Drellin's Ferry [Red Hand of Doom Spoilers]

[Story]

From what I've read, the default stats in Red Hand of Doom are balanced against an inexperienced traditional Blaster/Healbot/BSF/Skillmonkey party. What would happen if it were run unmodified for a heavily optimized party? Assume 4 level 5s with WBL. Could they successfully defend Drellin's Ferry?

Please don't say Pun-pun. I'm wondering about how an optimized group could do in practice, say at the level of Jill and Joe from Another Gaming Comic.

[evil-frosty]

From the sheer number of the monsters it should not be possible unless the DM takes extravagant lengths to make it happen. And the mod clearly says that the party is not supposed to be able to save the town, and even says if the party is able to protect the town that you are running this mod for the wrong group/level.

[MrLemon]

Just a request:
Could you Rename the Thread please? Something like "[RHoD SPOILER] Devlin's Ferry"?
I'm sure not everyone knows the module (I don't). There might be some DMs who wish to run it who have players on this board, which read the thread unknowingly.

If you don't know RHoD, you probably don't know what Devlin's Ferry is. I thought it might be some weird CO/TO concept that was broken by some rule and you found another way to do it

[Saintheart]

All right, spoilers for detail...

First up, it's Drellin's Ferry, not Devlin's.

Second, four level fives even heavily optimised should not be able to defend the Ferry by themselves, or indeed with support. The module itself gives a DM a scenario where the party stays behind to fight the entire Red Hand army by itself.

If you're querying whether 4 optimised level 5s can still run through the entire Red Hand of Doom campaign, then yes ... with modifications. Check the thread in my sig, it's designed for GMs carrying optimised parties into RHOD.

[JeminiZero]

For the benefit of those who haven't played RHoD, exactly what is the scenario the PCs are up against (in spoilers please)? E.g. What is the situation on the ground, how much time do they have to prepare, and what are they facing?

[Story]

Just a request:
Could you Rename the Thread please? Something like "[RHoD SPOILER] Devlin's Ferry"?
I'm sure not everyone knows the module (I don't). There might be some DMs who wish to run it who have players on this board, which read the thread unknowingly.

Oops, sorry about that.


For the benefit of those who haven't played RHoD, exactly what is the scenario the PCs are up against (in spoilers please)? E.g. What is the situation on the ground, how much time do they have to prepare, and what are they facing?



They have up to 17 days to prepare, depending on how quickly they find out about the army and what they do to slow it down. If they metagame, they have a lot more time, since you're assumed to have an arbitrary amount of prep time before the adventure starts. There is an army of thousands, supported by some clerics, giants, and dragons.

The most promising point of defence is on the east bank of the river, in which case the army has to spend several hours building assault barges to cross. The text also says that the army has to cross narrow mountain paths if you blow up Skull Gorge bridge, but there is no printed scenario for attacking then.

The monsters for the river crossing scenario are

First Wave: 3 Manticores, 3 Hobgoblin Bladebearers
Second Wave: 2 Hiearcosphinxes, 2 Wyverns, 2 Kulkor Zhul War Adepts
Third Wave: Abrithlax (Juvenile Red Dragon), 3 Manticores, 3 Doom Fist Monks, 2 Kulkor Zhul War Adepts

Assault Barges (20 barges): 3 Blood Ghost Berserkers, Kulkor Zhul War Adept, 2 Doom Hand Clerics, 4 Hell Hounds, 3 Hobgoblin Bladebearers, 8 Hobgoblin Veterans, 12 Hobgoblin Regulars

You're also supposed to assume hobgoblin snipers across the river taking potshots at you and giants wading across the river, but there aren't any printed stats for this.

I think one promising tactic is to diplomance all the high level casters (lvl6-12) scattered around the vale into helping. The text says that if you get NPCs to help, assume there are other monsters for them to deal with. However, I think this is intended to refer to getting the random townspeople to stay and fight. There's no provision for what to do if you have NPCs that can actually do something, so I'm assuming they can help with the listed monsters.

[Reynard]

17 days isn't a lot of time to travel the hundreds (maybe more than thousand, there and back) of miles to Brindol and to try and get Immerstal and such to help. Just finding the elves is supposed to take almost a week.

Especially since for the first couple of days, the party doesn't even know just how big the threat is, or it's planned route through the Vale.

[Story]

It's not quite that far. The entire glade is 250 miles across.

[Therm]

For the benefit of those who haven't played RHoD, exactly what is the scenario the PCs are up against (in spoilers please)? E.g. What is the situation on the ground, how much time do they have to prepare, and what are they facing?

Without going too far into specifics:
As the PC's defend Drellin's Ferry from the encroaching horde, there are a series of increasingly dangerous encounters. Should they continue attempting to hold out despite all the warnings, signs and NPC retreating, the final encounter is designed to utterly overwhelm anyone even close to "right level". Note that the escalation is gradual - there's plenty of opportunity for the PCs to come to their senses and fall back.

The last wave is no less than twenty EL-12 collections of class leveled creatures, complete with caster & ranged support built into each of those EL-12 groups that all attack at once. In addition to that, the GM is encouraged to add "many" Hill Giants and flying monsters (from a list in the module) to the mix.

In short, anyone who can stop the Horde cold at Drellin's Ferry should be allowed to do so - since there is no point in playing the rest of the module. The PCs should only be 5th-6th level at this point, after all.

This said, if you're running the module, I can not recommend Saintheart's thread strongly enough. It's an amazing resource for anyone planning to run this excellent adventure.

[RFLS]

This said, if you're running the module, I can not recommend Saintheart's thread strongly enough. It's an amazing resource for anyone planning to run this excellent adventure.

Seconded for truth.

[Saintheart]

More thoughts...

It's also notable that given the NPCs available they aren't going to make any significant impact on the result. Your only real spellcaster options are Immerstal the Red who's a single level 9 mage with a very crappy spell selection; Tredora Goldenbrow who leads a small covey of clerics, none of whom are more than level 7 since she's the most powerful of them all; a few standard fighter types around the level 7 or 8 mark; and lastly, the technically most powerful character in the Vale judged by sheer levels: Aragathos, a level 12 sorcerer over in Dennovar on the far side of the vale who's just one guy and who is heavily implied as having an exclusive commercial contract to defend Dennovar and nowhere else.

Match that against the entire Red Hand which has dragons, giants, archers, mages, clerics, and warriors at once. A party that stands off at Drellin's Ferry is intended as being stomped into the ground by the Red Hand. The whole point of the campaign is to pull as many troops as can be found back to Brindol and fight a decisive battle there. It's the only realistic strategic strongpoint in the entire Vale, seeing as it's the only place that has walls which (historically) level a 10-to-1 numerical disadvantage.

[Story]

It may not help much against the higher level threats, but remotely detonated Explosive Runes should be able to get rid of an arbitrary number of the grunts. For extra fun, get some metamagic reducers and make them all Fell Animate Explosive Runes.