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

[Saintheart]

So, thanks to my players I ran into an issue again.

Case:
They were sent by some guild to find the treasure in Vraath Keep. They were teleported somewhere between Terrelton and Drellin's Ferry, where they were ambushed by the hobgoblins. (Funny thing: they had a bad time, but the druid's horse killed about 7 out of 11 hobgoblins. 2 Hobgoblins survived, so next time the hobbo's will be more scared of the horse than of the PC's)

After the fight, they decided they wanted to verify the treasure map they have been given and sell their loot. They took a glance at the map the guild has given then and they said: look! What better place to sell loot and verify the map than at Brindol, the capital (their interpretation) of this area! I didn't want to railroad them (but did drop hints they had to go to Drellin's Ferry), so I didn't prohibit the trip to Brindol.

So, with the session almost over due to players still having to go home through a snowstorm, I didn´t run any fights after this fight and the PC´s arrived soundly in Brindol (btw, it is a 2 days ride from Drellin's Ferry/Terrelton to Brindol, right?).

In Brindol, they sold their loot and I had Teyani Sura approach them. Teyani received word from the guild of the PC's and ordered to search out the hobgoblin threat near the Witchwood. We stopped the game after some history exposition by an anonymous historian in Brindol.

Issue:
The PC's arrived at day 3 in Brindol. They will ride to Drellin's Ferry and probably arrive there on day 5, even before checking out the Witchwood.

If I keep to the timeline of the adventure (which I'm inclined to do), the PC's will be quite behind schedule. On day 7, the Horde marches from Cinder Hill. In the conclusion of part 1, it is stated the Horde will be delayed 1 day because Kharn waits in vain for Koth. This probably means Koth leaves Vraath Keep on day 6. Furthermore, the Horde arrives at day 8 at Skull Gorge, and at day 12 at Drellin's Ferry. This means that the PC's have unknowingly but 3 days to delay the Horde and have 7 days to witness the destruction of Drellin's Ferry.

Question:
The PC's didn't know there was a Horde coming, nor should they know (and I couldn't tell them without plot exposition). Should I just run the timeline given, so the players are 5 days behind, should I adjust the timeline so it starts on the day the PC's arrive in Drellin's Ferry, making up for an awkward decision of the PC's, or should I choose it somewhere in between?
If I run the timeline as given, how hard is it for the PC's to make up for lost time at the start of the adventure?

It's been quite a story, but thanks in advance for reading!

If the key thing's to hurry the party up and hopefully get to Vraath Keep before the Horde does, and you need to buy yourself a couple of days, you could retrofit it that Warklegnaw and his clansmen (er, clansgiants) decide to defend the Witchwood (badly) against the Horde after Jorr Natherson approaches them independently. Stands to reason that Jorr's the ultimate survivor and has his finger on the pulse of the woods he's been in for several years if not decades at least. From memory this delays the Horde by a few days while they try and deal with unanticipated guerrilla tactics from a group of forest giants who know the Witchwood like the back of their sizeable hands.

The penalty, if you're inclined to have one, is that you just don't give the party the VP for initiating Warklegnaw's little resistance effort.

I also didn't gather that Koth leaves Vraath Keep at all -- the delay is merely that Kharn waits in vain for Koth to provide his report. Koth doesn't have to go in person to Kharn, he's got messengers for that -- he's clearly working with coded documents from what the characters are meant to find at Vraath Keep, which clearly suggests dispatches. I always had the impression Koth's effort was a sort of an advance base or scouting mission from the Horde, and that his brief was to wait at Vraath Keep until Kharn joins up his forces there. Why would Koth need to be back with the Horde just for a pleasant week's walk down the Dawn Way anyhow? He's more valuable where he is at Vraath Keep.

If you needed to hurry the party up, two thoughts: either have someone riding in from Drellin's Ferry asking for urgent advice on the raiding they're undergoing, or alternatively run either the Chimaera Attack or the raid on the West Bank of the Elsir when the party first arrives at Drellin's Ferry. Hopefully that'll speed things up. If it really looks like they're not going to make it to Drellin's Ferry, consider having the attack plans with the leader of the assault on the West Bank for some strange reason just so the party knows what it's up against at least, although I think you'd have to compensate them with treasure in some other way since Vraath Keep is pretty much "the" treasure award of this part of the campaign.

[Greyfell]

I'd just like to chip in: I love that you guys are taking so much time to get together such a useful resource!

+1 for the normal favored soul/talon of tiamat as a cleric/ordained champion.. it makes him a LOT tougher and much more memorable of a fight.

[Saintheart]

Thanks for the kind words, Greyfell! I'm going to have to get back to this and update it some more when I've got a bit of free time.

[GreyMantle]

So I just had my group's charactercreationsession, and, hopefully, we'll be starting to actually play tomorrow.

My question: I'm using entirely questbased XP, so I'm hoping to have the "expected" levelup times all be at relatively important moments in the story. This can obviously change if they do any sidetracks, but whatever.

(I'll still give out XP for completing goals, so they'll know when levelups are coming, but I'll just adjust the amounts.)

Does anyone have any advice for when good points to levelup are? Points in the adventure where having a higherlevel ability/spell is rather integral? I'm also starting at 4th level because I'm doing a Tome game, where all the PCs will be more powerful than normal.

The way I'm looking at it is:

5th: Clearing out Vraath Keep
6th: Destroying the bridge/stabbing the people there in the face
7th: Maybe arriving at Rhest/dealing with the elves?
8th: Beating Rhest
9th: Dealing with the Ghostlord
10th: Winning the siege

They could theoretically be at 11thish if anyone gets a lot of roleplaying XP or they do a lot off sidetracks.

[Saph]

Sounds a little on the high side . . . my party's level up points when I ran the game were:

5th: Start
6th: After completing the bridge battle
7th: In between the first and second battles with Regiarix
8th: After finishing the Ghostlord chapter
9th: After finishing the Siege of Brindol
10th: Somewhere between halfway and three-quarters through the Fane of Tiamat

If you're using Tome of Battle stuff, your party should be able to handle most of the fights even if a bit under-leveled.

[Saintheart]

The way we did it was basically "level up when you confront and/or kill a dragon or a goddamned half-fiend behir built that way specifically because behirs don't associate with dragons, why James and Rich couldn't figure out how to shoehorn a white dragon in there I never will know..."

Seemed to work okay for us.

[AslanCross]

Hi Saintheart. I just wanted to drop by to say that I am still working on the Eberron adaptation guide. It's a lot longer than I thought I would make it, but don't worry. It's on its way.

[GreyMantle]

Thanks to you both. Now I'm looking at ditching the levelup for arriving at Rhest. And maybe I'll try to sneak in one somewhere in the Fane (which I'll probably be heavily rewriting, so I can add in some semiclimactic moment).

[Saintheart]

Hi Saintheart. I just wanted to drop by to say that I am still working on the Eberron adaptation guide. It's a lot longer than I thought I would make it, but don't worry. It's on its way.

Sweet! Thanks for the update, Az -- you did mention you had some other RL commitments to cover first, so I'm not fussed in the slightest.

That gives me a thought: (here's a challenge!) anyone have thoughts on how you'd adapt RHOD to Rokugan, or the OA world at least? That would have Kurosawa and Seven Samurai written all over it.

[Elfin]

Ooh, an oriental Elsir Vale...obviously, the ogres and stuff would have to become oni; with samurai flavor, though, hobgoblins would work pretty well.

[ka_bna]

Still had to say thanks to Saintheart for the extensive on the question in my game about the days delays.

A week a go I ran another session. Had some headaches about the hydra - figuring out the hp's of the heads, the quantity of heads... In the end, as no PC jumped into the water, and as the PC's were even with the hydra's heads (a couple of heads burned down, but there were some regrowing ones too), I finished it with "The hydra's retreating. You win."

Preparing the next session, I wanted to chip in an idea for the minotaur, Karkilan, in Vraath Keep. I'm going to give him a level of fighter, other feats (imp. initiative, comb. reflexes, comb. exp. and imp. trip. and a large guisarme. This gives it:
- A bit better survivability (AC from breastplate, hp),
- Most importantly, a trip-attack at 20' or 15' range. So he can stand in the middle of the room and guard every entrance inside room 8, or 10. With imp. trip, he has a +10 trip modifier and he has 2 attacks in a full attack to try to trip a pc. For closer ranges he can still gore. This makes it a good battlefield controller, especially with combat reflexes: the elite array upgraded his dex to 14, so 3 AoO, at max. 20 reach
- CR 5 (4+1)

I'll let you know how this turns out!

[AslanCross]

I've sent the Eberron adaptation guide to Saintheart. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I got several new ideas that I wasn't able to include in my own campaign.

[Runestar]

Preparing the next session, I wanted to chip in an idea for the minotaur, Karkilan, in Vraath Keep. I'm going to give him a level of fighter, other feats (imp. initiative, comb. reflexes, comb. exp. and imp. trip. and a large guisarme. This gives it:
- A bit better survivability (AC from breastplate, hp),
- Most importantly, a trip-attack at 20' or 15' range. So he can stand in the middle of the room and guard every entrance inside room 8, or 10. With imp. trip, he has a +10 trip modifier and he has 2 attacks in a full attack to try to trip a pc. For closer ranges he can still gore. This makes it a good battlefield controller, especially with combat reflexes: the elite array upgraded his dex to 14, so 3 AoO, at max. 20 reach
- CR 5 (4+1)

You need 13int for expertise, so how are you affording improved trip with its -4int? 2 lvs in barb is better. Wolf totem (UA) grants improved trip in place of uncanny dodge, and you get whirling rage (extra attack, str to help with trip checks). Since mobility isn't so important, maybe swap out fast movement for pounce (complete champion)?

[Coidzor]

I've sent the Eberron adaptation guide to Saintheart. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I got several new ideas that I wasn't able to include in my own campaign.

yay! I am looking forward to seeing that, especially with new ideas...

[Hawk7915]

My RHoD play-by-post is going along. The party survived the ambush but it was a surprising beating. As expected, the druid ruled everything, but I think the other party members felt like they contributed. Wizard buffed people and melted faces, rogue got some big sneak attack damage in on Uth'lar (which was fudged; Uth'lar is immune as a Warblade), and the Monk/Swordsage beat the snot of some mooks and hellhounds.

They're interrogating Uth'lar now (the bashed him to negatives then healed him and bound him). I fear I'm giving away too much information, although part of it is for a player who has Azar Kul written into his backstory. So far he's told them...

- "The Son of the Dragon", a hobgoblin with blue scales, has united several goblin tribes and has dragons and monsters at his disposal.
- General Kharn is the leader of the army. Koth is a powerful gnoll sorcerer who will kill them all and is leading this initial expedition.
- The "day of destruction" will fall upon the "river town" soon.

That may seem like a lot. It's the result of Charm Person plus a few really respectable Diplomacy rolls. I don't intend for him to give much more except for maybe "they're in an old fortress in the woods" since none of the party has the Vraath Keep plot-hook. What do you folks think?

Also, looking forward, most people say to toss the minotaur in Vraath Keep a Barbarian level. Would making him Feral (Savage Species) instead be way too much? What about Spell-warped (MM III)? I don't intend to change Koth at all.

[Saintheart]

They're interrogating Uth'lar now (the bashed him to negatives then healed him and bound him). I fear I'm giving away too much information, although part of it is for a player who has Azar Kul written into his backstory. So far he's told them...

- "The Son of the Dragon", a hobgoblin with blue scales, has united several goblin tribes and has dragons and monsters at his disposal.
- General Kharn is the leader of the army. Koth is a powerful gnoll sorcerer who will kill them all and is leading this initial expedition.
- The "day of destruction" will fall upon the "river town" soon.

That may seem like a lot. It's the result of Charm Person plus a few really respectable Diplomacy rolls. I don't intend for him to give much more except for maybe "they're in an old fortress in the woods" since none of the party has the Vraath Keep plot-hook. What do you folks think?

Also, looking forward, most people say to toss the minotaur in Vraath Keep a Barbarian level. Would making him Feral (Savage Species) instead be way too much? What about Spell-warped (MM III)? I don't intend to change Koth at all.

(1) On the info coming from Uth-lar, I think that's probably enough. The way RHOD's meant to play out is that the team gets into Koth's notes at Vraath Keep and realises "Holy crap, this isn't a raid of a hundred goblins or so, it's thousands of them." You've probably given them well and truly enough for that. I'd play up that Azarr Kul's a semi-godlike figure from Uth-lar's perspective, who he's never met.

About the only issue you'll have is that Uth-lar surely should know the fortress's location since he's probably come down the Dawn Way with Koth to begin with -- which then sidelines inquiries via Drellin's Ferry about where Vraath Keep is. It might also sideline Jorr Natherson since unless Uth-lar gets killed or detained by the Valesfolk, he theoretically can guide the party direct to Vraath Keep himself. Hence no need to hire random tinkers to get you through the woods.

One thought is to tell lies improvise a point that Koth somehow kept Uth-lar from knowing the Keep's location, but I've no idea how. Or you could just roll with it and have the party itself approaching Drellin's Ferry to say "You're about to be screwed."

(2) On levels in barbarian, etc, for the minotaur: much of this depends on how the party plays Vraath Keep. If they're the kick-in-the-front-gate kind of guys, then throwing the whole keep's forces at them is going to be a decent challenge. With the stealthy approach, the players have enough time based on the RHOD text notes to deal with one group of opponents at a time. Koth being unchanged is probably a good balancer, since he's sort-of underwhelming in his present form, with several precious sorcerer spell slots wasted on stuff like Detect Thoughts.

I confess I'm not familiar with the Feral or Spellwarped templates; someone might have to offer some thoughts on that, though alternatives to "add a level in barbarian" for Karkilan would make nice additions to that part of the handbook.

One thing to remember about Karkilan is that if you've got a party that takes a stealthy approach and has time to set up, his effectiveness is lower. Ultimately he's still a low level fighter in terms of sheer effectiveness. The level in barbarian is basically to make him just a bit stronger and scarier on barbarian rage and last maybe more than one round in combat. He is still a big, visible target and therefore vulnerable to the joys of the action economy.

[Runestar]

The feral minotaur is statted in savage species. Cr6, basically, it gets boosts to str and con, claws, pounce, improved grab and fast healing. Though with its int of 3, I have no idea why the hobgoblins bother keeping him around. He would barely be able to follow orders!

[Saintheart]

The feral minotaur is statted in savage species. Cr6, basically, it gets boosts to str and con, claws, pounce, improved grab and fast healing. Though with its int of 3, I have no idea why the hobgoblins bother keeping him around. He would barely be able to follow orders!

Another reason not to engage in the RHOD Arms Race. Similarly, turning the Ghostlord into Sauron inspires Fridge Logic.

Anyway, in other news, for those of you eagerly awaiting the update -- AslanCross's full notebook on converting RHOD into Eberron terms is now part of the first page of the thread! And many, many thanks once again for taking all the time to do those extensive notes up.

[Runestar]

Another reason not to engage in the RHOD Arms Race. Similarly, turning the Ghostlord into Sauron inspires Fridge Logic.

Care to elaborate on the sauron bit?

[Coidzor]

Care to elaborate on the sauron bit?

If the Ghost Lord is too evil geniusy and successful and threatening, the question can be raised in the PC's minds of why he hasn't made a serious move on his own. Or how they got ahold of his phylactery in the first place.

[Runestar]

Another reason not to engage in the RHOD Arms Race. Similarly, turning the Ghostlord into Sauron inspires Fridge Logic.

I think the arms race bit was because people were complaining about the encounters not being challenging enough. They are mostly made up of lower level foes which individually wouldn't be very threantening unless adequately supported.

Indeed, by the time they reach the keep, a cr4 and a bunch of cr3 mooks aren't going to be very dangerous. If you have them all swarm the PCs simultaneously, it would be more dangerous (especially with the manticore and koth sniping from the sides).

[ka_bna]

You need 13int for expertise, so how are you affording improved trip with its -4int? 2 lvs in barb is better. Wolf totem (UA) grants improved trip in place of uncanny dodge, and you get whirling rage (extra attack, str to help with trip checks). Since mobility isn't so important, maybe swap out fast movement for pounce (complete champion)?

About the int: if you give a monster a class level, it gets elite array for free CR-wise. So I gave him the Int 15, plus 2 statpoints from 8 hd, making 15+2-4=13.
Now that I think about it, you first get expertise, and then imp. trip. To correct it, it will have to be a Minotaur/Warrior1/Ftr2 (CR 6 1/2), then it all makes sense
As for your suggestions, my game is core only, both for players and DM. So I won't the barb suggestion, though thanks for thinking along (my game will run februari 18th, still a while though...)

[Runestar]

About the int: if you give a monster a class level, it gets elite array for free CR-wise. So I gave him the Int 15, plus 2 statpoints from 8 hd, making 15+2-4=13.

You don't get the stat boost from the minotaur's racial 4th HD, that's already factored into its stat modifiers, so you only get +1 from the 2nd lv of fighter (for its 8th HD). Though you can always just give it higher stats, but the tinkerer in me just won't let it go.

Hence, the suggestion to go barb2 (which offers more benefits than fighter2) for the free improved trip instead.

[Your Nemesis]

I am planning to run RHOD in Eberron, but with a twist; I think that the Elsir Vale will be somewhere in Q'barra, with the main foes being lizardfolk. Azarr Kull's main objective will be to free Tiamat from her prison under Haka'torvhak. What other changes should I make? My party consists of:

One dread Necromancer
One Psiforged Psion
One Half-elf beastmaster

They will be starting at level 6. Thoughts?

[Person_Man]

Look very, very carefully at the Dread Necromancer class before allowing it. There's a few locations (Rhest in particular) where dead bodies can be accessed with impunity, not to mention that the Battle of Brindol is going to give a DN an ever-increasing supply of fresh corpses to play with. And that's before we even get to the DMly nightmare of having to figure out how to effectively rebuild encounters to take account of a party with a zombie green/black/red dragon in tow.[/list]

If dead bodies are prevalent, you should take a serious look at the Necrocarnum Circlet soulmeld and the Necracarnate prestige class (Magic of Incarnum) before allowing them into your game.

First, the Necrocarnum Circlet soulmeld (an Incarnate soulmeld, which the Necrocarnate can augment) allows you to turn a corpse into a Necrocarnum Zombie (much stronger then normal Zombie). You can do this an infinite number of times per day, with the limit being that you can only have 1 per Necrocarnum Zombie at a time and it's hit dice can be more then your meldshaper level. If your players are going to have piles of powerful corpses to choose from, this soulmeld essentially adds an additional party member to the group.

Second, the Necrocarnate can consume the energy of a dead body to gain points of essentia for 24 hours. Played "dishonestly" a Necrocarnate can pour hot water on an ant hill and gain a ton of essentia, basically maxing out every soulmeld and incarnum feat they have. (No one actually allows this though). Played "honestly" (ie, you only gain essentia after you kill something or come across dead bodies) it tends to be a far more balanced class - weak early in the game day when it has little essentia, but stronger late in the game day when it has more. But if you know for a fact that players are just going to walk across recently dead bodies fairly often, then it's an issue.

Neither issue is game breaking. But either would give the party a major advantage in RHOD.

[Your Nemesis]

We don't use Incarnum, so that shouldn't be a problem. I agree that the Dread Necromancer could be a problem, but he (a) can't actually make dragon zombies for 2 levels and (b) I was going to have the zombies be more of a roleplay thing; maybe giving them some more victory points for the Battle of Brindol. As for when they can get dragon Zombies, well, perhaps the horde has a larger airborne component to control the skies?

[AslanCross]

I am planning to run RHOD in Eberron, but with a twist; I think that the Elsir Vale will be somewhere in Q'barra, with the main foes being lizardfolk. Azarr Kull's main objective will be to free Tiamat from her prison under Haka'torvhak. What other changes should I make? My party consists of:

One dread Necromancer
One Psiforged Psion
One Half-elf beastmaster

They will be starting at level 6. Thoughts?

For starters, that's a bit off-canon, as Tiamat's prison is all the way in Argonnessen. Considering what Tiamat did the last time she was free, the dragons won't and haven't been taking any second chances with her. Her prison is guarded by dragons in shifts, and when their shifts are over, they're actually executed to make sure that none of them were corrupted by Tiamat. Haka'torvhak's only guardian, Rhashaak, has been corrupted ages ago, and it's as if the Eyes of Chronepsis don't care.

If you want to go ahead with this, you will have to edit Rhashaak out of the picture (he's way too powerful), although I definitely won't say it won't be awesome.

A major shift from the book would be having innocent people in the way of the advancing horde---Q'Barra is mostly jungle, with most of the cities close to the coast. That allows them to escape more easily should they come under siege. (Unless you plan on removing this altogether)

You will also have to re-engineer the Red Hand Horde for it to work in a forest. As written, it's more or less a traditional fantasy medieval army meant to attack over open plains and besiege walled cities. That same army wasn't meant to attack through miles of dense jungle.

In the book, the Red Hand was taking a path more or less along the Dawn Way, which is the primary highway in the story. That allows them to move relatively quickly and start smashing towns once they get through. This is not the case in Q'Barra---there are no roads, and thus no real route for the army to take.

You've got your work cut out for you if you do this. I think it's a much bigger change than I'd be willing to work with if I were DMing.


EDIT: Saintheart: I will try to write up an Oriental Adventures version of this adventure. Again I cannot promise when it will be done (I'd say around late April), but it sounds like a good summer project. I won't base it in Rokugan/L5R, though. I'm going to try to take more inspiration from traditional epics such as The Tale of the Heike and classical Japanese myths. The idea of Tiamat = Orochi makes my inner nerd squee with joy.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Yamata no Orochi as Tiamat..... my head asplode.

Pure Awesomeness.

[Saintheart]

I'm not deeply familiar with the legends, but I'm a big OA fan, even if it isn't Rokugan specifically.

And many thanks again for taking that on, Aslan-san. I was toying with doing it myself, but kids, wife, job ... ergh. You get 16 Internets in advance.

[Saintheart]

Double post, but just to advise I've finally got round to adding a "rebuilding the Fane" section to the last part of the handbook, along with some gold I found on training NPCs ahead of the Battle of Brindol. Carry on!