Red Hand of Doom: Ideal Party

[fencepainter]

Hi all. In a few weeks our DM is going to take us through Red Hand of Doom. For fun and success, what would make the ideal party of 4-6 characters starting at 5th-6th level? Sure we could go cleric, wizard, fighter, and rogue, which is what most WoTC adventures expect. And maybe that's ideal. I'm OK if that's the scoop. But we're wondering what people think is ideal/fun. No spoilers, please

[Shinken]

Rangers do quite well in Red Hand of Doom.
Warmages do surprisingly well, since it is common to fight lots of weaker enemies.

[(Un)Inspired]

I'm currently Running a RHoD campaign. My Party is:

A Diviner
A Cloistered Cleric
A Ranger
A Swordsage
A Bard/Druid

Each member of the party has been useful and we're all having a lot of fun. It's worth noting, however, that the cleric and the wizard are about as low op as players can be and the ranger is using dragon magazine's THW fighting style.

[DMVerdandi]

Hmm. From what I see, Tiamat is a big part of the campaign.

HOLY AVENGER PARTY OF BAHAMUT
1. Crusader
2. Factotum
3. Cleric of bahamut
4.Archivist.

They all worship bahamut and are on a holy mission to cleanse the world of the mother of dragons' evil spawn.

Cue Danarys targarean expy to represent Tiamat.
End game battle with her would be awesome. Re-stat deity for cool points and fairness.

Heck, it would be better to ramp it up farther, make it a gestalt game, and have everyone play dragon-fire adept on one side. That WOULD BE COOL.

[Abithrios]

Rangers do quite well in Red Hand of Doom.
Warmages do surprisingly well, since it is common to fight lots of weaker enemies.

Most of the enemies fit within a few categories of favored enemy. Also, it can be advantageous to have ranged attacks, especially for certain parts.

You really do not need a high op party to complete the campaign as written. Someone on this forum has written a handbook on RHoD. I have not read much of it, but the DM may want to take a look. Naturally, much of it consists of spoilers.

[ericgrau]

Without giving too much away I think I'll say barbarians, rangers, classes similar to those two, and arcane full casters. Rogue-ish classes and divine casters not as much I think.

[fencepainter]

So Rangers and Crusaders appear to be popular choices. I'm getting the sense that we don't need a Tier 1 group, which is always nice.

The idea about a party geared toward an identifiable nemesis seems plausible, but may be a bit too tailored. (I haven't read the module, so I don't know how much a team of Bahamut groupies would be too disruptive.)

This is all helpful so far. It's possible that the DM won't be into the Nine Swords material, so I'll have to check on that.

[Katana1515]

People who want to play something like a blaster sorcerer or wizard do well in RHoD in my experience (though of course they should always have back up options!!). I would definitely suggest having some kind of healer class on tap, while stat conditions are pretty infrequent you can take plenty of physical punishment from enemies. At least the way my DM ran it their were quite a few 'endurence test' style challenges where we had to go through multiple battles/sessions without rest so something like a warlock might not be out of place. Ignore crafting feats and the like, the whole campaign is run on a tight timetable and you wont have opportunities for it.

As i recall their is very little work for a rogue in the module, plenty of opportunities for stealth but little in the way of lock picking or traps. Rangers/Barbarians and other 'wilderness types' do well. indeed it would be a pretty awesome campaign to run a druid in come to think of it. (more so than normal I mean)

[fencepainter]

When you say "blaster" do you mean a direct damage kind or more of a battlefield control type? I am sure both are preferable, but I just want to catch your drift.

I like playing non-optimized druids, so I'm glad to hear that druids would be good. Would a druid with some healing sub-focus suffice? Or do we really need the healing might of a cleric?

[Temji]

greetings...

warlock... just blows things up all day... we had one, and she was amazing in this campaign... especially in the 'thick' of things, when the casters started running low on spells...

have a great day...

[ericgrau]

I like playing non-optimized druids, so I'm glad to hear that druids would be good. Would a druid with some healing sub-focus suffice? Or do we really need the healing might of a cleric?
I think you could do a battlefield control druid with a small side of healing. Maybe some damage spells too depending on how well the rest of the party has it covered.

[TechnoWarforged]

I should insert a disclaimer here in regards to choosing a class for any published campaign in general:

It depends on whether the DM decided to change some of the encounters in the campaign. For example it'll be quite a different encounter if the DM decide to swap Hellhound for Runehounds, change the numbers of Monsters or some of the Hostile NPC's abilities. It's especially true with such a well known Module such as RHoD.

I do find that thou RHoD does a good job balancing between RP and Combat (You can't win the module easily with just combat) and there's a role for almost every type of character. So the general rule of thumb applies: make a balance party able to support each other with a varying skillset to handle every possible situation. I usually consult the rest of the players first what class they are playing and then pick a class accordingly.

And ofcourse Higher Tier class will always outshine lower tier class overall.

[Story]

So Rangers and Crusaders appear to be popular choices. I'm getting the sense that we don't need a Tier 1 group, which is always nice.


On the other hand if you do get all optimized Tier 1s, you can just fly straight to the temple of Tiamat* and go for a decapitation strike. With the element of surprise, they probably wouldn't even have the normal defences.


* Well first you'd have to find it IC. But it's marked on the map you can find early on IIRC.

[Abithrios]

When you say "blaster" do you mean a direct damage kind or more of a battlefield control type? I am sure both are preferable, but I just want to catch your drift.

I like playing non-optimized druids, so I'm glad to hear that druids would be good. Would a druid with some healing sub-focus suffice? Or do we really need the healing might of a cleric?

"Blaster" usually refers more to damage spells. Fireball is the famous example. Usually, it is considered to be suboptimal because characters without spellcasting can be frightfully good at dealing hit point damage, whereas those with spellcasting have a lot more options, many of which either kill or render harmless enemies faster than blasting would. Battlefield control is such an option.

This is not to say that you or your party should avoid blasting. A decently made blaster will probably be powerful and versatile enough to pull their weight in a published adventure (which may be balanced with the presence of a blaster in mind), and RHoD is better suited to blasting than many adventures out there.

As for healing, there are cheap ways to buy magical healing. Magic Item Compendium has belt of healing which can heal up to 6d8 damage per day for a mere 750 gp. Wands of cure light wounds are also cheap. There is a handbook for healing somewhere. Some DMs may not like how cheap it is to heal hit point damage if all published options are on the table. Unless your DM takes some action to reduce access to purchasing magical healing, you probably do not need to design your character around healing. It may be a good idea to have healing paid for from a shared pool of resources, and it is always a good idea to have at least a scroll to deal with some of the less common maladies, such as ability damage, poison, etc.

On the other hand, if you want to build a character focused on healing that is fine, but sometimes people get pressured into playing characters they do not want to play because the other players wrongly think the party needs a healbot.

[Shinken]

So Rangers and Crusaders appear to be popular choices. I'm getting the sense that we don't need a Tier 1 group, which is always nice.
You will never need a tier 1 group for any published module.

[macdaddy]

A Beguiler can really make the DM's job a nightmare.

A focused specialist conjurer going into Malconvoker can be pretty good and fun to play as well. With Rapid Summoning (lose familiar), he can be better than a druid summoner.

Of course, a tricked out Druid is a jack of all trades, master of all trades character can really dominate any party. Animal summoning spells for BC, shapeshift for an effective fighter, and healing spells.

In a party of 6:

I would suggest 2 meat shields.

A Barbarian with pounce, a few select combat feats(power attack, leap attack, etc), and a 2 handed weapon can really bring the hurt, and be an ideal target for buff spells like Haste.

A Fighter with Spiked Chain and combat reflexes/trip feats/etc, will provide good damage and some battle field control with his reach weapon. Throw in a haste and/or enlarge and he can provide a nice ZONE of control to protect the weaker casters.

You need at least ONE primary arcane caster. A focused specialist conjurer is great for this. He gets really good BC spells and will work by helping the fighters and others do better without outright stealing the show. A focused specialist transmuter would also be good as a buff/debuff specialist.

You need a healer of some kind, and most of them can serve as a secondary fighter when necessary. A cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor is a great combination. A druid is also a good choice, but they are kind of OTT and can really steal the show.

I don't think a full thief is needed in any party. There are some good Rogue/wizard sneak attack combo's (using reserve magic feats like acid splatter and force needles, Rogue, spontaneous diviner, unseen seer).

The 6th slot can be a Bard/Swiftblade (love that combo) or just about anything else

[fencepainter]

A Beguiler can really make the DM's job a nightmare.

A focused specialist conjurer going into Malconvoker can be pretty good and fun to play as well. With Rapid Summoning (lose familiar), he can be better than a druid summoner.

Of course, a tricked out Druid is a jack of all trades, master of all trades character can really dominate any party. Animal summoning spells for BC, shapeshift for an effective fighter, and healing spells.

In a party of 6:

I would suggest 2 meat shields.

A Barbarian with pounce, a few select combat feats(power attack, leap attack, etc), and a 2 handed weapon can really bring the hurt, and be an ideal target for buff spells like Haste.

A Fighter with Spiked Chain and combat reflexes/trip feats/etc, will provide good damage and some battle field control with his reach weapon. Throw in a haste and/or enlarge and he can provide a nice ZONE of control to protect the weaker casters.

You need at least ONE primary arcane caster. A focused specialist conjurer is great for this. He gets really good BC spells and will work by helping the fighters and others do better without outright stealing the show. A focused specialist transmuter would also be good as a buff/debuff specialist.

You need a healer of some kind, and most of them can serve as a secondary fighter when necessary. A cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor is a great combination. A druid is also a good choice, but they are kind of OTT and can really steal the show.

I don't think a full thief is needed in any party. There are some good Rogue/wizard sneak attack combo's (using reserve magic feats like acid splatter and force needles, Rogue, spontaneous diviner, unseen seer).

The 6th slot can be a Bard/Swiftblade (love that combo) or just about anything else

This is excellent advice. If you wouldn't mind sharing more info or suggestions about the Bard/Swiftblade build you like, I'd be obliged.

Someone pm'ed and said "Go for a meat shield/tank that has the capacity as the need arises to both 1) make many effective melee attacks each round when surrounded by weaker opponents and 2) able to reliably deal massive damage to one or two opponents in a single round." When I asked him what that might look like, he told me to "Go ask the boards." So, this is my ask.

[Shinken]

Someone pm'ed and said "Go for a meat shield/tank that has the capacity as the need arises to both 1) make many effective melee attacks each round when surrounded by weaker opponents and 2) able to reliably deal massive damage to one or two opponents in a single round." When I asked him what that might look like, he told me to "Go ask the boards." So, this is my ask.

You're looking for a Warblade or Crusader focused on Iron Heart, I think.
I'd make it a hobgoblin Warblade for flavor. Some kind of "My people must see the error of their ways." deal. Your very own evil samurai. You know you want it. :smallwink:

[Bearlock]

As noted by most people rangers can steal the show. Most enemies in the module fall into the same category, so that FE bonus becomes huge. In my friends campaign his DM had the ranger swap out FE because he would have destroyed most encounters. We play PF, the guy switched to the Guide archetype.

My upcoming campaign is for RHOD, and our party is shaping up as follows
Inquisitor, tank, minor archer and skills
Cleric, archer and healer
Wizard, buffer and control mostly, still can blast
Ranger (guide) switch hitter and skills
Fighter, meatshield
Cleric, melee and buffer

The module really doesn't call for a trap springer, and SA would mostly have to be arranged by way of flanking IIRC for most encounters. Knowledge skills can be useful however, and don't skimp on the Diplomacy. On that note don't be afraid to make friends in the module either.

[Thurbane]

Beguiler does OK - there aren't exactly of ton of enemies resistant or immune to mind affecting spells.

And going to second Warmage (or any blaster) - direct damage area attacks do pretty well in a module where you'll be fighting large groups of mooks pretty consistently.

[Faily]

We played Red Hand of Doom two years ago and our GM increased the difficulty overall... and still our party more or less steamrolled through every encounter. :smallamused:

Four players, characters were:
Human Favored Soul of Kord (our Tank and Healer and decent fighter)
Human Monk (Ki Blast from PHB2-route)
Elf Scout/Ranger (Favored Enemy: Goblin was very very useful)
Elf Wizard/Sorcerer/Ultimate Magus (had so many spells each day it was just ridiculous. Never empty and had both utility, buffs and blast aplenty.)


What I found was useful in the adventure was:
1. Have at least one character with wilderness skills (Survival, Track, etc).
2. Casters should either have many spells per day, or be careful with conserving spells, as there can often be much happening in one day and you do have a "clock" to work after.
3. Have at least one character who is Face of the group. Need to be able to roll Diplomacy and talk well with the NPCs.

[evil-frosty]

Druids. Their ability to scout helps tremendously early on, and their variety of spells fit perfectly in for most of the mod. Warlocks are great for the energizer bunny feel(which is invaluable at times). You do need one or two characters that can take hits though. Most times the mod is ran modified in someway.

[ShriekingDrake]

I am not sure I would say that our party was ideal--as I honestly don't know what ideal is for making RHOD great--but we had a fantastic time. I know that many people describe RHOD as easy, but it was not for us. We worked hard from tip to tail. There were excellent and very memorable battles, but also the adventure required good judgment, think strategically and tactically, and, at times, a Holmesian approach to putting the facts together. Here was our party:

Halfling Vow of Poverty Druid (Animal Companion was another meat shield and the druid served primarily as a battlefield controller and secondarily as a healer and out-of-combat utility character.)

Mogrelfolk Dragonborn Crusader (THE Tank)

Kobold Sorcerer (Primarily a blaster and buffer and secondarily battlefield control and healing.)

Whisper Gnome Factotum/Master of Masks (While a general utility role, focused on Iaijutsu Focus, intimidation, some trap work (though not so much of this in RHOD as I recall) and pickpocketing. This last aspect turned out to be quite important as, throughout the adventure, we were cash strapped and needed his pilfering to make ends meet.)

Human Bard with a dip (maybe swiftblade) in something I can't remember (Face, excellent buffer, information extractor, BAD gambler)

As others have said, I think a ranger would have been helpful.

[Lokd0wn]

I'm currently running a RHoD campaign myself and I found the handbook to be absolutely pivotal in allowing me to challenge my players. To be fair they went for somewhat unusual choices as this is the first game for some time where they were given relative carte blanche as to what was allowed (although do bear in mind that I am using a heavily modified version of the Test of Spite house rules).

Firstly we have the Whisper Gnome unarmed Swordsage. Very sneaky, high AC and hits like a truck. However his Fort save is somewhat to be desired as he found out when getting stun-locked by Shield Slamming Bonecrusher Ogres.

Next we have the Human Artificer. He's only just starting to get the item train rolling (although it does mean I can hand out "vendor trash" without feeling guilty) but as others have said there's a relatively narrow range of enemies in this adventure and with him being able to hand out the Bane enhancement he is more than pulling his weight.

Then we have the Lesser Aasimar Cleric/Warlock/Eldritch Disciple. Consistent damage output, nice buffs/debuffs and due to his abilities/feats he makes in combat healing somewhat viable.

Lastly we have the Synad Shaper Psion. Mostly utility focused and is having blast with his Astral Constructs (no CPsi nerf in my game) and Time Hop.

In a way I'm quite fortunate that the party doesn't have a huge amount of battlefield control (although the Artificer is feverishly making Stinking Cloud scrolls) but really what they like is that they are getting battered and bruised at every encounter but that just makes their victories all the sweeter.

[fencepainter]

Thanks for all the great information so far. I really appreciate it.

Ranger has come up a lot. Does anyone have suggestions for a particular build?

[(Un)Inspired]

Thanks for all the great information so far. I really appreciate it.

Ranger has come up a lot. Does anyone have suggestions for a particular build?

Well first off, I'd allow additional combat styles other than TWF and archery. Taking favored enemy in goblinoid and dragons might as well just be bonus damage and skill points for every scenario.

My party's ranger uses a hunting great sword and rhinos rush+ favored enemy to put a good amount of holes in enemies.

He's level 7 right now and I think he's gonna start taking warmind levels pretty soon. I think he's gonna uses psionic lions charge a lot and he says he has a way to combine it with rhinos rush...

[Thurbane]

Speaking of Warmages:
In last night's RHoD game, our Warmage one-shotted a red dragon. He hit it wit a Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold, for 48 points of damage. Because of cold vulnerability, the dragon took 72. It failed it's save vs. blindness (rolling a 2), when we realized it had to make a save vs. massive damage. It rolled a 3, and died. The DM was devastated. :P
It was a lucky shot, but I thought I'd mention it here.

[(Un)Inspired]

That's incredibly cool Thurbane.

Did the DM bother to buff the dragons ac with scintillating scales? And give it a miss chance through blink or mirror image or anything? If not I'm especially glad you guys dropped him so easily. We can have fools like that flying around besmirching Red Dragons' reputation

[Coidzor]

Without giving too much away I think I'll say barbarians, rangers, classes similar to those two, and arcane full casters. Rogue-ish classes and divine casters not as much I think.

Partially because a Druid or Archivist might be tempted to go off script and actually start to attack the army itself (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=333758)while avoiding the encounter that's supposed to trigger to discourage doing that, while any Wizards probably won't want to do it except for a level or two past the point where that's really an option.

Anything that can get the party flight for overland travel early on may be a little bit too disruptive depending upon how well the DM is able to roll with such things, though there's sometimes the opportunity to get flight for transport about halfway through and then it doesn't break anything.

I'd agree about rogueish characters and go further to say that pure Rogue-types are probably the most disadvantaged, since they really need to think outside of the box and have a DM willing to play ball with them. Builds with a bit of Rogueishness to them or Casters that are a bit sneakier, like a Sneak-Attacking Spellcaster or Beguiler will have moments where they're disadvantaged, but as casters they'll have enough in their bag of tricks to help out.

As far as ideal parties go though... By default it's tough enough to provide a challenge to low-to-middling op parties, but once they're in middling proper, they start to shine above the default baddies, but between the suggestions made in the text itself and the RHOD handbook for DMs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171284)(Spoilers, of course) there's a lot of flexibility for scaling the campaign to the party appropriately. Really though, most any party that's not pants-on-head incompetent is going to be able to do it, though if they're all specialized in the same manner and they run into an area that their specialization leaves them vulnerable to, they're not going to have much fun.

I believe it's only a minor spoiler that thar be dragons, there's obviously going to be humanoids and their hangers-on because there's an army involved, and there's going to be undead involved because no D&D game is complete without at least one undead. Preparing for that(and the extrapolated knowledge that they're going to need to be able to deal with big things and flying things and maybe even some flying big things because Dragons) should serve any group well.


Thanks for all the great information so far. I really appreciate it.

Ranger has come up a lot. Does anyone have suggestions for a particular build?

Mystic Ranger, especially Wildshaping Mystic Ranger, and even more so Wildshaping Mystic Ranger with Sword of the Arcane Order is wonderful, though there's not really any opportunities to steal enemy spellbooks, so you'll have to bring and stock your own spellbook or have a Wizard PC/cohort that you're colluding with.

Mystic Wildshaping Ranger 6-10 should serve you well, especially with the half-orc variant that lets you sub-out Endurance as a Ranger bonus feat for Sword of the Arcane Order. Even without Sword of the Arcane Order, remembering that you have Natural Spell instead of a 6th level feat should serve you well. Warshaper, Nature's Warrior, or Master of Many Forms can also do you well for the last 2 levels.

And if you really miss having an Animal Companion, run Wild Cohort (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) by the DM. (Say, what's the lowest level a party of Small characters could get flying mounts using Wild Cohort? :smallamused:)

Focus on turning into a Fleshraker as a Medium combat form until Legendary Ape becomes available at... level 10 or 11, IIRC, use your casting for gish buffs if you get access to Sword of the Arcane Order or to augment yourself using the Ranger list and for utility if limited solely to the Mystic Ranger list. If you take Master of Many Forms (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1060931), you can grab Power Attack and act as a fairly serviceable beatstick.

If Mystic Ranger isn't on the table, then a Wildshaping Ranger > Master of Many Forms build is the next step I'd recommend, especially if the Divine Minion template is allowed, even with the ability granted being limited to at-will wildshape instead of greatly boosting your effective druid level for wildshaping.

Taking the Trapfinding and Arcane Hunter ACFs may also be of interest, though, as mentioned, there's not that much call for a trapspringer. Granted, there's not much call for Tracking unless the DM is really making the game his own.


(I haven't read the module, so I don't know how much a team of Bahamut groupies would be too disruptive.)


Shouldn't be. If anything it's a very, very convenient hook for the DM and a ready explanation for why you're all traveling together.


When you say "blaster" do you mean a direct damage kind or more of a battlefield control type? I am sure both are preferable, but I just want to catch your drift.

I like playing non-optimized druids, so I'm glad to hear that druids would be good. Would a druid with some healing sub-focus suffice? Or do we really need the healing might of a cleric?

Blaster pretty much never means battlefield control around here. Sometimes they might pick spells that have a debuffing secondary effect along with the damage, but it's generally about the direct damage. Enervation/Energy Drain specialists are a bit of a corner case though, IIRC.

Really, you mostly need some ability to cast or summon healing spells in addition to the usual suspects (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2710.0), like a wand or two or three of cure light wounds and healing belts. So a druid should be fine, as long as they pace themselves. A crusader's healing abilities should serve the party just fine in-combat and for endurance slogs.