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kjones
2008-12-21, 01:40 PM
Saph's adventures with the Red Hand of Doom inspired me to start running it myself. My plan was to run it over the course of spring semester '09, and I already have a group lined up for that - but I got home for the holidays and realized that I really, really wanted to play. Besides, I thought it would be a good idea to give it a test-run before I ran it for real - I've been hyping this a lot for my school chums and I don't want to screw this one up. I'd like to journal the "real" run-through come spring, since I doubt that I'll have enough time to go through the entire module over the course of a month. Hell, I'd be impressed if we make it past Rhest.

With that in mind, I made some calls. I was planning on four players (number and type will fluctuate due to availability throughout this campaign) but due to an inopportune snowstorm, only two people made it. We decided to roll up four characters and have each play two, since we all really wanted to play. This isn't something that I like doing, but it was better than the alternative - hopefully, we won't have to do it again.

Needless to say, spoilers for the Red Hand of Doom abound, so proceed at your own risk.

The party so far (all level 5):

Jason Schruder, human factotum with all feats going to Font of Inspiration. Sharing the skillmonkey role, and the strongest arcanist in the party, amusingly enough. With 20 HP, his ongoing survival is a bit of a concern.

Tyv Taika, human spellthief. The other arcanist and skillmonkey. With TWF, Craven, and two +1 shortswords (see below), he's a force to be reckoned with. There are enough casters among the Horde to make this interesting, IMHO.

Luan Phien, elven druid (shapeshifter variant). His spells haven't seen a whole lot of use, outside of healing, but I forsee a lot of good uses for his shifting. Can hold his own in combat, too, but has piss-poor AC.

Clutch, warforged fighter. Took Oversized TWF and Monkey Grip. When I told the player that this wouldn't let him wield two greatswords, he said that he knew, and that the intent was to switch off between two longswords and a large greatsword. I just shook my head and let him. Still a good tank, since he rolled insanely well for HP (62 at 5th level!) and took Adamatine Body.


The events of the evening:

The party fought off the marauder ambush handily, immobilizing half the hobgoblins with Entangle and taking out the reinforcements with a flaming Web (I ruled that the road was deep enough for it to have "walls"). The fighter was particularly effective, shrugging off blows and dealing out massive damage by Power Attacking with his greatsword. They made it into Drellin's Ferry and accepted the mission from Norro Winston and Captain Soranna, and headed out into the Witchwood the next day after buying some supplies. They were attacked by warg riders on the road - not much of a challenge (and dear lord I hate mounted combat rules). After narrowly averting a fight with Jorr (the warforged thought the dogs were attacking, and picked one up by the scruff of the neck) they defused the situation and hired him along as a guide.

That's where we wrapped up the first session. It's been fun, but I'm looking forward to the battle of the keep, as it will hopefully provide them with a real challenge.


Observations so far:


-Treasure is all over the board. After two combats, the party has two +1 shortswords, three sets of +1 banded mail, and more masterwork weapons than they know what to do with. Fortunately, they're not the kind of party to take everything they find in the hopes of selling it later, since if they were, they'd be SOL - I don't think there's enough cash in the Vale. Since character creation was rushed, they didn't get even close to WBL for starting equipment, but the characters in the spring campaign will. Seeing how much treasure there is so early on, I'm considering not doing this... although since most of the treasure is equipment that they won't be able to sell, how much of a problem is this really? And how exactly is the Horde managing to equip all these people with such expensive equipment? I guess I'm just worried about the power level being upset by an influx of treasure, but clearly the answer isn't to only give the Horde equipment not worth looting.

-I'm not sure whether or not random encounters are worth keeping. They add to verisimilitude, and (as Saph showed) can result in vast amounts of lulz, but I'm worried that they'll just bog everything down.

-Spell selections for NPC spellcasters are not what I would have chosen for them. It might be a lot of work to change them all, but it will probably be worth it.

-I love the attention to detail. We very nearly veered off on a sidequest to identify the bodies of the merchants in the abandoned farmhouse and return them to their families - next time, when something like this happens, I'll just let it roll.

-I keep forgetting to keep track of terrain modifiers. Since these will generally help the opponents more than the PCs, I should... not do that? Any suggestions on how to keep track of all this stuff in a big fight?

-I'm not yet sure how to handle social situations. I don't want to leave them up to a flat Diplomacy roll, and it seems silly that, for example, Norro would withhold any information about the Horde, or that Jorr wouldn't want to work with the PCs in clearing the goblins out of his forest. How much would it change things if I ditched all the diplomacy checks altogether and just played it by ear? The various states (indifferent, hostile, friendly) aren't really well defined anyway.

-Some of the threads between locations are a little weak. Norro sends them into the Witchwood to deal with the hobgoblins, but how is that supposed to lead them to Vraath Keep? They were headed there anyway (using the suggested adventure hook), but when the party entered the Witchwood, it was with two distinct goals - find the Keep, and find the hobgoblins. It seems a little too convenient that these happen to coincide. I just had Jorr tell them that he suspects that hobgoblins are occupying the Keep, which is a reasonable thing for him to know.

-I expect balancing encounters, power-wise, to be an ongoing challenge. I think this is more of an inherent problem with 3.5 than with the module, since the module does a decent job (with noted exceptions above) on its own. The party in the spring will consist of a batman-ish wizard, a rogue/swashbuckler, a scout, a favored soul, and a crusader, and those people know how to play, so... it will be interesting, to say the least.

Saph
2008-12-21, 02:59 PM
Heh, you guys got further than we did on our first session! Having two players probably speeds the game up quite a bit.


Observations so far:

-Treasure is all over the board. After two combats, the party has two +1 shortswords, three sets of +1 banded mail, and more masterwork weapons than they know what to do with. Fortunately, they're not the kind of party to take everything they find in the hopes of selling it later, since if they were, they'd be SOL - I don't think there's enough cash in the Vale. Since character creation was rushed, they didn't get even close to WBL for starting equipment, but the characters in the spring campaign will. Seeing how much treasure there is so early on, I'm considering not doing this... although since most of the treasure is equipment that they won't be able to sell, how much of a problem is this really? And how exactly is the Horde managing to equip all these people with such expensive equipment? I guess I'm just worried about the power level being upset by an influx of treasure, but clearly the answer isn't to only give the Horde equipment not worth looting.

There feels like a lot of treasure early on, but it's balanced by the fact that quite a few of the later encounters (and most of the randoms) supply no treasure at all. Carrying all the stuff (and finding buyers) can also be a hassle. The real limiting factor on the money the PCs earn, though, is that there's nothing good they can buy with it! Both Drellin's Ferry and Starsong Hill have an 800 GP limit on purchases.


-I'm not sure whether or not random encounters are worth keeping. They add to verisimilitude, and (as Saph showed) can result in vast amounts of lulz, but I'm worried that they'll just bog everything down.

Random encounters can really mount up. The way I've been doing it is to get the players to make the rolls - makes it feel less arbitrary and does reinforce the idea that the place is dangerous.


-Spell selections for NPC spellcasters are not what I would have chosen for them. It might be a lot of work to change them all, but it will probably be worth it.

I think this is best done as a mirror thing. The NPCs should have spells that are of an equivalent power level to what the PCs are using.


-I'm not yet sure how to handle social situations. I don't want to leave them up to a flat Diplomacy roll, and it seems silly that, for example, Norro would withhold any information about the Horde, or that Jorr wouldn't want to work with the PCs in clearing the goblins out of his forest. How much would it change things if I ditched all the diplomacy checks altogether and just played it by ear? The various states (indifferent, hostile, friendly) aren't really well defined anyway.

I do a mixture; both the roleplaying and the Diplomacy result make a difference. If they RP well but roll badly they'll never get a bad result, but they won't get as much as they could have done.

It's hard to ditch it completely, because some of the awards in Chapters 1, 2, and 4 give PCs various degrees of benefits and VPs depending on how good their Diplomacy results are. Anyway, there should be some benefit for the players who've chosen to invest points in social skills.


-I expect balancing encounters, power-wise, to be an ongoing challenge. I think this is more of an inherent problem with 3.5 than with the module, since the module does a decent job (with noted exceptions above) on its own. The party in the spring will consist of a batman-ish wizard, a rogue/swashbuckler, a scout, a favored soul, and a crusader, and those people know how to play, so... it will be interesting, to say the least.

*winces* Yeah, that could hurt. I ended up disallowing ToB for my campaign, because a single crusader could literally have beaten most of the encounters on his own (and one with a really good wizard backing him up would have been even worse).

Remember that the RHoD opponents are 90% core-only and are not designed for maximum combat effectiveness. Hobgoblin Warrior 3s are not remotely a challenge for a ToB character, and a sorcerer whose primary spell is lightning bolt is a joke compared to a wizard with a spellbook full of the most powerful stuff from five different sourcebooks.

There are three possible solutions to this problem:

a) Let the players blast their way through effortlessly.
b) Ban everything above a certain power level.
c) Boost the opponents to compensate.

I've been doing a mixture of b) and c). Banning everything that's too powerful is less work, but limits your players, while boosting the opponents is probably the better solution but involves a lot more effort.

Anyway, you'll work it out as you go. Let us know what happens! :)

- Saph

imperialspectre
2008-12-21, 03:04 PM
I do a mixture; both the roleplaying and the Diplomacy result make a difference. If they RP well but roll badly they'll never get a bad result, but they won't get as much as they could have done.

It's hard to ditch it completely, because some of the awards in Chapters 1, 2, and 4 give PCs various degrees of benefits and VPs depending on how good their Diplomacy results are. Anyway, there should be some benefit for the players who've chosen to invest points in social skills.

One trick I've tried with more experienced roleplayers is to have them roll first, then roleplay in a way that reflects the Diplomacy result. So, rolling a 2 with a CHA penalty and no ranks in Diplomacy (or Bluff/Intimidate, for that matter), tends to lead to them committing some horrible cultural faux pas, saying something unintentionally (or intentionally!) insulting, etc. With players who are actually willing to laugh at themselves, it tends to be fun for everybody.

Matthew
2008-12-21, 07:42 PM
Looking forward to reading more. I would keep the random encounters, as I think things may be a bit bland without them. You can always adjust them to be more in keeping with a fast paced game (random monsters are more likely to run away when faced with a hard fight, as well).

kjones
2008-12-22, 10:43 AM
Looking forward to reading more. I would keep the random encounters, as I think things may be a bit bland without them. You can always adjust them to be more in keeping with a fast paced game (random monsters are more likely to run away when faced with a hard fight, as well).

This is exactly what I did - they fought two warg riders, killed one, the other fled. I think I'll keep them, though, and I like Saph's idea of letting the players roll. It will be a challenge not to make the encounters seem kind of arbitrary, but I guess that's on me as a DM. There was just something very unsatisfying about the way it played out last time.

As for the power level, I hadn't really realized until I started running it how much of an issue it would be. The players have already put a lot of work into their characters (the crusader went through half a dozen builds) and I don't want to nerf them after the fact, though I'm not averse to doing so if absolutely necessary. I'm not worried about the scout or the favored soul, I'm only worried about the rogue/swashbuckler because I let him take Craven (which even he thought was a little cheesy), and I'm a little worried about the crusader, but he seems to be focusing more on defense then spiked chain lockdown stuff. The wizard... well, I can handle wizards. Maybe. I've been coaching him myself, but I imagine I'll live to regret that.

I feel like I could do a lot by just amping up the difficulty of the basic troops a little (Alertness as their one feat? Really? I swapped it out for Point Blank Shot, and gave them Precise shot to boot, mentally swapping out their Warrior levels for Fighter levels. Otherwise, they would have been even less effective in their archery role. I might revamp them more fully, changing them to be Fighters instead of Warriors.) and changing spell selections. Inspired by the section on how the Horde responds when the PCs are higher level, I've been toying with the idea of suicide bombers, and how exactly that might play out.

But really, if the players are going to be clever about it, I want them to be successful - they should be rewarded for playing smart. I just want to make them bleed a little. :smalltongue:

But this is neither here nor there - just thoughts I was having while observing how readily a party of four 5th level hastily-made not-particularly-optimal characters carved through an EL 8 encounter.

Finally, I'm going to try to play the social encounters more by-the-book - both because the module requires it to an extent, and because I realized, in retrospect, that getting Jorr on their side was just railroading on my part. He really should have tried to kill them for hurting his dawgs.

Charity
2008-12-22, 11:04 AM
I found the random encounters were useful in getting the party to the appropriate level for the area they are in... though due to their route choice they did drag on a bit.

Matthew
2008-12-22, 10:48 PM
This is exactly what I did - they fought two warg riders, killed one, the other fled. I think I'll keep them, though, and I like Saph's idea of letting the players roll. It will be a challenge not to make the encounters seem kind of arbitrary, but I guess that's on me as a DM. There was just something very unsatisfying about the way it played out last time.

Yeah, integrating random encounters satisfactorily tends to require a deal of thought on the part of the game master. What are those two Worg riders up to? Scouts, deserters, lost? What will they do on seeing a bunch of heavily armed adventurers. Track them? Run away? Attack? Random encounters need not be about combat, and it's very reasonable to give the player characters the option of avoiding them.

Username
2008-12-23, 01:40 AM
If you're using ToB you should just go all out and replace all the levels of enemies with melee classes with levels in ToB classes. Come up with a few different templates for maneuvers known and prepared and you should be set.

It's more work, but it will make battles a lot more interesting tactically when the enemies start using the PC's own tricks on them.

kjones
2008-12-24, 02:59 AM
Second session went well. Let's see if I can get it all down before my sleep-deprived brain loses its grip on reality.

Trying to learn from my mistakes of last session, I invited eight people to tonight's session, on the assumption that some of them wouldn't be able to make it. This was almost a big mistake - eight people showed up, and I only managed to mitigate the situation somewhat by convincing my brother to co-DM instead of playing (which was actually extremely helpful). Seven players wasn't so bad, though things did tend to get bogged down and we didn't get quite as far as I had hoped.

Needless to say, the party composition changed somewhat from last time.

The new party:

The characters of Clutch, Luan, and Tyv stuck around from last time, but only Tyv remained with the original player. Adding to this, we had:

Mantega Pantalones, human paladin. Focused on charging, but not quite an übercharger, since the character preferred to charge into combat and then fight from horseback with longsword. The horse is kind of a badass - his hooves were dealing about the same amount of damage as the sword.

Bowen, human ranger. The build is somewhere halfway between melee and ranged focused, as the character was one hastily advanced from a previous campaign. I'll probably let this player re-spec, if she so desires - otherwise, she'll fall behind pretty quickly. Amusingly enough, Favored Enemy (magical beast) kept being useful over and over and over again - the hydra, the manticore, the wargs.

Ervange, human favored soul of Kord. Perfectly reasonable character, perhaps a little too inclined towards healing and summoning magic, but nothing wrong with that.

Lilo, strongheart halfling swordsage. I was a little worried about this character with regards to the others, but so far the player seems content to bamf around with Shadow Jaunt and throw Shadow Garrotes at people, so it worked out. I'll be keeping a close eye on this one, though - he seems to have too many stances.

My brother also rolled up an as-of-yet-unnamed warlock who was not used. Also unplayed was Jason the factotum - for the duration of the session, he was napping in Jorr's cabin.

We also redid the feat selection for Clutch - apparently the player who made him "accidentally" took too many feats. This really ticked me off, but I'm going to give the player the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an honest mistake.


With seven players, I felt the need to tweak some of the encounters to make them appropriately challenging.

Here's what I did:

Changed the hydra at the causeway into a pyrohydra, with his breath weapon only dealing 1d6 per head

Added two hobgoblin veterans to the barracks at Vraath's Keep

Gave the manticore at the keep an additional 20 HP

Reworked Koth's spell list, and gave him a scroll of Stinking Cloud

Finally, though this didn't come up yet, I made the hobgoblin sergeant at the bridge into a Warblade 4, as per Username's suggestion, with mostly White Raven maneuvers.

These changes worked out well, for the most part. I'll probably keep some or all of these changes when I run the module "for real".


The events of the evening:

The old characters departed from Jorr's cabin and met up with the new characters (minus the paladin) who were the survivors of another expedition sent by Norro to investigate the hobgoblin menace. When they realized that they were after the same thing, they joined forces and headed north.

First up: the infamous hydra encounter. I was looking forward to this greatly, and I was not disappointed, though it did not go entirely how I expected.

The moment I mentioned the wagon, the fighter and the favored soul immediately went over to check it out. The druid, in eagle form, spotted the hydra, but it was too late. The two characters were nearly cut off from the rest of the party.

The challenge here was the difficulty of getting into melee with the hydra - the bog made shifting impossible, so in order to get up next to it, the players had to move, which provoked an attack from each head. (I had to read that bit in the rules twice. That's just brutal.) It got nastier when the hydra retreated (he couldn't really go up to the causeway like he was "supposed" to - those two characters jumped down into the bog!) and forced the players to go into the deep bog to get in range, and even nastier when I realized that the hydra had cover in deep water. An arcanist would have really helped here, but without one, the best they could do was have the ranger, the druid, and the spellthief feather it with arrows, which barely kept up with its fast healing. (They didn't even consider severing the heads - see my other thread on hydras.) Anyway, it was pretty brutal - by the time the swordsage finally dropped the thing with Shadow Garrote (and Shadow Jaunt was invaluable) the favored soul, the spellthief, and the druid (victim of a poorly-planned aerial charge in eagle form... six AoEs against AC 12 ain't pretty) were unconscious. I could have been really nasty and had the unconscious players start drowning in the bog, but they had already suffered enough for one battle.

Also, the favored soul summoned a squid to fight the hydra. It died very quickly, but it was hilarious.

Then it was off to Vraath Keep. This battle was immense, and very confusing - it would be nice if they had a timeline of events (barracks hobgoblins alerted, Koth comes out, manticore comes out) but it's all so dependent on what the players do that the only reasonable solution seems to be to read the encounter very, very thoroughly and try to get a feel for the defenders of the keep as a whole, so the reaction can play out realistically.

They approached the keep in broad daylight and decided to just walk on in. I'm a little worried that they won't realize that was a bad idea - that sort of thing will probably get them killed in Rhest. The fighter and the swordsage insisted on searching the gardener's shack, which of course promptly collapsed on them. (They both heard the impending collapse - their response was to go stand near the doorway, so they could leave if they really had to. Go figure.) They realized that this would almost certainly alert the guards, so they positioned themselves for battle. It would have been neat if they managed to hide from the guards, but no such luck; the favored soul cast buffs in the northern guard tower and the paladin and fighter blocked the entrance.

First to emerge were the warg riders, who raised the alarm and attacked. They dispatched the riders fairly quickly, and the wargs retreated into the stables, but by then the hobgoblins had armed themselves and swarmed out of the barracks. The manticore came out at around this time, though they somehow managed to not notice this for several rounds of terrible spot checks. (They were smart enough to leave it alone.)

By the time they had finished off the hobgoblins, who didn't pose much of a challenge, Koth and the minotaur had emerged, and the manticore began showering everyone with spikes, which was quite effective. Meanwhile, the ranger and the druid were finishing off the wargs in the stable. The rest of them quickly killed the minotaur, and while Koth got off a Fireball (swapped out for Lightning Bolt) and a Stinking Cloud (from scroll), they managed to corner him in the barracks. He blasted away with his wand of magic missile and dropped the warblade, but by that point they had finished off the manticore with a combination of ranged attacks, the druid's eagle form, and a celestial giant bee. Completely surrounded, and with one hit point left, Koth surrendered.

After knocking him unconscious and stealing all his spells via spellthief, they looted his body and found the map. (I was pretty happy that one of the players, upon looking at the map, immediately noted that they could slow the horde by destroying the bridge.) They then healed him a little and interrogated him with a successful intimidate check from the paladin. They now know about the Horde, and that they need to try to destroy the bridge and warn the town.

They found the treasure vault, and that was that for the time being. They'll have to decide what to do with Koth next session.


All in all, an excellent session. Combat dragged a little with seven players, especially because some of them were fairly new to the rules, but having a co-DM to run the NPCs and look up rules was very helpful.

Observations:

-Koth's save DCs are too low. And he has ranks in bluff, but not concentration. WTF? Granted, he has an Int penalty, but not having any ranks in concentration screwed him over big time - when he was cornered, he couldn't cast defensively, which might have saved him.

-Koth was too easily cornered. Perhaps next time, he'll stand up in the tower and cast spells below.

-The battle of the keep had a really nice flow to it. I need to try to preserve that.

-Still not sure how I'm going to convince them to actually see the Horde. Fortunately, the druid can just fly over and get a visual - but how do I explain that Norro won't believe them otherwise? Is it really necessary? It is pretty cool...

evil-frosty
2008-12-25, 06:36 PM
rhod is mostly core so if your party ius using ToB and stuff like that then ya koth isnt going to be tough to them at all. if your party opmtimizes then u r going to need to tweak just about all of the encounters to be challenging to them. also if u think koths DCs are 2 low just raise them u r the DM afterall:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

kjones
2008-12-26, 12:09 PM
I agree, to an extent, with the danger of allowing ToB classes and the potential they have for an upset in the balance of power. However, in my experience, a character is only as powerful as the player who runs it. For example, in the hydra encounter, the swordsage spent the first 3/4 of the battle teleporting around with Shadow Jaunt, trying to get close enough to attack without provoking. This was kind of foolish on his part, of course, and he probably won't do it again, but it just goes to show that when Batman prepares Hold Portal in every spell slot, he's not so über anymore.

Thus far, the most powerful character has proven to be... the straight fighter. With Adamantine Body and ~60 HP, he's nigh invulnerable to straight-up hitting. With 18 Str, PA, and a greatsword, he's death on roller skates. I know this won't last, and that he won't seem so powerful once he fails a Will save, and that lots of encounters can bring out his weaknesses (such as, again, the hydra... he spent most of it wading around in the bog provoking AoO's) but when it comes to bashing hobgoblins, there's no better.

So, I'm worried about ToB, but it's not the most of my worries as far as balancing these encounters.

EDIT: I know I can just tweak Koth's save DCs, but I'd rather do so within the rules. I boosted his Charisma to 18, which helped, but beyond that I'd have to start giving him various magic items, and I'd rather not run the risk of having those items fall into the hands of the party.

The real problem with Koth was that he got cornered, because the minotaur fell so quickly (next time I'll probably give him armor and class levels) and didn't have any ranks in Concentration, so he couldn't cast defensively. As I said above, next time I'll probably have him stand on top of the tower and cast spells down, while the minotaur holds them off the base of the tower. Also, it will be easier for him to fly away.

But this brings up another issue that I've been having. These encounters become a lot more challenging when I run each monster as a veritable Sun Tzu, but that's not terribly realistic. I mean, Koth has an Int of 8 - he's not going to be coming up with brilliant or complicated plans. With stuff like the hydra and the wargs - I play them like the unintelligent beasts they are. So playing the battles "realistically" is another challenge, though it's a fun one.

evil-frosty
2008-12-26, 02:22 PM
if u want to stay inside the rules give him spell focus in the skewl he has the most spells in or in the one his most useful spells are in.
ya koth is dumb doesnt mean u have to play him that way, he is a bugbear after all

EDIT: u can play most everybody dumb and then when they get to like ulwai and the ghostlord they can be pleasantly surprised.

ericgrau
2008-12-27, 09:36 AM
But this brings up another issue that I've been having. These encounters become a lot more challenging when I run each monster as a veritable Sun Tzu, but that's not terribly realistic. I mean, Koth has an Int of 8 - he's not going to be coming up with brilliant or complicated plans. With stuff like the hydra and the wargs - I play them like the unintelligent beasts they are. So playing the battles "realistically" is another challenge, though it's a fun one.

I think this is a common misconception people have. Every monster in the MM has elaborate tactics, right down to int 2 wolves, and including dumb orcs and the like. And int 8 is just a little below average. Heck, 1/3 of your typical group might be int 8, and I don't mean the "special" guy. And since fighting is their life; i.e., what they think about, experienced and plan for; I'd put an int 8 warrior at least on par with the average int 10 player. Heck, even if you give an int 12 average on account of nerdom I think they'd still be that smart when it comes to battle tactics (other things not such much, but plz don't go overboard, it's just a -1). I'm tired of seeing people go over the top to play something as stereotypically dumb. When do you ever see that outside of cartoons?

Anyway I'm strongly considering running RHoD too, so it's nice to read another journal. You better believe I'll be reading through each encounter bit by bit. <subscribed>

kjones
2008-12-27, 11:05 AM
I think this is a common misconception people have. Every monster in the MM has elaborate tactics, right down to int 2 wolves, and including dumb orcs and the like. And int 8 is just a little below average. Heck, 1/3 of your typical group might be int 8, and I don't mean the "special" guy. And since fighting is their life; i.e., what they think about, experienced and plan for; I'd put an int 8 warrior at least on par with the average int 10 player. Heck, even if you give an int 12 average on account of nerdom I think they'd still be that smart when it comes to battle tactics (other things not such much, but plz don't go overboard, it's just a -1). I'm tired of seeing people go over the top to play something as stereotypically dumb. When do you ever see that outside of cartoons?

Anyway I'm strongly considering running RHoD too, so it's nice to read another journal. You better believe I'll be reading through each encounter bit by bit. <subscribed>

I agree with you to an extent. Wolves have elaborate tactics - but they're instinctual, and more importantly, inflexible. If a wolf goes up against a dedicated tripper build, someone he can't knock down, he'll keep trying. If the wolf was smarter, it would vary up its tactics, but wolves have animal intelligence. Regardless of the intricacies of their tactics, they aren't very adaptable.

Let's consider the hydra encounter. The "smartest" thing for the hydra to have done would have been to completely submerge itself in the water (that cover bonus would have made it very difficult to hit) and blast everyone in range with fire breath. If anyone made it into melee, it would have taken a 5-ft step back so that they would have to provoke again.

But hydras just aren't that smart. They're not going to optimize the use of their 10-ft reach, or squeeze every last point out of every last terrain modifier. They're going to bite things until they die, and breathe fire when they can get a few people in the blast, and if that's not working, well, clearly you're not biting hard enough.

I do agree with you regarding Koth, however. I wouldn't (and didn't) play him like a bumbling buffoon. If nothing else, he wouldn't have made it to 5th level if he didn't possess at least some degree of base cunning. But again, with Int 8, he's no hydra, but he's none too bright. Maybe he makes a mistake in spell placement, maybe he makes a tactical error that allows him to get cornered, maybe he puts his ranks into Bluff rather than Concentration. These are all perfectly reasonable things for someone with Int 8 to do.

The real challenge is balancing verisimilitude with challengingness (not a word). Obviously, if I play each NPC to the tactical hilt, encounters become more challenging; if I allow the NPCs to make foolish decisions, they become easier. If nothing else, it's a useful way to adjust difficulty on-the-fly. ("Koth panics, and accidentally catches himself in the blast of the fireball.")

Obviously, this can strain verisimilitude if the cleverness of your enemies scales to match the party, so be reasonable, and be consistent. Most of the time, the "best" choice isn't particularly complicated - foot soldiers are going to want to get into flanking without provoking AoO's, archers are going to take down the unarmored guys in the back, casters will target the guys in the front with stuff that requires Reflex and Will saves, and the guys in the back with stuff that requires Fortitude saves. This is just stuff that you would know if you lived in this world. If you didn't know it, you wouldn't have survived to this level.

kjones
2008-12-28, 01:29 PM
Another memorable session last night - the party made it to Skull Gorge Bridge.

The party in attendance:

Vesta, elven warlock. New character, closest thing they had to an arcane caster for this session, but performed admirably in that role, as he has tricked himself out with a wide array of wands and scrolls
Mantega Pantalones, human paladin
Bowen, human ranger
Luan, elven druid
Clutch, warforged fighter
Lilo, strongheart halfling swordsage (joined about halfway through the session)


Having just finished clearing out Vraath Keep in the previous session, here's what happened:

Since a few characters in attendance last time wouldn't be here this time, we agreed that those characters (Ervange the favored soul, Tyv the spellthief) would return to Drellin's Ferry to attempt to warn the townsfolk, with Koth in tow to add some veracity to their claims. At first, I was just going to let them make it back without incident, but if I can get the players together, I might retroactively throw an encounter their way on their return voyage. Of course, Koth will try to escape - the chaos of the upcoming evacuation should provide him with some opportunity, but I'll have to figure out a way to make an attempt without it seeming cheap.
The rest of the party rested in Vraath Keep, and set off north along the Dawn Way. When they found the forest giant marker on the road, both the druid and the ranger, who have both tricked out Knowledge: Nature for some reason, recognized it immediately, and decided to investigate.
The encounter with Old Warklegnaw was a lot of fun - I played him as a somewhat senile curmudgeon, but made it clear that he was not to be trifled with. I managed to play it "by the book" (that is, with Diplomacy checks) while still involving some good role-playing. They managed to convince him that they weren't a threat, and he was somewhat impressed that they'd taken care of the Keep (unfriendly to indifferent). They offered him the gauntlet (friendly), and then the druid surprised me by offering to cast remove disease after he complained about his red ache, which I ruled was enough to bring him up to helpful. The party was hoping that Old Warklegnaw would come help them destroy the bridge, but were disappointed to learn that it would be at least a week for him to go to the Wyrmsmoke Mountains, rally his friends, and return. Still, after the newly disease-free, spiked-gauntlet-wearing forest giant leapt to his feet and smashed a tree to splinters for the sheer joy of feeling healthy, everyone was pretty happy.
It took them another day to make it to the bridge, which they scouted out using the druid's avian form. (This is the last time I'm going to let them get away with this. Several hobgoblins escaped from the bridge battle, and by the time they make it to Rhest, word will have spread among the Horde to watch out for eagles...) I'm not sure why I didn't see this coming, but they immediately started planning ways to sneak up on the bridge and destroy it with magic without having to fight the defenders. Perfectly reasonable, but I wasn't expecting it at all.
Fortunately for fans of large-scale battles, the only applicable spells they had were Soften Earth and Stone and Stone Shape. They crafted a plan in which after nightfall, the druid (with Invisibility cast) would fly along the gorge and onto the center of the bridge, shift into human, cast Soften Earth and Stone (underneath the towers, since it doesn't affect worked stone), and fly away.
There were a few hitches to their plan. First, the spell wasn't quite as effective as they had hoped. Second, it started to rain, and the dragon's keen senses were able to detect the rain-outlined druid in the darkness. The acid-spattered druid managed to escape, but the party was more or less back to where they started.
They didn't think the bridge guards would fall for the same trick twice, so they went back to Plan B: Charge! The next morning (they decided against a nighttime assault, since hobgoblins, dragons, and hell hounds all have darkvision) they began sneaking towards the bridge and made it to within 70 feet of the watchtowers before they were spotted. Impressive, considering that most of them were making Hide checks untrained.
The fighter and the paladin moved to hold the bridge, and the hellhounds were dispatched almost instantly. The warlock took out one hobgoblin with a sleep scroll, and kept running around healing, buffing, and eldritch blasting (for some reason, the party was relying primarily on his wands for healing). The ranger hung back and fired at the dragon, while the druid went head-to-head with the hobgoblin in the other watchtower.
(Halfway through the combat, the swordsage player arrived. He spent several rounds running towards the battle, yelling "Guys, why did you leave me behind in the forest?", threw a Shadow Garrote at the hobgoblin sergeant, and was dropped into negatives by dragon breath the next round. Kind of an anticlimax.)
Most of the hobgoblins held back and used their bows, but the sergeant and two hobgoblins stormed the bridge. (Read my previous entry for the modifications I made to the sergeant.) The bottleneck held off the sergeant for around, but the sergeant dropped the fighter with Battle Leader's Charge. Meanwhile, Ozyrrandion the dragon is flying around, blasting as often as he can, and they're not hurting him that much - he's staying out of the range of eldritch blast, and his high AC is deterring the ranger. The next round, the paladin takes four arrows to the chest and drops to negatives. Even when the warlock dropped the sergeant, things were not looking good for our heroes.
Meanwhile, the druid, who has been locked in brutal single combat with a hobgoblin all this time, finally manages to kill him. He realizes that he'd better start casting some spells, so he drops a sleet storm on the remaining four hobgoblins and, unwittingly, Ozyrrandion (who has returned to his roost to heal, and who just drank his potion of invisibility... except now he's clearly outlined by the sleet!) That bought them the round they needed to recover and regroup. The druid followed up the sleet storm with Call Lightning, and I ruled that the sleet storm was sufficient to boost it from 3d6 to 3d10. He starts blasting away, and the tide turns. The dragon charged at the warlock, who survived the acid breath and returned fire with eldritch blast, the druid hits him with another bolt, and the ranger dropped him with a well-placed arrow.
So, the paladin, fighter, and swordsage were all unconscious, but nobody died (the warforged stabilized automatically, and the other two got lucky). After looting the bodies, they start hacking away at the bridge, unknowingly attacking the secret weak spot in the southeast corner[i]. The powerattacking warforged and the remaining uses of Call Lightning made short work of the bridge, which went crashing down into the gorge.
While the rest of the party rested, the druid, in eagle form, flew across and got a good look at the horde. Come morning, they started making their way back towards Drellin's Ferry, and when they arrived, they met with Winston, Soranna, and the others. By this point, it was around midnight - I wasn't planning to stop, but I suddenly began to feel somewhat under the weather (I had eaten a [i]lot of brownies) so we wrapped up for the evening.


So what happens next?

With the destruction of the bridge and the aid of the Twistusks, Drellin's Ferry has plenty of time (well, not really, but you know what I mean) to evacuate - the Horde won't arrive until Day 18. They've slowed them by an entire week! They returned to Drellin's Ferry at the end of Day 7 (left on day 2, got to the keep at the end of day 2, found the giants on day 3, got to the bridge on day 4, destroyed it on day 5, then two days returning... I know you don't care, gentle reader, but I was just making sure I had it straight) so I'll probably give them a day or two of downtime before I turn up the heat with the Goblin Raid and Chimera encounters. After that, and the meeting with the council, it's up to them. The fighter is keen on facing the horde - if he wants to, I'll let him.


Observations:

-Am I doing travel times right? They're already back in Drellin's Ferry, and it's only Day 8. They're moving at the speed of the slowest party member (20 ft), which is 16 miles per day. Granted, they're in the forest, but they're on a "road or trail", so that shouldn't matter. It's not a big problem - it just means that they'll have plenty of time to clear everyone out of Drellin's Ferry.

-I'm enjoying rolling randomly for weather, but I'm considering crafting a custom table to better model the climate of the Vale. It's not really arid, exactly, but otherwise I keep getting rain...

-The terrain around the Gorge isn't well described. There's some cover, since you can hide for your approach, but how much cover? The ranger kept trying to hide from the dragon in the undergrowth (which probably wouldn't have worked anyway with his Spot and Listen modifiers), you see.

-I think that I might be unintentionally telegraphing hints to my players. They remembered the gauntlet, and made the connection to Warklegnaw, and they found the secret weak point by sheer luck (granted, if you're attacking the bridge from the south, you've got a 50/50 chance). If they manage to evacuate Drellin's Ferry, they'll get maximum VPs for this chapter. They're doing well... too well. DUN DUN DUN

ericgrau
2008-12-28, 03:06 PM
Here ya go:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm#forestTerrain


Undergrowth

Vines, roots, and short bushes cover much of the ground in a forest. A space covered with light undergrowth costs 2 squares of movement to move into, and it provides concealment. Undergrowth increases the DC of Tumble and Move Silently checks by 2 because the leaves and branches get in the way. Heavy undergrowth costs 4 squares of movement to move into, and it provides concealment with a 30% miss chance (instead of the usual 20%). It increases the DC of Tumble and Move Silently checks by 5. Heavy undergrowth is easy to hide in, granting a +5 circumstance bonus on Hide checks. Running and charging are impossible. Squares with undergrowth are often clustered together. Undergrowth and trees aren’t mutually exclusive; it’s common for a 5-foot square to have both a tree and undergrowth.


And sneaking halves your speed again unless you take a -5. Maybe it'd help to do a made-up sketch of it on the map so PCs know where they can sneak. You could sketch tree trunks too (see same link).

Saph
2008-12-28, 05:08 PM
Heh, sounds like a lot of fun. Obviously worked out well.

I've been finding there's a huge difference between Medium-sized and Large-sized dragons. My party fought Ozyrrandion (Medium-sized) and survived the first time despite using less-than-effective tactics, but Regiarix, upgraded an age category, to Young Adult (Large) nearly TPKed them.

My party cured Warklegnaw with a remove disease as well, with the same results as you. :)

The big battles like Skull Gorge Bridge are definitely the highlight of Red Hand of Doom. With interesting terrain, an objective, and an assortment of monsters there's lots of good ingredients.

And yes, I think you're doing travel times right. If the party moves fast time isn't a problem - it's only an issue when they start saying "Oh, let's stop for the day, I've used two of my high-level spells."

- Saph

kjones
2009-01-03, 01:24 PM
Another exciting and entertaining session last night as the party finished Chapter I and started Chapter II. This session saw the campaign's first fatality as well, and any session where I kill a PC is a win in my book.

We had a full house in attendance - eight PCs. Once again, my brother helped alleviate the madness of the situation by co-DMing. Here's what we had:

From last session:
Vesta, elven warlock
Mantega Pantalones, human paladin
Clutch, warforged fighter
Bowen, human ranger
Luon, elven druid

Returning from previous sessions:
Tyv, human spellthief
Ervange, human favored soul

New this session:
Posse McDolphinLaser (yes, really), human wizard

I was a little worried about the wizard player, for several reasons. One, a full arcanist has a lot of potential for imbalance. Two, they take forever to roll. Three, the player (older brother of the spellthief player) is somewhat notorious for his short attention span, destructive tendencies, and disdain for structured (read: non-freeform) RPGs.
My fears proved unfounded. The wizard player chose well-balanced spells, finished fairly quickly, and roleplayed calmly, reasonably, and well. He was the driving force between the blockade assault - more on that in a bit.


I toughened up a few of the encounters to take the number of players into account. Here's the changes I made, lifted mostly from Saph:

In the Goblin Raid encounter, added an extra warg rider and an extra hell hound to the first wave, and an extra war adept to the second wave.

Changed around the spell selection for the war adepts - gave one fireball, the other slow, and gave them both acid arrow

Added a war adept to the blockade (didn't help)

Gave the chimera 20 additional hit points (didn't help)


At the end of the last session, the party destroyed Skull Gorge Bridge and returned to Drellin's Ferry in The events of the session:

The party spent a day resting, healing, shopping, and getting their items identified. That night, a raiding party attacked the west bank of the Elsir River. The party rolled out of their beds and set off on the ferry to fight off the threat.
The hell hounds dropped almost immediately, as they have for this entire campaign. The warg riders fared a little better, and tried to draw off and isolate individual PCs - they managed to isolate the paladin, who charged straight ahead, but with her high AC and the goblins' pitiful damage, she didn't notice.
Then the second wave showed up, and things turned south. One of the adepts caught half the party (and the surviving wargs) in a fireball, dropping the spellthief and badly wounding everyone else. The other caught most of the party with slow, though everyone saved except the paladin. The druid immobilized half the hobgoblins with a sleet storm, and the other half were distracted by an astonishingly effective summoned bombadier beetle, but it took a little while to recover from the first assault.
The first adept poked his head out of the storm and was creamed by readied actions. The second took his time buffing and summoned a howler to help him out, which did some damage to the fighter. By the time the storm dissipated, the favored soul and the spellthief were in position to attack the caster. Surrounded, he tried to escape, blasting the favored soul with a lesser electric orb before making his flying getaway.

"Ok, the orb hits you for 20 electric damage. What does that put you at?
"... -17. Can I change my energy resistance from cold to electric?"
"No."

They managed to incapacitate him with a magic missile as he tried to make his escape, but the damage was done - Ervange had fallen.

Then they raised him with the Staff of Life. Bit of an anticlimax, really.

The next morning, they met with the town leaders and had little difficulty in convincing them that evacuation would be the best option. (See below for my thoughts on this encounter.) Later that day, the chimera attacked the town - it was dead before it hit the ground. Stupid eight players and their action advantage. Furthermore, they received word from a Lion of Brindol of a blockade on the Rhest trail. Finally, they interrogated the captured adept and learned of a Horde base in the ruined city of Rhest.

The evacuation took several days, but by Day 13, the town was almost empty, so the party borrowed horses and set off towards the Blackfens. They decided that they could "safely" force-march their mounts for two hours a day to cover 40 miles per day, and so made it to the blockade after four days of hard travel.

The druid scouted the blockade in eagle form, but by now the Horde knows to look out for suspicious looking eagles, so he beat a hasty retreat. Rather than risking a frontal assault (that rabbit's dynamite!) they took a step back, and concocted a plan.

They waited until nightfall - the night was clear, and starlit. The favored soul circumvented the blockade, taking the long way around so he could be sure to make it by unobserved. He then cast ghost sound, mimicking the sound of an approaching unit on horseback. The rest of the party huddled close around the wizard, who cast invisibility sphere - the seven of them started making untrained Move Silently checks, while the hobgoblins, distracted, went over to the north side of the tower and peered out into the gloom.

The party made it to within 40 feet of the watchtower before their presence was detected, so they stopped for a little while - the hobgoblins, not seeing anything, went back to worrying about this approaching patrol from the north. They sent out four hobgoblins, who quickly spotted the favored soul, who started running away. The hobgoblins gave chase.

The invisible group was heard again, and the adept poked his head over the palisade, trying to aim a fireball by ear. That was the party's cue to attack.

The warforged bashed down the door, while the wizard flew up and fireballed the rooftop defenders into oblivion. The hobgoblin patrol that had been sent out heard the commotion, and started running back towards the watchtower, and the favored soul gave chase.

At this point, I started playing the Benny Hill theme - the encounter was over, save for the mopping up. That's where we wrapped up for the evening - next session will have the party venturing into the Blackfens.


Observations:

-Apparently, spellthieves lack proficiency with short swords - simple weapons only. WTF? I don't see any compelling reason not to give them the same proficiency list as rogues.

-The "convince the town council to evacuate" roleplaying encounter was clunky at best. The party had multiple prisoners (Koth, a War Adept) in Drellin's Ferry confess to the approaching horde. Iormel's arguments in the face of that evidence came off as silly. I could have just given them massive circumstance bonuses to their Diplomacy checks (they already had +8 from showing the map, fighting the raid, and bringing in Jorr) but at that point, the encounter becomes a formality. Furthermore, the module was ambiguous as to how the encounter is resolved. Do the party need to convince a majority? Unanimous consensus? Two-thirds? Just Norro Winston? I basically just gave this one to them, since in the face of the evidence at hand, anyone could see that attempting to stand and fight would be utter lunacy.

-The connection between Chapter I and Chapter II is tenuous at best. The only given hook is when the Lion of Brindol arrives to notify Winston about the road blocks to the north. However, why should the party care about some blockaded roads when the Red Hand is on its way? Winston and Sorrana talk about reinforcements from the north, but there aren't any. Furthermore, how is the party supposed to make the leap from the blockades to the Blackfens? Once they get there, they can find the razorfiends and the Tiri Kitor, but why would they go there in the first place? If they hadn't managed to capture and interrogate Koth, they would be at loose ends by that point.

-The chimera went down pathetically quickly. I guess that shows what an eight-player action advantage will do.

-The party is moving very quickly, force-marching their mounts across the vale. It's only Day 17 - the horde will invade Drellin's Ferry the next day. They have a whole month before the horde reaches Brindol. This made some of the encounters suggested for travelers crossing the vale a little silly, since the horde hadn't made it that far yet. I'll have to modify them if I run them later, since the party will be higher level.

-I keep trying to figure out ways to make battles against lots of mooks interesting. For example, my brother remembered that for warg riders, you can negate a ranged attack with a Ride check - this made them much more annoying. Cover helped the blockade defenders a little, but not much. By the time they get to higher levels, this will just get silly.

-Most of the party is only 6th level at this point - a few are still at 5th. Hopefully this will progress more quickly once the party size thins out a little.

-I'll probably only have time for one more session - two at most. I hope I can fit in the Battle of Rhest - I've modified it substantially (Regiarax is now a Young Adult, Saarvith is now 9th level).

-Are these posts tl;dr? I guess if they are, then you're not reading this question - I'll try to pare them down in the future.

Iku Rex
2009-01-03, 01:37 PM
-Are these posts tl;dr? I guess if they are, then you're not reading this question - I'll try to pare them down in the future.
I don't think they're too long.

BTW: Don't use the spoiler tags. It's just annoying. Why would I want to avoid reading about the campaign after opening a "Campaign Journal" thread?

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-03, 01:47 PM
No, no, please use spoiler tags. They make a big difference in readability. Helps break down the wall of text thing, and you can find what you're looking for much easier.

kjones
2009-01-03, 01:51 PM
No, no, please use spoiler tags. They make a big difference in readability. Helps break down the wall of text thing, and you can find what you're looking for much easier.

This is why I do it. It's easy enough to click them all open and read it as a wall-of-text, if that's what you want, but you can't take a wall-of-text and break it up into nice, easily manageable sections.

Saph
2009-01-03, 07:34 PM
The action advantage is a big deal. For my 7-player group I just got into the habit of doubling the numbers of the vanilla encounters. Two razorfiends instead of one, for example.

Yeah, the negotiation is kind of a foregone conclusion. Remember, though, that it takes a lot to convince an entire village to just up stakes and run - the PCs have seen the horde, but the people of Drellin's Ferry haven't. It makes sense for it to take a little time to sink in.

- Saph

kjones
2009-01-04, 01:30 AM
That will also help with the experience issue - more monsters means more levels.

Other stray observations:
-The ranger took Favored Enemy: Magical Beast as her first favored enemy. I don't remember why - the character is from an old campaign, but I don't remember facing any magical beasts there either. Since starting RHoD, it seems like every other monster is a magical beast. I'm sure it's just coincidence, but to wit, here's all the kinds of magical beasts they've faced thus far:

Wargs
Hydra
Chimera
Manticore
Hell Hounds
I mean, I think that's the entirety of that category or something. Here's all the monsters they've faced that aren't magical beasts:

Goblins
Hobgoblins
Bugbear
Minotaur
Dragon
Ogres
I don't mind giving the ranger her moment in the sun, but come on. And of course, her other favored enemy is Dragons...

-It seems a shame that the developers spent so much time statting out an encounter (the massacre at Drellin's Ferry) that they did not intend for you to run. I'm tempted to goad the next party into staying and fighting, just for my own edification.

-I'm working on my own random weather table for Elsir Vale, as the one in the DMG yields rain too frequently for the season. I'll post it here when I'm finished.

-Seriously, what's with all the magical beasts?

RTGoodman
2009-01-04, 02:26 AM
-The ranger took Favored Enemy: Magical Beast as her first favored enemy. I don't remember why - the character is from an old campaign, but I don't remember facing any magical beasts there either. Since starting RHoD, it seems like every other monster is a magical beast. I'm sure it's just coincidence, but to wit, here's all the kinds of magical beasts they've faced thus far:

Wargs
Hydra
Chimera
Manticore
Hell Hounds
I mean, I think that's the entirety of that category or something. Here's all the monsters they've faced that aren't magical beasts:

Goblins
Hobgoblins
Bugbear
Minotaur
Dragon
Ogres
I don't mind giving the ranger her moment in the sun, but come on. And of course, her other favored enemy is Dragons...

Hey, don't feel TOO bad - when I had a Ranger in RHoD, he had Dragons AND Goblins as Favored Enemies WITHOUT any foreknowledge of the campaign. :smallsigh: He was a new-ish player, though, and the only real "tank," though, so I just let him go with it.

And YES, please keep the spoilers - I use 'em too much myself, probably, but I like the organization they bring.

kjones
2009-01-10, 08:59 PM
The most recent session was also our last for this group, as I'll be going back to school soon. However, I'll be starting all over with a new group of five, all of whom are experienced roleplayers, and we'll most certainly be playing through the entirety of the module. This is also a group (in)famous for their knack for getting into and out of somewhat crazy situations, so who knows where they'll end up? Running the first two chapters gave me a much better sense of the module's strengths and weaknesses, so I'm really looking forward to it.

That will start in a week or two, so stay tuned. In the meantime, the party made it through the Battle of Rhest, and achieved victory in a most satisfactory fashion. In attendance:

Mantega Pantalones, human paladin
Vesta, elven warlock
Clutch, warforged fighter
Tyv, human spellthief
Bowen, human ranger
Luon, elven druid
Lilo, halfling swordsage
Ervange, human favored soul


Since this was another full house with eight players, I modified the encounters extensively, stolen from Saph:

Added another razorfiend to the first encounter in the swamp
Gave the ogres and the ettin in Rhest 2 levels of warrior
Made Regiarix a young adult
Made Saarvith two levels higher

I considered adding another razorfiend to the hatchery, but... I have a heart.


We started with the destruction of the garrison at the roadblock. Here's how it went down:

The party journeyed into the Blackfens - the druid started scouting ahead in eagle form, but couldn't keep it up once they reached the swamp. They slogged through until they were ambushed by two razorfiends - they put up a good fight, landing a few augmented criticals even, but were dispatched handily.
They found the treasure horde on the island and were eagerly looting (I changed around some of the items to make them more appropriate for the party - the spellthief used sickles, so the rapier became a sickle) when the elves arrived. Driving off the razorfiends and giving them the jade band was enough to make Killiar friendly, and he flew off with the promise of returning with enough owls for all eight players.
By the time they made it to Starsong Hill, it was nighttime. I kind of botched the encounter with Sellyria and Trellara, since it wasn't clear what she did and didn't know about the Horde and about Rhest, and really all I wanted was to get everyone to Rhest. I wish I had spent more time developing the elves, but I wasn't selling it and the players weren't buying it.
It was still fun, though - they spent the morning buying, selling, and trading with the elves, and the funeral was amusing. I described the song being led by Trellara, and we started arguing which modeled it better - at first, we were considering Enya and tracks from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, but it quickly broke down into discussion and playing of "Starlight" by Muse, "The Final Countdown", and "Yakety Sax".
Anyway, the players weren't picking up my hints that they could try to perform at the funeral, but the warforged opened it up by rolling a natural 1 on a Perform (Breakdance) check, and then everyone wanted to try, with some success.
The next morning, they set off to the ruins of Rhest, borrowing boats from the elves. They slaughtered a manticore in a random encounter and made it to the edge of the lake. They spotted the lizardfolk huts and were immediately very, very frightened. They spent a long, long time trying to figure out how they could sneak into one of the lizardfolk huts without alerting the lizardfolk - a reasonable concern, but as they were doing this, events were playing out on the lake. They took advantage of the departure of one group of lizardfolk to infiltrate their hut.
They then started arguing about what they wanted to do about the lizardfolk. After they realized that Regiarax had killed two of the lizardfolk that had gone to talk to him, they hit upon the idea of negotiating with the lizardfolk to rise up against their masters. (They were acting under the assumption that all the lizardfolk were working together.) A good idea, but most negotiations don't start with breaking and entering with weapons drawn - the lizardfolk, upon returning, were not conducive to negotiating.
They killed two of them easily (the warforged hid underneath the water, which is just awesome) and the other two surrendered. They interrogated them, learned of the situation in the town hall, and let them go.
They abandoned their initial plan of waiting until nightfall, and came up with a much cleverer one. They would use the lizardfolk rafts to approach the town hall, casting Silent Image to create the illusion of lizardfolk riding the rafts, and pretending to be prisoners of the lizardfolk. This allowed them to get up to the town hall undetected, although there were a few tense moments when the hobgoblins in the bell tower hailed them in Common. The lizardfolk only spoke Draconic, and so wouldn't have replied, but the party didn't know this - one of them quietly cast Ghost sound to create the illusion of grunting, growling responses, and the hobgoblins let them pass without incident.
The ogres on the boardwalk figured it out pretty quickly, though, and one ran off to warn the others. They dropped the other within a round - so much for those warrior levels - and then charged up the stairs, dispatching the ogres up there within a few rounds, but not before the warlock cast a scroll of Fly on the paladin's mount - aerial charges were a serious source of damage in this battle.
Unbeknownst to them, the ogre that escaped managed to warn the rest of the defenders of the keep, who readied themselves for battle - Saarvith mounted Regiarix, and they cast some buffs.
A few of them, including the Druid's summoned bear, ran down the stairs and into the ettin. A round later, the mindbender emerged and tried to cast Suggestion on the fighter, to no avail.
They managed to surround the ettin and drop him (so much for those warrior levels) pretty quickly, but not before the mindbender successfully Dominated the fighter and sent him off to the hatchery to get "reinforcements" (thank you, Saph). They charged into the room and cornered the mindbender just as Saarvith and Regiarix emerged. The mindbender tried to cast Invisibility and escape, but the summoned bear (who somehow survived this whole battle) sniffed him out, and they slaughtered him. However, Regiarix and Saarvith started dealing out serious damage - when people fled to the rooftop, they followed suit.
Meanwhile, the warforged found the hatchery - he knocked on the door and shouted "Anyone home?" The razorfiend responded by breaking down the door and tearing into him, but then the mindbender died and the domination broke. The warforged fled back to the town hall rather than fight a razorfiend one-on-one.
The party tried to kill Regiarix, but wasn't getting through his 28 AC, so they started focusing on Saarvith, which worked a whole lot better. The warforged returned, with the razorfiend in hot pursuit, so the spellthief, who had stolen Charm Monster from the mindbender, used it on the razorfiend, who failed his save. Having no particular loyalty to Saarvith, he started attacking him, and this probably turned the tide of battle.
At this point, Regiarix was still doing fine, but Saarvith was hurting - he fled, drank a potion, took another blast from Eldritch Spear, and fled for good. The party used the razorfiend to swim over and kill the hobgoblins in the bell tower while they looted - they also used him to search for Regiarax's horde, and found the phylactery.

I will really try to make these shorter in the future, so thank you for slogging through.


Observations:

-The battle got pretty crowded with eight people. The battlefield played out nicely, though - people fought the dragon on the rooftop, then ran downstairs to heal up before charging back up. A Dispel Magic would have really helped them, though.

-I didn't forget to get the bladebearer from the bell tower involved in the battle, but I did forget about the lizardmen. By the time they showed up, however, they would have just been a nuisance.

-Again, the diplomacy rules as written frequently came off as awkward here. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me for the elves to be unfriendly towards a group of people who clearly are interested in helping them just because of some bad die rolls. I winged a lot of this stuff, and will probably continue to do so.

- This session highlighted the tenuousness between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. I was discussing this in a postmortem with one of the players, who said that after the evacuation of Drellin's Ferry, she would have preferred to wage guerrilla warfare on the horde, but "you obviously wanted us to go north". Furthermore, the connection between destroying the blockades and entering the Blackfens is also a little tenuous - why would the party just wander into the Blackfens? I was trying to come up with ideas as to why clearing the blockades and destroying the outpost at Rhest is more important to the protection of the Vale than trying to confront the Horde. I had two ideas. The first is that there is the Vale's only chance for outside help is the Kingdom of Foobar to the north, and they can't send an envoy when the blockades still stand and the outpost threatens the road. The second is that the magical version of the Wells Fargo Wagon is scheduled to come down from the north, loaded down with treasure and magic items. If the players don't destroy the blockade and the outpost, all that stuff will fall into the hands of the Horde, making them that much stronger. If they do, those items will be available for sale in Brindol later on. Either way, these provide strong motivation to go up to the Blackfens.

-What is travel supposed to be like in the Blackfens before they find the elves? There's a trail on the map, but it kind of trails off (no pun intended). That's where I had the party encounter the razorfiends, so it doesn't really matter, but is there really supposed to be a road there? When I do this next time, I'll have a lot more fun with the terrain.

-Where are they supposed to arrive at the lake from? If they're coming up the stream, it makes sense that it would be from the estuary to the southwest, but it's not specified. I guess it doesn't matter all that much.

-I think I screwed up the mounted combat rules for Saarvith and Regiarix - he should have been able to negate some of the ranged attacks against Regiarix, and he should have been out of reach of most melee attacks.


All in all, a satisfying mini-campaign. We'll see how it goes when I have to do it "for real" with my friends at school.

EDIT: Of course, take a wild guess as to the type of the Razorfiends. That's right, more goddamn magical beasts. At that point, I just buried my head and my hands and damn near hung up my screen for good.

Matthew
2009-01-11, 12:31 PM
Sounds like it all went well! Hopefully, even after you run this again for folks at school, you'lll be able to finish things off with your home group during the next holiday (or the holiday after that, given that Easter is really better spent revising).

The "Kingdom of Foobar?" Really? Heh, heh. Somebody at WotC still has a sense of humour it seems. :smallbiggrin:

The questions you are positing are interesting to me, as I assumed there would be a lot more hand holding in the Red Hand of Doom than there appears to be plotwise. These are definitely areas where you are going to have to "fill in the blanks", which potentially makes them more pliable to your "vision" for the module.

Interesting stuff, anyway. I look forward to reading about your second run through.

Saph
2009-01-11, 12:54 PM
I think you're right to point out the link between Chapter 1 and 2 as one of the weak points in the narrative. The clearest hint the PCs get is the final conversation with Norro Winston, but it's a bit heavy-handed - as your player said, it is a bit of a case of the GM telling you where to go.

Sounds like you did a good job running the battle - eight players is a lot to deal with. You must have done a pretty long session to get all that in!

And heh, yeah. I didn't notice, but this campaign is magical beast city. :)

- Saph

Keld Denar
2009-01-11, 03:02 PM
Mantega Pantalones, human paladin


When I first saw this, I miss-read it as Magenta Pantalones...

*snicker* Sir Purple Pants! *lulz*

Sorry, had to...

kjones
2009-01-11, 03:42 PM
When I first saw this, I miss-read it as Magenta Pantalones...

*snicker* Sir Purple Pants! *lulz*

Sorry, had to...

It's even worse than that. These players enjoy generating character names by taking a few words and translating them into various languages using Google until they come up with something cool. So the druid, "Luan Phien", is Vietnamese for "alternate" or something like that, because he started out as the spellthief player's second character. In that same vein, "Tyv Taika" is Norwegian (?) for "spell thief", and "Lilo" (can't remember his full name) the swordsage was generated in a similar fashion.

"Mantega Pantalones" is Portuguese (?) for "Butter pants".



The "Kingdom of Foobar?" Really? Heh, heh. Somebody at WotC still has a sense of humour it seems.

The questions you are positing are interesting to me, as I assumed there would be a lot more hand holding in the Red Hand of Doom than there appears to be plotwise. These are definitely areas where you are going to have to "fill in the blanks", which potentially makes them more pliable to your "vision" for the module.


The Kingdom of Foobar is my name, not Wizards'. :smalltongue: Unfortunately, I can't use it, because 3 out of 5 of my players are Computer Science students, and I would never catch the end of it...

Also unfortunately, I probably won't finish running this campaign for that first group - I'll probably be quite sick of it by the time I finish it for my school chums. Furthermore, the players wanted to know what happened next, and figuring that I wouldn't have much of a chance to finish playing with them, I gave them some spoilers...

Looking back, I probably shouldn't have, but maybe they'll forget all that stuff. And I hung on to all the character sheets, of course.



I think you're right to point out the link between Chapter 1 and 2 as one of the weak points in the narrative. The clearest hint the PCs get is the final conversation with Norro Winston, but it's a bit heavy-handed - as your player said, it is a bit of a case of the GM telling you where to go.

Sounds like you did a good job running the battle - eight players is a lot to deal with. You must have done a pretty long session to get all that in!

And heh, yeah. I didn't notice, but this campaign is magical beast city. :)


I don't mind "filling in the blanks" left by the module. Hell, I enjoy it. But I'm glad that I had the opportunity to run through this and figure out where exactly those blanks are. It's strange, because the designers mention that your players might have trouble figuring out that they're supposed to go to the Thornwastes after finding the phylactery, but they just assume that you'll want to go running into the Blackfens.

In that same conversation with the ranger player, we discussed at length the implications of waging guerrilla warfare against the Horde. There's little doubt in my mind that a clever, careful group of players could do significant damage to the Horde, and it's to the credit of the designers that they have detailed the challenges one would have to overcome in order to assassinate the chief warlord.

There are a few problems with this, however. The module specifies that if the warlord is killed, another will rise to take his place, which is reasonable - but how many lower-level commanders would one have to kill in order to seriously damage the organizational structure of the horde? How much would it take to demoralize them?

These can be hand-waved away by saying that the horde is driven by religious fanaticism and thus any such efforts would only bolster their resolve, but I think that's a bit of a cop-out. In any event, it's not something that I want to have to deal with - I think I'm best off making it clear that confronting the horde head-on is a Bad Idea (TM), even if it isn't.

As for the magical beasts... It became something of an in-joke with our group. "What's that? Is it a magical beast?", etc. The problem was that the ranger player was my lady friend, and everyone assumed that I was making it up to help out her character. In fact, the opposite was true - we realized halfway through that she should have been dealing +4 to damage, not +2.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this already, but the upcoming group consists of:

Gale, Desert Elf Scout 3/Ranger 2, focused on archery
Sarth, Human Favored Soul 5, focused on buffing and healing
Cameron Arillir, Human Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 2, focused on the Daring Outlaw feat
Ross Hammond, Human Paladin Variant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33551) 5, focused on piety, hitting stuff with swords, and ridiculous AC
Imsril, Human Wizard 5, focused on being Batman.

Needless to say, I'll be modifying the encounters extensively. I think that these two groups might be comparable in power - 8 > 5, but these guys know how to play, and they're starting with full WBL.

Matthew
2009-01-11, 04:24 PM
The Kingdom of Foobar is my name, not Wizards'. :smalltongue: Unfortunately, I can't use it, because 3 out of 5 of my players are Computer Science students, and I would never catch the end of it...

Oh well.



Also unfortunately, I probably won't finish running this campaign for that first group - I'll probably be quite sick of it by the time I finish it for my school chums. Furthermore, the players wanted to know what happened next, and figuring that I wouldn't have much of a chance to finish playing with them, I gave them some spoilers...

Looking back, I probably shouldn't have, but maybe they'll forget all that stuff. And I hung on to all the character sheets, of course.

A pity. I have done something similar before. Better in the long run to keep your cards close to your chest, I have since found.



I don't mind "filling in the blanks" left by the module. Hell, I enjoy it. But I'm glad that I had the opportunity to run through this and figure out where exactly those blanks are. It's strange, because the designers mention that your players might have trouble figuring out that they're supposed to go to the Thornwastes after finding the phylactery, but they just assume that you'll want to go running into the Blackfens.

Good. Probably just an editing issue.



In that same conversation with the ranger player, we discussed at length the implications of waging guerrilla warfare against the Horde. There's little doubt in my mind that a clever, careful group of players could do significant damage to the Horde, and it's to the credit of the designers that they have detailed the challenges one would have to overcome in order to assassinate the chief warlord.

There are a few problems with this, however. The module specifies that if the warlord is killed, another will rise to take his place, which is reasonable - but how many lower-level commanders would one have to kill in order to seriously damage the organizational structure of the horde? How much would it take to demoralize them?

These can be hand-waved away by saying that the horde is driven by religious fanaticism and thus any such efforts would only bolster their resolve, but I think that's a bit of a cop-out. In any event, it's not something that I want to have to deal with - I think I'm best off making it clear that confronting the horde head-on is a Bad Idea (TM), even if it isn't.

An interesting proposition. You could probably draw up a roster or something if it came to it. Maybe there is some advice to be taken from Heroes of Battle or a third party resource, such as Malhavoc Press' Cry Havoc.

evil-frosty
2009-01-11, 05:24 PM
Let me guess the rangers favored enemy in the group you will be running it for later on, its Magical Beast.

Also on a side note looking it up the hell hound is a outsider not a magical beast. Unless if wizards reprint the hell hound and changed it, but I don't think that they did.

kjones
2009-01-12, 12:07 AM
Let me guess the rangers favored enemy in the group you will be running it for later on, its Magical Beast.

Also on a side note looking it up the hell hound is a outsider not a magical beast. Unless if wizards reprint the hell hound and changed it, but I don't think that they did.

You are correct - don't know how I misread that one.

The new ranger's favored enemy is Undead, because Swift Hunter lets you add Skirmish damage to your favored enemies even if such enemies would normally be immune to that damage. Pretty cool, actually.

kjones
2009-01-21, 01:06 PM
We've scheduled the first session for next Sunday, and we're all pretty excited. Everybody has been working hard on their characters, and they've come out pretty well. (They're stored online, so once I get the players to make them public, I can provide links.)

Here's the party, along with some initial observations about each one.


Imsril, human Wizard 5. Fled the wealth and prosperity of his father's home to study magic in Dennovar against his father's wishes, but returned home upon the death of his mother. Convinced of foul play, he investigated, and eventually avenged her death. Now, he's a little unsure of what to do with himself.
Strengths: He's a full wizard. Do the math. Furthermore, the player knows how to play - he's taken a Batman-like selection of spells, complemented with a buttload of scrolls and wands.
Weaknesses: The traditional ones. Squishy (11 AC, 18 HP), limited spells/day, etc. If you're Batman, these aren't supposed to matter, but I've found that these things often don't work out in practice the way they do in forum arguments...

Ross Hammond, human variant paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33551) 5, with the Honor and Humility mantles. A humble servant of Heironius (sp), he was sentenced to serve as a bodyguard to Imsril to atone for violation of his Humility mantle. (Imsril's father pulled some strings.) Not the brightest crayon in the drawer, but unflinchingly loyal to his god and to his friends.
Strengths: Powerful, powerful melee character. His mantles give him incredible AC and AB, and they're a boon to the party as well.
Weaknesses: Swapping out spells for feats (Holy Warrior, CCham) makes him a bit of a one-trick pony - I don't even think he has a ranged weapon. I expect the player to do a good job of playing an 8 Int, 8 Wis character.

Gale, desert elf Scout 3/Ranger 2. Fleeing an ugly past from lands far outside the Vale, he and Cameron (below) have been partners in crime for years. Quiet and taciturn, he's generally the more level-headed of the pair. I'm not entirely sure how he and Cameron fit into the rest of the party, but I'm pretty sure they've worked out a reason.
Strengths: Good skills, only real ranged combatant in the group. Swift Hunter is the feat that ties the build together, and it's pretty cool (once he takes it at 6th level, that is).
Weaknesses: Piddling damage output (8 Strength?!?), generally limited to single attacks until he can pick up Greater Manyshot (not for a while), abysmal will save. I'm hoping to have fun with that when the mindbenders show up.

Cameron Irillir, human Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 2. Also fleeing an ugly past, the other half of a "dynamic duo" with Gale. (I promise the stories aren't actually as cliche as they sound - I'm not doing them justice.) She and Gale have been pulling heists all over the place for some time - it's possible that this will catch up to them at some point.
Strengths: A well-built combat rogue (taking Daring Outlaw at 6th level). Powerful damage-dealer with Craven and Two-Weapon Fighting.
Weaknesses: None other than the normal ones from being a rogue (bit of a glass cannon), though I might have her crimes catch up to her...

Sarth, human Favored Soul of Fharlangan (sp) 5. A wanderer of the Vale who somehow got mixed up with the rest of this bunch (again, there is a reason IIRC...). Cares deeply about the safety and stability of the Vale, and would do anything to protect it.
Strengths: Good spell selection (read: not all healing), decent melee combatant, ranks in Diplomacy.
Weaknesses: MAD of Favored Souls means his Str and Con aren't really good enough for being a full-on melee-er. Low save DCs for his spells that require saves. Weapon Focus: Quarterstaff. Not as closely tied into the party as the rest of them.


We're open to suggestions regarding the characters, since character building is something of a collective blind spot. And I'm open to suggestions for interesting party dynamics that I could create - none of them are evil, per se, but Imsril, Gale, and Cameron are all out for number one. :smalltongue:

I've scheduled a good amount of time, so hopefully we'll get up to the battle of Vraath Keep, and maybe even through it! (That's optimistic, but I'm optimistic.) We're all seasoned gamers, everyone knows how to play, most are good role-players, none are munchkins, we're all good friends, and we've got a fantastic module to play.

I can't wait.

Fax Celestis
2009-01-21, 01:21 PM
I love hearing about my paladin in use. Tell me how it goes.

kjones
2009-01-23, 12:04 AM
Got this in the mail the other day:


http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jkeller/despair.jpg


Can't wait. The maps are fantastic - I just wish there were more of them. (I might scavenge some of the maps from Keep on the Shadowfell, but some of the players in this game have played that module, so I would be subjected to ridicule.)

EDIT: Some thoughts.
I think the group has reason enough to stay together in its own right, so given that, I've decided to give each player an individual hook for Drellin's Ferry.

Ross, the paladin, was awoken from a dream by vivid visions of a horde overtaking Drellin's Ferry, followed by a clawed red hand coming down from the sky and tearing the Vale off the surface of the Earth. Recognizing this as a sign from his god, he decided to set off to the West.

Imsril, the wizard, avenged the death of his mother some time ago, but heard tell of an old mentor of hers (Sertieren the Wise) who lives in Drellin's Ferry, and he wishes to hear what he remembers about her. Besides, his bodyguard and friend Ross seems insistent on traveling there for some reason, and he could only get into trouble if he went off on his own.

Gale the ranger/scout and Cameron the rogue/swashbuckler have heard rumors of a great treasure hidden beneath the ruins of Vraath Keep, and are itching to seek it out for themselves.

Sarth, the favored soul, has heard rumors of hobgoblin raiding parties threatening the Dawn Way, and seeks to make the roads safe once again.

I made extensive modifications to many encounters the last time I ran this, but I think for now I'll try to leave it as-is. If they're having an easy time of it, it will be obvious soon enough.

There are a few ideas I have for the first couple of sessions.

-Once they return with news of the Horde, they'll start hearing rumors about a spy in Drellin's Ferry. Jarett Nurth, servant of Erythnul, will try to befriend the party, then stab them in the back during one of the encounters (Goblin Raid, Chimera Attack) that take place in town.

-Norro Winston seems like the kind of person who might fall hopelessly in love with Cameron. Likewise with Captain Soranna and Ross, or perhaps Gale.

-Last time I made the hydra into a pyrohydra. This was so much fun that I might do it again... trying not to TPK, trying not to TPK

One other thing that I noticed were some parallels to Babylon 5. There are thematic comparisons, but the names of the seasons work well as the titles of chapters. Consider:

Chapter 1: Signs and Portents (The Witchwood)
Chapter 2: The Coming of Shadows (The Ruins of Rhest)
Chapter 3: Point of No Return (The Ghostlord's Lair)
Chapter 4: No Surrender, No Retreat (Enemy at the Gates)
Chapter 5: Wheel of Fire (The Fane of Tiamat)

I think this is how I'll be referring to them in my head from now on.

kjones
2009-01-25, 11:05 PM
And we've begun. The first session of Red Hand of Doom, CMU Chapter, got us off to an interesting start.

The party:
Gale, elven ranger/scout, focused on ranged combat, quiet but fiercely loyal to Cameron. Also, very Chaotic Neutral - not in the sense of "lunatic" but in the sense of "anarchist". Chaotic Good without the good.

Cameron, human swashbuckler/rogue, focused on two-weapon fighting. Brash, daring, and fascinated by swordplay - but a little scared of actual combat. Often relies on Gale to get her out of trouble.

Imsril, human wizard. Looking for purpose in his life after avenging the death of his mother, and sticks around close to Ross for protection and companionship.

Ross, human paladin and humble servant of Heironeous. Big, tough, charismatic, but also kind of dumb. Considers protecting Imsril to be his sworn duty.

Sarth, human favored soul of Fharlanghn. A traveler of the world, and a natural mediator.

The characters are hosted online - I'll try to post links next time.


I'm very concerned about balance for this campaign (more on that later) since these players know how to build characters. However, for the first session I didn't change anything. This worked out all right, but I'll probably be boosting the difficulty somewhat in upcoming encounters, if only because the party has five characters, one of whom is a full wizard.

The story so far:
The party was on the road to Drellin's Ferry, five miles out of town, for the reasons enumerated in my previous post, when they waltzed right into the middle of the hobgoblin ambush. The hobgoblin mooks were surprisingly effective, dealing quite a bit of damage to Imsril and Gale (landing a critical!). The hobgoblin cleric made good use of his spells, summoning a hell hound to wreak havoc and spiritual weapon-ing Imsril pretty hard.

Most of the party ran off to one side of the road or the other to deal with the mooks, and Imsril managed to web both hell hounds and two hobgoblins (the hell hounds burned themselves free eventually, but burned the hobgoblins to death in the process), slowing the assault. Sarth managed to get himself surrounded by mooks and the Bladebearer, but Ross fought his way over to him, and Imsril cast glitterdust - blinding the bladebearer, another hobgoblin, and Sarth.

Around this point, the hell hounds broke free, and the three of them started going to town on Ross, who was holding the road. The cleric (who had run out of spells) advanced, but Imsril had cast see invisibility and blasted him with a magic missile, and Cameron made short work of both him and the blinded bladebearer. (Say that five times fast!)

The reinforcements arrived, but Sarth aimed a sound burst by ear - that didn't quite finish them off, so he followed up with another one. Ross dispatched the hell hounds, and the surviving hobgoblins fled - to be chased down and killed by Gale and Sarth.

They stabilized the dying cleric and intended to interrogate him, but when Ross failed his Intimidate check (even after being enlarged by Imsril), Gale lost patience and put an arrow through his skull. They'll probably come to regret this - at this point, they're flying blind.

They made it the rest of the way to Drellin's Ferry and met with Norro Winston and Captain Sorrana at the Old Bridge Inn. (Or at least some of them did - Imsril and Cameron were hard at work trying to cheat at Three Dragon Ante. Turns out they didn't need to - Imsril won 2gp by having his hawk Nymeria watch the red dragon card like, well, a hawk.) They agreed to help root out the source of the hobgoblins, but asked for half the payment in advance. I was surprised that they didn't just ask for more money, but Winston agreed.

Sarth met Delora Zann at the bar and, after discussing the life of an adventurer, tried to woo her back up to his room - he rolled well on Diplomacy, but some things should not be left to a flat Diplomacy roll. The player has mentioned that he plans to make a habit of this, so I'll have to be sure to have this come back to bite him. (Miha Serani, perhaps?)

After buying some arms and magic items, they paid Jarett Nurth, servant of Erythnul, a visit at the general store for supplies. She gave them free "healing potions" as a token of her gratitude for helping the town - I'm thinking lich dust? Dark reaver powder? Terinav root? So many possibilities...

They set out along the Witch Trail (under the reasonable assumption that the hobgoblins had staked out the Dawn Way) and hacked and slashed their way through a giant stag beetle (I was very disappointed when I realized that high numbers on the random encounter table correspond to low ELs, rather than high ones) without much trouble. They arrived at Jorr's cabin by nightfall, after some amusing interludes crossing small streams in heavy armor. When the dogs emerged, Gale tried to sooth them with Wild Empathy, to no avail - but they weren't foolish enough to attack, and managed to enlist Jorr's aid, who told them the story of Vraath Keep. (I had to fudge a little here - none of them really knew that they were supposed to be going there. They were considering heading to Skull Gorge - I had to steer them in the right direction.)

They stayed overnight at Jorr's cabin, and headed north along the Dawn Way at sunrise. They spotted the hydra, but unlike my previous party, stayed on the causeway, at which point the hydra emerged and attacked. He dealt some serious damage, and the party didn't have a whole lot of ranged weaponry to counteract his reach (Gale, and some of Imsril's spells), but Imsril made everyone's jobs much easier with ray of exhaustion, ray of enfeeblement, and glitterdust. Fortunately, glitterdust wasn't a complete encounter-ender, since the hydra had scent - but the paladin charged into the swamp, and the hydra was having a little trouble hitting AC 26 with a 50% miss chance while exhausted and enfeebled. They found the treasure in the wagon, and we wrapped up for the night.


Observations:
-I'm a little disappointed in my players' role-playing. New characters, new campaign, and three of them (Imsril, Gale, maybe Cameron) are playing Jerk Asses. Imsril "accidentally" caught Sarth with glitterdust, Gale killed the cleric when interrogation wasn't going smoothly, Gale and Cameron tried to hide the gold in the farmhouse from the rest of the party... When I told Gale of the bodies in the farmhouse, his response was, "Do they have anything good?". Hopefully, they'll tone it down a little bit once the seriousness of the situation is impressed upon them, but it's a little annoying right now.

-Additionally, this is a party of characters who do not necessarily trust each other or get along with each other. Again, it's interesting, but if they keep it up, it will get irritating - it will be hard to justify them sticking together as a party.

-Finally, their bloodthirstiness is a little disturbing. Chasing down the fleeing hobgoblins? Killing the prisoner? I guess it's in character...

-Still, I'm glad that they're role-playing. The conversations in the Old Bridge Inn were a lot of fun.

-Imsril has 5 ranks in Profession: Gambler - three guesses as to why, and the first two don't count. Still, I'm glad that he's actually using them to gamble, rather than just seeing it as a meaningless prerequisite hurdle to overcome.

-Wizards with broad spell selections are powerful. Very, very powerful. I knew this to be the case in theory, but I've never seen it played out in practice like this. Imsril nearly shut down two encounters by himself with web and glitterdust, and to a lesser extend with ray of enfeeblement and ray of exhaustion. I'll have to be careful in the future about how I handle this, but one obvious thing is that single-enemy battles will often hinge on the outcome of a single save. Fortunately, there aren't all that many of these. (The hydra, the greenspawn razorfiend... none others come to mind.) Additionally, we haven't been fighting many encounters per day yet, so once we do, he'll start feeling it. He has scrolls and wands, but that's not quite the same. And this is not a module where a party can reliably stop for 24 hours so the wizard can change spells. Do that too many times, and the horde will be upon Brindol.


So what does the future hold? I'll probably be boosting the encounter difficulties significantly from here on out - I'm thinking of making Ozyrrandion large, and I'll probably give the minotaur at Vraath's Keep class levels. They want to play hardball? Fine. We'll play hardball.

But seriously, the balance thing isn't that big of an issue - so far, everybody's having fun, and if the wizard manages to end encounters quickly with judicious spell use... well, he'll get his soon enough. I'd really like to have a spell duel between him and a Kulkor Zhul War Adept, where Imsril keeps casting all these clever, well-chosen spells, and the hobgoblin just blasts him over and over again.

The next session will be next Saturday - depending on how ambitious we are, we might get all the way through Skull Gorge Bridge! I may try to get access to a nice printer and print out some cool tiles for the bridge, and I'll definitely be changing treasure around as well, so stay tuned.

Saph
2009-01-26, 09:08 AM
Observations:
-I'm a little disappointed in my players' role-playing. New characters, new campaign, and three of them (Imsril, Gale, maybe Cameron) are playing Jerk Asses. Imsril "accidentally" caught Sarth with glitterdust, Gale killed the cleric when interrogation wasn't going smoothly, Gale and Cameron tried to hide the gold in the farmhouse from the rest of the party... When I told Gale of the bodies in the farmhouse, his response was, "Do they have anything good?". Hopefully, they'll tone it down a little bit once the seriousness of the situation is impressed upon them, but it's a little annoying right now.

-Additionally, this is a party of characters who do not necessarily trust each other or get along with each other. Again, it's interesting, but if they keep it up, it will get irritating - it will be hard to justify them sticking together as a party.

Yeah, this could be a bit of an issue. I've had this show up in the past, and I've found that the best solution is usually to bring it up and let the players solve it. E.g.: "This campaign's going to involve a lot of fighting, and it'll be dangerous. Your characters will need a motivation to fight against steep odds, and a reason to stick together. How you do that is up to you, so work it out between yourselves."


-Imsril has 5 ranks in Profession: Gambler - three guesses as to why, and the first two don't count. Still, I'm glad that he's actually using them to gamble, rather than just seeing it as a meaningless prerequisite hurdle to overcome.

Heh. Well, it's not brokenly overpowered, and as long as he's actually making an effort to roleplay it it's probably a good thing. :)


-Wizards with broad spell selections are powerful. Very, very powerful. I knew this to be the case in theory, but I've never seen it played out in practice like this. Imsril nearly shut down two encounters by himself with web and glitterdust, and to a lesser extend with ray of enfeeblement and ray of exhaustion. I'll have to be careful in the future about how I handle this, but one obvious thing is that single-enemy battles will often hinge on the outcome of a single save. Fortunately, there aren't all that many of these. (The hydra, the greenspawn razorfiend... none others come to mind.) Additionally, we haven't been fighting many encounters per day yet, so once we do, he'll start feeling it.

*nods* This is an issue, yeah, and it's one that requires a bit of work. The real issue isn't so much with spellcasters as it is with varying optimisation levels - a pouncing melee attacker who does 80 damage on a charge at level 6 is worse if anything. Wizards are harder to limit, though.

Advice for limiting arcane casters

Personally, I make it a general rule that no major enemy (chapter boss or sub-boss) should be vulnerable to being killed or crippled by a single spell. This is both a game balance decision and a matter of in-game logic. If the BBEG can be taken out so easily, how has he survived this long in the first place? Some aspiring Red Hand subordinate would have knocked him off and replaced him long ago. It's fine for the wizard to one-shot a random encounter, bodyguard, or mook, but having him take out a creature that's supposed to be a threat to the whole party is extremely lame. So how do you deal with this?

First off, every Wyrmlord and dragon should have very high saves - enough that they're succeeding against an average effect 75% of the time. Every dragon should have the Awaken Spell Resistance feat, and they can use items like potions of heroism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heroism.htm) to boost their saves (and attacks!) further. As for no-save spells like ray of enfeeblement and ray of exhaustion, have the Wyrmlord and dragons all carry a potion of lesser restoration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/restorationLesser.htm) to eliminate both the fatigue and the ability penalty. (I personally hate ability penalty spells since they're so much extra bookkeeping, and if players don't use them against the monsters I don't have the monsters use them against the players.)

If you can't be bothered with all this work just say that any designated 'boss monster' auto-passes two saves per encounter. Effectively it's the same result as loading him up with feats and special abilities, it's just less work.


So what does the future hold? I'll probably be boosting the encounter difficulties significantly from here on out - I'm thinking of making Ozyrrandion large, and I'll probably give the minotaur at Vraath's Keep class levels. They want to play hardball? Fine. We'll play hardball.

But seriously, the balance thing isn't that big of an issue - so far, everybody's having fun, and if the wizard manages to end encounters quickly with judicious spell use... well, he'll get his soon enough. I'd really like to have a spell duel between him and a Kulkor Zhul War Adept, where Imsril keeps casting all these clever, well-chosen spells, and the hobgoblin just blasts him over and over again.

The next session will be next Saturday - depending on how ambitious we are, we might get all the way through Skull Gorge Bridge! I may try to get access to a nice printer and print out some cool tiles for the bridge, and I'll definitely be changing treasure around as well, so stay tuned.

I'd expect the battle at Vraath Keep to take longer than that. :) Seriously, though, everything sounds like it's going pretty well, and the balance issues aren't all that much of a problem - as long as everyone's contributing, it's fine. Adjust the Skull Gorge Bridge battle depending on how easily the PCs get through Vraath Keep - if they blast through with no trouble, then put Ozyrrandion up an age category to Juvenile, making him Large. Bear in mind that this does make him MUCH more of a challenge - but that isn't really a bad thing, as it encourages them to come up with some way of destroying the bridge other than 'just kill everyone'. They can always flee and come back later if things turn against them.

- Saph

PS - The Babylon 5 reference is awesome. Fits perfectly, too.

Eldariel
2009-01-26, 09:15 AM
Personally, I make it a general rule that no major enemy (chapter boss or sub-boss) should be vulnerable to being killed or crippled by a single spell. This is both a game balance decision and a matter of in-game logic. If the BBEG can be taken out so easily, how has he survived this long in the first place?

My personal favourite means of this is to use Action Points for both, PCs and Big Bads. Basically, any story-relevant creatures. This makes saves much harder to fail as APs give you an average of 3.5-7 extra depending on your level. Then just have some of them possess one item that allows a reroll per day or such and they're forced to expend resources so the SoSs aren't wasted, but they aren't out either. Of course, all you posted is a fair game too. Generally, I just try to see to everyone (PCs and big opponents) having relatively good saves across the board so they don't get one-shot by level 1 spell from a bored wizard (usually; my experience is that the chance of failure existing enhances the game and when you do succeed on a Finger of Death on the Dragon round 1, it will be a story you'll be telling for years - this is why I don't fudge Nat 1s).

Saph
2009-01-26, 09:32 AM
My personal favourite means of this is to use Action Points for both, PCs and Big Bads. Basically, any story-relevant creatures. This makes saves much harder to fail as APs give you an average of 3.5-7 extra depending on your level. Then just have some of them possess one item that allows a reroll per day or such and they're forced to expend resources so the SoSs aren't wasted, but they aren't out either.

This is a good idea as well - though I find that just giving the enemies a couple of the luck feats from Complete Scoundrel is simpler, as you don't need to introduce a new mechanic to the players. Give them Lucky Start and Survivor's Luck and they'll have two save rerolls a day; add Unbelievable Luck as well to put the rerolls up to four if you really want to overdo it. Most pre-made WotC monsters have terrible feat choices, so it's not hard to find space.

You have to strike a balance here, though. Boss monsters shouldn't be vulnerable to one-shots, but you don't want to make characters who focus on save-or-X spells totally useless either. However, in my experience arcane casters usually have enough spell variety that they can fall back on something lower-powered once it becomes clear that their 'win' spells won't work.

- Saph

Eldariel
2009-01-26, 09:38 AM
This is a good idea as well - though I find that just giving the enemies a couple of the luck feats from Complete Scoundrel is simpler, as you don't need to introduce a new mechanic to the players. Give them Lucky Start and Survivor's Luck and they'll have two save rerolls a day; add Unbelievable Luck as well to put the rerolls up to four if you really want to overdo it. Most pre-made WotC monsters have terrible feat choices, so it's not hard to find space.

You have to strike a balance here, though. Boss monsters shouldn't be vulnerable to one-shots, but you don't want to make characters who focus on save-or-X spells totally useless either. However, in my experience arcane casters usually have enough spell variety that they can fall back on something lower-powered once it becomes clear that their 'win' spells won't work.

- Saph

Indeed, against tough opponents SoDs tend to be poor anyways. You'd rather opt for stuff that doesn't offer saves. But that's what natural 1s exist for; sometimes the Dragon fails his save - that means it's never pointless to try a SoD.

And yea, this is more of a great side benefits of having action points in the game rather than a reason to introduce them. That said, I've personally always been a fan; a good way to quantify the "heroic luck" of the exceptional individuals without having to do fudging or other arbitrary stuff.

I personally don't use the Luck-feats for villains too much as their feats tend to be occupied already with...well, their character build. If I can spare any though, those are just the kinds of things I go for.

kjones
2009-01-27, 02:15 PM
First of all, thank you both for the suggestions. This issue has been something I've thought about quite a bit - often to the detriment of my studies. :smallredface:

First of all, I don't want to use action points. I considered it, but honestly, I don't want the PCs to have a last-ditch way to pull their asses out of the fire. I've been billing this campaign as a fairly brutal, dangerous one, and action points don't really jive with that.

Second of all, everyone's having a good time. Imsril spends as much time buffing his friends (haste is probably his favorite spell) as he does casting offensively, so it's not an issue of one player having fun to the expense of all the others - not yet, at least.

Third, some of these things are only issues because they've only had to face one encounter between rests. This will probably continue through most of Chapter 1 (unless you count Vraath Keep as a bunch of different battles... actually, it might play out this way, depending on what the players do) and Chapter 2 (same thing with Rhest - one big battle, or several little battles?), but thus far, after every encounter, the wizard has been low on spells. Like I said, he has scrolls and wands, but I think that once he realizes he'll have to be a little more conservative with his casting, that will help.

Finally, most Save-or-X spells won't be useful against large numbers of (spread-out) opponents, or opponents that arrive in waves, and as I said before, this typifies most of the battles in this module.

So, now we turn to the real meat of the matter - how to fight Batman. Saph, I appreciate your ideas regarding potions, SR, etc. - my thoughts were pretty much heading in the same direction. Seeing how well even low-level Horde soldiers are equipped, I have no qualms about giving important figures more powerful magic (heroism, lesser restoration) and that should help take care of some of the nastier effects. Luck rerolls are also a good idea, and I like that better than giving "boss" monsters free re-rolls. (I'm trying hard to run this module without any of my usual houserules, or adding any new ones.)

If it becomes a real problem... I've told the player in advance about my concerns, and that I reserve the right to make him swap out any spells in his spellbook. I don't want to resort to this, but if it gets to the point where other players aren't having fun, I'll talk to him. (I'm not really worried. They're team players.)

... except for all the backbiting and mutual mistrust that's been going on. I think that once they realize the magnitude of the threat presented by the Horde, this will give them strong impetus to work together, and if it doesn't, I'll make them come up with a reason to work together. I don't have a problem with this - logically, if your character hates everyone else in the group so much, why would he stick around with them? There's got to be some reason beyond "because he's a fictional construct represented by me, and I'm sitting around a table with a bunch of other people who also have fictional constructs".

A few further thoughts:

-Delora Zann shut down Sarth's proposition, even after his Diplomacy check of 30. I think I'll have her reconsider - not because of the roll, but what better way to get Sarth emotionally involved with the fate of Drellin's Ferry?

-All in all, I'm really impressed with Sarth's player's roleplaying. He's the newest to D&D, and he's played the least, but he plays his character very well - while everyone else was running around treating NPCs as vending machines, he took the time to stroll about town and enjoy the sights, saying that "this is what I love about traveling - so many interesting things to see." Completely in-character for a Favored Soul of Fharlanghn.

-What do I do when Imsril (inevitably) casts Web somewhere on Skull Gorge Bridge? I guess the hell hounds might be able to burn it away again, like they did last time, but I want a contingency.

-Last time I ran the Battle of Vraath Keep, I wasn't as prepared as I should have been - I had my brother helping me DM, which helped a lot, but this time I'm on my own. I plan to be very fastidious about this next time, making a flowchart of who comes out when under what circumstances, and hopefully I'll be able to plan for contingencies (they attack at night, they fly onto the tower, they assassinate Koth in his sleep...).

-I found some nice map tiles for Skull Gorge Bridge (will post link when I can find it again) and I'm going to try to use them. If it works out, I'll take pictures - these tiles are really nice.

-I changed the treasure under Vraath Keep substantially.

Replace Gauntlets of Ogre Strength with:
Ring of Feather Falling
Brute Ring

Replace Frost Bastard Sword with:
+1 Longsword ("Ĉquitas")
Boots of Elvenkind
5 +1 Frost arrows
5 +1 Shock arrows
Lesser Metamagic Rod of Energy Substitution

Replace +1 Mithral Chain Shirt with:
25 +1 Arrows

I swapped out the armor because all the light armor users already have that or better. I included so many magic arrows because Gale lacks a magic bow as of yet, and this should help tide him over until he can kill Saarvith and take his. (I'm planning on making it a regular-sized shortbow.)

The frost bastard sword is silly for two reasons. I don't think they should have +2 weapons yet, and nobody can use bastard swords. Besides, it would only make the paladin even more of a melee badass. This way, everyone gets something.

I swapped out the gloves because Sarth loves casting Bull's Strength anyway, so it wouldn't really help them that much. And those rings are just classy. (I'm hoping they can use the ring of feather falling to help them take out the bridge in some way.)


-I'll probably be modifying the Vraath Keep encounter substantially as well. Plans include giving the minotaur a level in Warblade for Battle Leader's Charge (Ha ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh.) and giving Koth 10 Int so he can FRICKIN' TAKE RANKS IN CONCENTRATION. So stay tuned.

kjones
2009-02-01, 12:05 PM
Fantastic session last night - sessions like these are why I love this module so much. Full party in attendance:

Gale (https://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jwatzman/profiler/view.php?id=42), elven ranger/scout
Imsril (https://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jwatzman/profiler/view.php?id=16), human wizard
Ross (https://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jwatzman/profiler/view.php?id=29), human paladin
Sarth (https://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jwatzman/profiler/view.php?id=28), human favored soul
Cameron, human rogue/swashbuckler

Links are to character sheets, if you're interested - no link for Cameron since her player prefers paper. These are hosted on our own modified RPGWebProfiler implementation, and we haven't tested it much for people outside CMU, so I'd appreciate it if someone would try the links and tell me if they can see the character sheets or not.

One of the reasons I enjoy running modules rather than my own material is that I can take the time I would normally spend preparing the adventure and use it to prepare other things - here's the preparations I made.


I printed out these map tiles (http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/162236-red-hand-doom.html) for Vraath Keep and Skull Gorge Bridge that I found from the Red Hand of Doom link index (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=855450) - very handy resource. For the keep, I cut out pieces of paper to cover all the internal areas, the idea being to remove them when the players could see what was inside.
I drafted a letter (http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jkeller/letter.txt) from Kharn to Koth. I wanted the players to have some idea of what was going on, even if they didn't manage to capture anyone or get the map. I did the trick where you crumple up the paper and steep it in tea to make it look old - it came out pretty well ("http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jkeller/Photo%2019.jpg). (Not a great picture, but you get the idea.) I've always wanted to do this, and it was a lot of fun. I printed out a nice color version of Koth's map, as well, but that already looks kind of old, so I left it as is.
I wrote up a list of the defenders of the keep, and who comes out when depending on what. Here it is, if you're interested:

Gardner's Shack:
Alert: All (except manticore)

Warg Riders: 2 rounds (1 to mount, 1 to emerge)
Alert: Hobgoblins (DC 24 in stable, DC 9 in courtyard)

Manticore: 1 round (climb onto roof)
Alert: Barracks (after out of spikes)

Awake Barracks Troops (2 hobgoblins): 1 round (stand up, grab weapons)
Alert: Manticore, Warg Riders (run into courtyard)

Asleep Barracks Troops (2 hobgoblins): 2 rounds (get up, grab shields, ready swords) or 12 rounds (don armor hastily, AC 18 FF 17)
Alert: None

Karkilan: Runs to Koth's chambers to warn him, then guards Koth
Alert: Koth

Koth: 6 rounds (mage armor, retrieve the map), then retreats back to the tower (Karkilan guards the bottom)
Alert: Barracks

I gave Karkilan the minotaur a level of barbarian and a breastplate, and I tweaked Koth's stats and spells slightly, but overall I didn't change much mechanically. I think this is probably a good thing - read on.
I changed the treasure, as seen above.
I made homemade pizza. It was delicious.



Last session, the party had just defeated the hydra. This session, the party made it to Vraath Keep - and beyond. Here's how it went down.

Heading north along the Dawn Way, the party was ambushed by three warg riders. The party defended themselves handily (including an amusing incident where Cam climbed a tree, and then Imsril baleful transpositioned her with a worg - I ruled that the goblin was now riding atop Cam, and the worg clinging to a tree branch) and the goblins retreated, moving much too quickly for the party to catch them thanks to their mounts.
Their escape proved vital - I had decided beforehand that these riders would be a patrol from Vraath Keep, and that if they escaped, they would alert the defenders. The players had just unwittingly made the Vraath Keep encounter significantly more difficult.
They made it to Vraath Keep with several hours to go before sundown, but decided to wait until the next day to check out the Keep - they were low on spells after the hydra, and didn't want any chance of being caught out after dark. (Mostly, Imsril whined about his spells.) They set up camp a half-mile off the road through the brush, established a watch schedule, and bedded down - but not before seeing a thin plume of smoke rising from the direction of the Keep.
Sarth and Gale were awakened by a low moaning during the night, while Jorr was on watch. They were very concerned about this, as Jorr had told them the stories of Vraath Keep and its "ghost" (recall that this is actually hobgoblins taking advantage of the legend to scare off the easily scared off) and went back to sleep uneasily.

The party awoke at sunrise to another sweltering, humid day in the Vale, and began to plan their attack. They set up a rendezvous point near the bottom of the hill on which Vraath Keep is built. Nymeria, Imsril's hawk familiar, gave them a birds-eye view, but Cameron, Gale, and Jorr stealthily made their way up the slope for a closer look. They encountered a pair of worg riders patrolling some 100 feet distant from the keep, but evaded them easily several times. They reconnoitered, found both entrances (the gate, which now had hobgoblins guarding it, and the hole in the south wall), and returned to the party.
They decided that they would try to take down the patrol quietly, then split up into two groups - Ross, Sarth, and Imsril would attack the main gate, while Cameron, Gale, and Jorr would sneak through the hole in the south wall.
Gale, Cameron, Imsril, and Jorr set up an ambush for the patrol, and lay in wait before springing a devastatingly effective web spell on the unsuspecting duo. One of the wargs made his save, and almost escaped, but Imsril was ready with grease - they didn't stand a chance. The other worg tried to escape and was killed, but the other goblin was held fast. Seeing his odds, he surrendered.
They cut him free from the web and tied him up while Jorr returned to the rendezvous point to notify the others. They agreed to let him live if he answered their questions.

At first, they intended just to question him about the defenses of the Keep, but quickly realized that they had gotten more then they bargained for. The goblin started cackling about how "the Red Hand will destroy you all!" and they asked him what, exactly, the Red Hand was.
He began to wax poetic, saying that the Red Hand was "the hand that comes in the night and smothers the babe in his cradle. It is the scourge that will scour the Vale, leaving behind nothing but destruction. It is - "
Gale slapped him. "What is the Red Hand, literally?"
"An army, come to capture the vale for the glory of Tiamat."
"How big of an army?"
"Thousands."
Silence around the table broken only by the sounds of jaws hitting the floor. Ross's player tried to make a joke, and Cameron's player cut him off - "This is serious." This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I play D&D. At this moment, I knew that I had them.
They continued to interrogate him, and learned many important things about both the Keep and the Red Hand. They left him tied up while they advanced on the Keep.
Imsril cast enlarge person on Ross, who charged the front gate with Sarth, killing one hobgoblin. The other fled to the courtyard to sound the alarm, with Ross, Sarth, and Imsril in hot pursuit.
The defenders of the Keep began to emerge. Sarth opened the door from the ruined guard tower to the manticore's lair - then shut it again, very quickly. The damage had been done, though, and the manticore took to the roof and began showering the party with spikes, wounding Imsril badly.
Meanwhile, Gale, Cameron, and Ross hit the hobgoblins emerging from the barracks with a thunderstone (not sure why...) and then moved to engage. They took down the hobgoblins quickly enough, but the warg riders gave them more trouble, especially when the wargs started tripping people. Imsril hasted them, which helped, and Ross went over to the rooftop to attack the manticore from the ground (he could reach, since he was enlarged). The manticore, out of spikes, retreated to the center of the roof, and Ross entered his lair to engage him again. This proved to be a mistake, as the manticore dropped down on him and hit him with a claw/claw/bite, dropping him to negatives. He certainly would have died the next round, had Ross not run in and activated his healing belt. Ross then used smite evil from the ground on a full attack for a whopping 43 damage, killing the foul beast.
Just then, however, Koth made his presence known by dropping a fireball on Gale, Cam, Sarth, and one of the remaining warg riders, and followed up with another the next round. Even with successful saves, they could tell this couldn't end well, so the party took cover - Gale in the stables, Cameron, Imsril, and Ross in the barracks. There, they ran straight into Karkilan, who was guarding Koth's chamber. He roared and charged.
Meanwhile, Gale, low on hit points, drank the "potion" given to him by Jarret Nurth. I grinned wickedly and told him to make a fortitude save - he made it, but he was furious. "I'm going to find her and feed her the rest of them," he said, and moved to attack the remaining warg rider.
The party dispatched Karkilan handily enough - he rolled very poorly, even with all his rage bonuses. By this point, Koth had drank his potion of fly and flown over the courtyard, blinding Jorr and blasting Sarth with scorching rays. Once the rest of the party emerged from the barracks, Koth realized that his number was up, and he flew off to the west.
The party was elated by the victory, and even more by the experience, which brought them up to 6th level. They searched the keep and found the treasure in the Vault below, along with the letter on Koth's desk.

They took some time in deciding on their next move. First, they sent Nymeria the hawk back to Drellin's Ferry with a message for Norro Winston, but they realized that they would probably need to speak to him in person for their words to have any effect. They also doubted the effectiveness of destroying the bridge in slowing the Horde, along with their capability to do so. (I told Ross that he could certainly do enough damage by hitting it with his sword - he was very angry about the realism of this.) Also, they had a score to settle with Jarret Nurth, and they really wanted their items identified. They decided to return to Drellin's Ferry, not realizing how close they'd be cutting it with the bridge. (It was Day 4 at this point, and the Horde crosses the bridge on Day 7. They would have delayed it a day if they killed Koth, but no such luck.)

They returned to Drellin's Ferry on the afternoon of Day 5, and met with Norro Winston, Captain Soranna, Kellin Shadowbanks, and Delora Zann. They had trouble impressing the gravity of the situation upon Norro Winston, who was loathe to evacuate the town on the evidence provided by a single goblin prisoner. Soranna defused the situation with hypotheticals - "If this horde is real, how do we stop it? Where can we fight it?" and so on. The party agreed to try to destroy the bridge, but realized that they didn't have a lot of time, so they're planning a midnight ride through the Witchwood. If they make it, they'll make it to the bridge on Day 6, with one day to spare. They are cutting it very close - perhaps I could have the arrival of the Horde create some dramatic tension.

Observations:


Everything went amazingly well. The party works well together, nobody seemed like they were stealing the spotlight. The battle was challenging without being overpowering, threatening without being deadly (although Cam was at -9 at one point...) and a lot of fun. Roleplaying the council was also a lot of fun - the players furiously trying to get Winston to accept the threat as real.

Each player has their own reasons for fighting the Horde. Gale and Cameron have nowhere else to go, and figure that this is the best chance they've got to clear their rap sheet - and Gale hates hobgoblins. Ross is happy to have foes to smite, innocents to defend, and justice to uphold. Sarth loves the Vale, and besides, these guys are messing with the roads, aren't they? Imsril has been wandering without purpose for years after he avenged his mother's death - he finally has one again.

The wizard is beginning to learn about his limitations. He almost got killed by the manticore, the buffs he cast from his vast library of scrolls wore off by the end of the battle, and he had cast every last spell that he knew. It was deeply satisfying to have him pull out his crossbow and start shooting at the minotaur - even more so when he very nearly dealt the finishing blow.

At first, I was trying to railroad the party into going to Skull Gorge Bridge. Then I realized that what I was doing, and that it was their choice, and that the story does not entirely depend on them going there, and backed off. Now they're going there anyway. Lesson learned: Don't force your players into any decisions.

I still need to get the map to the players. The module suggests giving it to one of the raiders in the Goblin Raid encounter - I'll probably do this.



What a fantastic session. Games like this remind me why I play.

EDIT: Two things I forgot to mention.

Even though it was a relatively serious session, there were a lot more Monty Python references than is reasonable.
This started when they were concocting their plan to attack the Keep, and I was trying to keep it all straight in my head. I said, "Okay, so let me get this straight. Lancelot, Galahad and I jump out of the rabbit..." and everyone lost it. They later modified their plan for dealing with the manticore - "Let us taunt it! Perhaps it will become so cross that it will make a mistake!" And of course there was the observation that Vraath Keep was "only a model". I'm glad this doesn't happen too frequently, but every once in a while it's fun.
The party wants to use some kind of explosives against the bridge. This isn't unreasonable, but I would rather it was the kind of explosives that took time and care to set up, rather than a bomb that they could lob at the bridge and then run away. (This is mainly because the paladin has a big problem with bringing the bridge down with a pickaxe, for whatever reason.) Are there any alchemical, or minor magical, items that could be used for this purpose? If not, anyone have clever ideas for this? None come to mind...

ericgrau
2009-02-01, 02:58 PM
Fantastic information. I enjoy reading it.

Web weaknesses: Web must be anchored at two opposite points when cast or it collapses on itself and dissappears. Besides destroying it with fire, high strength creatures tend to push through it pretty easily. Finally there's dispel magic of course.

Destroying the Bridge: Besides just hacking at it, they could dump a bunch of oil on it and light. Thrown flasks of oil could work, or shrink item on a barrel of oil could do more. If it's a 40 gallon barrel then that'd equal 320 pints covering up to 320 squares on a smooth surface, which equals a 10 square (50 foot) radius circle. Probably much less on a rough soakable surface with openings. Maybe guess a burst radius for the barrel and say that the rest flows over the edge. Anything on fire receives 1d6 points of damage per round, but anything standing on top without being on fire or immersed only gets 1d3. You could easily rule that wood counts as vulnerable to continuous fire, so that the fire bypasses its hardness and perhaps even deals double damage. Can't give you much help on how fast a fire spreads, though I suspect it'd spread across all the oil in a few seconds while spreading on bare wood far more slowly.

Character sheet: My browser gave me a warning but otherwise it worked for me.

kjones
2009-02-04, 10:53 PM
Fantastic information. I enjoy reading it.

Web weaknesses: Web must be anchored at two opposite points when cast or it collapses on itself and dissappears. Besides destroying it with fire, high strength creatures tend to push through it pretty easily. Finally there's dispel magic of course.

Destroying the Bridge: Besides just hacking at it, they could dump a bunch of oil on it and light. Thrown flasks of oil could work, or shrink item on a barrel of oil could do more. If it's a 40 gallon barrel then that'd equal 320 pints covering up to 320 squares on a smooth surface, which equals a 10 square (50 foot) radius circle. Probably much less on a rough soakable surface with openings. Maybe guess a burst radius for the barrel and say that the rest flows over the edge. Anything on fire receives 1d6 points of damage per round, but anything standing on top without being on fire or immersed only gets 1d3. You could easily rule that wood counts as vulnerable to continuous fire, so that the fire bypasses its hardness and perhaps even deals double damage. Can't give you much help on how fast a fire spreads, though I suspect it'd spread across all the oil in a few seconds while spreading on bare wood far more slowly.

Character sheet: My browser gave me a warning but otherwise it worked for me.

Thanks for the encouragement and the suggestions.

First of all, the bridge is made out of stone. :smalltongue: Makes it hard to burn. I think I'll have Sertieren give Imsril a single scroll of Stone Shape - this can't bring down the bridge in and of itself unless they find the weak point, which they'd need to search for. So either they fight the defenders, then break down the bridge, or fight the defenders, find the weak point, and then use the scroll. I don't want them to just be able to destroy the bridge without facing the defenders... unless they're really clever.

For some reason, I had forgotten all about Dispel Magic with regards to Web... I'll be sure to keep that in mind. And, of course, there are hell hounds a-plenty...

My players have crunched the numbers on their midnight ride, and figure that if they can get five light horses and force-march them for 10 hours, they can make it to the bridge. Of course, this will deal 2d6 lethal damage, leaving the horses with ~11 HP... they'll be fine, as long as they don't run into any random encounters.:smallbiggrin: They'll reach the bridge before sunrise on Day 6 - if they then rest, they'll have the bulk of Day 6 to plan and execute their attack. However, if they screw it up, they probably won't get another shot - the Horde crosses on Day 7.

I'm trying to decide when to run the Chimera Attack and the Goblin Raid encounters. I think I'll do the Chimera Attack just as they're about to leave town, to keep them on their toes - and then the raid after they get back.

Hopefully we'll play this weekend. I'm looking forward to it.

AslanCross
2009-02-04, 11:42 PM
If you're using ToB you should just go all out and replace all the levels of enemies with melee classes with levels in ToB classes. Come up with a few different templates for maneuvers known and prepared and you should be set.

It's more work, but it will make battles a lot more interesting tactically when the enemies start using the PC's own tricks on them.

I'm also planning this for a potential run of RHoD this summer. I started with Kharn and immediately made him Crusader 10. I know my players will be bringing ToB classes, and I'm sure the dwarf crusader would enjoy dueling Kharn.

ericgrau
2009-02-05, 01:30 AM
First of all, the bridge is made out of stone. :smalltongue: Makes it hard to burn.
I need to stop spending time on elaborate plans that hinge on little things like woodenness. Anyway given stone's 8 hardness and 15 HP per in. per 5 ft. square. your PC can have his realism concerns satisfied; as it'd be slow going. You might rule that stone is vulnerable to picks. That typically means bypassing hardness and double damage. I dunno if you'd have to adjust that.

kjones
2009-02-05, 11:19 PM
I need to stop spending time on elaborate plans that hinge on little things like woodenness. Anyway given stone's 8 hardness and 15 HP per in. per 5 ft. square. your PC can have his realism concerns satisfied; as it'd be slow going. You might rule that stone is vulnerable to picks. That typically means bypassing hardness and double damage. I dunno if you'd have to adjust that.

This is just one of the weird little quirks of D&D, that by RAW it is more efficient to cut through stone by hitting it with a sword than with a pickaxe, since swords do more damage... Anyway, if he two-hands it and power attacks, he can deal 1d8 + 16 = average 20.5 damage per hit. The module says that each square has 80 HP, and you need to destroy two adjacent squares to destroy the bridge, so he could bring it down in about 12 rounds, if my calculations are correct.

Or I could just make houserules regarding picks... but I'm always wary of houseruling with this crowd. I'm sure that at some point they'd bust out pickaxes and try to, I don't know, destroy a stone golem. Except there aren't any in RHoD. You know what I mean.

Aslan: Be careful when introducing ToB classes. The module was not designed with them in mind, so you'll want to do some modifying.

It's not so much a power thing - ToB classes < wizards, who are perfectly welcome. It's more an issue of them having encounter powers - with wizards, you can rely on them to wear out eventually, and the module is not one conducive to letting wizards stop and rest whenever they please. There are some encounters (most notably, the Battle of Brindol) that take advantage of this, and I think those encounters would be very different with ToB classes.

Additionally, rank-and-file troops are much less of a threat when ToB classes are in play. To a core fighter, they're a speedbump - but you have to slow down for speedbumps. You say that you'll use ToB for the NPCs too, but do you really want to make every single soldier in the Hand a martial adept? At the very least, consider changing them in some other way - or do away with them entirely (and replace their roles in encounters with something else).

AslanCross
2009-02-06, 04:46 AM
I'm beginning to see how difficult it is to wear down ToB characters. In the current game I'm playing in (Eyes of the Lich Queen), my warblade and the swordsage beat up stuff so quickly. It's always an initial, often fatal, Death Mark, followed up by Fan the Flames. The worst example of this so far was how the climactic battle at the end of the first chapter of EOTLQ (a half black dragon mummy) died in less than 2 turns, thanks to a the liberal application of explosive Desert Wind maneuvers. Ironically, the first encounter took over 10 rounds, and that was against a bunch of lizardfolk.

I'm going to have to adjust the encounters so that they aren't always solos; it would be pretty lame to have the wyrmlords die in one turn.

As for the rank-and-file, I don't mean the first-level warriors. The bladebearers and monks, most likely. They're supposed to be elite troops, so they could do with some esoteric abilities. I don't even think I'm going to touch the sergeants, though.

kjones
2009-02-06, 11:24 AM
I'm beginning to see how difficult it is to wear down ToB characters. In the current game I'm playing in (Eyes of the Lich Queen), my warblade and the swordsage beat up stuff so quickly. It's always an initial, often fatal, Death Mark, followed up by Fan the Flames. The worst example of this so far was how the climactic battle at the end of the first chapter of EOTLQ (a half black dragon mummy) died in less than 2 turns, thanks to a the liberal application of explosive Desert Wind maneuvers. Ironically, the first encounter took over 10 rounds, and that was against a bunch of lizardfolk.

I'm going to have to adjust the encounters so that they aren't always solos; it would be pretty lame to have the wyrmlords die in one turn.

As for the rank-and-file, I don't mean the first-level warriors. The bladebearers and monks, most likely. They're supposed to be elite troops, so they could do with some esoteric abilities. I don't even think I'm going to touch the sergeants, though.

That's actually a good idea - the Bladebearers are actually pretty lame as it is right now (TWF => low AB, low damage...) so it might be fun to re-flavor them as martial adepts. I imagine the monks are similar. Would you mind sending me the stats of whatever you come up with?

Also, Saph: I realized something. Lesser Restoration doesn't cure blindness. So much for my anti-Glitterdust strategy...

AslanCross
2009-02-06, 09:00 PM
Sent. If anybody else is interested, I can send them to you. I might be violating forum rules by posting them here.

I think I can give some general ideas, though:

-Bladebearers: Fighter 1/Warblade 3. This gives them at least one bonus Fighter feat (Weapon Focus) to offset the penalties that TWF gives. They only get one stance and their AC suffers since they lose Two Weapon Defense, but Punishing Stance and Wolf Fang Strike make them good glass cannons. Their Will save suffers a LOT, since I transferred the 12 in their Wis to Int for the battle clarity and battle ardor warblade features. However, Moment of Perfect Mind gives them a much better chance of saving.

-Doom Fist Monks: Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage 2. I gave them 2 levels in Monk so they retain Evasion and can get Combat Reflexes, as well as keep their excellent saves. They focus on Shadow Hand and Desert Wind maneuvers, giving them some speed and control. The dragonchain is houseruled to be a favored Shadow Hand weapon. I'm not exactly sure if Wolf Fang Strike allows for this, but I'm pretty sure it can allow a two-handed weapon strike and an unarmed strike. As such, the Doom Fists could punch and then use the dragonchain to start a grapple attempt via Wolf Fang Strike. I also gave them Hatchling's Flame, for the lulz. It's not likely to do much, but I kind of like the idea of the Doom Fists having little flamethrowers.

kjones
2009-02-07, 03:23 PM
Making the "special" Horde members (monks, bladebearers) a cut above the rest is a really good idea, one that I might just steal.

In other news, we're probably playing tomorrow afternoon - hopefully, we'll make it through Skull Gorge Bridge, though my pre-rolled Random Encounters roll says that they won't make it through the forest via daring midnight ride unscathed... looks like they'll be running into a shambling mound. :smallbiggrin:

I'm planning on making the sergeant a Warblade, like I did last time - but I don't think I'll change anything else. Vraath Keep was a well-balanced encounter, and Ozyrrandion will give them a lot of trouble if they can't engage him in melee (and I don't plan on letting them).

I'm not particularly worried about the wizard save-or-sucking the dragon - he's got pretty good saves, I'll give him some potions, and if the wizard spends all his spells on the dragon, he'll regret it.

I'm not sure where I got the 80 HP/square figure, since the module says that each 5-foot square has 270 HP. Still, Ross could dispatch this in, at most, 10 minutes - 20 minutes for the whole bridge, and faster if others help or if he's buffed. Additionally, I'll probably drop a few hints about the weak spot - they might find it during the battle, but it would require luck and/or cleverness.

Anyway, they'll put up a good fight - I'm looking forward to it.

Matthew
2009-02-07, 04:51 PM
Good stuff, sounds like everything is moving along nicely. Easiest way to deal with the bridge and pick axes is to just assign a "reasonable" period for its destruction with pick axes, sidestepping the fairly silly D20/3e rules for this (amusingly parodied in D&D:WotDG when Berric breaks down a wall with his magic sword) and preventing future abuses (since there are no rules to take advantage of, just a ruling based on a "realistic" appraisal of the task and situation). I wouldn't worry about it either way in light of your revised figures (and the precedent of Roland smashing rocks in half with his sword when attempting to break it), but I thought I might as well suggest an alternative.

ericgrau
2009-02-07, 09:42 PM
Also, Saph: I realized something. Lesser Restoration doesn't cure blindness. So much for my anti-Glitterdust strategy...

Lesser restoration doesn't, but remove blindness/deafness does :smallsmile:. It's level 3.



Or I could just make houserules regarding picks... but I'm always wary of houseruling with this crowd. I'm sure that at some point they'd bust out pickaxes and try to, I don't know, destroy a stone golem. Except there aren't any in RHoD. You know what I mean.
It's well within the normal rules - not a house rule - for the DM to declare an inanimate object vulnerable to certain forms of attack. "Vulnerable" means that attack bypasses hardness and deals double damage. If the PCs try it on a stone golem tell them no, it moves.

EDIT: after a few google searches it seems like this might be a difficult and time consuming task for an ordinary person with or without a pick axe. Still not sure though, because all the examples involve the person completely pulverizing and remove the rock or concrete, not merely breaking it in half.

kjones
2009-02-07, 11:16 PM
Lesser restoration doesn't, but remove blindness/deafness does :smallsmile:. It's level 3.


It's well within the normal rules - not a house rule - for the DM to declare an inanimate object vulnerable to certain forms of attack. "Vulnerable" means that attack bypasses hardness and deals double damage. If the PCs try it on a stone golem tell them no, it moves.

EDIT: after a few google searches it seems like this might be a difficult and time consuming task for an ordinary person with or without a pick axe. Still not sure though, because all the examples involve the person completely pulverizing and remove the rock or concrete, not merely breaking it in half.

The bridge is sturdy, but old - it must be quite weathered by now. I'm sure they could bring it down given time.

The important thing is that it would take longer than a few rounds (meaning that they couldn't do it during combat) but less than a day (meaning that if they win the battle, they can destroy it before the horde arrives). The exact amount of time doesn't really matter very much.

With regards to Lesser Restoration and blindness - yeah, I could just give them another potion, but then it starts to get silly. Having a potion of Lesser Restoration is a reasonable thing to do - ability damage is dangerous. Giving all the Wyrmlords and dragons a potion of Remove Blindness strains verisimilitude - are they really that worried about being blinded, specifically? Why do they have that, but not a potion of Remove Curse or Remove Disease, both of which are much more generally useful?

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and/or come up with clever things for blind characters to do.

Saph
2009-02-08, 07:50 AM
With regards to Lesser Restoration and blindness - yeah, I could just give them another potion, but then it starts to get silly. Having a potion of Lesser Restoration is a reasonable thing to do - ability damage is dangerous. Giving all the Wyrmlords and dragons a potion of Remove Blindness strains verisimilitude - are they really that worried about being blinded, specifically? Why do they have that, but not a potion of Remove Curse or Remove Disease, both of which are much more generally useful?

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and/or come up with clever things for blind characters to do.

Nah, the Lesser Restoration is just for removing Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, and ability penalty/damage spells. Don't bother with Remove Blindness. Remember that dragons have blindsense, so blinding them is only an annoyance rather than a killer - they can still take to the air and switch to their breath weapon. Blindsense is more than good enough to aim AoE blasts.

For the Wyrmlords, just make sure their saves are good and they have a reroll or two. If the spellcaster manages to get a Glitterdust through good saves AND a reroll, they deserve their success.

- Saph

ericgrau
2009-02-08, 09:52 AM
With regards to Lesser Restoration and blindness - yeah, I could just give them another potion, but then it starts to get silly. Having a potion of Lesser Restoration is a reasonable thing to do - ability damage is dangerous. Giving all the Wyrmlords and dragons a potion of Remove Blindness strains verisimilitude - are they really that worried about being blinded, specifically? Why do they have that, but not a potion of Remove Curse or Remove Disease, both of which are much more generally useful?

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and/or come up with clever things for blind characters to do.
Oh, potions? Yeah, I agree they wouldn't have all those. Though if I were a cleric I'd load up on scrolls with at least 1 of every status effect remover as long as it's low level and easily affordable. Though level 3 is at least pushing it. Otherwise I'm in favor of Saph's approach. Even if it's not a dragon, monsters shouldn't be throwing themselves to their deaths just because they're blind.

The following quotation is in the darkness section but I don't see why it wouldn't apply.


A creature blinded by darkness can make a Listen check as a free action each round in order to locate foes (DC equal to opponents’ Move Silently checks). A successful check lets a blinded character hear an unseen creature “over there somewhere.” It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the location of an unseen creature. A Listen check that beats the DC by 20 reveals the unseen creature’s square (but the unseen creature still has total concealment from the blinded creature).


A blinded creature can grope about to find unseen creatures. A character can make a touch attack with his hands or a weapon into two adjacent squares using a standard action. If an unseen target is in the designated square, there is a 50% miss chance on the touch attack. If successful, the groping character deals no damage but has pinpointed the unseen creature’s current location. (If the unseen creature moves, its location is once again unknown.)
If a blinded creature is struck by an unseen foe, the blinded character pinpoints the location of the creature that struck him (until the unseen creature moves, of course). The only exception is if the unseen creature has a reach greater than 5 feet (in which case the blinded character knows the location of the unseen opponent, but has not pinpointed him) or uses a ranged attack (in which case, the blinded character knows the general direction of the foe, but not his location).
A creature with the scent ability automatically pinpoints unseen creatures within 5 feet of its location.


The monster must pick a square to target, and even if he picks right he still has the 50% miss chance. Blinded opponents might also move away at half speed and/or (try to) hide. They can't Run. Any creature succeeding on a spellcraft check to recognize glitterdust might flee (bolting faster as soon as sight returns) or leave and come back, since he knows the duration.

PollyOliver
2009-02-08, 10:05 AM
With regards to Lesser Restoration and blindness - yeah, I could just give them another potion, but then it starts to get silly. Having a potion of Lesser Restoration is a reasonable thing to do - ability damage is dangerous. Giving all the Wyrmlords and dragons a potion of Remove Blindness strains verisimilitude - are they really that worried about being blinded, specifically? Why do they have that, but not a potion of Remove Curse or Remove Disease, both of which are much more generally useful?

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and/or come up with clever things for blind characters to do.

Maybe it's unrealistic now, but several of the foes in this module are recurring, correct? And most of the foes they face are members of the same organization. The second time they face a foe, he should be better prepared for them, and even with foes they haven't faced, after a while their tactics might start to get around and filter up the chain of command. It wouldn't be unreasonable for the Hand to start adapting partway through the module.

kjones
2009-02-08, 10:48 AM
Maybe it's unrealistic now, but several of the foes in this module are recurring, correct? And most of the foes they face are members of the same organization. The second time they face a foe, he should be better prepared for them, and even with foes they haven't faced, after a while their tactics might start to get around and filter up the chain of command. It wouldn't be unreasonable for the Hand to start adapting partway through the module.

I already have plans for adapting some of the villains that they're sure to face again (Koth, for starters, and hopefully Ozyrrandion as well). The last time I ran this (see the first page or so of this thread), the Horde had caught on to the druid's tactic of scouting out in eagle form, and started firing on any eagles in sight.

Saph: Good call on the blindsense - I already had plans involving the hell hounds and scent, but forgot about that. Even without it, dragons tend to have excellent Spot/Listen modifiers.

I ended up giving Koth several luck feats: Lucky Start, Unbelievable Luck, and Survivor's Luck. (He technically doesn't qualify for the last, because of silliness with racial hit dice/LA, but whatever.) He ended up with four luck rerolls, which could be applied to init or saves. It would be nice if there were an easier way to get luck rerolls to saves...

An easier solution would be to use my "houseruled" (I would argue that it's just an interpretation) version of True Believer, which lets them add the bonus retroactively. This also fits with the flavor of the Horde - after all, their leaders are, for the most part, True Believers.

EDIT: The reason the lesser restoration thing came up was because Koth blinded Jorr with blindness/deafness before he fled, and Jorr spent the rest of the encounter stumbling around and falling over (the battle was over anyway, so I had a little fun). After Koth fled, they cured Jorr with lesser restoration... except that doesn't work. I'll retcon it such that he was cured back at Drellin's Ferry.

kjones
2009-02-13, 12:57 PM
Apologies for the delay in posting - we played last Sunday, but real life has been hitting me hard, and I simply haven't had a moment to sit down and update. It was an excellent session, though - the party made it to Skull Gorge Bridge. What happened next? Read on.

I'm going to stop posting the characters in attendance for now - unless stated otherwise, assume that everyone was there. I posted links to their character sheets a few posts ago, so if you're curious to see their stats and whatnot, feel free to check them out. So, for the last time, the party as it stands is:

Imsril, human wizard
Sarth, human favored soul
Gale, elven ranger/scout
Cameron, human rogue/swashbuckler
Ross, human paladin

The events of the evening:

Last session had our heroes planning on a daring midnight ride through the Witchwood. This session, after collecting supplies (including the gift of a scroll of stone shape from Sertieren the Wise), they set off. Delora Zann bid them farewell, and pulled Sarth aside for a "private word", suggesting that he come back safely.

Just as they were leaving, a chimera swooped down on the town - they killed it pretty quickly. Not particularly exciting, unfortunately...

They made it to Cold Creek with Gale ranging ahead on foot (his unmounted speed is the same as everyone else's mounted speed!), and there they halted - something didn't look right underneath the bridge. Jorr took one look at it and pegged it as a shambling mound, hidden in the vegetation on the riverbank. They didn't have time to go to the next crossing, and the water was too swift and deep to ford - they decided to try to run across the bridge before the creature could react.

This proved to be a mistake. It sprang out from under the bridge and badly wounded Ross's horse, dropping it to negatives - Ross fell into the mud. The other mounts began to panic, and most of the party had trouble bringing them under control. They managed to drive off the creature, but not before nearly losing both Ross and his horse.

This was only a minor setback, however - they made it across the creek, and to within striking distance of Skull Gorge Bridge, well before sunrise. They set up a camp and a watch, and rested.

They arrived at the bridge the next morning, and were surprised to see it so lightly defended... until they saw the dragon. After some quick planning, they settled on a direct frontal assault - they spent some time casting buffs, and then charged.

The defenders reacted quickly, and Ozyrrandion hit hard with his first blast of acid breath, but Imsril blocked off the bridge with stinking cloud, splitting the hobgoblins - they took to the guard towers with their longbows. Ross and Cameron finished off the hell hounds quickly, and Gale cleared out one of the towers - Cameron charged into the other to engage the guard one-on-one. Imsril took cover in the now-empty guard tower from the arrows of the hobgoblins on the other side, and Ozyrrandion saw his chance.

He flew across the gorge and into the tower, blocking the stairs and trapping Imsril... or so he thought. Imsril smiled, stepped back, and cast benign transposition, and Ozyrrandion was suddenly face-to-face with an enlarged, hasted, bull's strengthed paladin.

At the same time, Cameron defeated the guard in the other tower, and effortlessly leaped across the bridge into the other tower. At the same time, Gale came up the stairs from below.

Ozyrrandion duked it out for around before he realized that he was outnumbered and outgunned. He tried to flee, but Imsril dropped him with a magic missile, and he plummeted into the gorge.

They made their way back down onto the bridge, and as Imsril maneuvered himself into spellcasting position, the stinking cloud wore off - and the hobgoblin sergeant charged, wounding Imsril badly. He retreated, and Ross and Gale were still in the other tower, exchanging fire with the hobgoblins on the other side. The task of holding the bridge fell to Sarth and Cameron.

Sarth waded in with his spikes'd quarterstaff and started swinging, while the sergeant and Cameron ducked and weaved back and forth, using Tumble to gain or avoid flanking. One slip-up,
though, and Cameron found herself on the edge of the bridge, with her back to the gorge. The sergeant seized the opportunity and bull rushed.

I rolled a modified 23 for the hobgoblin. Cameron's player rolled an 18, +2 for Strength and +2 for using her Brute Gloves. "That probably makes it, right?" he said.

I said nothing - only moved his mini back one square, off the edge of the bridge.

I realized that this wasn't a particularly dramatic way to kill Cam, so I cut her a few breaks. First, I gave her a reflex save to catch the edge - natural 1. Then, I ruled that she wouldn't fall until her turn. This gave Ross and Gale a chance to react before she fell.

Ross couldn't do much, since he was too far away - this meant that it fell to Gale, still in the guard tower, to try to save his best friend.

He leapt off the tower and down onto the bridge, ripped the ring of feather fall off of Imsril's hand, and threw it with all his might to Cameron, who caught it just before he fell.

(Seem like frantic backpedaling on my part? Expand the spoiler.)

This was mostly justified with application of the Rule of Cool, but we managed to justify it at least partially with rules. Gale dropped his bow (free action) and leapt off the tower (move action, with a tumble check to reduce damage to 3d6). He grabbed the ring (drawing a weapon as part of a move action, this is the dicey bit) then threw it to Cameron (ranged touch attack, with a modifier if Cam made a Dex check, which she did).

Still, not exactly easy to do - everything had to be just right, and he pulled it off.

Looking back, the fall may not have killed Cameron. A fall of 150 feet into water would have dealt 11d6 lethal and 2d6 nonlethal damage, 10d6 if she made a tumble check (which she probably would have). That's an average of 33 damage, which would have dropped her to negatives, but not killed her. Probably. Also, she would have been washed away by the stream... It would have been interesting.


Still, Cam was out of the fight for a good while, even after she managed to pull herself out of the water. Once Ross joined the fight on the bridge, though, it was all over - the sergeant fell, and the survivors fled (only to be cut down by a pursuing Gale).

They lowered a rope and hauled Cameron back onto the bridge, and looted the bodies of the fallen (Ozyrrandion's had been washed away... by dramatic convention, this should mean that he's still alive, but he's really, really not. If the magic missile hadn't killed him, which it did, the fall would have.)

They set about figuring out how to destroy the bridge. They found the weak spot, but decided to use stone shape on the far end of the bridge, reasoning that the weak spot would collapse when forced to bear the weight of the bridge. After that failed, they gave Ross a pickaxe and he set to work, and within minutes, the bridge collapsed into the gorge below.

They mounted up and started back to Drellin's Ferry, but passed the forest giant marker that they had missed in the darkness of the night before. Suspecting that there might be some remaining giants after the evidence they found in Vraath Keep, they investigated, and found Old Warklegnaw preparing his supper.

Cameron and Sarth approached him, and once they convinced him that they weren't trying to kill him, he let them speak their piece. He seemed amenable to their plea for aid, but was unconvinced until they presented him with the gauntlet they found in Vraath Keep - that sealed the deal.

I started envisioning the bit with Beorn from The Hobbit, where the dwarves come in two by two, but the rest of the party got impatient and just showed up, and there was roasted boar for all.

They returned to Drellin's Ferry the next day, talked to Norro Winston, and agreed to meet with the Council the next morning. They rested (except for Sarth, who paid a call to Delora Zann...) and awoke early for the meeting. They successfully convinced the Council, even the obstinate Iormel and craven Kellin Shadowbanks, of the dire threat and the need to evacuate. They volunteered to assist with the onerous work of packing up and moving, and after a hard day's work of preparing Delora Zann's animals for the long journey, they collapsed into their rooms at the inn.

They were awoken by shouts in the night - goblins attacking the west bank!

We ended the session for the evening.


Observations:


What a fantastic session. The battle was about as epic as it should have been - challenging without overwhelming - and the rescue of Cameron is something I'll remember for a long time. In retrospect, though, I should have left the sergeant as a normal fighter instead of a warblade, and made Ozyrrandion large. He went down a little too quickly - although that was due in part to clever tactics on behalf of the players. (Like that benign transposition... sheer genius.)
Gale's bloodlust came into play again, as he slaughtered the fleeing hobgoblins - partially justified in that they didn't want survivors notifying the Horde, but he killed a prisoner they took (who was trying to escape, so again, not that bad). I can't tell if this is in-character or out of character, or if the distinction matters. I also don't know why it bothers me - it's D&D, for cryin' out loud, people like to kill things - but it does.
The players worked very well as a team at Skull Gorge Bridge - which is why it was so amusing to me when they nearly got slaughtered by a Shambling Mound. I guess this goes to show that the outcome of a battle can depend heavily on preparation and surprise.
Again, roleplaying Warklegnaw and the Council was a lot of fun, both for myself and for the players. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep up the "nobody believes the scope of the Horde" schtick - at a certain point, it becomes an Idiot Ball.
I love this module. I can't wait for the battle of Rhest - Regiarax will be Large, and I have fun plans for Saarvith...



EDIT: I forgot to ask - how does the falling thing actually work? I'd like to know, for next time.

Another question, this one about spell durations. If Imsril casts a spell that lasts five rounds, when exactly does it end? At the beginning of Imsril's turn, five rounds later? At the end? What if Imsril changes initiative order?

Matthew
2009-02-13, 05:22 PM
Sounds like a good time was had by all.



EDIT: I forgot to ask - how does the falling thing actually work? I'd like to know, for next time.

When does the damage occur, you mean? Immediately, just as if the character were hit by a fireball or a sword. That is why featherfall has a casting time of one immediate action. Yeah, you fudged the rules to save the character (and I think you know you did at heart), but if everyone is fine with it, then there is no real harm.



Another question, this one about spell durations. If Imsril casts a spell that lasts five rounds, when exactly does it end? At the beginning of Imsril's turn, five rounds later? At the end? What if Imsril changes initiative order?

Theoretically, everything happens simultaneously, so this is basically a fudged game rule. Durations that last one round expire when the next round begins, according to p. 142 of the PHB.

You might be interested in p. 24 of the DMG, as well:


Simultaneous Activity

When you play out a combat scene or some other activity for which time is measured in rounds, it can be important to remember that all the PCs’ and NPCs’ actions are occurring simultaneously. For instance, in one 6-second round, Mialee might be trying to cast a spell at the same time that Lidda is moving in to make a sneak attack.

However, when everyone at the table plays out a combat round, each individual acts in turn according to the initiative count for his character. Obviously, this is necessary, because if every individual took his turn at the same time, mass confusion would result. However, this sequential order of play can occasionally lead to situations when something significant happens to a character at the end of his turn but before other characters have acted in the same round.

For instance, suppose Tordek hustles 15 feet ahead of his friends down a corridor, turns a corner, and hustles another 10 feet down a branching corridor, only to trigger a trap at the end of his turn. In order to maintain the appearance of simultaneous activity, you’re within your rights to rule that Tordek doesn’t trigger the trap until the end of the round. After all, it takes him some time to get down the corridor, and in an actual real-time situation the other characters who have yet to act in the round would be taking their actions during this same time.

Saph
2009-02-13, 05:32 PM
Theoretically, everything happens simultaneously, so this is basically a fudged game rule. Durations that last one round expire when the next round begins, according to p. 142 of the PHB.

I usually do it as initiative count to initiative count. If the wizard casts a 5-round spell on initiative count 17 in round 2, it ends on initiative count 17 in round 7. It only gets fuzzy when you try and figure out at exactly what point in the player's turn it should end, which luckily is rarely an issue.

- Saph

Matthew
2009-02-13, 05:43 PM
I usually do it as initiative count to initiative count. If the wizard casts a 5-round spell on initiative count 17 in round 2, it ends on initiative count 17 in round 7. It only gets fuzzy when you try and figure out at exactly what point in the player's turn it should end, which luckily is rarely an issue.

Given the nature of D20/3e, I think that is the most sensible way to do it (and there may be some errata or a Rules of the Game article somewhere to that effect).

Yep, here you go:

Rules of the Game - Reading Spell Descriptions (Part Four) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040817a)
Rules of the Game - Reading Spell Descriptions (Part Six) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040831a)


Casting Time

The fifth entry in a spell header shows the spell's casting time, as follows:

1 standard action: This is the most common casting time and it means exactly what it says. You use a standard action (specifically the cast a spell action) to cast the spell. The spell takes effect during your turn, when you complete the action.

1 round: Spells with casting times this long aren't completed in the same round they're cast. You must use a full-round action to cast the spell, but the spell does not take affect until just before your turn on the following round. Remember that this is not the same as casting a spell as a full-round action (as bards and sorcerers must do when casting spells altered with metamagic). Casting a full-round action spell works the same way as any full-round action -- you cast the spell and it takes effect during your turn in the current turn. A 1-round spell takes longer, as explained above,

2 rounds or more: These spells work pretty much like spells with 1-round casting times, except that you use a full-round action during each round of the casting time. The spell takes effect just before your turn on the round following the last full-round action you used to cast the spell.

1 free action: A fairly rare casting time. When you cast a spell with a casting time this short, you still can use a standard or full-round action during your turn to cast another spell,. You cannot, however, cast another spell with a casting time of 1 free action. Casting a spell as a free action doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. Normally, you can use a free action only during your own turn, but some spells with casting times of 1 free action can be cast anytime (feather fall, for example). In this case, casting the spell during someone else's turn doesn't count as the one spell you can cast as a free action during your next turn.

Duration

The next entry in the spell header tells you how long the spell's effects last. In general, a spell's duration begins at the time in the round when you finish the spell. Spell duration is discussed in detail on page 176 of the Player's Handbook. This section contains some additional notes on a few kinds of durations.

So spells that take less than a complete round to cast last from "the time that you cast them", which is effectively whenever the game master judges it to be. The implication is from your turn until your next turn, which is effectively a redefinition of "a round".

kjones
2009-02-13, 06:21 PM
Matthew, you are correct about one thing. In my heart, I know that I fudged the rules to save a character - and for this, I feel great shame. :smalltongue: As a DM, it is my sworn duty to kill the players - what am I doing trying to protect them?

In all seriousness, I don't regret it - Gale's last-minute save was so fantastic that it made for a much better story than any death could have been, and if Cameron died, they would have just used the Staff of Life (granted, denying further use, but still not very exciting). But I don't think I'd let it happen again.

Now, with regards to spell durations: The "official" ruling is an interesting one, and not one that I had actually considered. I'll have to bring it up and see what my players think. Until now, I'd been doing it via Saph's method, but the awkwardness of this is immediately apparent when you try to change initiative counts, a tactic of which my party is inordinately fond.

Another observation that I forgot to mention - having horses makes a big difference. (I actually find overland movement an interesting, if somewhat wankerous, aspect of the rules. For example, the encumbrance values listed for horses in the MM (well, in the SRD, but the MM has the same info) disagree with the Carrying Capacity tables for large, four-legged creatures with Str 15. I've been going with "text trumps table" for now.) When moving overland, they can cover 2 miles an hour - they are limited by the 20 ft. move speed of Ross in his heavy armor, and Sarth only has 25 ft. move speed, with Boots of the Wanderer or somesuch. Delora Zann provided them with their choice of mounts - after crunching numbers, it became clear that it would be impossible to get Ross onto a horse with the horse remaining unencumbered, so they might as well put him (and everyone else) on a light horse, which they did. This gives them a move speed of 40 ft/round, or 32 miles/day - incidentally, this is why Gale doesn't need a mount! (Furthermore, his Endurance feat has actually been useful. Incredible.)

Imsril's player pointed out to me that a low-level wizard could make for a potent messenger with multiple castings of extended mount, which I thought was a pretty clever idea - hopefully, they'll have need to implement it at some point. And I'm dying to punish them for force-marching their horses by springing an attack against their wearied steeds.

There, wasn't that interesting? I know you care as much about the vagaries of overland movement and encumbrance as I do, gentle reader. (Am I the only DM who makes players keep track of encumbrance? Sometimes I wonder...)

Matthew
2009-02-13, 06:33 PM
Matthew, you are correct about one thing. In my heart, I know that I fudged the rules to save a character - and for this, I feel great shame. :smalltongue: As a DM, it is my sworn duty to kill the players - what am I doing trying to protect them?

In all seriousness, I don't regret it - Gale's last-minute save was so fantastic that it made for a much better story than any death could have been, and if Cameron died, they would have just used the Staff of Life (granted, denying further use, but still not very exciting). But I don't think I'd let it happen again.

Heh, heh. :smallbiggrin:



Now, with regards to spell durations: The "official" ruling is an interesting one, and not one that I had actually considered. I'll have to bring it up and see what my players think. Until now, I'd been doing it via Saph's method, but the awkwardness of this is immediately apparent when you try to change initiative counts, a tactic of which my party is inordinately fond.

I think Saph was saying that if a spell was cast on count 15 it lasts until count 15, regardless of whether the spell caster's initiative changes. That seems to me to be a reasonable extrapolation of what the RAW implies. I think the "official" rules are a bit confused, the concept of a "round" seems at variance with the spell casting time rules. I thought about a few different approaches on reviewing the rule, but given the assumptions of D20/3e I think Saph's method is the most expedient.



Another observation that I forgot to mention - having horses makes a big difference. (I actually find overland movement an interesting, if somewhat wankerous, aspect of the rules. For example, the encumbrance values listed for horses in the MM (well, in the SRD, but the MM has the same info) disagree with the Carrying Capacity tables for large, four-legged creatures with Str 15. I've been going with "text trumps table" for now.) When moving overland, they can cover 2 miles an hour - they are limited by the 20 ft. move speed of Ross in his heavy armor, and Sarth only has 25 ft. move speed, with Boots of the Wanderer or somesuch. Delora Zann provided them with their choice of mounts - after crunching numbers, it became clear that it would be impossible to get Ross onto a horse with the horse remaining unencumbered, so they might as well put him (and everyone else) on a light horse, which they did. This gives them a move speed of 40 ft/round, or 32 miles/day - incidentally, this is why Gale doesn't need a mount! (Furthermore, his Endurance feat has actually been useful. Incredible.)

Imsril's player pointed out to me that a low-level wizard could make for a potent messenger with multiple castings of extended mount, which I thought was a pretty clever idea - hopefully, they'll have need to implement it at some point. And I'm dying to punish them for force-marching their horses by springing an attack against their wearied steeds.

There, wasn't that interesting? I know you care as much about the vagaries of overland movement and encumbrance as I do, gentle reader. (Am I the only DM who makes players keep track of encumbrance? Sometimes I wonder...)

Yes, indeed. I actually enjoy the resource management element of the game, so I quite like this sort of thing. :smallbiggrin:

Tehnar
2009-02-13, 06:35 PM
I bother with encumbrance rules as well. As well as terrain penalties, getting lost, and weather hazards.

A party with 0 ranks in survival, know (geography/nature), that went into mountains with winter approaching. They spent over 3 months of in game time wandering the mountains before they quit.

Eldariel
2009-02-13, 07:21 PM
A party with 0 ranks in survival, know (geography/nature), that went into mountains with winter approaching. They spent over 3 months of in game time wandering the mountains before they quit.

The better question is, what the hell is a party with no outdoorsmanship, no knowledge of the areas, no orienteerer and no idea of where the north is doing in wilderness in the first place? That seems like an epicly stupid idea, even for a dumb bunch of adventurers. At least hire a guide if none of you have any idea of anything and if you don't have the magic to make up for your lackings. Chances are that even if they had a map, it would've done them little good as none of them could've truly localized them on the map or even held it the right way.

But yea, I fail to see what's wrong with that; if you go somewhere completely unprepared, you deserve to die.

Tehnar
2009-02-13, 07:37 PM
It was an epic stupid idea. They were overconfident in their abilities (read spells), and worse they were stubborn stupid. While able to stay protected and fed, they were lost, their movement reduced to nothing due to blizzards and snowfall/avalanche. It was very fun for me watching them struggle until they could do nothing but teleport to a safe location outside of mountains.

AslanCross
2009-02-13, 07:44 PM
Wow, that was an awesome session. I think I'm well within rights to claim that with good DMing and smart player cooperation, this adventure could give us epic battles even at level 5 (one of my players often whines "But I can't do anything at level 5!).

Kudos on the save as well. I love last-minute saves, and it was pretty cool that a non-caster was able to do the job.

kjones
2009-02-14, 12:13 AM
Wow, that was an awesome session. I think I'm well within rights to claim that with good DMing and smart player cooperation, this adventure could give us epic battles even at level 5 (one of my players often whines "But I can't do anything at level 5!).

Kudos on the save as well. I love last-minute saves, and it was pretty cool that a non-caster was able to do the job.

Technically, they're level 6 now - they leveled after the Battle of Vraath Keep. But one of my favorite things about this module is that it takes place right in what I consider to be the "sweet spot" of 3.5 edition - 5th to 10th level. Characters have enough power to make things interesting for players, but not enough to trivialize every obstacle (for example, wizards can't be overland flighting all day) and casters and non-casters can live side by side in harmony.

The problem with tracking spell durations based on initiative count rather than player turn has to do with the way in which I track initiative. My favored tactic as of late is to write the order down on the dry-erase tiles we use for battle maps, then switch stuff around when people change turns. After the first round, the numbers don't matter - only the order. Tracking spell durations would mean keeping track of the numbers, and not just the current initiative count, but the previous one.

Still, it's probably worth doing, if only to prevent silliness - and it's already come up several times, so it's an issue of concern.

With regards to encumbrance (which is one of those words that I can never spell correctly on the first try... it really seems like there should be two "a"s in there) I did not mean to sound so harsh to people who are lenient about encumbrance limits. It can certainly bog down a game - during one session from a previous campaign, the party had just fought an epic battle at the bottom of a dungeon, in which three out of six PCs died. The remaining three spent at least an hour figuring out how to get the bodies and possessions of their friends, along with all the loot from the battle (which included four magic suits of full plate) out of the dungeon, while the three players who lost characters basically sat around and twiddled their thumbs... If I did that again, I would just handwave it.

But one of the advantages of using the online character sheets that we use is that if you enter your equipment properly, it will calculate encumbrance for you, which takes out a lot of the legwork. Besides, encumbrance limits result in one of my favorite tactics - giving the party 10,000 copper pieces rather than 100 gold pieces. :smallbiggrin:

I am a bad, bad man.

kjones
2009-02-21, 11:54 AM
We picked up again with a pretty good session this week. I was actually a little disappointed with how this one played out - in my opinion, the transition from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 is one of the weakest parts of the module. However, I won't blame the module for my own faults. This week has been hellish for me, so I didn't have my usual opportunity to prepare by reading over the relevant sections (or cooking! We ordered pizza, but it's not the same...) and I spent more time than I should have looking up the stats on barghests and the like rather than focusing on the flow of the game, at the very point where the module needs the most focus.

Still, I think we all had a good time. Last session ended with an alarm in the streets and fire on the west bank of the Elsir River. What happened next? Read on.

The party debated running out without armor (four minutes is a long time) but wisely decided against it. Sarth, however, noted that since his armor is Restful, he would not have taken it off... except that he was in bed with Delora Zann at the time of the attack. Even when reminded of this fact, he still insisted that he would not have removed his armor... cue ten minutes of "I think Armor Check Penalty applies to that" jokes.

Everyone made it out to the ferry and across the river, and the party ran off and smack-dab into a patrol of worg riders and hell hounds. Imsril dispatched some of them with stinking cloud, and the hell hounds dropped quickly (as always), but just as they were getting the upper hand, reinforcements arrived. The rank-and-file charged forward to be slaughtered while the War Adept managed to hang back and do some serious damage.

At one point, Imsril, hoping to interrupt the Adept, readies a magic missile to blast "the first person to cast a spell". Obligingly, Sarth tries to heal himself with cure serious wounds - and gets blasted in the back of the head. I'm not sure why he didn't just ready to hit the Adept...

Before long, he was alone, and realizing that the odds were against him, he downed his potion of fly and, well, flew - but in his haste, he dropped his satchel. Cameron opened it up and found some broken vials, slick with magical residue... and a map. (Yes, that map. Recall that Koth escaped with his copy at Vraath Keep.)

They shared their findings with Captain Sorrana and, the next morning, Norro Winston. While mulling over the implications, and wondering who these "Saarvith" and "Ghostlord" fellows were, a woman dressed in a blue tunic emblazoned with a lion arrived at the Old Bridge Inn and introduced herself as Teyani Sura, a Lion of Brindol.

Without missing a beat, Ross' player immediately responded, "I Sense Motive to see if she's 'lion'". That hurt.

They exchanged news - Sura told them about the blockade to the north, and they told her about the Horde. She pointed out that if there was any hope for help from the outside, it would come from the northern kingdom of Keld Dener.

Yeah, I know. Cool name though, huh?

Anyway, they won't be getting any help from Keld Dener, but it provides a more compelling reason to go check out the blockade than "keep trade flowing".


The party then entered into a heated debate with Norro Winston. He wanted three more days to finish evacuating the town, and was worried that if they were attacked again, they might not hold; the party wanted to leave posthaste. After much argument, they agreed to wait two days before leaving.

After two days, they set off to the east, towards the blockade and the Blackfens. End Chapter I - begin Chapter II, "The Coming of Shadows".

Outside Nimon Gap, they passed a farmhouse with sounds of a commotion coming from inside - suddenly, a chair flew out a window, and they decided to investigate. Four thuggish men emerged, and loudly told the party to shove off. When confronted, they insisted that it was their house, and that the party couldn't prove otherwise - but they pushed their luck by hurling epithets at Sarth and Gale. ("Stick-eater" is a term I've been using, stolen from Jeff Smith's "Bone", as a somewhat derogatory word for religious types.) When the party insisted on checking things out for themselves, the thugs, members of the Crimson Tiger gang, attacked.

It wasn't much of a fight - Imsril glitterdusted two of them, and they beat the third into submission with nonlethal damage in short order. The other three fled - they sat down to have a little chat with the remaining one.

They were frank, telling him that a horde of hobgoblins was bearing down on them, and that they could either help the Vale or die. I decided that the Crimson Tigers, while idiots, were no fools - if the Vale is destroyed, who are they going to pick on? Chent, the leader, agreed to help defend Nimon Gap - this is a bit of a joke, since by suggesting that he do so they were effectively condemning him anyway.

"After all this is over, we'll come back and check up on you," said Imsril. "If we don't like what you've been up to... you're as good as dead." That made an impression.

They pressed on across the Vale. Bedding down in an abandoned farmhouse outside of Witchcross for the night, they were attacked by a patrol of hobgoblins and barghests - I screwed up the barghest tacticals pretty badly, though, and they made short work of them. They captured one of the hobgoblins, but couldn't make him talk, so Gale's new animal companion CdG'ed him, messily. He did, however, let slip something about Rhest - this, along with other evidence they've been collecting, has piqued their interest.

(I forget exactly when, but I think they had made seventh level by this point.)

I decided to beef up the blockade encounter, since they had been breezing through everything up until this point. I added a War Adept, and turned the ogres into Skullcrusher Ogres from MM3. (Rock throwing >> javelins)

The party crested a hill and saw the palisade on the road ahead - Imsril sent Nymeria to scout, but the Horde has caught on to that one - they started firing.

They came up with a plan to cast greater invisibility on Cameron, then baleful transposition her with one of the hobgoblins on top of the watchtower - this might have worked had the hobgoblin not made his save. After that, they pretty much just cast haste and charged. The ogres hit the wizard pretty badly, while Cameron climbed up onto the watchtower, while still invisible. As hobgoblins poured up the ladders, she killed 4 of them in one round - but the Adept hit her with glitterdust, illuminating and blinding her.

Ross and Sarth started trying to break down the door - Imsril swapped Ross with Cameron with benign transposition, and she fled. However, the sergeants were up on the watchtower at this point, and one of them bullrushed Ross down the ladder. (I've given them Improved Bull Rush for fun and profit.)

Meanwhile, Gale is exchanging arrows with the defenders, but the ogres are dealing some serious damage with their hurled rocks. Sarth is still trying to break down the door, and the Adept is blasting the hell out of everyone.

Ross goes over and unbars the door - realizing that the jig is up, the ogres quit throwing rocks and get into the fight proper. Ross charges one, and gets grappled pretty hard - Sarth tries to help, but gets hit by the other one from behind.

Things have suddenly taken a turn for the worse. Ross and Sarth quickly drop to the ogres, who then barricade the door. It's up to Gale, Cameron, and Imsril to save them.

Imsril swaps Sarth for Cameron with benign transposition, and she manages to drop one of the ogres, while Gale deals with the surviving hobgoblins. He crits with an arrow, killing one of the sergeants, and Cameron dispatches the other ogre, saving Ross just in time.

It was a long battle, so we wrapped it up there for the evening.


Observations:


Part of the reason why I was disappointed with this session was because I was just frazzled, and I kept forgetting things. I nearly forgot about including the map in the Goblin Raid encounter - I had to have the War Adept "drop" it as he fled. I forgot that the Crimson Tigers encounter was supposed to happen outside a tavern, instead of someone's home, so it became a lot more contrived. (Why did they throw a chair through a window? To get the players' attention, of course!) I forgot about the reason why Drellin's Ferry needs time to evacuate (they need to bring in what they can of the early harvest, otherwise they'll starve on the road or in the streets of Brindol) and so Norro Winston's pleas came off as selfish. Nothing I can say other than that I'll try to do better next time, and I hope my players didn't notice.
Metagaming usually doesn't bother me all that much, but I've become extremely sensitive to it in this campaign. When Imsril suggested going to hunt down a Red Hand patrol when he was a few hundred XP short of a level, I flew off the handle at him, even though it was a legitimate course of action. Imsril's player has been asking if there are any high-level druids in the Vale, since he'd rather get reincarnated than raised. When they got to Witchcross and I mentioned the Circle of Eth (a clan of druids), he started to ask something about them, and I, assuming that he would be asking about reincarnation prospects, yelled at him... That wasn't what he was asking. Oops. The thing is, he does metagame sometimes, but he's not being unreasonable about it - I'm just being overly sensitive.
I think the reason I'm getting so cross with Imsril's player is that the whole "full arcane caster" thing is starting to sink in. His 4th level spells are solid fog and black tentacles (and something else, but those are the ones that worry me). He's not doing anything wrong - it just means that I need to go into every encounter thinking, "How can I keep the wizard from ending this in a single round?" There's lots of ways to do this,
It's not just the wizard. Ross, with his newly earned DR, has become nigh untouchable to normal mooks, and most other people besides. High AC, high touch AC, good saves, high HP... Grappling him was pretty effective, though. :smalltongue: But seriously, 7th level brought a significant power boost that I don't think I was really ready for. I don't think I can run unmodified encounters anymore, at least not if I don't want them to be speedbumps.
Once again, the transition from Chapter I to Chapter II was awkward. They left Drellin's Ferry on Day 11, a full week before the Horde will arrive... but somehow, the Vale is supposed to already be at war? If the Horde hasn't crossed the Elsir River yet, most of the interim encounters don't make a lot of sense. At least I was able to plant the idea in their heads that the barghests came from the blockade.
Judging by the events of tonight, I think I've sold the party too well on the urgency of saving the Vale. The problem is, at the pace they're keeping, they'll make mistakes - for example, they should have waited until nightfall to attack the blockade. Hopefully, once they get a better sense of the Horde's rate of progress across the Vale, they'll calm down a bit - still, I might tweak the timeline a little. I'm reluctant to do so, because this means that their destruction of Skull Gorge Bridge was pointless -the Horde just sped up to counter act it.
The party has become very disheartened with their attempts to interrogate, mostly because they keep trying to use Intimidate and none of them have any ranks. They have ranks in Diplomacy, ranks in Bluff, charm person...
The last time I ran this, the blockade battle was a total pushover. I think the ogres made a big difference - regular ogres are useless with javelins, and fairly squishy to boot.



Anyway, this session caught me off guard - it won't happen again. Sorry for the ranting - I appreciate the opportunity to vent and try to figure out my dissatisfaction with last night's session. I think the next one will go a lot better.

evil-frosty
2009-02-21, 03:16 PM
Sounds like a good session, even if you were frazzled and didnt have as much time to prepare like normal. Though i do think you owe Imsril's player an apology getting yelled at isnt fun, just explain it to him. Or if you know he wasnt bothered by it then i guess it doesnt matter.

Saph
2009-02-22, 06:57 AM
Metagaming usually doesn't bother me all that much, but I've become extremely sensitive to it in this campaign. When Imsril suggested going to hunt down a Red Hand patrol when he was a few hundred XP short of a level, I flew off the handle at him, even though it was a legitimate course of action. Imsril's player has been asking if there are any high-level druids in the Vale, since he'd rather get reincarnated than raised. When they got to Witchcross and I mentioned the Circle of Eth (a clan of druids), he started to ask something about them, and I, assuming that he would be asking about reincarnation prospects, yelled at him... That wasn't what he was asking. Oops. The thing is, he does metagame sometimes, but he's not being unreasonable about it - I'm just being overly sensitive.

Heh. Yeah, I've been there before. I tell players not to metagame repeatedly, but they do have a tendency to do it anyway. After a certain point I just give up and start compensating. (If the PCs can share OOC info telepathicly, then all the monsters will too.)


I think the reason I'm getting so cross with Imsril's player is that the whole "full arcane caster" thing is starting to sink in. His 4th level spells are solid fog and black tentacles (and something else, but those are the ones that worry me). He's not doing anything wrong - it just means that I need to go into every encounter thinking, "How can I keep the wizard from ending this in a single round?"

Well, there are several points here:

First off, it's okay for the wizard to dominate encounters with a single spell occasionally. There's nothing wrong with the wizard using his top-level spells to one-shot a mook or a random monster. It only becomes a problem when the PCs start expecting it.

That said, I can see your point. Solid Fog and Black Tentacles are incredibly annoying spells to adjudicate, not so much because they're particularly deadly as because they slow combat to a crawl. I hate Web for the same reason. After the second time a combat had taken an extra hour due to a Solid Fog I'd probably just sit down with the player and say: "Please find some different spells."


It's not just the wizard. Ross, with his newly earned DR, has become nigh untouchable to normal mooks, and most other people besides. High AC, high touch AC, good saves, high HP... Grappling him was pretty effective, though. :smalltongue: But seriously, 7th level brought a significant power boost that I don't think I was really ready for. I don't think I can run unmodified encounters anymore, at least not if I don't want them to be speedbumps.

Yeah, my PCs were level 6 going into Rhest. You're definitely going to have to modify the encounters a fair bit. I'd see how the Blackfens encounters go, and then push up the power level of the Rhest battle significantly to compensate.

- Saph

kjones
2009-02-26, 12:10 AM
First of all, I did apologize to the wizard player for accusing him of metagaming - he, in turn, apologized for acting out of character. I've decided to let him keep the spells, for now. I did explain to the player that if he was going to up the ante with powerful spells, that I would respond in kind - and that most of his spells had straightforward counters. He seemed fine with this, but it doesn't resolve the issue that they're annoying spells as well as powerful ones.

I suppose it falls on me as a DM to keep up the pace of combat when stuff like this comes into play.

Speaking of upping the ante, I've prepared the changes I'm making to the Blackfens. I added another razorfiend (they've tended to steam through single opponent battles - cf. the hydra, the chimera) to the razorfiend encounter. I made significant changes to Rhest - once again cribbing off of Saph, I boosted Regiarax to Young Adult and made Saarvith 9th level. I tweaked them significantly, though - among many other changes, Regiarax has Assay Spell Resistance and Saarvith has a +1 hunting shortbow (+4 to damage against Gale!).
I didn't modify the ettin, but I turned two of the ogres on the roof into Skullcrusher Ogres - this should make the approach to the tower more interesting if they are spotted.

My biggest concern is the survivability of Saarvith - last time I ran this encounter, he went down pretty easily. I gave him wind wall to protect against ranged attacks, which should help - additionally, it will clear away solid fog should that be an issue. The party has proven themselves to be weak at ranged, so he should be OK if he keeps his distance. If things get too hot, Regiarax will fly him over to the bell tower or something like that.

The players want to play hardball? Fine. But I've been playing this game longer than any of them.:smallbiggrin:

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to kill them. I'm just trying to challenge them... and what's more challenging than death?

We'll be playing this Friday, and might get through the battle of Rhest, though they're just entering the Blackfens now, so we'll see.

ColdSepp
2009-02-28, 12:59 PM
I am enjoying this read very much! Keep them coming, please!

kjones
2009-03-09, 12:25 PM
Session 5

In which our heroes meet new foes, make new friends, and realize that no plan survives contact with the enemy

I had made some modifications to the Battle of Rhest - I've listed them below.


I upped Regiarax to Young Adult - meaning Large, Frightful Presence, just all-around nastier. I gave him Improved Grapple, Assay Spell Resistance (for SR 16), and a few other cute little tricks.
Saarvith got boosted to 9th level. More spells (including, critically, wind wall), higher attack, etc. I replaced his bow with a +1 hunting shortbow - when all said and done, he's dealing 1d6 + 7 to to humans and 1d6 + 9 to elves. I boosted his Strength to 10, because, come on. I took away his animal companion, though, both for balance and because I didn't think it would make too much of a difference, and I didn't want another flying creature in the fight.
I replaced two of the regular ogres on the roof with Skullcrusher Ogres - as we saw last week, that rock throwing can be pretty brutal, especially when applied to, say, a makeshift lizardfolk raft.


I also toned down the treasure in the Razorfiend encounter in the Blackfens. Most notably, I removed the +2 headband of intellect - one 4th level spell per day is more than enough, thank you.

I added another razorfiend too, for the hell of it.


Last session, the party had defeated the foes defending the blockade on the Old Rhest Trail, hopefully opening up a diplomatic channel to the northern kingdom of Keld Denar. However, they suspected from the map they found that there was more trouble lurking in the Blackfens...

They rested and identified the treasure they had found from the blockade defenders before destroying the blockade the next morning. Sarth did so in a particularly Sarth-like way - he stripped naked, walked in with a torch, and set things on fire until the watchtower started filling up with smoke - his fire resistance protected him from harm. With roiling black smoke streaming upwards, they decided to make themselves scarce - they set off north, and followed the road into the Blackfens.

The going was slow once they got into the swamp, and they were forced to dismount. Trudging through on foot, beset by midges and blackflies (I've had a lot of real-world experience that I used to color this for them :smalltongue:) they found an oddly dismembered corpse of a giant owl - with the two greenspawn razorfiends that killed it lurking nearby.

Imsril crippled one with glitterdust, but the other tore into them - they brought him down, but not without serious wounds. (Fortunately there's a spell for that... Also, I forgot about their augmented critical until after the fact, and kicked myself for it.) Meanwhile, the other one recovered enough to track them by ear, and began playing a deadly game of Blind Man's Bluff - he got off a breath weapon or two, but was quickly dispatched.

They searched the islet with the owl corpse, and found both the jade band identifying the owl (Gale could read the inscription) and the iron coffer containing some substantial treasures. While studying these, Killiar Arrowswift and his Tiri Kitor posse arrived. At first, they were worried that the elves would want their treasure back, but the elves were only concerned about the fate of their companion. A little discussion and a few diplomacy checks later, Killiar decided that these outsiders were not hostile - furthermore, the news they brought of a hobgoblin horde sounded important. Killiar and the party mounted up on the owls, leaving the horses in the care of the elves, and they took wing towards Starsong Hill.


The Tiri Kitor have a bad habit of shoving words together to make names. Arrowswift, Starsong (and Starsinger), Nightshadow, Snowmantle, "harrowblade", and so on. At first glance, this module seems to fall into Elves are Better (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreBetter) territory, but look closer at their stats - the Horde could kick these guys' asses from noon to Sunday. No wonder they need the PCs to come deal with Rhest; they can't handle it.


They arrived at Starsong Hill after dark - I always thought the "hillside lit by jars of fireflies" thing was kind of silly, but the players seemed genuinely impressed. They were greeted by Sellyria Starsinger, who told them what she knew of the peril lurking in Rhest. The players were keen on enlisting the aid of the Tiri Kitor against the Horde, so Sellyria hinted that she might be able to provide assistance - if the party could deal with Rhest.

Trellara Nightshadow was also present for this discussion, lost in grief for her brother, killed by the razorfiends. Sarth spoke to her for a moment, expressing his sympathy and assuring her that they would attend the funeral the next day.

The next day, Imsril, Cameron, and Gale bought supplies, while Sarth and Ross sought out Illian Snowmantle, the priest of Corellon Larethian. They assisted him in tending to the wounded in his care, while engaging in a lively discussion about spirituality. (Sarth is a follower of Fharlanghan, whereas Ross worships Heironious).

Then it was time for Lanikar's funeral - Trellara led the elves in song, an improvised, chant-like piece that told the story of Lanikar's life. All of the players joined in one way or another - some can carry a tune, some can't. Imsril joined in with a summoned illusory string quartet - I couldn't decide if this was tasteless or awesome. Lacking a body, they burned a bonfire anointed with holy water. The funeral itself was followed by a great feast and celebration, and Cameron and Gale impressed the elves mightily with a tumbling routine.

During the festivities, Trellara pulled them aside. She told them that she wanted to accompany them to Rhest and avenge her brother's death. They were concerned over whether her anger would blind her, but she assured them that she could handle herself, so they agreed.

They set off by boat, with Trellara as a guide, and before long found the ruins of Rhest. Cameron and Gale scouted it out a little, enough to see the lizardmen but not enough to learn anything about the occupied buildings other than that they were occupied.

They came up with a simple plan that would get them to the bell tower undetected: water walk plus invisibility sphere. They crept over to the eastern bank of the lake, and after casting these and a ton of other buffs, they set off.

The tower guards could hear them approaching, but they couldn't see them - Imsril cast ghost sound to aid in the confusion. One of the hobgoblins pounded on the bell with the hilt of his sword, which gonged with a resounding peal that could be heard for miles. The battle was on.

They dispatched the bell tower defenders quickly, but Saarvith and Regiarax had taken wing and were speeding towards the tower, followed closely by a (flying, invisible) Nurklenak. Once they got in range, Imsril hit the dragon with solid fog - Saarvith countered with wind wall, and Regiarax charged, grappling Imsril.

Imsril escaped with baleful transposition, swapping himself with Ross. Regiarax found Ross to be a bit too much to handle, and dropped him - and now the real battle began.

The battle took place on and around the tower, and some surrounding ruined buildings. The party was careful not to let themselves get bunched up, to minimize the effect of Regiarax' breath - since they had water walk, this meant spreading out over the surface of the lake. However, this worked to Regiarax' advantage. He could submerge freely and attack from underwater with impunity, surfacing from time to time to let Saarvith breathe and shoot. Effectively, he was Jaws - he was, quite literally, in his element.

The battle raged on. The players had numbers on their side, but the terrain was against them. Ross and Sarth readied themselves, hoping to get off attacks when Regiarax surfaced. Gale peppered them with arrows, but Saarvith returned fire - he seemed to have a special hatred for Gale. Imsril cast spell after spell, got grappled again, escaped again - but now it was Cameron in the dragon's clutches, who did not fare quite so well. Regiarax landed on a rooftop and tore into Cameron, who, knowing when to fold 'em, played dead.

Throughout the battle, Trellara hid behind the bell on top of the tower and sang out with inspire courage - her voice tremulous but clear. When Imsril got caught in Regiarax' blast and fell into the lake (he was flying, and so did not have water walk), it was she that ran out to save him from drowning - and was nearly killed by Regiarax in the process. (16 HP? Seriously?)

Meanwhile, Nurklenak arrived and started wreaking havoc with suggestion and illusions. They brought him down, but not before Sarth and Gale had started running towards the town hall to "get help" (thank you, Saph!). I'm not sure what the actual ruling on this is, but I decided that his death ended the suggestions, and they rejoined the fight.

With Cameron down, things looked grim, but Gale dropped Saarvith with a lucky shot, and the tide of battle turned. Regiarax flew into a rage, and grappled Gale. "You killed him! You killed him!" he shouted, over and over, and tore Gale to shreds, clawing and biting over and over until there was nothing left to claw.

This was the moment that Ross and Sarth had been waiting for - they charged, and Regiarax fell, but they were too late to save Gale.

Imsril saw a small fleet of rafts converging on the bell tower, each bearing half a dozen lizardfolk. They grabbed what they could of Gale's body and made for the bell tower, there to make a desperate last stand.


Observations:


This was a long session. I didn't realize it because we started later than we usually did, but we played for ~8 hours. The battle of Rhest was incredibly epic, though, and very evenly matched - it could have gone either way. It would have been much easier for them had they realized that walking out onto the lake worked against them.

Assuming that the players make it back to Starsong Hill alive, they've already earned the alliance of the elves. Killiar is friendly due to a good initial reaction, Sellyria is friendly from their assistance with the Horde, Illian is friendly from Sarth's and Ross' help, and Trellara is friendly for obvious reasons. They killed at least one razorfiend (not sure if I should both of the first two) and cleared out Rhest (with Saarvith and Regiarax gone, the rest won't stay, even if they survive). They gave a memorable performance at the funeral, and showed great kindness to Trellara. That's around 13 or so alliance points - they might get some owls out of this.

I've been forgoing random encounters, since there's been so much else going on. I think I'll throw some in next time, to add to the flavor of the place.

They're leveling fast. They will be close to level 8 by the end of this, and they'll probably level before they find the Ghostlord. This is fine with me - they should be Level 9 for the Battle of Brindol.

Once Saarvith cast wind wall, they immediately assumed that he was a sorcerer. They continued to assume this even after he started hitting with arrows for 10-20 damage a pop.

They'll likely use the staff of life on Gale, but they won't have time before the lizardfolk arrive. They're low on hit points and out of spells - this battle isn't over yet.



I apologize for the delay, but real life has been hitting me hard - I'll try to be more timely in the future. I'm trying to cut down on the TL;DR-ness, but it's all so interesting to me that I don't know what to leave out, and believe me, I left out quite a bit (Gale's budding romance with Trellara, for example). However, the length of these write-ups is in part what takes them so long to post, so I should really make them shorter... But knowing that you lot are all reading this and enjoying it is what makes it worthwhile.

kjones
2009-03-29, 09:23 AM
Session 6

In which our heroes wriggle their way out of a tight spot, and dark secrets are revealed.

Lest you feared that this campaign journal had dropped off the face of the Earth - fear not! It will take more than a three-week lapse in games to keep us down.

If you recall correctly, things looked grim for our heroes when we last left off. Surrounded by rapidly approaching lizardfolk, with Gale dead and everyone else wounded and low on spells, there was serious concern among my players as to whether or not this would end in a TPK - some went so far as to roll up backup characters.

Here's how things played out:

They immediately looted Regiarax, and carried Saarvith's unconscious form and the parts of Gale's body that they could find back over to the bell tower. (Recall that they still had water walk active.) They searched through the lower level, hoping to find something of use, but they couldn't open the locked chest. They assembled on the roof and pulled out their bows. Nymeria, Imsril's hawk, returned with more bad news - the ogres from the town hall had boarded rafts and were headed towards the bell tower.

My plan was for the enemies to attack in waves, a few minutes apart - first the lizardfolk, followed by the greenspawn razorfiend (who the ogres had released from the hatchery, and who was swimming towards the bell tower, out of sight), then the ogres themselves.

Before the lizardfolk came within earshot, the party realized that Saarvith provided them with a powerful bargaining chip. When the lizardfolk approached, they held up his body for them to see. Cam called out that they would kill Saarvith unless the lizardfolk let them go, and rolled a Diplomacy check.

Now, the lizardfolk hate Saarvith - he flew in one day and declared himself king of the hill. I chose to have the lizardfolk interpret this as "We'll kill Saarvith if you let us go", perhaps due to some linguistic difficulties. To they player's surprise, they readily agreed, under the condition that the players never return to Rhest. At first the players were uncertain - they still wanted to check out the town hall, and find the dragon's hoard, but once they realized that the lizardfolk hadn't specified a timeframe, they agreed, and the lizardfolk left.

The ogres (and the razorfiend, unbeknownst to them) kept approaching, of course, and shots were fired as they came within range. The Skullcrusher ogres returned fire with their throwing stones (I still think that their 100 ft. range has to be a typo. One of them hit for 17 damage from 300 feet away! That's a football field! Imagine trying to hit a moving, dodging target with a thrown soccer ball from a football field away... They are ogres, though.) and kept advancing.

While the players were distracted by the ogres, the razorfiend sprang out of the water and attacked. He dealt some solid blows, but the players quickly realized that if they stayed away from the edge of the tower, he would have to come up on the roof to attack them - once he did, they piled up on him and took him out.

Imsril (!) brought down an ogre with his crossbow (I've never seen so many nat twennies before...) but there were still three coming. They harried them with ranged attacks until the Skullcrushers ran out of rocks; then, Sarth and Ross formed a chokepoint on the stairs and held them off as they tried to make it onto "dry land". Scratch three ogres.

Before heading over to the town hall, Sarth used the staff of life to raise Gale. While he was doing so, Imsril decided it was time to have a chat with Saarvith. He healed him back to consciousness, and explained that in a few minutes, they would be bringing back to life a very violent elf - Imsril promised him a quick death in exchange for information, warning him that Gale would not likely be so generous. Saarvith, despondent over the death of Regiarax, agreed - with his best friend gone, he had nothing to live for.

This is how the party learned of the Red Hand's alliance with the Ghostlord.

Imsril held up his end of the bargain, and killed Saarvith; Sarth resurrected Gale. They boarded the rafts conveniently provided by the ogres and sailed over to the town hall. They weren't expecting the ettin, and very nearly fled, but a brutal sneak attack by Cameron (69 damage on a full attack! I've got to check those numbers sometime...) turned the tide quickly. They searched the hall, and with judicious use of detect magic, found Regiarax' horde - I modified it extensively, details in the spoiler block.


Replaced the +2 full plate with +1 death ward full plate - Ross' AC is high enough already.
Replaced the periapt of wisdom +2 with a Scout's Headband from the MiC. Nobody needs wisdom that much, and I like giving them cool little abilities more than raw stat boosts.
Replaced the +2 silvered mace with a +1 lucky quarterstaff. Sarth is the only one without a magic weapon (except for Imsril, and he doesn't count) and silvered is mostly a liability.



They gathered up the loot and headed back to Starsong Hill. Sellyria and Illian knew little about the Ghostlord, and suggested that the party try to learn more in Brindol. The party earned a total of 15 Alliance Points throughout Chapter 2 - enough to earn both the alliance of the Tiri Kitor and the loan of their giant owls.

The party set off for Brindol with two goals in mind - to track down the Ghostlord (they had the vague idea that he operated out of the Thornwastes) and to learn what they could about him from his phylactery. When they arrived, they were relieved to see that the city seemed to be taking the threat of the Red Hand seriously - the signs of preparations for war were everywhere.

Imsril and Sarth sought out Immerstal the Red (after trading riddles with Alandri the gynosphinx), both to trade magical equipment and to see if he knew anything about the Ghostlord. Their meeting was fruitful - Red, a wizened sage, knew much that the common folklore had let pass, and suggested possible venues for tracking down a specific location. Ross went to get his new armor refitted, while Gale and Cameron worked the crowds applying *ahem* sleight of hand.

They weren't careful enough, apparently - a halfling approached Gale and told him that he'd better "watch out", that people didn't do that sort of thing without Verrasa Kaal knowing about it. To my surprise, Cameron announced her intentions to meet this Kaal woman,. I explained that Kaal was an important woman, not the sort that you just approach on the street, but allowed that she might be found at Velorian's Playhouse, attending that evening's performance of "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby". Cam immediately found a botique and spent a pile of gold on appropriately fancy attire for the occasion, and purchased a ticket to the show. Luckily for her, Kaal was in attendance, surrounded by a considerable entourage.

Observations:


Imsril, in an urban environment, is kind of scaring me. He's constantly on the lookout for opportunities to mess with hapless bystanders with magic - sooner or later, he'll do something that gets him into trouble, and I'd like to avoid that road if possible.
I'm really glad that the party managed to negotiate their way past the lizardfolk. That battle would have been tedious at best, and silly at worst.
Brindol has a lot of "named" locations, but most of them are taverns, restaurants, inns... a surprising dearth of stores (beyond the market square, of course).
While in the market square, Cam was accosted by a burly fellow who called himself "Mack the Knife", who went on to prattle about how he "owed her big" from "last time". Neither the player nor the character had the foggiest idea of what this was all about, and to be honest, neither did I - I just figured that Mack would be the sort of colorful character that would populate Cameron's past. She and Gale have made such a big thing of their criminal background that it would be a shame not to have it come up.
Most of the party made 8th level this session - Gale is, of course, a level behind. In a way, the rising power curve of the party concerns me less now than it did before; at this point, I can safely remove the kid gloves. The Ghostlord will undergo some revision, as will Ulwai and, ideally, her minions. I'll have to be careful regarding the former, though. I don't want to make him overwhelming, or it will seem like I'm railroading the players into negotiating with him. On the other hand, his current incarnation would probably not pose as much of a challenge as he should, and a lich should not be taken lightly.
I've been glossing through a lot of the more mundane shopping stuff in town, but I think I'll try to play more of it out next session - it's a lot of fun with this crowd.

kjones
2009-03-30, 11:42 PM
I've been thinking of modifications I'd like to make, and I thought I would bring them up here.

First of all, the Ghostlord. To put it bluntly, I don't think he's enough of a threat in his current form (especially with his current spell selection). Confronting him should be dangerous - confronting him violently should be very dangerous. However, I don't want to force the players into negotiating. Fighting him should be an option, albeit a very risky one. So how much is enough? Should I stop at reworking his spell selections? Give him another level or two?

Second of all, it's currently Day 19. By the timeline, the Horde is a month away from Brindol. I don't want the lead-up to the battle to be a lot of sitting and waiting, but if I arbitrarily speed up the Horde, this invalidates the actions that the party took to slow them down (that is, if they hadn't destroyed the bridge, the Horde would have taken longer anyways). And yet, the module points out that the Horde should, to an extent, move at the speed of plot. I guess it's a little early to be worrying about this - it could take them weeks to find and confront the Ghostlord - but not at the pace they're moving. How much mucking with the timeline is too much?

evil-frosty
2009-03-31, 12:11 AM
Well to make the ghostlord tougher redo his spell selection it sucks as is, and to make it more risky to fight him give him more minions when they fight him easier and can be a lot of fun.*Goes Look at his entry* Ok give him another level or 2 of druid to give him 6th level spells and change his spell list around it's not that great. And give him extra minions when the party faces him.

Now the Red Hand has access to a lot of magic so you could say that they just used magic to make up for lost time. If you dont feel like doing that bog the party down with weather and maybe getting lost in the Thornwastes? Also if you want to do more work you could have them do a side adventure completely unrelated to the mod but this seems like a bad option to me since it takes away from the suspense of the whole thing.

Another way to suck time up is have the party deliver the gold to the dwarven mercenaries in the mountains. Then if you think the horde is still behind have them get lost in the mountains.

It sounds like you guys had a fun session, the party got insanely lucky in my opinion that is suppose to be a brutal battle and wasnt as much as it was in Saphs Journal. Another thing you guys have only one character death so far and he was brought back immediately w/ the staff of life. Overall i think your party is doing quite well. And whats this about a budding romance between Gale and Trellara?
And now may i ask what is your advice on running this mod since i would like to do exactly that in the near future. Might even keep a campaign journal of it but i dont think i could do that.

kjones
2009-03-31, 12:15 PM
With regards to the Ghostlord - I absolutely agree that he should be given minions. This makes sense thematically - supposedly, he's been sitting around making ghost lions all these years, so he should have a few to spare. It also makes for a much better fight, should it come to that. In my experience, the action advantage that a party has against a single foe can sometimes be enough to overcome significant CR disparities. (It would be pretty easy for them to lock him down somehow, and then just go to town. I should, at the very least, give him freedom of movement somehow...)

But I'm not sure that I need to do more than giving him minions and rearranging his spells. Does my concern make sense here? I feel like if I make him too powerful, I might as well make him invulnerable, video-game-style - you know, games where you are physically incapable of killing important NPC's. (Even worse are the ones where you can attack them, you just can't hurt them...)

The party's low death rate thus far is, in my opinion, due to a combination of optimization, tactics, and luck. Recall that the party is currently a ranger/scout with Swift Hunter, a rogue/swashbuckler with Daring Outlaw, a Fax-variant paladin, a full wizard (who just multiclassed into Fatespinner, gods help us all), and a favored soul. These guys know how to play, and I've been scaling the encounters to match. So far, it's been challenging, but not overwhelming - so I think I'm doing it just about right.

Also keep in mind that Saph's party had to face most of the defenders of Rhest at once - because they holed up in the bell tower, my party managed to stagger the defenders' approach, which makes a huge difference. If the razorfiend had showed up earlier, it would have turned the tide.

When I say tactics, I mean both the tactics that they use, and the tactics that I use. Imsril is particularly adept at pulling the party out of tight spots - what do you expect, he's Batman - but as a whole, the party works very well together as a team. They're good at coming up with (fairly) clever plans, and they're good at improvising when things inevitably go wrong. As far as NPC tactics go, my monsters generally don't attack downed foes. First of all, it makes sense in character, since a monster has no quick way of knowing if a downed foe is unconscious or dead, and probably isn't going to waste time checking or hitting a "corpse". Second of all, I find that targeting a downed player directly just feels like a cheap shot. (Area effects, attacks of opportunity, etc. are all fair game, of course). This doesn't mean that I never do it; recall that Regiarax continued to tear into Gale after he was unconscious. Also recall that this probably cost Regiarax his life. So, PCs dropping into negatives is actually quite common, but there's usually someone around to bring them back up (and they have a lot of sources of healing - Sarth has spells, and there are wands, potions, and healing belts distributed pretty evenly).

And, of course, sometimes they just get lucky. Early on during the Battle of Rhest, Saarvith hit Gale with a natural 20 - I rolled to activate, and confirmed. This would have killed Gale outright (3d6 + 27 damage will do that) had someone not reminded him that he was hasted, which improved his AC by 1, which was enough to make the threat fail to confirm.

Now, with regards to the timeline - of course, I can come up with some in-game justification for the Horde to speed up, but this is no different than the computer player suddenly getting a speed boost near the end of the race, which is just cheap and annoying. Instead, I'll try to slow down the party.

Part of the problem is that they earned the loan of the Tiri Kitor's owls, which speeds up their overland travel speed considerably. Thus, sending them running around the Vale won't actually slow them down that much - they can make it from one end to the other in 5 days. I had considered the Hammerfist Holds gold, and I think I'll use that. Having them get lost is another idea, but again, the owls make this difficult.

I did introduce a new factor into the world - the northern kingdom of Keld Denar. (This was the impetus behind clearing the roadblock - to free up communications to the north, and ask them for help. Of course, they'll refuse.) I could send them north, but I'd rather avoid fleshing it out if possible - too much work, and what if they succeed in securing help?

I did, however, just come up with an idea. When the players arrived in Brindol, they stabled their owls at a livery just outside the city limits. (I figure that Brindol gets enough travelers to be used to this sort of thing.) The stableboy was very mouthy and rude, since he was suspicious of Gale, the desert elf. To pay him back, Imsril cast disguise self and mount, and stabled the summoned horse at the livery. He'll come back in a day, after the mount has disappeared, and demand it back... I could have the city seize all the mounts at the livery (including the owls) as "evidence", if I wanted to be mean.

There is, in fact, a budding romance between Gale and Trellara, to the extent that Gale was very upset to learn that she could not join them, but instead needed to remain among the Tiri Kitor to defend her homeland against the Red Hand. Roleplaying romantic encounters can be very awkward, but Gale's player is good - he plays Gale as an awkward, moody, uncharismatic character, which makes his conversations with Trellara very amusing. Example:

Trellara: What are those notches on your bow for?
Gale: I put a notch on my bow for every time I kill.
Trellara: There are a lot of notches on there...
Gale: There are thirty-seven. Would you like to hear about each one of them?
Trellara: ... That's all right, thanks.

This led to him bragging about his archery prowess - she called him out on it, so he started picking out distant leaves and trying to hit them. He had some very bad luck, and it was kind of adorable.

I'll bring her back at some point. Other characters that I'll bring back in Brindol will include Captain Sorranna and Delora Zann from Drellin's Ferry, among others.

I apologize once again for the TL;DR, but I'm really happy to be back in the swing of things after such a long hiatus.

Frosty, is there anything in particular you want advice for?

evil-frosty
2009-04-01, 08:32 PM
Yes your concern is valid since making him too powerful can be rather easy he is a druid after all. But you have been scaling all the encounters rather well so you do know what you are doing. You dont want him to be a push over either though(that ruins a lot of the hype you can make over him) just do what you think is best and think will challenge the party and let them have fun.

Yes your party is getting lucky, and i am sorry but most of the stuff you named they had as proof of optimization i have heard of but never looked because i dont own a lot of books. And yes attacking a downed character is a cheap shot but can help thematically sometimes. Really depends on the feel your going for in game.

Ya i agree just speeding up the horde can be annoying especially with the comparison you made. So just slow them down weather is great for this, for instance owls wont fly in rain or high winds. If you do send them north have it be wasted time like the kingdom is still sore over some small slight or maybe a big one, up to you.

Ya roleplaying romances can be awkward but fun. And are usually funny for other people hearing about it, this is why i asked.

I just want general advice really, anything that you did that didnt work out all that well and on the opposite hand things that worked really well? Also how to connect the first chapter with the second? One last thing also would be the changes in the common soldiers equipment wise and build wise. Thats all i can think of right now.

kjones
2009-04-03, 05:40 PM
I just spoke with the player of Ross, the paladin, who told me that regardless of what the rest of the party wants to do, he'll probably attack the Ghostlord given the opportunity, since there's no in-character reason he could let such a foul abomination live.

This... should be interesting. I'm definitely boosting the Ghostlord up a few levels - he's a frickin' sissy.

evil-frosty
2009-04-03, 07:09 PM
Thats good that he told you now you know they are going to fight him. Definitely give him a few more levels and a lot of minions, who doesnt like minions? Remember he is suppose to be very old so most likely a couple of other adventuring parties have come before yours so he should be used to handling them and know whats best to do in a certain situation. Oh and dont forget to change his spells.

Saph
2009-04-03, 10:16 PM
Yeah, I had the same issue with the Ghostlord when I was running it. I think the full discussion is back in my old thread.

Summary version: Boost him up a few levels, change his spell selection, and give him some ghost dire lions. Lots of ghost dire lions. They're incorporeal and he's been making them for centuries, so theoretically there's no reason he can't pack every 5' square of his lair with the things.

For spell selection, give him a bunch of AoE attacks that he's immune to, like Stinking Cloud, and have him fill the area with them. He doesn't care about poison, but the players will.

Finally, make sure the players can't just use a shot from the Staff of Life to kill him. That'd make for a very anticlimactic battle.

Remember that the Ghostlord is supposed to be very old, very powerful, and very dangerous - he's faced dozens of adventuring parties before. Regardless of what the paladin thinks, the players do need to learn sooner or later that they can't just kill everything they meet. They've been getting away with it so far because their class builds are so much more powerful than what they've been facing, but eventually the difficulty level's going to catch up with them.

- Saph

kjones
2009-04-04, 12:35 AM
Looking over the blighter spell list gave me one idea right off the bat - antilife shell. There's not much they can do about that, other than try to dispel it, and it will keep the biggest threat (Ross) off his back.

There are (at least) two possibilities. One, the rest of the party runs away, leaving Ross to his fate. But if they all stick together, and manage to dispel the antilife shell (which they could - both Sarth and Imsril have the spell) , they might just have a chance.

I boosted the Ghostlord by a blighter level (giving him 6th-level spells), and I'll put two brute ghost lions and two dire ghost lions in the room with him (maybe hiding in the walls, if I want to be mean... and I do. :smallbiggrin:) I redid his spell selection completely - you can PM me for details if you're interested. (Including Extended Stinking Cloud... and the antilife shell should be enough to keep the staff of life away from him, even if they think of that, which they honestly probably won't.)

I'm boosting Ulwai a little as well, giving her a scroll of greater invis, which should help quite a bit. I also just realized that her Stormsinger PrC lets her cast gust of wind... Imsril's not gonna like that. And just for the hell of it, I'm giving the behir another 20 HP. That ought to make him last another round or so.

I think the party understands that a lich is a very powerful threat, and not one that they should expect to defeat. Even Ross' player acknowledges this - he doesn't expect to take on the Ghostlord and live, he just thinks that Ross would not be happy about negotiating with a lich.

I think I will tell him that Heironious would recognize the need for sacrifices in the name of the greater good, and that considering what it would cost the Vale, foolishly trying to attack the lich would ultimately be a selfish act done out of vengeance. After all, Heironious is the god of valor, of which discretion is the better part...

Dear lord it is 0130 how did that happen. Good night all.

Frosty: I'll discuss "advice" and such later on, probably in an overarching conclusion or somesuch. If it's more urgent than that (since that could be months), PM me for suggestions.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I gave the Ghostlord a ring of Freedom of Movement. He's severely underequipped for a character of his level, and it's a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have - it shores up one of his biggest weaknesses.

MORE EDIT: I decided to bump up two of the lesser bonedrinkers in the lair to full bonedrinkers. The lesser ones are kind of lame; being small is a real hinderance to a creature whose combat capabilities revolve around grappling. Furthermore, both Ross and Sarth have Least/Lesser Truedeath Crystals, (MiC, +1d6 to undead), and Ross has Sanctify Martial Strike, so I'm pretty confident in their ability to hit undead things with swords until they die.

evil-frosty
2009-04-04, 01:29 AM
Looks good. Your party is going to have fun. Also i have a feeling the death count might be going up one reason is that Behir can be very tough (Saph's party got mauled). And there is no rush for the advice i am not going to able to run it for awhile at the earliest October-ish, depends on how fast my group can get thru our current campaign or if i can find a group at school. So no rush.

kjones
2009-04-05, 11:44 AM
Session 7

In which our heroes enter the lair of the Ghostlord, and everything goes horribly awry.

Wow. What a session. In a way, everything went as expected - in another, everything caught me completely by surprise.

Recall that last session, our players were in Brindol, searching for clues as to the whereabouts of the Ghostlord.

Here's how things played out:

Cameron managed to have a chat with Lady Kaal at the theatre - I wasn't sure what, exactly, Cam was going for, but found out soon enough when she... told Kaal that war was coming, and she best help defend Brindol. Kaal was almost offended; this is a woman who prides herself on knowing everything before anyone else. She blew Cam off and left in a huff. Not a good first impression.

Sarth and Imsril agreed to meet with a friend of Immerstal the Red's, a traveling sage named Ella, the next day. Meanwhile, Ross and Gale ran into some old friends at the Stone Wyvern - Delora Zann and Captain Sorranna from Drellin's Ferry. They caught up on old times (as did Delora and Sarth, once they returned ) while Imsril headed over to the Thirsty Zombie and surprised everyone by playing an honest game of cards. (He then tried to entertain the patrons with illusions, but he was not well received - he dimension doored out.)

They heard that Norro Winston was in town, and so sought him out the next morning in hopes that he could grant them an audience with Lord Jaarmath. They found him, and he promised to try - they set off to meet with Ella. (Interlace other minor errands - shopping, meeting Tredora Goldbrow, High Priestess of Pelor, and so on - as appropriate here.) The first day's worth of searching was mostly fruitless, but Ella had loads of general information regarding liches to share, and share she did. Opinions were still split as to whether or not it was even worth considering trying to attack the lich.

The party headed over to the keep to discuss the situation with Jaarmathd. They brought him news from the North - the roads were clear, and they had earned the alliance of the Tiri Kitor. He agreed to send an emissary north to Keld Denar, although he was not expecting aid from them. He also told them that he had sent a delegation to the Hammerfast Holds, but had expected to have heard from them by now. They brought him up to speed on the Ghostlord situation, and he agreed that negotiation was probably their best bet.

The next day's worth of searching yielded results - around noon, they found an ancient map in a dusty antiquities shop that gave them a rough idea of where they might find the Ghostlord's lair. Without further ado, they set off on owlback, traveling through the day and into the night.

On the second day of their travels, they spotted a pair of ettins and a troupe of goblins looting a horse-drawn cart beneath a small copse of poplar, with human bodies strewn about. Sarth, Gale, and Ross brought their owls down from a distance, while Cameron flew overhead and performed a combat dive directly over one of the ettins, coming down safely with her ring of feather fall.

It was pretty frickin' awesome.

That, along with a sculpted energy substitution cold fireball from Imsril made short work of the enemy. They quickly realized that the dead humans were the emissary of which Jaarmath had spoken, and though it seemed for a while that their greed would win out over their devotion to the Vale, they decided to bring the message (which they did not open - it was sealed) and the treasure to the intended recipients.

They arrived at the Hammerfast Holds that evening, and delivered the message - the Shining Axes company began to mobilize at once, and the dwarves offered the party a roof and a bed, which they gladly accepted.

The party decided to take some time to plan their next move. They came up with a simple scheme:

Hide the phylactery somewhere outside the Thornwastes.
Negotiate with the Ghostlord - offer him back his phylactery in exchange for whatever they can get. At the very least, ask him to stop helping the Red Hand - at most, see if they can get him on their side.
Of course, the Ghostlord won't agree to anything without a phylactery in hand, so after they deal, they all leave. Imsril, and two others return with the phylactery. If the Ghostlord tries any funny business, dimension door the hell out of there.

Bog simple, and fool-proof. Of course, there was one thing they didn't account for... the presence of the Red Hand.

They flew out to the Thornwastes, but a storm (honest roll! First thunderstorm all campaign!) forced their owls to ground, and they spent an unpleasant night camping on the edge of the wasteland. The storm diminished overnight, but renewed itself by morning, preventing Imsril from preparing spells and forcing them to go in on foot. (They left Nymeria with the owls so they could summon them relatively easily.)

They slogged through the Thornwastes for hours before finding the blighted area surrounding the lair, and more hours before finding the lair itself. Cameron scouted out ahead, climbing up to the mouth and (to my utter surprise) opening the door and finding herself face to face with three Doom Fist monks.

She won initiative, and drank a potion of invisibility - the rest of the party was unaware of this, of course. One monk ran to alert the others, while the other two took up positions inside the room. Cameron then noticed the rope ladder, and kicked it down - the other party started climbing up. The remaining monks, realizing that they were dealing with an invisible foe, retreated downstairs to meet up with the others - when the rest of the party arrived, they found an empty room.

They proceeded cautiously - the room at the bottom of the stairs was filled with fog, which they dispelled with ease. Unbeknownst to them, Ulwai and her minions lurked a single door away... but Gale sensed a secret door, and he was so excited that they all decided to check that one out first.

They were promptly ambushed by the ghost lions, which led to a nasty fight - the dire lion was draining stats left and right, and everyone had either 50% miss chance (due to incorporeality) or 50% miss chance, twice (due to avoiding gaze attack, plus incorporeality). Furthermore, Cameron and Ross were frightened by the brute lions, and would have run off were they not surrounded. However, Imsril cast command undead on one of the brute lions, and commanded it to attack the other one; they eventually brought them down.

They proceeded down the corridor and found another secret door - they opened it and found themselves face to face with Varanthian, the half-fiend behir.

Things went south.

He opened up with a blast of lightning, catching Ross and the commanded ghost lion (who vanished.) They charged in. Cameron was the first to get swallowed - she dropped to negatives immediately. Ross ran to help and got grappled for his troubles. Sarth and Gale attacked, but the beast shrugged off their blows.

We rolled around to Ross' turn again. Things looked grim - if they couldn't kill this thing, Cameron would be dead in a round. Ross' player turned to me and asked if he could get to Cameron somehow. I replied that if he was trying to get Varanthian to swallow him... well, she certainly wouldn't object, pending a failed grapple check (which Ross failed with ease).

Without a second thought, Ross leapt into the behir's jaws, and with a gulp, he was swallowed whole. He used lay on hands to bring Cameron back to consciousness, but he wasn't doing so well on hit points himself. The first round of acid damage dropped him to negatives, and there wasn't anyone to save him - he died the next round.

Cameron, however, managed to do exactly enough damage to cut her way free, and Imsril had blinded it with glitterdust, enabling Sarth to get into melee. With Cameron's sneak attack damage, they managed to bring it down, although Sarth nearly got swallowed as well.

Realizing that their plan was shot to hell, they retreated to the Hammerfast Holds, with Ross' body. They rested up and wondered what the hell they were going to do next.

Ross' player had begun preparing a backup character, but it wasn't quite ready yet, and introducing a new character into an established party is difficult enough. I decided to end the session (a little earlier than I'd like) rather than try to shoehorn him in right then and there.


Observations:


Ross' death is undoubtably the best character death I've ever seen. It was brave and selfless - and it was also completely foolish and could have easily gotten both of them killed. In other words, just like Ross. The fact that he asked (before his death) not to be raised made it all the more poignant. I was genuinely moved - when the party returned to the Hammerfast Holds, and Imsril had a drink in his honor and started talking about how much Ross had meant to him, I'm not ashamed to admit that I teared up a little. It honestly makes me think of playing games without resurrections, but I don't think I would want to force that on my players.
Is it just me, or are ghost dire lions unholy motherfrellers? Their strength-draining touch attack is bad enough, but that gaze attack is vicious - a few good rolls will take out any Cha-dumped character with a low fort save (say, a certain wizard). Combined with the fact that all the ways of avoiding gaze attacks involve a miss chance, which is then combined with the incorporeal miss chance... I wouldn't want them to face more than one of those at a time.
The other ghost lions, on the other hand, are just kind of lame. The fear affect is annoying, but they can't do anything beyond that... I suppose that in conjunction with the right other things they could be dangerous.
The Hammerfast Holds are not very well fleshed out. This is true of many minor locations throughout the Vale, but it seems to me that the Hammerfast Holds are more likely to become prominent due to their proximity to the Thornwastes (and as one of the few settlements in the Vale that won't be destroyed by the Horde). My own perceptions of the Holds are heavily influenced by the fact that I've been playing a lot of Dwarf Fortress lately - it is, after all, basically a dwarf fortress, so I think it fits. For giggles, I described how there were a bunch of wooden cages with animals in them by the entrance, and unlabeled levers everywhere, and strange engravings on the walls - this might be amusing to those of you who know the game or have read Boatmurdered.
The party decided they needed a name, after people kept referring to them as "you lot". Initially, they went for "The Wanderers of the Vale". After Ross' death, they changed/appended "Friends of Ross". Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but good names are hard to come by - and the best ones are given, not chosen. I guess that means it's up to me, then...
Imsril's actions have brought up the question of how magic is regulated in Brindol - I ruled that magic in and of itself is not illegal, but using magic to commit any other sort of crime heightens the severity of that crime. Magic Missileing someone is not illegal because it's a spell; it's illegal because it's assault. I actually think this is a pretty reasonable approach to magical regulation in general, and it's sure to come up if any of you ever have a caster in your party in an urban area. It's worked pretty well so far.
That ettin encounter was kind of silly. Those goblins should have had class levels. I know the ettins are supposed to be getting the attention, but... come on.
It's kind of amusing that they basically did a circle around Ulwai Stormcaller. It's entirely possible to make it all the way through the Ghostlord's lair without confronting her - but if they do, Ulwai will probably escape.
The rest of the players are now considering backup characters, an endeavor I support. Ideally, I'd like to have their backups present in some capacity as NPCs, so their appearance (and joining the party) will seem less forced. Unfortunately, they're getting on to the levels where their mere existence means that they would be powerful movers and shakers in the vale - a level 7 or 8 character can't really just come out of nowhere at this point. I'll have to give this some thought.
This is one of the best sessions we've had in a long time. A perfect mix of roleplaying, exploring, planning, and action. A tragic death, a heroic sacrifice... I hope next week goes half as well. I've got some fun things planned for the Ghostlord.

evil-frosty
2009-04-05, 12:45 PM
YES! My prediction came true, the death count did go up. Sounds like a great session. Now your party thinks they have the hardest fight done with:smallbiggrin:. Well i dont know what else to say, great sacrifice by ross.

Zephyros
2009-04-05, 01:20 PM
I fondly remember the session in my RHoD when Mr Iaijustsu-focus-Warblade ***hole got swallowed 3 ways from Sunday... That mofo was dangerous...

Great session Kjones :smallwink:

kjones
2009-04-06, 06:02 PM
That behir is particularly brutal for several reasons.

He's huge, meaning 10-foot reach. Combined with...
+27 to grapple. If you try to engage without tumble - boom, grappled. Then...
Swallowed on his next round. And with Cleave, he can do this twice a round.
DR (shouldn't matter) and energy resistance (could very well matter) and high AC (definitely matters), >100 HP.
High Spot + Listen - good luck sneaking past him.
If you fight him in his lair, the enclosed space works to his advantage - he can hit everyone without really moving, and you'll have to provoke to move around. And gawds help you if you provoke - see step 2.


I think this encounter is much more difficult than intended to be. It's only CR 10, which should be challenging but not overwhelming for a party of four 8th level and 1 7th level PC. It's entirely possible that the manner in which the above properties play into one another was not foreseen by the writers.

Still, the party would have been much better off had Sarth cast freedom of movement. (He tried to once he was grappled, but failed the concentration check.) Other buffs, particularly haste, would have gone a long way. Once again, we see that preparation and surprise (not just the standard action type - the "what is this thing", psychological factor) play a huge role in the difficulty of an encounter. Had they had time to plan, they would have won easily - buff, lure it out into the open, surround it, chop chop chop.

I'm glad he's dead, and so are they.

Gale's player informed me that his girlfriend will be in town for our next session (planning on Saturday), and that she wouldn't mind sitting in. I'd like to let her play, of course - beats the hell out of watching - but I'm pretty sure she's never played a pen and paper RPG before. I'm thinking of making a dwarven fighter (dungeoncrasher variant) from the Hammerfast Holds for her to play. I might boost some of the encounters in the lair slightly, but I'll probably leave Ulwai and her posse as is. What say you, Playgrounders?

Finally, there's been a worry kicking around in the back of my mind for some time - what do I do when the party returns to Brindol, 20 days ahead of the Horde? I could send them off on silly errands, but that's just a waste of everyone's time. I could send them off on useful errands, but then I have to think of some, and that's effort. I could accelerate the Horde, but then their delaying actions will have been for naught.

I swiped an idea I got off of another campaign journal I read on the Wizards boards, and modified it. Read on if you're interested:
When the players are in Brindol, awaiting the arrival of the Horde, they'll have the option to train the soldiers and militia, and prepare the defense of the city. They can do so in one of four ways - melee combat, ranged combat, defense and tactics, and first aid.

Here's how it works. For each day of training a character leads, they make a DC 25 check, with the following modifiers.

Melee combat: Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Charisma modifier (and must have relevant proficiencies)
Ranged combat: Base attack bonus + Dex modifier + Charisma modifier (and must have relevant proficiencies)
Defense and Tactics: Base attack bonus + higher of Int or Wis modifier + Charisma modifier
First Aid: Heal skill + Charisma modifier


A successful check means that they can put 1 point into that category. A failed roll means that they can retry in the same category at a cumulative +2 bonus, or change categories (and someone else can take the bonus for that category if they want).

During the Battle of Brindol, they can spend their points on NPCs as follows:

Melee combat:

1 point: +1 to hit / +1 damage on a single attack roll
2 points: Grant the use of the Mobility feat for a single round
3 points: Automatically confirm a threat

Ranged combat:

1 point: +1 to hit / +1 damage on a single attack roll
2 points: +1 to the damage of a standard volley per archer (volleys as per Heroes of Battle)
3 points: +1 to the damage of a concentrated volley per archer

Defense and Tactics:

1 point: Before a combat, mark a single square as filled with rubble (difficult terrain)
2 points: Delay the arrival of enemy reinforcements for 1 round
3 points: Before a combat, place a single 5-foot section of waist-high palisade

First Aid:

1 point: Automatic success on a Heal check to stabilize



I'm pretty happy with the idea - I'm most concerned about the numbers and the categories. The DCs are chosen so that a person skilled in that area should have about a 25% chance of making the check in a given day. Thus, if they're in Brindol for 20 days, they'll have an average of 25 or so points spread around. There are 5 main encounters in the Battle of Brindol, 3 of which involve NPCs prominently, so we're talking about 8 points per battle - that's enough for 2 or 3 cool things per battle, which is about what I'm going for.

I'd like to have more categories (stealth? siege weaponry? arcanism? Nothing really seems to work) and more options per category (especially First Aid, which is pretty lame in comparison right now. Maybe I should just scrap it) and I'll definitely be tweaking the numbers here and there, but I'd like to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Ethdred
2009-04-07, 06:33 AM
Are you sure it's going to be a full 20 days before the Horde arrives? That sounds like they've been whipping through things pretty darn quickly, owls or no owls.

The training idea sounds good, and of course they should be encouraged to do or commission plenty of crafting. An extra six days' worth of potions and scrolls may end up being more than fair compensation for their delaying tactics. You might also want to give them a chance to 'pre-earn' some victory points for the Battle by encountering some of the big guys separately. Are there any major NPCs they've encountered already who escaped? Maybe tip them off with some intelligence that they have been seen in an advance party of the Horde.

kjones
2009-04-10, 10:44 PM
Are you sure it's going to be a full 20 days before the Horde arrives? That sounds like they've been whipping through things pretty darn quickly, owls or no owls.

The training idea sounds good, and of course they should be encouraged to do or commission plenty of crafting. An extra six days' worth of potions and scrolls may end up being more than fair compensation for their delaying tactics. You might also want to give them a chance to 'pre-earn' some victory points for the Battle by encountering some of the big guys separately. Are there any major NPCs they've encountered already who escaped? Maybe tip them off with some intelligence that they have been seen in an advance party of the Horde.

It is currently day 25. Due to their actions (destroying Skull Gorge Bridge, enlisting the aid of the Forest Giants in the Witchwood) the Horde will arrive in Brindol on day 48. That gives them about 20 days.

I hadn't considered having them encounter some of the big guys separately, but it certainly makes sense. So far, Koth has survived (and you bet I'll be leveling him up) and Ulwai might too. The final encounter outside the cathedral is challenging enough without their presence, so that's a good idea.

The players and I have been discussing unconventional warfare techniques - they want to slow and weaken the horde directly. On the one hand, I can justifiably tell them that this will be very dangerous, and might not work. On the other hand, what do I do if Imsril casts fly and teleports 500 feet above their encampment at night, and starts throwing down fireballs until he runs out or they come after him, and then teleports away?

He can't do this yet - he's only 8th level, and they may not reach 9th before the battle. However, I don't think that they'll be content to sit behind the walls of Brindol and prepare - I think they're going to want to go out and do something about it, and I'm going to have to be ready for anything.

With any luck, the party will confront the Ghostlord in his lair tomorrow - they might encounter the Red Hand as well. We'll see how this goes.

evil-frosty
2009-04-10, 11:07 PM
If he does fly above the encampment, how many different casters does the hand have and who in their right mind not have dispel magic? So return fire and dispel his flight.

Eldariel
2009-04-10, 11:54 PM
And Glitterdust saves! But yeah, the Behir is a huge melee brute, definitely something you'd prefer to have the casters deal with - it's one of those "Mind Rape or die"-type creatures. An awesome session, just as you described! Even reading of it was a pleasure.


The training idea is great - makes the saved time pay off without really stretching plausibility or "making their efforts disappear". For First Aid, you could use stuff like "allow a soldier in negatives to act for an extra round" and "make a stabilized soldier only Disabled (so he can still take standard actions)". After all, that's what First Aid is - stopping the bleeding, but also keeping the guys operational if possible. Especially in the frontlines.

Another possible category is "magical defenses" - something that should be standard issue practice for all soldiers but is really skimped on by the rules (all the equipment is great, except it's totally useless vs. magic even though you'd think being able to protect vs. magic would be at least as important as protection vs. swords for a soldier). Just "Add X (to be disclosed) to save/AC vs. a spell", "Gain benefits of Mettle/Evasion for a round" and "Gain benefits of Improved Mettle/Evasion for a round", for example. Or maybe some elemental resistances or some such. Soldiers forming a shield phalanx (with Tower Shields) to block Fireball, for example, would make all sorts of sense.

EDIT: Considering the nature of the campaign, you'd probably want to make "magical defense"-abilities applicable against breath weapons (and in general, things that offer a save) too. If they feel too individualistic, you could make the bonuses apply to a group at a time instead (makes more sense with many of 'em anyways).


As for the Ghost Lions, they're pretty wimpy, but you should really use them as mooks - they're there just to be hassle. Fear-effects, Aid Another & Flanking are good uses for 'em. Also note that fear-effects stack so two Bloodcurling Howls can make for really brutal effects. But yeah, their actions should mostly be spent Aiding the Real Lions in either attacks (if dealing with high Touch AC opponents) or AC (if dealing with heavily armored adversaries). Think usual pack behaviour - I'm sure they'd have been taught some considering their purpose. Their normal attack is generally too insignificant to bother with. But yeah, the Bloodcurling Howl is brutal.

So yeah, they aren't supposed to be big threats alone, but they're good support for the big threats, taking space and being tough to kill and all the stuff above. And yeah, the Ghost Dire Lions are brutal. Just plain brutal. Few of those around can easily wreck any party.

kjones
2009-04-11, 12:53 AM
If he does fly above the encampment, how many different casters does the hand have and who in their right mind not have dispel magic? So return fire and dispel his flight.

Range on Fireball: 400 feet + 40 feet / level = 760 feet at 9th level

Range on Dispel Magic and Glitterdust: 100 feet + 10 feet / level <= 200 feet, for any caster in the Horde.

Without Abithraix, they'd be reduced to flying through the night sky (darkvision only extends to 60 feet, and he can move after each time he casts) chasing him or spamming dispels randomly where they think he might be. Keep in mind that there are at most a few dozen casters in the Horde who could actually do this - probably less.

With Abithraix, it becomes more interesting. He has a fly speed of 150, darkvision, blindsense, and can certainly ruin any caster's day.

However, how long does it take the Horde to react? Realistically, he would get a round or two before they realized what was going on, and then it would take Abithraix a few more rounds to get airborne and anywhere close to Imsril. This is more than enough time for Imsril to dispense his entire payload of fireballs. And, of course, if things ever get hairy for him, he can just teleport back. (Do I start giving them dimensional anchor now?)

It would certainly work, at least once. It would be hard to prevent it from occurring more than once - the only solution I can think of is constant nighttime vigilance by Abithraix (which is not unrealistic) and that wouldn't stop him, just slow him down.

If each fireball manages to take out, say, 5 hobgoblins (not unreasonable, if you do the math), then he can whittle down the horde at the rate of ~25/day. That's a serious dent by the time they get to Brindol.

Now, there's various reasons as to why this might not work (an application for counterspelling? Could it be?) but if Imsril was determined to do it, he could definitely pull it off, and there's not much the Horde could do to stop him.

Eldarial: Thanks for the ideas, I'll definitely be using some of them. More on what you said later, because oh god it is late and I have not slept more than 5 hours a night all week why am I still awake.

Eldariel
2009-04-11, 12:59 AM
With regards to the harrassment, if he does that, first time it might work, but the second time the Hand will probably be prepared. They may not have Dimensional Anchors prepared, but if they get hit with Teleport-By Fireballs, chances are those are quickly added to the prepared spells and scrolls are dispensed around along with airborne guard in the night.

So yeah, expect it to work once - it's definitely something they wouldn't see coming. However, the Hand isn't helpless and they have a lot of casting prowess in their ranks along with monsters with bows (a blind hail of arrows in the general direction of the fireball's origin has a fine chance of catching him, for example, and if the troops are aroused, they could prepare to split up as per Complete Warrior suggestions vs. area effect spells), so the second time might very well be his last. 'cause I'm fairly sure someone reporting "it rained Fireballs last night and we detected heavy magic signature in the sky" would arouse some interest.


EDIT: Oh yeah, and in First Aid, the first ability should be "automatically succeed a Heal-check". It'd be somewhat useful with Poison & Caltrops and all that.

kjones
2009-04-12, 12:49 AM
Session 8

In which our heroes emerge from multiple frying pans into an infinitely descending series of fires

Another fantastic session. They made it through the rest of Chapter III, "No Surrender, No Retreat" - before long, we'll be at the Battle of Brindol!

Recall that last session, our heroes had retreated to the Hammerfast Holds to rest and regroup.

We had some new faces in attendance:
Ross' player rolled up a variant unarmed swordsage named Blayne "Noose" Fredericks, a devotee of St. Cuthbert and an instrument of his divine will. He's mostly focused on Diamond Mind and Setting Sun maneuvers, extraordinary rather than supernatural - the idea was a martial character, not a magical one.

Furthermore, Gale's player had asked if his girlfriend, who was visiting, could sit in on our session. Not wanting her to be bored, I asked her in advance if she wanted to partake, and she agreed. I rolled her up a dwarven fighter (Dungeoncrasher variant from Dungeonscape - holy cow that's a lot of d6) named Carla, the female version of the traditional dwarven name "Carlos". Carla is a mercenary in the Shining Axes, but was laid low by a recent battle when they departed, so she joined up with the party under the understanding that they would be returning to Brindol before too long.


After some arguments about whether or not female dwarves have beards (they do, of course) we began. Here's how things played out:

The party returned to the Thornwastes, delayed only slightly by another thunderstorm. (another 94! What are the odds?) They climbed up into the mouth of the lion, and, expecting resistance, prepared themselves for battle. The Doom Fist monks, expecting their approach, sent one of their number down to warn Ulwai, and readied themselves.

The players, of course, made short work of two level 4 monks, even when buffed - they lasted less than a round. They did, however, get a taste of the capabilities of the Dragonchains (which are just nasty) and learned early on to respect them.

I felt a little bad for sending all these grapple-heavy foes (ogres, the dragons, the monks, the bonedrinkers later on) up against the party - it is a major weak spot, even considering that Sarth has freedom of movement. I don't feel that bad, though.


They made their way down into the antechamber, and were surprised to find it filled with fog again. They decided to wait and see if it would disperse naturally - they waited at the top of the stairs, and heard Ulwai using her staff to renew it. Suspecting that they were dealing with a caster, they decided to try to ambush her if she were to emerge again. Ulwai, however, could hear them waiting for her, so she and her forces stayed put (while their buffs expired one by one).

It was an odd standoff. The party had unknowingly trapped Ulwai and her forces inside. Ulwai's troops are strongest when they're the ones doing the bottlenecking - if they tried to break free from the room, their numbers would be working against them.

I decided to break the stalemate by throwing some ghost lions at the party. Gale found himself under attack, and tried retreating into the room in which the Red Hand lay in wait.

"I open the door."
"You see a half-dozen hobgoblins standing at the ready in the darkness. The closest one grins and begins to whirl his dragonchain around his head."
"... I close the door."

Ulwai, however, had her unseen servant on doorman duty, and battle was soon joined. They nabbed Gale with the dragonchains, and managed to get him away from the rest of the party, while summoned hell hounds made everyone else's lives difficult. Meanwhile, nobody could tell who this person casting haste and singing bard songs (Starlight by Muse, of course) was, or where she was.

Things looked bad, but once Cameron and Carla forced their way into the other room and started carving people up, the tide turned quickly. Sarth dealt with the hell hounds, Imsril used benign transposition to extract Gale - and Ulwai found herself face to face with Blayne. They already knew she was dangerous - she had previously hit Carla with a lightning bolt from her staff for 33 damage, but Blayne was having none of that, and proceeded to toss her around like a rag doll with Setting Sun maneuvers. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was cleaning up the remaining hobgoblins.

She tried confusion on Gale, but he made his save. She tried to escape with invisibility, but Imsril cast glitterdust. Knowing that the jig was up, she surrendered.

This is where it got interesting. She had cast glibness in preparation for the battle - the highest Sense Motive check in the group was +14, so she could get away with almost anything.

She made them give her their word that they would let her go if she told them information - and proceeded to tell them lie after lie, every one of which they believed. She told them that a second horde was being formed in the Giantshield Mountains to the northeast, that the Ghostlord was aiding them willingly, and that she had been coerced into joining the Red Hand.

And they believed every word of it! They even felt sorry for her! Imsril wanted to take her stuff - the rest of the party wouldn't let him. They tied her up and apologized before knocking her unconscious, telling her that they would free her before they left.

They pressed on and encountered the chamber with the bonedrinkers - I had boosted the encounter slightly, making two of them full-on bonedrinkers. I'm glad I did - the fight was challenging, but I think it would have been too easy with just lesser bonedrinkers. +5 grapple check just doesn't cut it... After a fierce battle in which, all things considered, surprisingly few bones were drunk (except Blayne's), and many enemies were brutally smashed into walls by Carla, they destroyed the foul creatures. I was surprised when they decided to stop and rest rather than investigate the strange pool with the dire lion "corpse", or the large black spinning stone.

The next day, they investigated the rest of the Ghostlord's lair, finding his diseased, withered tree, his long-untouched stash of art, and his treasury. They neglected to take anything from the latter two - they were tempted, but reminded each other that they were there to negotiate.

They opened one last secret door, and found themselves face to face with the Ghostlord.

At this point, I told everyone to get on their shoes and coats and follow me outside. I took with me a long hangar rod that I had found in my closet earlier, to use as a Ghostlord staff.

(Keep in mind that this was at about 2100 real time - the backyard is lit somewhat spookily, which is why I chose it.)

I took them out to the yard behind my building, and told them that from then on, everything they said or did would be in character. I then turned, holding my staff, and growled, "Why have you mortals seen fit to intrude upon the sanctity of my lair?"

Playing out the negotiation between the party and the Ghostlord this way was a lot of fun. It's an idea I've been kicking around in my head for some time - dangerously close to LARPing, but I thought it would be a good way to impress upon them the seriousness of the situation and really get them into character without the constant side-discussions that often distract from srs bsns such as this.

The players took to it quickly enough - I'm not the only (former) theatre person in the group. Cameron wanted to withhold the phylactery until after the battle of Brindol, but the Ghostlord was having none of it - the party would return to him his phylactery that day, or his armies would march on Brindol.

Hiding the phylactery elsewhere before negotiating proved to be a very powerful bargaining chip. The Ghostlord was furious, but much as he wanted to, he couldn't attack without destroying any chance of getting his phylactery back. In the end, he agreed to their terms.

(Then we went back inside.)

They returned to the edge of the Thornwastes, and retrieved the phylactery. Sarth, Imsril, and Cameron went to deliver it.

My pocket watch played the part of the phylactery for this brief exchange (for which we remained indoors) - as soon as they handed it over, Imsril dimension doored them the hell out of there before the Ghostlord changed his mind.

They made it all the way back to the Hammerfast Holds before they realized that they had forgotten to free Ulwai.

They retrieved Ross' body and returned to Brindol, but they took a slight detour north to get a firsthand glimpse of the Horde, who were a few days short of Nimon Gap. Suitably cowed, they got out of there before they were spotted.

Arriving in Brindol, they were immediately co-opted into joining the War Council, during which several important decisions were made. Jarmaath and Kaal sniped at each other, Ulvarth rigorously argued any course of action that would keep his troops safe, Starsinger sat back quietly taking it all in - it was a lot of fun playing so many different roles and having the party involved, even if most of the actual decision-making came down to Cameron's Diplomacy check (which I was using as sort of an abstraction - she became everyone's spokeswoman, of sorts).

In the end, they decided to:

Keep their forces behind the walls (that one is so obvious that I'm surprised it's even an option. Isn't the whole point of the defensibility of Brindol that it has walls?)
Create a backup plan if the walls fall (again, a no-brainer... Ulvarth pointed out that none of them had planned for it because nobody wanted to think about it)
Distribute the clerics throughout the city (I'm not convinced that this is the "wrong" choice, but it makes sense if you consider that these are clerics, not soldiers)
Give the fourth telepathic link to Sellyria Starsinger (as mobility of her elves will be paramount).


The players had other ideas that they wanted to implement (burning the cropland so the Horde can't live off of it! Check out this horde assembling in the north! See if Tyrgarun is flying around to the south, so they can take him out! Gain another few thousand XP to make it to 9th level!) but it was late, so I wrapped it up there.


Observations:

I'll be posting more about their plans for the defense of Brindol over the course of the next week or two. I'll have plenty of time to prepare, since we won't be having a session next week (Spring carnival!) and this will give them a chance to get their plans in order too. Other than that, not a whole lot to observe other than that this was another fantastic session, and they'll live to regret letting Ulwai survive...


There, that's only four pages! I'm getting better, see?

d13
2009-04-12, 01:12 AM
There, that's only four pages! I'm getting better, see?

Still liked the longer ones, methinks =P.

Great session, I see... And this journal is giving me a LOT of ideas to MY upcoming DMing of RHoD.

Keep it on! xD

evil-frosty
2009-04-12, 09:50 AM
Great session, the girlfriend didnt call you guys dorks too often did she?

kjones
2009-04-12, 11:13 AM
Eldarial: I wanted to take a minute to directly respond to your good ideas.

I'm going to add the following training options:


First Aid: Same check as before.

1 point: Automatically succeed on a single DC 15 heal check.
2 points: An NPC gains the effects of Diehard for one round.
2 points: A stabilized NPC is disabled instead of unconscious.

Magical defense: Make a check with a bonus equal to caster level + relevant ability modifier. Success gets 1 point.

1 point: Add +1 to any saving throw against a magical effect.
2 points: An NPC gains the effects of Evasion or Mettle for a round.
3 points: An NPC gains the effects of Improved Evasion or Improved Mettle for a round.



I think that works, don't you?

As for fireballing the Horde - nobody has made 9th level yet, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Most of the truly dangerous plans involved 5th level spells (teleport, wall of stone...) so I'm safe for the moment.

It is currently day 33, and the Horde will attack Brindol on day 47 unless somehow further delayed. The party has the following goals: (quoted from an email sent out by Cameron's player - my comments in brackets)


Make sure Keld Denar is on our side. [Nope. Sorry. I'll probably have the emissary sent by Jarmaath return soon, so they don't waste time on this one]
Gank the Blue Dragon...he's mentioned on the Goblin map, to the south...and possibly level in the process. [Based on the annotation, "Tyrgarun wants halflings to eat" - they're reading too much into it. Tyrgarun is, of course, back at the Fane at this time.]
Confirm reports of the army from the Giantshield Mountains. [Then Ulwai did her job.]
Slow the advance of the horde. [Great, but who bells the cat?]
Try to find a few more Wyrmlords and ruin their **** [I'll try to make this one happen.]
Sell the loot we got off the Bard Wyrmlord and get everyone what enhancements we can for the battle to come. [The former will be difficult, since commerce in Brindol has basically shut down.]
Figure out if any of us can actually use that staff we got from her, and press it into service in defense of Brindol. [Sure, why not.]


d13: I'm glad you're enjoying it. Take what ideas you like - keep in mind that most of the best ones were stolen from Saph! But don't be afraid to come up with your own twists - some of the things I'm most proud of in this campaign were ideas of my own (acting out the Ghostlord negotiation, for example) and I think you'll find the same. Finally, you will never anticipate what your players will do, so be ready to come up with things on the fly!

evil-frosty: The girlfriend is just as nerdy as we are - she just hadn't played D&D before. I'm glad that she had fun, since the game can be daunting for a new player, especially one joining an in-progress campaign with an experienced party. Her character was an invaluable asset (and Dungeoncrasher is brutal - to the extent that I'm not sure I would allow it in a regular campaign) and I'm not sure how they'll fare without a dedicated "meatshield" in the days to come. Their current frontliners are Sarth, Blayne, and Cameron, and none of them are exactly the kind of character who can soak up hits...

d13
2009-04-12, 02:49 PM
d13: I'm glad you're enjoying it. Take what ideas you like - keep in mind that most of the best ones were stolen from Saph! But don't be afraid to come up with your own twists - some of the things I'm most proud of in this campaign were ideas of my own (acting out the Ghostlord negotiation, for example) and I think you'll find the same. Finally, you will never anticipate what your players will do, so be ready to come up with things on the fly!


For instance, I'm so stealing the acting out the Ghostlord negotiation thing, though I'll need to get a lot of 'mirror acting'. My players have a pretty easy time laughing about everything. (And when I say everything, I mean it xD).

I'm really worried about whether they'll be able to LOCATE the horde, since they're the kind of players that hit-with-mah-pointy-stick and blast until the enemy doesn't move anymore... And blast a little more, just in case. So no prisoners/questioning for them, most likely.

And the fact that I told them almost a month ago to make their characters... And only two of them have been made, pisses me off... But I'll probably hand them pre-made 'average' characters (No "18 to 8", but Elite Array, no WBL, but 80% WBL, or something like that xD)

evil-frosty
2009-04-12, 06:21 PM
Wow a cute and nerdy girl (assuming she is cute here) thats rare from where i am from. Anyway i dont have dungeonscape so i dont know a lot about the dungeoncrasher variant (sounds cool though). I am starting to realize i really need to expand my library of DnD books, now only to get some money.

kjones
2009-04-13, 04:56 PM
For instance, I'm so stealing the acting out the Ghostlord negotiation thing, though I'll need to get a lot of 'mirror acting'. My players have a pretty easy time laughing about everything. (And when I say everything, I mean it xD).

I'm really worried about whether they'll be able to LOCATE the horde, since they're the kind of players that hit-with-mah-pointy-stick and blast until the enemy doesn't move anymore... And blast a little more, just in case. So no prisoners/questioning for them, most likely.

And the fact that I told them almost a month ago to make their characters... And only two of them have been made, pisses me off... But I'll probably hand them pre-made 'average' characters (No "18 to 8", but Elite Array, no WBL, but 80% WBL, or something like that xD)

I'd like to take a minute to talk about your second point, locating the horde, because I think it's an important one.

One of this module's greatest strengths is that they give you a good idea of what the Horde will be doing in the absence of any player actions. I've been running this module in a fairly linear fashion, as it's "intended" to be run, but looking back on it now, I wish I had given the PCs more room to run wild. (I'm trying to make up for lost time now, giving them a lot of leeway as to what they want to do to slow down the advance of the Horde.)

So, they make it to Drellin's Ferry, and maybe they don't pick up on the clues that will bring them to Vraath Keep. Or maybe they make it to Vraath Keep and don't pick up on the clues that will bring them to Skull Gorge Bridge.

That's fine. The last thing you should do is try to force them into it. Let them do whatever they want. Just always bring it back to the Red Hand.

Maybe they ignore the Witchwood and decide to check out some rumors of a dungeon to the West. They go there, and encounter a tribe of hobgoblins on their way to the muster at Cinder Hill. Maybe they don't go to Drellin's Ferry at all - in a few weeks, they'll be hearing of the hobgoblin horde that destroyed the town and is on its way.

If the players venture off the beaten path, it might require some thinking on your feet, as most of the minor areas in this module (and even a few of the more significant ones, like Dennovar) are not particularly well fleshed out. If you doubt your ability to come up with this stuff on the fly, come up with it ahead of time, but building off of what they've given you isn't hard.

And the Vale is rural - plenty big enough for adventure even without the Horde. Drop in some werewolves harassing townsfolk, or the water of the Elsir River going bad, or strange cults operating in Brindol - the sort of stuff that adventurers like. But always bring it back to the Red Hand. The werewolves have been driven out of their natural habitat by the Horde. The water is runoff from the camp at Cinder Hill. The cults are cults of Tiamat, ready to welcome the Horde with open arms.

Most of the encounters are fairly portable, with some cleverness. Skull Gorge Bridge, maybe not so much, but Vraath Keep, or any of the encounters that take place in Drellin's Ferry? Just move them east, or north.

When I ran this for the first time last winter, I nudged my players in the "right" direction, because I was afraid that they were going to miss the "good stuff". Honestly, there's enough "good stuff" in this module that you could miss half of it and still have the best damn module I've ever seen. It's more important that your players feel free to explore.

As for the character building - can't help you with that. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him roll 4d6, arranged as desired. :smalltongue: I'd say you've got the right idea, but give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe some of them aren't interested in the character-creation process; maybe some are, but don't have the know-how or time to get into it. If you want to make characters for them, offer to - and do it like you're doing them a favor, not accepting a burden. Then, either they'll hop to (which is good), or they'll feel bad for letting you do it for them (which is good), or they'll let you do it for them (which is good).

evil-frosty: Cute nerdy girls are rare around here, don't worry. The general rule at CMU is "single, attractive, sane - choose two". :smallwink:

kjones
2009-04-21, 05:18 PM
There's been a flurry of emails back and forth as the party discusses its next move before this weekend's game. I'm trying to get them to codify their plans, so we can spend game time playing rather than planning. Here's what they've got so far.

First of all, they want to contact the kingdom of Keld Denar. This one is easy - in a few days, Jaarmath's emissary will return with news that they can expect no help from the north. If one of the PCs wants to go to convince them otherwise, it will almost certainly be a waste of their time - even if they did manage to convince them to supply aid (and why would they? They're in no danger, and Keld Denar and Brindol have never been close friends) they have a little over two weeks to provide aid to a city 200 miles away.

Second, they want to investigate the Giantshield Mountains to confirm or deny Ulwai's claims of a second army massing there. They want to get Sellyria to send owl-riders - they'll have to convince her, as she'll not want to risk them. Either way, this will also be simple to resolve - they won't find anything. Ulwai lied.

Next, they want to investigate the south - they're convinced that the map they found indicates that Tyrgarun can be found near Dauth. Of course, Tyrgarun is way back at the Fane, but this will be a good opportunity. I'm thinking of running the Marked for Death encounter from Chapter II, or some modification thereof, with the inclusion of a leveled-up Wyrmlord Koth.

This will do several things for me. It will make it such that a trip to the south won't be a complete waste of time (they'll probably be discouraged after a trip to the north uncovers nothing). It will simplify the Battle of Brindol by (hopefully) removing Wyrmlord Koth from the picture - or it will make him a recurring enemy, even more dangerous than before. (Either one is good with me.) It might give them enough experience to make it to 9th level. Finally, it will potentially provide an interesting hook for the introduction of Miha Serani, the Red Hand spy - I've decided that she's currently hiding in Brindol in some way. I'm still trying to think of exactly how to work this one, but hopefully they'll start wondering how the Horde knew they were heading south, and knew to set an ambush for them.

Additionally, they wanted to identify Ulwai's gear - this provoked a brief argument as I seemed to recall that they let Ulwai go without taking any of her stuff. After some discussion (none of us could remember exactly what happened, but we agreed that it would have been out of character to abandon her without taking any of her possessions) I ruled that they had the Staff of Stormclouds but nothing else. Control weather will be a potent tool, if they use it correctly. It certainly provides a clever way to resolve what I think is the weakest part of the Battle of Brindol - extinguishing the fires set by Abithraix. There's nothing wrong with the idea, but the party doesn't have many options when it comes to firefighting, and I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't be able to put them out in time, so it would just be frustrating and pointless.

Gale wants to try to dig a moat and channel the Elsir River - I'm not sure how exactly he plans to do this, but if he can come up with something, I'm game. Cameron wants to burn the croplands between the Horde and Brindol - if they can convince Jaarmath that it's a sacrifice worth making, she's welcome to try.

Finally, I've given them all my training system (as outlined in previous posts) and they're welcome to engage in as much of that as they wish.

As for the battle itself - I've been reading over the encounters carefully, trying to figure out what I want to change and what should stay the same. I'll be tweaking Abithraix a bit - he's a powerful opponent as is, but he has a few notable weaknesses. Furthermore, I'm deeply tempted to make one of the Blood Ghost Berserkers in the Dawn Way encounter a Frenzied Berserker - but this will make that encounter substantially more difficult. We'll see.

It should be an interesting session. I don't know if we'll make it to the Battle of Brindol or not, but it should be fun either way.

EDIT: Maybe instead of a Frenzied Berserker, I'll use some Whitespawn Berserkers... more reasonable CR, and this campaign needs more dragonspawn anyway.:smalltongue:

evil-frosty
2009-04-21, 08:33 PM
Sounds good to me. Its a good thing to see your players thinking so much about it. Have Fun in your next session.

kjones
2009-04-23, 10:49 PM
Planned modifications

Wyrmlord Koth. If they're going to encounter him in the south, a 6th level sorcerer won't be much of a threat. I'm boosting him to 8th level - I'll swap him out for one of the greater barghests in the Marked for Death encounter. I want to give him enervation as his 4th level spell - but Blayne's player still remembers the time I killed his Goliath cleric with an NPC sorcerer casting a split, empowered enervation for 10 negative levels in 1 round. Alternately, I could give him confusion, but most of the party has decent Will.
It's time for Miha Serani to get involved. Currently, she's hiding in plain sight in Brindol, disguised as a militia member. I want to have her try to seduce Imsril and steal the staff of stormclouds, as it is a potent asset in the hands of the Horde - and a potent liability in the hands of the players. She'll also be keeping an eye on the party and feeding information back to the Horde. I'll probably boost her stats, since she's kind of a sissy, as most full casters with LA are.
In the Dawn Way defense encounters, I want to replace 2 bugbear berserkers with 1 whitespawn berserker - the CR is the same, but it's a lot cooler. I desperately want to get a Bluespawn Godslayer involved somehow, but this would mean swapping out 2 of the other bluespawn creatures (and their riders) or sending him in a wave of his own - either way, it will be a lot to handle.
I've been considering how I want the sniper attack to play out. I think it would be fun to swap out one of the adepts (a sorcerer) for a Warpriest, since they've seen several adepts already but have yet to encounter a warpriest. Their abilities should complement each other nicely, and it doesn't significantly affect the CR. Or maybe I should swap out both adepts for a bluespawn godslayer... :smalltongue: I would then find myself running for my life as my players attempted to feed me my DM shield.


One thing that I forgot to mention previously - they want to torch the croplands to the west of Brindol. Clever. Not sure how I can stop them (or if I want to...)

evil-frosty
2009-04-24, 10:12 PM
That burning the croplands would potentially kill the vale even if they do win the war, the long term effects would be to great for them to handle. But i guess i would help on some level.

Pain~less
2009-04-25, 09:31 AM
May I ask where the Whitespawn/Bluespawn Godslayer come from ? I got Rhod, but it only contains the blackspawn raiders and razorfiends. Are the others from some dragon-centric book ?

Sallera
2009-04-25, 11:14 AM
Most of the Spawn are from MMIV.

kjones
2009-04-25, 11:44 AM
May I ask where the Whitespawn/Bluespawn Godslayer come from ? I got Rhod, but it only contains the blackspawn raiders and razorfiends. Are the others from some dragon-centric book ?

Spawn of Tiamat are from Monster Manual IV. I can't recommend the book in general - a lot of it is filled with exactly the sort of thing that gave the later Monster Manuals a bad reputation (read: stupid crap). But I really like the dragonspawn. They're an excellent way to introduce draconic-type creatures into a draconic-themed campaign without making every other foe you face be a dragon. (Dragons should be rare - an ecosystem can't support many of them. Of course, dragonspawn should be rare too... but in this case it's justified, because Azar Kull is warping them in Protoss-style.

Anyway, see if you can find an excerpt or something, they're pretty cool.

With regards to burning the croplands - it's a complicated issue. First of all, on the logistical level, I'm not sure how they'll pull it off. It's been a hot, dry summer, but not that dry; they can't just lob some fireballs down and hope for the best. Second of all, I don't think it will help them that much. Sure, the Horde has been living off the land, but at this point they've probably stockpiled enough supplies that they can make it to Brindol.

On the other hand, I don't think it will harm the human population of the Vale all that much either. They sure as hell won't be harvesting those crops at this point, and burning croplands (think grains, not orchards) isn't really all that harmful in the long run - the soil will still be viable for the next season.

Finally, I think it will be psychologically harmful to the inhabitants of the Vale to see the people that they consider heroes burning their lands.

All in all, I think it is a dangerous idea that won't have a whole lot of effect either way - but will waste a lot of time.

(One thought, though... they could use control weather from the staff to help spread flames. That would make quite a difference.)

Looking over the "Marked for Death" encounter, I realized that adding in a CR 9 Wyrmlord Koth would really just serve to make it a more level-appropriate encounter. EL 11 for a party of 4 8th level and 1 7th level characters is not at all unreasonable, especially considering that it will probably be the only battle they fight that day. Hell, I might even bump up the ogre to one of my favorite Skullcrushers...

I boosted Koth to 8th level, and gave him a sending stone from the MIC. Miha Serani, currently in Brindol, has the other - she'll be doing her damndest to get close to the party, and will keep him updated on their comings and goings.

(I'm not going to tweak Miha Serani beyond giving her a necklace of +5 to Bluff. If they manage to figure out her game, then the jig should be up.)

We'll be playing tomorrow. 14 days until the Battle of Brindol.

EDIT: Gah, ninja'ed. Perhaps by a Blackspawn Exterminator...? (They'll get to fight one of those during the Battle of Brindol... nasty little mofos. Anyone who says that poison is ineffective should talk to these guys.)

tarbrush
2009-04-25, 01:10 PM
We all look forward to hearing about it :)

Eldariel
2009-04-25, 01:40 PM
(They'll get to fight one of those during the Battle of Brindol... nasty little mofos. Anyone who says that poison is ineffective should talk to these guys.)

It's only ineffective in the hands of players and that's because of the cost - nothing wrong with the effects ;) (except Druids, but there's little that isn't wrong with Druids...)

kjones
2009-04-26, 10:41 PM
Session 9

In which our heroes strike a powerful blow against the Horde... and the Horde strikes back.

And the Battle of Brindol is on! Took us a while to get there, but it wasn't a diversion - the lead-up was probably the best part.

Recall that last session the party successfully negotiated with the Ghostlord and returned his phylactery in exchange for his indifference. They then returned to Brindol, and sat in on Jaarmath's war council. When we resumed, they still had some matters to deal with.

The party went into the war council with four objectives. First, they wanted to find out about Keld Denar, and whether or not they could expect aid. Second, they wanted to investigate the rumors of forces massing in the Giantshield Mountains. Third, they wanted to search the southlands for any hint of Tyrgarun, the blue dragon. Fourth, they wanted to determine the viability of torching the croplands west of Brindol.

Based on the fact that the map has an annotation over the small halfling village of Dauth saying "Take prisoners - Tyrgarun wants halflings to eat", the players had utterly convinced themselves that this meant Tyrgarun was active in the south. Keep in mind that I did nothing to encourage this conclusion.

The first two matters resolved themselves. Jaarmath told them that they expected to hear back from their emissaries north to Keld Denar within two days - and they did, with the unsurprising news that Keld Denar would send no aid. Lars Ulvarth promised to send out some Lions of Brindol to scout out the Giantshield Mountains - they returned within a few days, reporting that there was nothing to report, and that the rumors (lies planted by Ulwai, recall) were false. This was ultimately good news - a second force would have spelled trouble.

(We had a brief interlude for Ross' funeral, which was poignant.)

So they went south - but not before Jaarmath introduced Imsril a wanderer who had sought them out by the name of Miha Serani (a Red Hand shapeshifting sorcerer spy). She flattered the party with praise and asked to join them in their journey south - I was honestly surprised when they agreed. Gale and Cameron didn't trust her, but that's partially because she cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on Gale during some tavern hijinks (he kind of deserved it, though).

Serani's plan was simple. She had a sending stone (MIC, it's a magic radio) and Wyrmlord Koth had the other. He was moving towards Brindol from the south, and she would tell him when the party was headed his way so he could set up an ambush (the Marked for Death encounter, with Wyrmlord Koth swapping out a Greater Barghest). At some point along the way, she would make off with the staff of stormclouds and anything else she could get her hands on.

It didn't go quite as planned. Imsril summoned up a half-dozen phantom steeds and they covered the 80 miles to Dauth in the space of a day. This gave Miha Serani no chance to make off with their equipment, but Koth was ready for them.

The ambush went off beautifully. They had dismounted, and were approaching the bait, when Koth and the dragonspawn attacked from the foliage. The party decided to run for it, and made it back to their mounts - which Koth promptly fireballed, destroying all the mounts except Imsril's (who had already started running, since he used most of his spell slots on phantom steeds). They considered escaping on foot - then Koth dropped haste, and they realized they would have to fight their way out.

It was a tough battle, but Gale killed Koth with some well-placed arrows, and Imsril blinded half the dragonspawn with glitterdust, the tide quickly turned.

There was one particularly brilliant bit where Imsril readied baleful transposition to swap Koth with the target of his own fireball if he tried to cast one - but the barghest readied an action to dimension door up to Imsril and attack if Imsril tried to cast a spell! Imsril made his Concentration check, but Koth made his will save, which was kind of a pity, since it would have been pretty awesome for Koth to toast himself with his own fireball.


Miha Serani was expecting Koth to pull his punches with her - she was as surprised as anyone when his forces targeted her along with everyone else. She did the only natural thing and fought back, and in doing so earned some of the party's trust.

After the battle (in which they hit 9th level) they rested in a rope trick - and Gale awoke from trance to find Miha and the staff gone. He tracked her prints to the outskirts of Dauth, but she had anticipated this and had drunk her potion of fly to get some distance away to make her tracks untraceable. Gale, Cameron, and Blayne tried to investigate in Dauth, but at 0100 hours they weren't getting anywhere. They were furious, but they realized that they simply wouldn't be able to find her.

They asked around in Dauth the next morning - nobody had seen or heard of either Miha Serani or a blue dragon. They spent a day searching around Dauth Forest before realizing that they were probably wasting their time, and returned to Brindol.

Their plan to torch the croplands depended in part on the staff of stormclouds, and so the party began focusing their energies on training the militia - all of them except for Imsril, who, with the acquisition of teleport, had an idea - a terrible, awful idea.

You see, Imsril realized that with scry + teleport + celerity + teleport, they had a good chance of assassinating... well, at first they were planning on revenge against Miha Serani, but when they cast scry on her (note that every save against scrying made during this session failed) they saw her cavorting with Wyrmlord Kharn and realized that they had bigger fish to fry.

Imsril prepared a scroll of teleport, and the next evening cast scry on Wyrmlord Kharn (whom he had seen through his scrying of Miha Serani the day before). They saw him sleeping in his tent with his two consorts. Their plan was to teleport in, take out Kharn in the surprise round, then celerity + teleport out before anyone could react.

That's exactly what they did. Imsril teleported himself, Cameron, Gale, and Blayne. Their arrival awoke Kharn, but he was still suprised. Gale and Blayne attacked missed, thanks to the darkness, but Cam (wearing Gale's scout's headband for darkvision) hit him with a devastating sneak attack, won initiative, and hit him again. Kharn's shouts brought eight blackspawn raider guards running, and Kharn's consorts (a War Adept and a Warpriest) began to cast spells, but the damage had been done - Imsril cast celerity and [/i]teleported[/i] out. Scratch another Wyrmlord.

This act elevated them in the eyes of the soldiers from heroes to gods. The story of the audacious attack was amplified with each retelling, until it was said that Blayne and Gale held off half the Horde while Cam locked Kharn in single combat. It was a great boost to morale for the people of Brindol - and a heavy blow to the morale of the Horde. (It delayed them by another day.)

They continued to train the militia, with varying success (that Charisma bonus mattered a lot). Imsril continued to scry on Miha Serani, and noted with curiosity that she had left the Horde and started making her way towards the Wyrmsmoke Mountains (towards the Fane, but they don't know that.) He also spent some time strategically placing walls of stone around the city - we'll see how useful those prove in the battle to come.

On Day 47, September 23rd, 2258, the Horde made camp on the outskirts of Brindol. The militia and the party steeled themselves, and that night, they attacked.

The battle began with two groups of hill giants acting as artillery and bombarding the walls. (I wrote a cute little Python script to keep track of the state of the walls - I'll post source if anyone's interested.) The party ran through the west gate to take out one group while Ulvarth's men dealt with the other. They charged the giants, who were slow to react but put out some serious hurt once they got into melee, dropping Blayne to -9. Only Imsril's use of glitterdust, blinding two of the four giants, saved the day. (Cameron took out one of the giants with 114 damage in a single round - a full-round attack with three attacks, all of which hit, one of which critted. He was blinded, so they were all sneak attacks. She took Craven at 9th level. This hurts me... but I allowed it for a reason. They'll need her damage output in the battles to come, and she won't always be able to rely on getting sneak attacks and full attacks.)

They killed three giants - the third was blinded, and by this point they had a few hundred hobgoblins bearing down on their position. They beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of the archers in the walls, only to learn that Ulvarth's men had failed, and the southern wall had been breached. They started moving south to reinforce the wall, but just then Abithraix swooped in and started causing serious property damage...

We wrapped up there for the night.


Observations:


Two Wyrmlords in a single session. Wow. Just... wow. The only surviving Wyrmlord is Ulwai - I can honestly state that I was not expecting that. I could have raised Kharn, but I don't think there are any clerics in the Horde powerful enough, and I didn't want to be cheap. They killed him fair and square.
Here's their totals from their training.

Melee: 7
Ranged: 6
Tactics: 4
Magical Defense: 6

Not too shabby. Not as many points in Tactics as I had expected (mainly because I was expecting Imsril to focus there, but instead he made scrolls).
Imsril is being very conservative with his spells - most of the battle with the giants was spent firing magic missiles from his wand. This will work out for the best in the end for him.
I'm a little worried about Abithraix's AC - a 32 is almost impossible to hit. Hopefully they'll realize this and try to dispel him (Imsril and Sarth both have dispel magic.
I played it fast and loose with XP this time around - I wanted them to be 9th level by the time the battle started. I don't really think this is a problem, and it will probably make these upcoming encounters more fun for them and for me.
Still haven't decided what I want to do about the "putting out the fires" bit. I'm thinking of just scrapping it altogether, since I honestly don't think it's all that interesting.
We have time for maybe two sessions before the end of the semester. I hope we manage to finish the Battle of Brindol - midway through the battle would be a terrible cliffhanger on which to end.
Their teleportation shenanigans made me realize that this module is really only suited to the levels at which it's played. If you tried to make this higher level... well, armies are much less of a threat to clever high-level casters. It just doesn't work.

evil-frosty
2009-04-26, 11:22 PM
Great Session, Hope you guys get to finish. Also what Imsrils player did is exactly why i dont let them choose 2 spells when leveling they just get what ever scrolls i give them, makes it much more balanced i think in the long run. And ya the Streets of Blood encounter (i think thats it) isnt going as tough now since Kharn is dead. Well you could throw the god slayer you have been wanting:smalltongue:

AslanCross
2009-04-27, 12:14 AM
*applause* The hit on Kharn was epic. It takes some pretty confident PCs (and players) to execute something so audacious.

I'm still snickering about how seriously they took the note about Tyrgarun's halfling snacks, and I'm wondering how they'll feel about it when they find out the Horde mostly intended to take lots of prisoners and not that the dragon actually went out there to go binging.

I'm still a long way from it, but I'm still wondering how Miha is going to figure in my campaign. If she appears that late, I'm likely going to make her a rakshasa instead, retaining the spellcasting and shapechanging abilities, but that's just a preliminary plan for now.

Saph
2009-04-27, 12:29 AM
Yikes, what an anticlimactic way for Kharn to be killed off. I guess you're going to have to buff up the enemies from here on. It'll be hard to explain, though - how to justify having tougher enemies around if the general was such a pushover?

- Saph

Olo Demonsbane
2009-04-27, 08:57 AM
Yikes, what an anticlimactic way for Kharn to be killed off. I guess you're going to have to buff up the enemies from here on. It'll be hard to explain, though - how to justify having tougher enemies around if the general was such a pushover?

- Saph

Most generals aren't chosen for their combat ability, they are chosen because of their tactical ability...of course this is the Red Hand of Doom :smalltongue: You could say, if they ask, that Kharn was chosen for his tactical skill on the battlefield.


Anyway, if I haven't said it before, Great Journal! Thanks for keeping it updated!

kjones
2009-04-27, 01:43 PM
(I tried posting before, but the forum ate it. I remember most of what I said...)

Saph: It was a little anticlimactic, yes. It was also well-planned, well-executed, exciting, and, most importantly, fun. Furthermore, it very nearly didn't work... if Cameron hadn't won initiative, there would have been trouble. They probably would have survived (celerity + teleport was the plan all along) but they wouldn't have killed Koth.

I don't think they got the impression that Koth was a weakling - not many hobgoblins will survive > 100 damage while asleep. You're right, though, in that the final battle for the cathedral will be notably different without his presence. The way I see it, I have at least four options.


Leave everything as it is. They killed Kharn fair and square. Ulwai will be enough of a threat on her own, especially now that she has the staff of stormclouds again. (Probably false. Kharn + Ulwai >> Ulwai by her lonesome. Add in the NPC allies they'll be expecting, and the fight goes from desperate to... lame.)
Boost Ulwai to make her more of a threat. She's effectively High Wyrmlord now, so she should be tough. (The most "realistic" of the options, and still rewarding the players' bravado.)
Replace Kharn's role in the final battle with something else... say, a Bluespawn Godslayer. (I really want to use one, but the problem is that if they hadn't killed Kharn, there wouldn't be a godslayer there... of course, they don't know that, but this is a major ass-pull on my part.)
Resurrect Kharn. (Not terribly unreasonable, this just means that he'd be 1 level lower for the battle.)


I'm leaning towards the latter, but we'll see. The battle may prove to be more of a challenge than I think, as many battles have (the ambush near Dauth, Vraath Keep, etc.) and while they're trying to be conservative with their spells, and doing a good job of it, they might be swinging too far in the other direction. (Beyond his glitterdust, Imsril was practically useless, and without any buffs, Sarth and Blayne don't make great front-liners.)

I don't regret letting Imsril take teleport - he's earned his moment in the sun. It's enough for me to know that the Horde won't be falling for the same tricks twice.

One question, though: How did the "Quench the fires" bit work out when you ran it? I'm still not sure what I want to do with that.

Olo: Unfortunately, Kharn is kind of a badass - Favored Soul 6/Talon of Tiamat 4. The players might not know that, but they probably know that anyone with blood red full plate doesn't have any trouble on the front lines.

Glad you're enjoying the journal! I certainly have fun writing it.

Eldariel
2009-04-27, 01:55 PM
I'd have the Horde raise Kharn. They should have the means to acquire a Scroll of Raise Dead. We're talking about an army here - they've got resources beyond a random adventurer's kit. As the body is still in their possession and largely intact, a level 5 spell will sufficide which should be possible.

Seeing that Kharn himself just so happens to have been able to cast the spell, it's not unreasonable to assume he'd have written a Scroll at some point with the explicit orders to only use it in the event of his demise. You'll also get to pull a rather epic scene in the Cathedral with Kharn Vengeant in the house.

EDIT: Scratch that, he can't. So meh, have the scroll come from another source.

kjones
2009-04-27, 02:56 PM
Eldarial: You're right. I'm going to have Kharn raised. Exactly where the scroll came from doesn't matter - they would have had ample opportunity to acquire one. (Maybe it's from Azarr Kull himself!)

The party was specifically concerned about this possibility - they wanted to take Kharn's body with them, but didn't have time. I don't think they'll consider it to be cheap or a cop-out, which is what I was really concerned about.

The one issue is that Imsril tried to scry on Kharn several more times over the next couple days, just to be sure that he hadn't been brought back - I told him that the scry "had no effect". This means that either Kharn wasn't raised until right before the battle, or that he had some protective effect preventing the scry.

Again, the details aren't that important. The important thing is - Kharn will return!

Eldariel
2009-04-27, 03:37 PM
Eldarial: You're right. I'm going to have Kharn raised. Exactly where the scroll came from doesn't matter - they would have had ample opportunity to acquire one. (Maybe it's from Azarr Kull himself!)

The party was specifically concerned about this possibility - they wanted to take Kharn's body with them, but didn't have time. I don't think they'll consider it to be cheap or a cop-out, which is what I was really concerned about.

The one issue is that Imsril tried to scry on Kharn several more times over the next couple days, just to be sure that he hadn't been brought back - I told him that the scry "had no effect". This means that either Kharn wasn't raised until right before the battle, or that he had some protective effect preventing the scry.

Again, the details aren't that important. The important thing is - Kharn will return!

I think you should figure out the details on when he's been raised and why the Scrys haven't worked out though (have him raised...now; maybe they needed to acquire the Scroll separately or maybe Azar himself did the raising and thus it's taken some time to get the body to him and back).

This is important simply because if there's a specific reason, then the PCs have a chance around it. If there's no reason, they're being blocked "by the plot". As the game provides you with real tools there's no need to "plotblock" anything (and thus simply nerfing a bunch of abilities the players have without them knowing it).


But yeah, having him raised after the few days and then having a Non-Detection or similar (on high enough CL to make success unlikely) cast on him should do it. But yeah, I'd create some reason why the scrys have failed. However, I'm willing to bet my butt he's going to ensure he's not dying the same way twice.

Losing that level is actually a pretty big deal for Kharn, as he's a member of Certain Awful PrC (Talon of Tiamat - I really think it shouldn't cost you half your caster levels :() and thus doesn't have full spellcasting, he'd be down to 3rd level spells max without that 10th level (putting him at caster level 7 in a Crap Class...that is, spontaneous casting class - calling it that 'cause a prepared caster would have level 4 spells). Might make the fight a bit too easy. If I were you, I'd toss the Bluespawn Godslayer there anyways. It really belongs, and the fight should still be winnable. Don't think of it as compensation, think of it as a challenge that was going to be there anyways, that the PCs just mitigated somewhat. You could replace the Hill Giants easily; they're CR 9 together and Bluespawn is only CR 10 so it evens out just fine. I mean, you've been wanting to use 'em all the time; here's your chance!

Saph
2009-04-27, 06:44 PM
One question, though: How did the "Quench the fires" bit work out when you ran it? I'm still not sure what I want to do with that.

Oh, it went fine. I thought it was interesting, it made a bit of a change from just killing things.

Mind you, my party found it very easy, because there were two Druids with Survival scores so high that they couldn't fail the DC 20 check. So it was basically free VPs for them.

In either case, it's pretty fast, so it shouldn't slow the game down very much.

- Saph

kjones
2009-04-28, 12:00 PM
Eldarial: The solution is simple - they waited until just before they attacked to resurrect Kharn, so they could be sure he wouldn't be ganked again. You can't scry on a dead man.

The question now is this: What should Kharn be? I was considering re-statting him before he was killed - after the assassination, I figured I shouldn't bother, but if I'm bringing him back, it's an important question. The one restriction is that he should be 9th level. (He should also have less than 125 HP or so, since that's how much damage they did to kill him.) I like your Ruby Knight Vindicator build posted in AslanCross's thread, but is it viable at 9th level as well as 10th? I could make him a straight crusader, but that would be a significant power boost... or I could leave him as he is, but frankly, Talon of Tiamat is weaksauce. I could turn him into a straight cleric, but Azarr Kull is already a cleric. Or I could turn him into a straight Favored Soul... Suggestions?

I'm loath to tweak the final battle further - I think it will be quite challenging already, even with the inclusion of NPCs, simply because Ulwai Stormcaller will also be present, and she is a dangerous foe. A Godslayer would be immune to almost anything most NPCs could dish out, and... oh, it's tempting, but I don't want to kill 'em all - just make them think so.

Honestly, I'll probably play it by ear. They've been doing fairly well so far, but there's no telling what could happen.

Saph: Glad to hear it worked. My concern is twofold - first of all, only one character has a reasonable Survival score, and I don't think any of them have magic that would help. I'm afraid they might just be doomed to failure. Second, I don't see how Survival is the "putting out fires" skill ("It's just like fighting a forest fire!".... yeah, not doing it for me.) How do I "fluff" this?

One last thing - I've encouraged the party to make backup characters, and several of them have. I've been trying to work them into the game as NPCs so that their introduction during the battle won't be as jarring - I'm assuming that they're all playing their part during the battle.

Cameron's player has brought in Balthier Ashcroft Smythe, a human bard. He's an old man, an oral historian, a wanderer, a linguist, and a bit of a coward. Particularly interesting in that this is a character retired from a previous campaign - Balthier left the party to wander the outer planes with a djinni. He's stumbled into this campaign world, and sees in the invasion of the Horde the makings of an epic tale. (The player has also implied that Balthier might be Cameron's father... O.o)

Imsril's player rolled up Charles, a wizened old gnome illusionist. (See a pattern here?) He's a crotchety old man, but loyal to the core. Don't know much else about him. The player has also brought up the idea of a defrocked cleric of St. Cuthbert, but I don't know if he's followed through yet.

Gale's player made a human duskblade whose name escapes me at the moment. He's a bounty hunter, hired initially to track down Gale and Cameron, but when he heard of the great deeds of the Wanderers of the Vale, he realized that he was on the wrong side, and is now fighting for Brindol.

Sarth's player has joked that Sarth was one of three identical triplets, all of whom are Favored Souls of Fharlanghan. He might be serious.

Blayne's character (formerly Ross, recall) has no backup plans as far as I know.

Eldariel
2009-04-28, 12:42 PM
Oh, the Ruby Knight Vindicator works perfectly for 9th level. You get 7th level spellcasting and maneuvers as a 7th level Crusader - that is, just access to level 4 maneuvers & spells. Progression of Cleric 4/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 4 is the most rational as even though it gets him slightly fewer skills and HP, it'll give him ability to pick 2nd level maneuvers on level 1 of Crusader (as he only gets 2 new maneuvers out of Ruby Knight, bulk of his maneuvers are going to come from level 1 of Crusader so not being limited to level 1 on them is v. good).

The other options are Cleric 4/Ordained Champion 5, but I'd go with something more martially minded for the General. Ruby Knight Vindicator works because it gives him access to White Raven maneuvers, making him an efficient battle leader.

kjones
2009-04-28, 04:55 PM
Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn lives! I just finished statting him out (Crusader 1 / Cleric 4 / Ruby Knight Vindicator 4). I don't think I can post his stats, since much of it is not OGL, but PM me for details if you're interested.

I focused mostly on White Raven maneuvers and buff spells - he is a leader, after all. I think he's enough of a badass without excessive tweaking of feats, so I just gave him Power Attack and some luck feats (Lucky Start, Survivor's Luck, Unbelievable Luck) so he won't drop to a failed save. (I also put Light Fortification on his shield, so he won't drop to a lucky crit.)

And I've been convinced - I'm swapping out the two hill giants for a Bluespawn Godslayer. I was worried about the action disadvantage - but Kharn and Ulwai have some ogres on their side as well, so they should be fine. I think I'll decrease his DR a little bit so he's more manageable.

Or... maybe I won't include him. They'll be fighting plenty of melee brutes throughout the battle. Maybe a Redspawn Firebelcher, with Kharn riding... Now we're talking.

AslanCross
2009-04-28, 06:45 PM
I also followed Eldariel's advice of making Kharn an RKV (I renamed his class "Knight of Five Sorrows" due to Eberron's use of that epithet for Tiamat), but gave him Practiced Spellcaster to bump up his casting to 10th level. I've seen these players gank a high-level crusader very quickly, so I want to make sure that he doesn't get backed into a corner. In addition to air walk, I gave Kharn footsteps of the divine. Sure, it's only Fly 60 ft. (poor), but it's going to give him more mobility options. Giving him the Trickery domain made it a lot easier for him to meet RKV's requirements.

Likely I'm also going to have Kharn ride in on a Rage Drake. That would be so fun.

EDIT: And yes, by all means, throw in the Godslayer. I loved the look on my players' face when I made them fight one in a previous campaign. My "miniature" was only cobbled together from parts of Zoids, but it was the right size and shape, towering over the PC miniatures.

evil-frosty
2009-04-28, 08:26 PM
I feel so lucky, i actually have a bluespawn godslayer mini. :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Eldariel
2009-04-28, 08:37 PM
One thing to remember is that it's pretty much automatic that Kharn has 10 min/level buffs online in the fight, and plausible to even have minute/level ones (they still last around 10 minutes) since he's personally come to smack down the PCs and thus pretty much knows when the battle is going to start and has had the appropriate prep time. And 10 min/level buffs last almost two hours.

So have him come in with Air Walk, Magic Circle against Good, Freedom of Movement, Conviction [SC], Resist Energy (hell, toss one for each energy type, it's just a level 1 spell) and Protection from Chaos along with whatever "in the morning spells" such as Magic Vestment (on shield & armor! Means you can give him actually useful stuff like Circlet of Rapid Casting, Beads of Karma or some such; also, you could get him a soul-eating sword to make it a truly terrifying fight), Greater Magic Weapon, etc. (and if he's fighting alongside someone with natural weapons, he could cast Greater Magic Fang from Dragon-domain on that, provided you give him the said domain).

As for minute/level buffs, Bull's Strength-line could be good (well, Bull's Strength, Owl's Wisdom and possibly Bear's Endurance), and if there's any way to give him Enlarge Person (he's already standing good 7' tall; having some reach with that sword of his would be only fitting), that'd be awesome. Then he can even toss Divine Favor on himself in the start before he delves into the combat.

Oh, and I'd definitely pack a few Darkbolts [LoM] for him; perfect spell to sling when he wants to cast something offensively (alongside the potent Confusion he can pack in the 4th level Domain-slot given by Trickery). Damage and Fort-save or else.


One thing I'm personally fooling around for my own game (I'm running Red Hand of Doom although we've had some trouble arranging games yet) is giving him Divine Defiance [FCII] to both, use his turnings (he serves a friggin' Dragon Deity, he's not gonna have anything to do with undead; those mindless dead are weak and impure) for something useful and to give him a tool to use against spellcasters while beating up vs. the melee; he can easily prepare two Dispel Magics on level 3 to counter spells with (and of course, to actually Dispel too!). I think it could be a good addition, although I've been contemplating whether to blow the trick already or to save it for Azarr.


Since Azarr has his contact with Tiamat, I've been thinking of having Kharn wield Pandemonic Silver [CWar] Sword too - something of a gift from Azarr/Tiamat to the leader of the warband; the weapon that signifies his position. Without the enchantment, it'd be in the same wealth Kharn is expected and the material is just cool. The other options I've considered as Thinaun [CWar] Sword (for the soulcapturing purposes) and Stygian Ice [Frost] (I mean, River Styx flows in the Hell, so it is pretty sensible... Only problem is, Stygian Ice weapons are fragile and one needs to do a bit of extra work to keep them intact) too. But I feel his weapon should be of some special material. After all, he's the "big chief" - it doesn't feel right for him to wield a "standard" magic sword.

kjones
2009-05-02, 11:44 PM
Session 10

In which our heroes desperately put out fires of every sort.

Unfortunately, we only had time for a relatively brief session today. Hopefully, this means that we'll be able to finish the remainder of the Battle of Brindol in one more session.

Even though it was short, it was still a lot of fun. Recall that last session, the players had just dispatched with the hill giant artillery and had received word that Abithraix was trashing the city to the east.

They raced eastwards along the dawn way, and came upon an unlucky group of militiamen frantically trying to put out a building fire before Abithraix swooped down and torched them. 52 damage - they were scared, but they were ready for this. (Specifically, resist energy and some other minor buffs.) Teyani Suri and Killiar Arrowswift realized that they best hold their men back, since a single breath attack would finish all of them.

Abithraix
Immediately, Abithraix proved a problem. He was flying, and most of the party wasn't. Blayne drank a potion of fly, and Gale feathered him with arrows (they missed) while Imsril hit him with an energy-subbed scorching ray. In response, Abithraix charged Imsril, wounding him badly.

Imsril retreated, while everyone else charged. Abithraix's 32 AC (!) kept him safe - he managed to blast everyone except Cameron with a single attack. Captain Sorrana dropped to -8, and everyone else was seriously hurt, even with resist energy.

They realized that they were going to need to dispel Abithraix's buffs in order to hurt him at all. Imsril cast, and dispelled both mage armor and shield (Abithraix's CL isn't that great). Sarth, with divine power and divine favor both active, went to down, and dealt some serious damage, but Abithraix's full attack the next round dropped both Sarth and Cameron. Ouch.

Realizing that they would need some help, Jaarmath asked for a status update from Imsril - upon hearing the situation, he sent in reinforcements. Four owl riders, led by Trellara Nightshadow, arrived two rounds later - they didn't do much damage, but they were a useful diversion.

Meanwhile, Blayne revived Sarth and Cameron with his healing belt while Abithraix turned his attentions on Gale - Gale hit several times, but Abithraix took him down to negatives. Imsril hit him with a cold-subbed fireball, and Sarth charged in and took him out with a 30+-damage quarterstaff blow to the head.k

We Didn't Start The Fires
The damage had been done, however - Abithraix's fires raged throughout the city. I had the party trying to keep the fires from spreading to Brindol Keep - Gale used Survival, Sarth used create water, and Imsril flew up above to direct the firefighting efforts. Teyani Suri suggested that Cameron and Blayne take advantage of their fire resistance and knock down a burning building from the inside, before the fire could spread.

They brought it down, and escaped before it could collapse on them. Sarth and Gale working together managed to douse several other buildings - Brindol Keep was safe for now.

There was more trouble on the way, though. The western wall had been breached, and Red Hand forces were moving down the Dawn Way.

Hold the Line
The party rushed into position, and for once had their full NPC complement accompanying them: Teyani Suri and 10 human town guards, Killiar Arrowswift and 5 Tiri Kitor hunters, and Captain Sorrana. They set up the barricade across the road, and Sarth took up position behind it, with NPCs filling out the rest of the line. Gale and Imsril took to the rooftops, while Blayne and Cameron hid in a nearby building, planning to ambush the attackers from the flank. They set up most of the archers to be able to fire in volleys.

The first Red Hand wave arrived shortly thereafter - hobgoblins and manticores. The manticores also took to the rooftops, while the hobgoblins hung back and fired their bows, not willing to charge until the defensive forces were thinned out somewhat.

This gave Imsril just the chance he needed to cast web - the hobgoblins were stuck fast. The manticores dished out some hurt, killing several guardsmen and wounding Gale, but Blayne and Cameron climbed up onto the rooftop and killed one, and concentrated fire killed the other. The hobgoblins struggled out of the web one by one, where they were killed by volleys from Killiar's archers.

The party got back into position as they heard the second wave approaching...


Observations:


The Abithraix battle was very challenging, and may very well have resulted in casualties had Abithraix focused more on killing people rather than dropping as many as he could. I might have had him do so... but the two players that dropped were the two players that lacked backup characters, and it wasn't a terribly glorious way to die. Hopefully, they've learned their lesson about charging into melee with dragons. Had Sarth not done so well with divine power, it would certainly be a different story. Haste also helped, a bit. :smalltongue:
I still didn't know what I wanted to do with the "quench the fires" bit, so I did what I always do when I don't know what I'm doing, namely, pull things out of my ass. Blayne and Cameron taking down a building was sheer rule of cool - but they had fun doing it, and weren't being very useful otherwise. And it was a welcome relief after the brutality of the Abithraix battle, in which the players were seriously considering the possibility of a TPK.
Streets of Blood... I wouldn't go so far as to say that web ruined this encounter, but it was honestly kind of boring after the manticores died. A hobgoblin would make his strength check, move to the edge, and get cut down. Even after they gave up and tried to retreat, it was pretty much the same thing. It wasn't that bad - Gale was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and Blayne and Cameron got in on the action as well, while Sarth hammered away with spiritual weapon - but I know that Imsril has web prepared at least once more, and I think many of the upcoming encounters (specifically, the barbarians) will be a lot less fun because of it. And he's got Evard's Black Tentacles, which is the same thing but worse...

I don't know what I want to do about this. I could just ask him not to cast it... Web strikes me as quite powerful for a 2nd level spell - it's save-or-suck, and you suck even if you save, if I've been doing it right.
This leaves us with 4 more encounters in the Battle of Brindol - two more waves of Streets of Blood, the sniper attack, and then the final battle. That's doable in a session, don't you think?
I've been tweaking Kharn some more - I'll post his stats soon.

evil-frosty
2009-05-03, 09:01 PM
To solve your problems with web, the horde is smart so they should be expecting that tactic you could have the barbarians being there macho selfs force hobgoblins to attack from the center to draw another web out of Imsril and then have the barbarians attack from another direction. But this could be viewed as a cheap shot in some sense. And ya trying to melee with a dragon is always a bad idea (had to learn this the hard way).

Olo Demonsbane
2009-05-03, 09:33 PM
Yeah, Id really like to see Kharn's stats. He's always struck me as kind of a wuss... but with ToB thrown into the mix, he should be entertaining :smallsmile:

tyckspoon
2009-05-03, 11:00 PM
If you're really worried about Web deflating another encounter, just give some of the enemies torches (they don't need them for sight, but maybe they hope to finish/resume Abithraix's work?) The effect of Web is highly flammable; arguably, you cannot Web somebody carrying an open flame. You can just throw 2d4 fire damage on him as he is briefly engulfed by strands of hot ash that used to be a Web.

Saph
2009-05-04, 01:03 AM
Yeah, one of the problems with battlefield control spells is that they often make combats massively boring. When I played through our World's Largest Dungeon game, I was more scared of web than any other spell in the PHB. Not because it was dangerous, but because it made the fights take absolutely forever. Each casting cost us about one hour of gametime.

Anyway, it's easy to fix. Whenever the PCs cast web, have the hobgoblins burn it immediately. A burning web only does a tiny bit of damage, nothing very dangerous.

And yes, when I ran RHoD, the party found the first wave easy, too. It's the second and third waves that are dangerous. :)

- Saph

AslanCross
2009-05-04, 04:32 AM
Regarding battlefield control spells, I dread solid fog and black tentacles more than anything. Black tentacles is almost guaranteed to shut down anything smaller than Medium, and solid fog slows everything down to a crawl even more (whether the PCs or the monsters cast it).

CheshireCatAW
2009-05-05, 09:15 AM
If you would still like ideas with what to do with Kharn, how about bring him back... but warped.

I mean, we have a huge hoard of fairly savage races and an evil, spiteful deity. It seems like a normal raise would be difficult to come by for the vast majority of the hoard (I do not have the module, sadly, so my specifics are nonexistant), so perhaps a more primal evil flavoured reincarnation would be acceptible? You expressed interest in using Dragon-like things, so bring him back as a Tiamat-Dragonborn.

It would add to the cool enemy factor, and it would show the PC's that their actions did indeed have an effect, instead of just seeing him again and assuming that he lost a level or somesuch. It could be explained as a large ritual that was especially blessed by Tiamat, and the reason the PC's could not scry upon Kharn was because he's not the same person anymore. He's... different.

This could also explain his change in classes, should the PC's sense something different. Since he was remade in Tiamat's image, then perhaps she remade his mind as well.

I apologise if this post seemed clunky, but they closed my Starbucks down. :P

AslanCross
2009-05-05, 05:26 PM
The image of a five-headed, draconic ex-hobgoblin is certainly unnerving.

I always thought of adding the draconic template to Kharn since the artwork certainly makes it seem that he looks so different from the mook hobgoblins in the same picture. (Side note: The dead hobgoblins in the picture appear in artworks earlier in the book. Hehehe.)

On the other hand, he typically gets way more from just one class level, so I decided against it.

kjones
2009-05-07, 09:52 AM
Apologies for neglecting this thread for so long - it's finals week here. :smallwink: We'll be playing our last session of the semester on Saturday - hopefully, this will wrap up the Battle of Brindol.

First of all, regarding Web: I talked to the player (who is a good friend of mine - all of these players are good friends of mine, which is nice because it makes these things easy) the next day and asked him if he would mind terribly swapping out his prepared web for something else. I explained that it really slowed down these big combats, and made them a lot less interesting for everyone (including him!). He agreed - I don't know what he's replacing it with, though... (Probably glitterdust, which isn't much better, but at least then they can retreat.) Of course, he still has Evard's Black Tentacles prepared - but that's a 4th-level spell slot, so shutting down a battle with a single 4th level spell bothers me a lot less than with a 2nd-level spell.

(Besides, most of the enemies they'll be facing soon have decent grapple checks. Not +20 decent, but they've got a shot...)

Second, regarding Kharn: It would be cool to bring him back as something wacky, but just raising him is a.) mechanically superior b.) less of a strain on disbelief.

Anyway, here are his stats. Apologies for the formatting, but this is just copy-pasta'ed from a text editor:

Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn, CR 9
Male hobgoblin Crusader 1 / Cleric 4 / Ruby Knight Vindicator 4
LE Medium Humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +3, Spot +3
Languages Common, Draconic, Goblin, Infernal

AC 24, touch 10, flat-footed 24 (29)
HP 66 (9 HD)
Resist fire 5 (cold 10)
F/R/W +12/+6/+7
(+17/+11/+12)

Speed 20 ft.
Melee +1 wounding heavy pick +12/+7 (1d6 + 4 + 1 Con / x4)
(+16/+11 [1d6 + 7 + 1 Con / x4] )
Base Atk +8/+3 Grp +11 (+13)
Maneuvers
7 known 2 readied 2 stances

4th: White Raven Strike (+4d6 damage, target becomes flat-footed)
3rd: Revitalizing Strike (You or ally heals 3d6 + 7)
2nd: Shield Block (+8 to AC for adjacent ally)
Tactical Strike (+2d6 damage, adjacent allies move 5 feet)
1st: Vanguard Strike (allies gain +4 bonus on attacks against target)
Stone Bones (DR 5/adamantine)
Crusader's Strike (heal 1d6+5)

Stances
Leading the Charge (+7 damage to charges)
Martial Spirit (+2 HP / hit)

Spells (CL 7, domains Destruction, Evil)
4th (1 + 1, DC 17):
Unholy Blight*, Air Walk
3rd: (3+1, DC 16):
Magic Circle Against Good*, Wind Wall, Invisibility Purge, Dispel Magic
2nd: (4+1, DC 15):
Shatter*, Bull's Strength+, Resist Energy (cold)+, Bear's Endurance
1st (5+1, DC 14):
Protection from Good*+, Shield of Faith+, Conviction+, Remove Fear, Divine Favor+, Bless

*: Domain spell
+: Already cast, currently active

Other Special Attacks
Smite (+4 to hit, +4 to damage) 1/day
Divine Recovery (Recover a maneuver as a swift action 6/day)
Furious Counterstrike
Steely Resolve 5

Equipment 2 potions of cure serious wounds, potion of fly, potion of remove blindness/deafness, potion of lesser restoration

Abilities Str 16 (20), Dex 8, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 16

Skills Concentration +15, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (Religion) +8, Hide +3

Feats Power Attack, Survivor's Luck, Unbelievable Luck, Lucky Start (4 luck rerolls, apply to init, saves)

Possessions combat gear, +2 red dragoncraft full plate, +1 light fortification heavy steel shield, +1 wounding heavy pick, masterwork light crossbow with 20 bolts, gauntlets of ogre power, cloak of resistance +2, ring of protection +1


Feel free to make suggestions, but keep in mind that I don't want him to be too powerful - this is why I didn't give him Divine Surge as a 4th level maneuver.

The lineup for the final battle will be:

Kharn
Redspawn Firebelcher (Kharn's mount)
Ulwai
2 hill giants
4 ogres


This is a lot, so they'll have a lot of NPCs on their side to help. I'm thinking Lars Ulvarth, Tredora Goldbrow, and Immerstal the Red, for starters...

EDIT: Pandemonic Silver + Ulwai's control weather... interesting.

kjones
2009-05-10, 11:25 AM
Session 12

In which our heroes hold the line.

The Battle of Brindol (or is that the Battle for Brindol?) is over, concluded in an epic 8-hour session. Recall that at the end of the last session, the players and their allies had just defended the Dawn Way from the first wave of attackers; they nervously awaited the second.

The Dawn Way

They didn't have to wait long. Within a few rounds, reinforcements arrived - bugbear barbarians led by a whitespawn berserker. Imsril hit them with a shaped glitterdust - fortunately, with their bonus to Will from raging, about half of them made their saves. Blayne, sensing another easy mop-up, stepped out from his hiding place to confront the attack head-on.

This proved to be a mistake. He was immediately charged by several bugbears and the dragonspawn - he used Counter Charge against one of them, but there were simply too many. Gale rushed over to provide ranged support, and Cameron burst out of hiding to help, but it was too late - the bugbear landed a powerful blow with his greataxe, and the dragonspawn finished the job with his spiked chain, dropping Blayne exactly to -10.
At this point, I was kind of at a loss - Blayne's player didn't have a backup. I let him play Captain Sorrana for the moment.
The other barbarians charged the barricade, leaping atop it and dealing out heavy damage with swings from their massive axes. Sorrana was knocked unconscious, and Sarth and Teyani Suri were badly wounded, but with the help of Imsril's glitterdust spell (which made a huge difference, in case that wasn't pretty clear already) they held the line and brought down the bugbears. Meanwhile, Imsril, Gale, and Cameron avenged Blayne's death by finishing off the rest of them.

They quickly got back to the line, but they had taken heavy casualties - the barricade itself was now held only by Sarth, Cameron, Sorrana, and Teyani Suri, and Killiar Arrowswift barely had enough troops to form a volley.

Imsril called for reinforcements over the telepathic link - Jaarmath promised to send aid, and several rounds later, Jess, a human sorcerer, flew onto the scene. Blayne's character's new player, in case you hadn't guessed - basically, a blaster sorcerer. I had her come into the battle with half her spells already cast, since she had obviously been fighting elsewhere until now.

They steeled themselves for the third wave - goblins riding bluespawn thunderlizards. Imsril wasted no time in busting out the big guns, and cast confusion on the lot of them. Two bluespawn and two goblins made their saves - the rest were confused.

However, this didn't end the battle quite as effectively as Imsril had hoped. The two un-confused ones blasted the barricade with lightning, cutting a wide swath through the militiamen and dealing serious damage to Sarth and Teyani Suri - the next round, they charged, and nearly killed Sarth.

The other three babbled, attacked each other, and were generally useless - until the next round, when one of them rolled "act normally", and the other rolled "attack caster". Fortunately, Imsril had forseen the latter possibility, and had taken cover behind the buildings lining the Dawn Way, but it was a near thing as the beast tried to hunt him down.

With concentrated fire (and vicious sneak attacks from Cameron) they brought down the two un-confused bluespawn, and the remaining three did not pose much of a threat.

The damage had been done, though. Most of their NPC allies were dead or badly wounded, and the party had used a lot of high-level spells and healing. They readied themselves for more reinforcements, but Sellyria told them over the link that no enemy reinforcements were coming - the defenders had retaken the breach in the western wall.

Jaarmath came in on the link, and told them to regroup in Cathedral Square to prepare for an assault from the southern breach - suddenly, his link cut out, and none could re-establish contact with him. The party, sensing trouble, hotfooted it to Cathedral Square.

Jaarmath had been downed by a sniper's arrow, and the troops in Cathedral Square were fleeing for cover as anyone out in the open was picked off one by one. The party found Captain Ulvarth taking cover behind a nearby building with a squad of his men - he filled them in on the situation, and told them that they needed to root out the sniper, or the Red Hand could just waltz into Cathedral Square unopposed.

The party cautiously circled Cathedral Square, while Imsril cast invisibility on his hawk, Nymeria, and sent her up to scout. She caught a glimpse of movement coming from a coffin shop on the northwest edge of the square.

The Sniper
The party surrounded the building - Sarth on one door, Gale and Cameron on the other, and Jess and Imsril (now both invisible) watching the second-story windows. Jess and Imsril were in a bit of a predicament - if they tried to attack the sniper (whom they could now see) they would become visible, and completely exposed to return fire. For now, the best they could do was to provide intelligence for the rest of the party.

Cameron (also invisible) and Gale (visible) entered the shop. Gale was immediately blasted with a lightning bolt from an invisible War Adept who had been lying in wait - the other War Adept also blasted him, but Cameron had the poor fortune to be in the line of fire. Her assailant didn't even know she was there!

Sarth burst in through the other door. He and Cameron took down the second War Adept, but the first one cast mirror image on himself. Meanwhile, Skather moved over towards the stairway and poisoned his short sword.

Jess decided it was time to act, and she and Imsril blasted at Skather with scorching ray. They both missed completely, and he vanished, only to reappear and hit Imsril with a poisoned arrow. Jess cast grease, he fumbled the save, and the battle began in earnest.

While Gale and Sarth took care of the remaining adept on the first floor, Cameron snuck around (still invisible) and made sure there were no other nasty surprises lying in wait. On the second floor, Skather took cover from the windows and lay in wait for his airborne assailants to show themselves again.

Gale and Sarth tried to go up the stairs, but were brought up short by the caltrops Skather had scattered in preparation for just this sort of thing. Skather managed to hit Jess with a poisoned arrow as well - both she and Imsril were badly wounded.

Eventually, Sarth and Gale made it up the stairs, and cornered Skather against a window. He leapt out, and they gave chase - he ran back into the shop.

Thus began a deadly game of cat and mouse - deadly for the mouse, certainly, but also for the cat. Skather had been forced to abandon both his bow and his short sword, and was down to using arrows as improvised weapons. He hid under a table, drank the last of his potions, and lay in wait with a poisoned arrow while the rest of the party searched the shop. Cameron was the first to enter the room in which he lay in wait, and he lashed out and struck her in the ankle. Gale and Sarth rushed in to provide support, but Skather tumbled through their ranks and ran back up the stairs.

Imsril was waiting for him at the top of the stairs - Skather leapt over them and his caltrops, turning invisible in midair, and attacked Imsril with another arrow, for disappointingly little damage. Imsril fled into one room, while Skather fled into the other, with Gale, Sarth, and Cameron hot on his heels.

Jess was blocking the window, and his escape, so he jumped out and tried to grapple her - he missed and fell to the ground. Jess and Imsril attacked him with their melee weapons (!), and Gale finished him with his bow.

They didn't have much time to celebrate their victory, however - Immerstal the Red told them over the link that the Red Hand was advancing on Cathedral Square.

The Final Battle

The party hurried back to the cathedral, where they united with:

Teyani Suri, and a squad of guardsmen
Sorrana
Captain Ulvarth
Trellana Nightshadow
Immerstal the Red

and possibly a few others that I'm forgetting. Point is, they had allies. They heard the Red Hand approaching, and within a few rounds, Kharn and his forces arrived on the scene.

Both sides knew the stakes, and both sides were prepared to die for their cause. (With the exception of Imsril, I think.) Kharn and his men charged, and the battle was on.

Imsril immediately hit them with another confusion - both giants and one ogre failed their saves. Kharn charged, badly wounded Sarth, and was immediately surrounded by Sarth, Cameron, and Teyani Suri - if not for his crusader damage pool, he would have dropped in the first round. The firebelcher blasted a hole in the guardsmen, and badly wounded Teyani Suri. Trellara started singing, and Ulvarth and Sorrana pulled out bows and started thinning the ranks of the ogres, while Jess cast haste from a scroll. (She was entirely out of spells at this point.)

The giants managed to do a lot of damage to each other, while Ulwai followed up with a confusion spell of her own, hitting Cameron, Sorrana, and most of the guardsmen. Cameron found herself surrounded by Kharn (who had healed himself with maneuvers and potions) and the firebelcher, confused and low on hit points. She thought she was a goner until Sarth healed her with the staff of life - she tumbled the hell out of there. It was too late for Teyani Suri, though - the firebelcher blasted her into ashes.

Meanwhile, Jess had cast summon monster IV from a scroll cadged from the War Adepts in the coffin shop, and a celestial lion joined the fracas. Immerstal managed to dispel many of Kharn's buffs, which helped a lot - they were having trouble hitting AC 29.

Ulwai started blasting with her call lightning-ish ability, but Imsril busted out feeblemind - he had been saving it the entire battle. Ulwai failed her save, and was more or less out of the fight.

Ulvarth had taken care of the ogres, and started firing at Kharn, who had taken cover behind his firebelcher - Imsril cast Evard's Black Tentacles, but it was quickly dispelled by Kharn, who began a full retreat as Sarth beat the hell out of his firebelcher.

The giants remained useless - one of them tried throwing his club at the flying Imsril, with the expected results. Cameron and Immerstal finished him off, as he had made it in behind the line.

Gale circled around for a shot at Kharn, but Kharn charged - and missed. Sarth and Ulvarth arrived to help, and Gale retreated to land the killing shot.

Kharn was dead (again), and the battle was over. The surviving giants were cut down as they fled or babbled to themselves, and the surviving Red Hand forces began a retreat that quickly turned into a rout.

The Falling Action

Victorious, our heroes found an open spot of ground upon which to collapse for eight hours - They were almost completely tapped out of spells, daily item uses, hit points - hell, they even used the last two charges on the staff of life (one on Sarth, one on Cameron).

They awoke the next morning and gathered with many of the surviving defenders in Cathedral Square to cheer Lord Jaarmath, wounded and weakened but alive. He gave a short speech, honoring the defenders and the fallen, and promising that the Vale would be rebuilt, and went back inside the cathedral. Meanwhile, Tredora Goldbrow found the party in the crowd, and told them that Jaarmath had urgently requested their presence.

They came to him, lying on his sickbed, and he told them that a captured prisoner had revealed some disturbing information. The Horde was just the vanguard. A lair of Tiamat's devotees, led by Azarr Kull, was summoning an infernal army to scour the Vale. Only one group was strong enough to stop him...

The party gulped, collectively - it wasn't over.


Observations:


A fun session overall, but boy was it long. Eight hours of nothing but combat is exhausting, especially if I'm running a lot of NPCs. I am left with little desire to run anything remotely resembling a large-scale battle ever again.
Gale and Cameron told me that they intend to attempt to rob Kaal Manor in the confusion directly following the battle. We'll probably go back and deal with that as a two-player mini-adventure at some indeterminate point in the future, since none of us were up to running something like that right after this massive battle.
I really enjoyed the sniper battle, with Skather desperately trying to escape but hemmed in at every turn. I really put myself in his shoes, and was playing him as cleverly as I could - he very nearly escaped. The players were very satisfied when they brought him down.
Imsril's spells were, as expected, brutally effective. He really has passed the watershed - he drastically simplified most encounters with a single spell. Fortunately, the Fane is much closer to a standard "dungeon", and so this won't be as much of a problem.
You may recall that Blayne's player was also Ross' player. This is the fourth character of that player that I've killed - in a previous campaign of mine, his cloistered cleric was caught in a breath weapon and failed his save, and his replacement goliath cleric was hit with an empowered split enervation for 10 negative levels. Then Ross was swallowed by Varanthian, and Blayne was beaten down by berserkers... And the round after he took control of Sorrana, she dropped to negatives! We'll see how long Jess lasts, but a sorcerer is certainly a safer character than a front-line melee combatant.
The final battle was honestly somewhat anticlimactic. Confusing the hill giants and feebleminding Ulwai didn't help, but the biggest problem was that Kharn was badly wounded very early on, and he never really quite recovered from that. This was partially my own fault, since he charged out in front, but without the giants, he didn't have much melee support anyway. I'm not sure how I should have dealt with this - reinforcements, maybe?
I should have had fewer NPCs in the final battle as well - Ulvarth was surprisingly effective, especially with haste. By the end of the battle, I was so tired that I was forgetting about some people entirely - the ogres skipped at least one round, as did the guardsmen.
This will be our last session for several months. I don't know if I'll stick with this thread, or start a new one when we resume in the fall, but I've had enough of this "massive battle" stuff, and I'm about ready for some old-school dungeon-crawlin'.

evil-frosty
2009-05-10, 11:58 AM
Great session. And its fine that you forgot some NPCs turns when you have a lot of them its understandable. And really you guys havent had the final battle yet Azarr Kul is still alive. But ya i can i see how the fight with Kharn was a slight disappointment, we can call that cheaters proof for resurrecting him :smalltongue:. Cant wait to hear how you guys do in the Fane this journal has given me quite a bit of ideas.

LOLC2k
2009-05-10, 12:47 PM
Yeah, I too know your frustrations as far as encounters being too easy. Sadly, three blown up saves on the first spell will do that. They had one lucky round, and it was bad for the enemies that it was the FIRST round. But don't worry. Every character has its weak points, and, though it's a GREAT module, modules are never built with even GOOD characters in mind, let alone optimized ones.

Eldariel
2009-05-10, 01:11 PM
As for the final battle, Imsril conserved his resources admirably; with that many high level spell slots (I count Feeblemind, Evard's Black Tentacles & Confusion so 3 high level slots), a Wizard can easily turn a tough encounter into a cakewalk (as happened here; cakewalk may be the wrong word though, but still much easier than it should be), so I'd say they sorta deserved it. It didn't help that we built Kharn as a leader-type though...which works fine until he has nobody to lead. Now I'm just thinking if that other stance should've been Bolstering Voice instead.

I'm curious, why didn't you have him try to area dispel the Confusion though (that Circlet of Rapid Casting could've come in handy here...)? Those Giants are definitely able to make a huge difference. Precisely why I suggested Divine Defiance; to give him the tools to engage the casters in spell duel while engaging the melee. Of course, it's too bad the feat is from such an obscure source book, but meh... I'm also a bit frustrated I forgot to suggest Stone Power to you. That feat could've certainly made Kharn more durable (prevent 10 damage on the first turn, then 10 more damage from the delayed damage pool while healing with Strikes). And that Pandemonic Silver could've been sexy.


Awesome session though; it seems like you had plenty of epic fighting with or without the final battle. The Sniper Hunt in particular sounds superb.

kjones
2009-05-10, 01:34 PM
Eldarial: There's a simple reason I didn't have him dispel the confusion: I forgot that he had it prepared. :smalltongue: I didn't remember it until Imsril cast Evard's Black Tentacles (and spent a good five minutes drawing out the area of effect precisely on our map, realizing he had used a wet-erase marker instead of a dry-erase marker, wiping it down, using a wet-erase marker again, redrawing...) and I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could just dispel that? Oh, wait..." And at that point, it didn't really matter - the battle was already lost. I didn't even think of it when Jess dispelled the guardsmen!

Imsril did, in fact, do an admirable job of conserving his higher-level spell slots - and he uses the Alacritous Cogitation feat to good effect.

Most of the problem was not with Kharn's build, in my opinion, though a Circlet of Rapid Casting couldn't have hurt, and I should have selected his feats more carefully (they were focused on ensuring that he wouldn't fail a save... I don't think he ever had to make one). Part of it was just that I was tired, and not playing him at my best... we had already been playing for 6-7 hours at this point, and I had used up all my clever as a DM playing Skather. :smalleek:

LOLC2k: A lot of the problem is that many of the enemies throughout the battle are, for lack of a better term, melee brutes - high melee damage, not much in the way of ranged attacks, and most importantly, low will saves. The fact that Imsril is a Fatespinner doesn't help.

I'm well aware of the fact that he has his weaknesses... but he guards them well.

Don't get me wrong. It was still an excellent session overall, and I think I could have played that final battle more effectively had I been at the top of my game. It just wasn't quite the high note on which I would have liked to end things.

Eldariel
2009-05-10, 01:53 PM
Don't get me wrong. It was still an excellent session overall, and I think I could have played that final battle more effectively had I been at the top of my game. It just wasn't quite the high note on which I would have liked to end things.

Well, that's at least understandable. Playing any game for 8 hours straight is straining. Playing D&D for 8 hours as a war game is extremely straining. DMing D&D for 8 hours as a war game and having to calculate all effects, coordinate multiple characters on both sides (you really should pick up an aide to run the friendly NPCs in future if possible; halves the strain on you and makes giving PCs sizable NPC backup possible) and making strategic decisions with each character's mental capabilities and style in mind while managing the overall whole and keeping a track of everything that should or shouldn't be happening while doing all of above is just...something a human isn't made to endure.

So yeah, I do understand why you might have made some mistakes and why strategic thinking in the final battle might've been hard. Good job nevertheless; you don't even sound like you suffered of a nervous breakdown! That said, I still think there was some room in the building process to make the fight even more special. But what's done is done. And it doesn't sound like it were a bad one at any rate.

Haven
2009-05-10, 02:23 PM
Hey, just wanted to say I read through this thread and it was a great read :o It looks like Cameron tends to have a lot of bad luck, heh.

Anyway, thanks for posting.

kjones
2009-05-10, 10:38 PM
Well, depending on how you look at it, Cameron has either terrible luck or fantastic luck. Let me see which of her near-death experiences I can remember...

Almost fell to her death off of Skull Gorge Bridge (saved by quick thinking from Gale)
Nearly killed by Regiarax in Rhest (saved by playing dead)
Swallowed by Varanthian (dealt exactly enough damage to cut her way out, would have died otherwise, and Ross had to dive in to save her)
Confused by Ulwai during the Battle of Brindol (Sarth used heal from the Staff of Life)


There are probably a few more that I'm missing... anyway, she's lucky that she keeps surviving these scrapes, but she's unlucky in that she gets into them in the first place!

(Amusingly, she has Evasion from her rogue levels, but she doesn't actually have a terribly good Reflex save, as she's more Swashbuckler than Rogue...)

Coidzor
2009-05-11, 07:09 AM
(you really should pick up an aide to run the friendly NPCs in future if possible; halves the strain on you and makes giving PCs sizable NPC backup possible)

Yeah, for our party, we had the barbarian take "command" of the higher-end melee NPCs, the druid lead the archers, and my fighter-rogue direct the guardsmen (who made it without even seeing combat until the bluespawn basically formed up ranks the entire street-wide and blasted us in their first round due to a good initiative roll on their part.

We also kept up an open score-board for our NPC's health that we took care of as a party in front of the DM so he didn't have to keep record of it by himself.

We're right now in the same place as your party, kjones, having ended the session with my rogue digging for the barbarian's body and severed head (Kharn finished him with a max-damage crit roll that the DM ruled decapitated him... or else he did the 2 20s in a row instant death threat confirmation roll...), the druid passing out from the effects of the Wraithlord's cursed "gift" in exchange for his phylactery(gives him additional strength in combat at the cost of putting him into a coma and shifting his alignment towards evil every time he fails the will save to give into the bloodlust, it requires something more potent than Remove Curse though, so I think it has plot armor, and it's giving the paladin the major heebie-jeebies/rage), and the paladin sitting on the necromancer to get her to dispel her undead and keep away from the mountain of corpses.

The tiefling took Ulwai as a slave after chasing her down as she fled the battle after the 8(!) elite ogre barbarian bodyguard was killed and zombified, and the barbarian really hated her for frying us while grappled by those dragon-chains earlier on (of which I took two, one as a trophy which I've made into a belt, and the other to get enchanted to increase its grappling abilities so I can fly over a melee badass and grapple him and begin flying up into the sky :smallamused:)... So we're anticipated a big old hoop-lah over that. Especially since Ulwai mentioned the tiefling's Demon(Devil?Demodand?Daemon?) Lord(Baron?Viscount?Count?Baronet?) grandpa and having been in contact with him on the side due to his interest in what Azar Kul has been up to.

In other news, my character rolled a bluff and intimidate against Sarrvith, the Goblin Ranger to retreat and then to surrender or I was going to eat him then pay to have him brought back as a sentient skeleton slave and scrub the cobblestones of Brindol until they were spotless.

How do you suggest I prepare him? Also, how evil is the course of action I've described? (I'm currently a mildly psychopathic CN Fighter-Rogue) He didn't really want to do it, since he felt bad about all of the wasted life from everyone refusing to surrender and acknowledge his superiority (especially that one wizard that fire-balled himself to death rather than surrender), but he kinda did make a promise and all.

evil-frosty
2009-05-11, 07:32 PM
I so want to play thru this mod. But i have read thru it so many times that i dont think it would be fair to some DMs or some players since i might metagame a little even if i am trying not to. I think i am going to try to get a php game of this mod going soon, probably after my finals which are in june.

Eldariel
2009-05-11, 07:42 PM
I so want to play thru this mod. But i have read thru it so many times that i dont think it would be fair to some DMs or some players since i might metagame a little even if i am trying not to. I think i am going to try to get a php game of this mod going soon, probably after my finals which are in june.

DMing this can only be enhanced by reading all the journals. So if interested, I definitely suggest you to DM this for a bunch of willing players; not only would you get what you want, but it's also an awesome module so I'm willing to bet your players would have a blast.

evil-frosty
2009-05-12, 07:53 PM
I am willing to DM in fact i really want to but at the same time i want to be on the other side of the screen and be a player going thru it. It seems like a really fun adventure (havent been able to play yet) and i want to experience it both DMing it and playing thru it.