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Tyndmyr
2010-08-22, 07:16 PM
My motivation for running this was mostly due to characters seeing the book(along with dragons of eberron) laying out on the table and saying they were doomed. Well, we weren't in eberron, and I do like the idea of doom, so I practically had to start it off.

Be forwarned, campaign spoilers are in here, for those who haven't yet run Red Hand of Doom.

The Party: E6, standard level 4 party. Yup, Im aware the campaign is for levels 6-12. Difficulty ratings on most campaigns are amusingly easy. 32 point buy. They were dirt poor for most of the time up to level 4, despite getting a fraction of the xp they were supposed to per encounter. They kill a lot...They keep count, and they've hit 25 bodies per session repeatedly. Then I screwed up. Left a crystal ball in an abandoned mage's tower as flavor. Oops. Party is no longer poor.

Rogue 4. Built around ranged Sneak Attack, and of course, standard trapmonkey abilities. Human, prefers to use ranged. Nothing real crazy on this character, but very flexible, and played cautiously. Expert at finding creative ways to loot things.

Cleric 4. Actually a hireling, since nobody in the party wanted to heal. Thus, this dude is a healbot that sits in the back, has the healing domain, and isn't especially good at anything but healing. The party did hand him a warhammer for any AoOs that came up, though.

Ranger 4. Decent +hit optimization. While rapid shotting, typically has a +12ish to hit. Has a decent bow. Great at shooting, but the player suffers from a strong tendancy to dive into situations head first.

Hexblade 4. His meager spell selection is based on debuffing, which goes well with his cursing. Basically the party tank, with more emphasis on his beatstick role than on casting, though his debuffing is still significant.

Arcanist of some variety(I forget) 4. Tomb Tainted Soul + negative energy attacks for self-healing, and a focus on undead summoning. Also, corpsecrafter and such, for exploding zombies.



The Hook:



After hocking the crystal ball, and reveling in their first experience with actual wealth, the ranger of them happily walks into town loaded with gold looking for an interpreter for a map and some books he's looted earlier. While this wasn't planned by me in advance, this map was perfect for the opening RHoD hook. He asked for an interpreter in a tavern. Given that it was written in dwarvish, this proved surprisingly effective. He then offered the dwarf 1000g for the job. This was significantly less wise. The dwarf rapidly took the money, translated the map, and informed him that the first book was "The history and traditions of dwarvish bread". He promised to return with the rest of the books after he'd looked them over more.

I image they'll never see him again, unless it's because he gathered a gang of thieves to take advantage of such clueless strangers.[/quote]

Marauder Attack(EL 8)
[quote]
They merrily set off on foot and walked into the first encounter, EL8. Unfortunately, they have good spot checks, and most of them made them. Also, all of them got excellent init, going before the mobs. Thus, the surprise round was not terribly helpful for the ambushers. The party didn't bother to focus fire, so only one died before getting to act.

I did have one rather good set of rolls with archery, in which of four shooters focus firing the cleric, three hit, and two crit. He dropped, but they stabilized him at -7 with a blessed bandage.

They rather efficiently shift focus to the hounds and named mobs as they appear, correctly judging the unusual builds to be more of a threat. The cleric died the same round he became visible(thanks to a failed hold person attempt), and the other named mob died the second round after the reinforcements arrived(three of them were already dead as well), prompting a quick retreat from the few survivors.

They locate all the loot, and identify the holy symbol. I'm considering that I may have to update the difficulty of some of these fights a bit. However, I do xp as per standard. It's more than they usually get in a full night. Two of them level up.


Drellin's Ferry


They immediately demand to speak to the town constable, and also state they were attacked by hobgoblins, skipping rapidly to the point of the interaction. I ignore the recommendation to award them xp for talking nicely to the guard. It's not really much of a challenge. Not even CR 2.

They do, however, get talked into helping the town without asking for a reward. That's got to be a first, but given their recent wealth, I see no reason why this should be a problem.

They spend the night in town, then head off to Jorr's cabin, and despite the ranger saying they should shoot the dogs, the party immediately stops him by threatening to shoot him. The first words out of their mouths to Jorr is almost exactly the right answer to get him to sign up. They toss him pay for a while in advance, and tell him to keep his head down in combat in the back, with the cleric. Off, into the woods.


Hydra

While the players were impressed by the hydra, the fight seemed like a bit of a letdown, especially for a CR6. The entire party has solid ranged options, which they have in hand by default while walking. 3/4 of the PCs spotted the head, and 2 of them hit it in the surprise round, taking it well into negatives. The distance, combined with the hydra's mere 20 ft swim speed left unable to attack in round 1, and down another head, with misc damage on others. By the time his init came in round 2, he was down to three heads remaining, and was cursed by the hexblade. Even with a coupla AoOs, he barely managed to do any damage before losing the remaining three heads and fleeing in round 3. Of course, it is only EL6. The party hasn't yet gotten any random encounters off the table, so onward to the fort.


Vraath Keep

Throwing caution to the wind, they adopt the "hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle" approach and head directly for the tower. They manage a surprise round on the guards outside, killing one of the awake ones outright. The minotaur alerts the boss, then turns to fight.

I look at the instructions for the boss, and wonder how they seriously expect casting a buff spell and grabbing a map to take five rounds. I have him start taking those actions, using the actual actions required along the way.

Another hobgoblin falls in round 1, but most of the hostility is focused on the minotaur, who takes a curse. In round 2, the boss is visible to the players as he heads over to the map room. The hexblade pops up karmic aura, and proceeds to take off most of the remaining minotaur hp, in conjunction with the rest of the party, who ignores the remaining guards and the boss. In round 3, The mino dies, while the first summoned zombie is keeping the other guards occupied in one area, as provoking an AoO would likely kill them.

The boss, seeing he's likely going to be unable to leave at this rate, lighting bolts three of the party, and starts screaming for reinforcements. The chimera hears him and bursts onto the scene, spraying ranged attacks everywhere. Unfortunately, as they're still in the guardhouse, the chimera has limited mobility.

A couple rounds of fun ensue, while the party is split between dealing with the chimera and chasing down the boss inside the map room. The boss empties out his compliment of lightning bolts, and resorts to charm person(with no success) and magic missile(marginally better). The mooks die terribly along the way, and the boss gets cursed as well. Karmic aura, combined with curses, and high party ACs all round(the caster runs a 23) result in surprisingly low party damage, and the chimera dies first, the same round in which the worg riders(finally) make the listen checks to hear the battle and calls for help. They arrive just as the boss falls(though out of LOS), and the rogue ducks off into the chimera lair to loot while the party dispatches the worgs. A single rider manages to escape successfully.

The party bemoans his escape, but turn to exploring the tower. Magical elfdar detects the secret door to the treasure, and more rejoicing occurs. They leave off for the night here, planning to camp in the castle. This strikes me as a rather bad decision, but an entertaining one.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-22, 07:28 PM
*Reserved*

Considering they chewed up the first 30 pages in half an evening, I should have enough more material for at least two or three nights, though I may have to add some additional encounters, etc as appropriate. Seems like a good module overall, and definitely works as E6.

Flipping ahead, the encounters do appear to progress nicely, so perhaps I may not have to scale up the encounters at all. I do worry about the massacre at Drellin's Ferry. Retreat isn't the party's strong point, so I suspect they'll have to take deaths before it's considered a viable option. It's also possible that depending on what they kill before they do so, they could weaken future encounters or remove them altogether(ie, the dragon one).

There is also the issue of the assault barges there. Yeah, sure, it's 10 barges, each filled with EL 12 worth of creatures. But the thing is, That EL 12 is composed of 37 creatures, who aren't terribly able to swim, in slow boats that take 20 rounds to get across. A better name would be "cannon fodder" vs a competent ranged party. A few good fireballs, or worse, control waters, would be horrifically lethal here. I see it all going surprisingly well for the party until someone drops at exactly the wrong time. That's the sort of situation that can easily turn into a TPK.

LordShotGun
2010-08-22, 07:33 PM
Always love Campaign Journals and RHoD is always welcome if only for the shear amount of death (for PC, NPC, and mook alike).

Honestly though it sounds like your party of three plus the healbot is rather well optimised. Usually someone would have died by now(going by the several other RHoD journals I'v read) but what seems to be a combination of good skill checks and having all three characters be damage dealers is quickly turning this challenging campaign into a cake walk.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-22, 08:36 PM
Four of em, actually. Yeah, everyone tends to play to decent levels of optimization. I spose it helps that nothing but infinite loops and tainted casters are banned, but the biggest thing is that the players have either played a long time, or learned to play from those who have. The rogue's player is actually the newest one, but she only took a single hit in the final battle, due to caution, a great reflex save, and knowing when to hide.

After I finish off this campaign, Im swapping my wizzie back in, and the ranger player will run us through WLD. Should be interesting to see how that goes. With at least two full casters, we should be able to at least get quite deep into it.

Introducing the "kill-o-meter" was probably the best idea I've had yet. The players LOVE changing the numbers after the bodies hit the floor.