the campaign. The same post mentioned coming from underwater to Rhest and grabbing the Ogres to drown them silently and few other things but since it's probably been close to a decade since I read it, I unfortunately cannot point you in the right direction. I'm not even sure if it was on GitP, Gleemax, or MMB.

Shucks, that's too bad. I really woulda liked reading that.

Thanks for recapping, though!

[VisitingDaGulag]

It's supposed to be an overwhelming encounter and it likely is. Everything can be changed as per the advise in this guide and I'd use any rank'n'file updates and monster updates everywhere for consistency's sake. Note, the party is supposed to escape after it becomes clear they can't hold the Ferry. I recall one Char Ops group got pretty far down the waves until Abithriax showed up. Even then, they were routed. Thus you should plan their escape, and you could afford to fortify the waves even further. We're talking about them taking on the whole Hand after all with Drellin's Ferry's pitiful defenses. The PCs would have to cut down a large part of the Horde single-handedly to truly stymie the advance, which should be impossible.

Even in a fixed & balanced campaign, overwhelming encounters are supposed to be winnable. It's just the chance for doing so is very, very small at normal optimization levels. At higher optimization levels it should be the norm.

I'll volunteer to build and run an ECL5 PC of any archetype (tank/DPS, skillmonkey/DPS, buffer/utility, debuffer/utility) in a near-fully optimized party. I've not done more than skimmed this guide, nor have I played RHoD before. Just send a PM.

[kuhaica]

Thanks for the responses. I've already converted all the enemies to the ones in this guide and I'll be sure to run the enounter as is. If my party some how manages to survive the first three waves Im certain 20 Assault barges every few minutes will do the trick.

[Shin Ji]

This thread has been a great help to me in my DMing of RhoD - I've used several of the NPC optimization tips, and added several of my own. I'll post them when I have a moment, but for now, I'm interested in feedback on a suprising choice my players have made.

Right now they just took down the first Wyrmlord in the ruined tower outside Drellin's Ferry. Having learned about the Fane (but not it's exact location) from him, they are planning to double back, warn the town, and head straight there to cut off the head (heads?) of the beast.

So I'm wondering how this might affect things. They started at 6th level, and are pretty well optimized overall, so it's not impossible for them to actually accomplish this. How long would it take for the main force to even get word, tho? THere doesn't seem to be any obvious method for messages to be sent back and forth other than by the dragons themselves.