Wrath of the Righteous Trubs (spoilers)

[CockroachTeaParty]

Spoilers for Wrath of the Righteous are ahead! You are forewarned!

This thread is mostly directed at GMs who are running or have run this AP.


So, my group has reached chapter 2, and have finally become mythic, etc.

I've never been a big fan of the mass combat rules; as a veteran of Kingmaker, I found them unsatisfying and unforgiving. But since WotR uses the revised mass combat rules from Ultimate Combat, I decided I'd give them another shot.

The PCs first battle against the tiefling army went swimmingly; they killed them in the first ranged phase, no damage taken. Victory!

The next battle against the tiefling and dretch army was a disaster. In the ranged phase, the Knights of Kenabres kill the tiefling army while the dretch army rolled a 19 on the dice, using their Relentless Brutality tactic. The Knights of Kenabres are down half their health!

Then the melee phase begins. The Knights roll a nat. 1 on their offense roll, while the dretches roll another 19 on the dice, adopting the reckless strategy. The dretches DV is so low that the Knights manage to defeat them, but they are also utterly wiped out in turn.

So.... The PCs no longer have an army. Even using lay on hands, there was no way for them to survive the overwhelming offense of the dretch army... The AP assumes that the PCs have their little army as they reach Drezen, so I'm trying to figure out how to proceed.

I guess the PCs could retreat back to Mendev and recruit another army, but then what's the real consequences? Why not just hand-wave all of the mass combats at that point?

I'm leaning towards altering the siege of Drezen. It's the party and the surviving NPCs, faced with the task of recovering the Sword of Valor and assassinating the anti paladin commander guy (I forget his name). Instead of screwing around with the battles and skirmishes in the city, they have to put their resources towards infiltrating the citadel. As far as I can tell, even without an army, if they can kill the anti paladin and recover the Sword of Valor most of the bad guys in the city proper will flee on their own. Then reinforcements can arrive and the AP can proceed as normal.

I'm thinking of adding more mooks to the citadel to make up the XP of not doing the other mass combats and skirmishes; mostly the tiefling siege engineers that the AP assumes die in the final mass combat before raiding the citadel. The party will have to lay low, hiding somewhere outside the city when they need to rest and recuperate. They could even use disguises to infiltrate the cultists in the city proper for information gathering, or maybe some sort of sabotage.

The party consists of a paladin (of course), a dwarf cleric of Torag (buffing and some melee support), an archer inquisitor of Desna (would be good at infiltration), and an abjurer wizard. The inquisitor could do some serious sneaking, perhaps even risk a scouting run of the citadel...

Anyway, what would you do in my shoes? Without an army, the 'siege point' tracker doesn't make a whole lot of sense; should I just assign a ticking clock until the enemy sends for reinforcements?

[Necromancy]

If you're dead set on using their rules, have the PCs drop a slightly painful amount of gold on conscripting another force. I would also modify the rules a bit. Leaving the fate of an army to a single d20 roll seems a bit weak to me. Not too familiar though as I let the Paladins handle the army combat while I took extra smoke breaks

[Kol Korran]

Hi there. I'll start by saying that I've ran about 2/3rds of the AP, and wrote a fairly extensive log about it, which some might have found useful. You can check my sig for it. It involves a lot of DMing designs and insights.

Also, I was really dissatisfied with the mass combat in the adventure, and basically build up a whole new "tactical mass combat" system, which worked fairly well, apart from some problems (Amongst them exactly what you describe- the battle being very swing due to one attack roll). We doubled the units hit points, and that seemed to solve it.

However, that's a whole different issue, and you're faced with something more problematic... In your situation, the module simply doesn't work as planned. For in Drezen there are a few hundreds of troops (Even just in the fort itself, surrounding the citadel), and the module gives no help as to how to deal with stuff if the army is destroyed. It is made especially strong from the outset to be able to steam roll the opponents.

So... you'll have to do this in a different way... An idea you suggested would be infiltration and assassination of Staunton Vhane (Which is an utter chump under the module's build. From what most groups reports, he dies in 1-2 rounds, and is a cake walk). But you would be VERY hard pressed to explain why the army outside doesn't just outright kills the entire party, and searching the Drezen citadel can be quite time consuming, with quite a few other potential encounters before they meet Vhane, and each might raise a serious alarm. In short, making it believable would be an extreme stretch, at best.

So, what to do? Some ideas, and all involve some drastic changes/ creating your own material:
1. The party finds/ rescues/ enlist more troops: I'd avoid goign back to Drezen, as that feels like an utter cop out, and why would the queen give them more troops after they managed to kill her best unit, in just two battles? Yet the party might be able to acquire more troops in:
- Paradise Hill, in the module itself hold a medium army of soldiers. But... they have to fight an army of some tough demons (Forgot which ones) to get to them. Still, you might enable another encampment of slavers before, maybe slaves that were taken from the ruined Kenabres as tribute to the Merilith or more.
- Our group really befriended the mongrelfolk in the first module, and they joined their army. Perhaps some followed them in secret, and now may offer their help?
- My group also used other troops: Tieflings prisoners (You might make them find a tribe resentful of the demons) and sarkorians (The party might find a small contingent of these warriors still in the Worldwound and prove themselves to them).

2. You DO go by infiltration, but change the scene somewhat: Going to the citadel as is would be quite difficult, due to the reasons above, but you (Or the players) can tty and concoct some ideas:
- Disguise/ seem like the armies (There are quite a few cultists there. Perhasp the party could find a patrol, and wear their clothes, play the act?)
- Search/ find out about a secret entrance (There is none in the module, but you might make one, perhaps Staunton Vhane or his brother use it to get outside? Perhaps there are dwarf prisoners, from when Drezen was lost, that know this secret? Perhaps some demons who dislike Staunton? My enemy's enemy and all of that?)
- In any case, I suggest to shift the focus on getting the Sword of Valor, rather than taking Drezen. Most likely the players full know they needed the army to defeat the fort, and now that they lost it, still taking the fort would feel... cheap. Have them gather info in infiltration, find a way to get the banner, and run away. The other modules can be easily adapted to reflect the fact (In the third module the party just explore that region, yet with Drezen' threat looming. They'll have access to teleport or other far travel spells, so getting to Kenabres won't be a problem. At the last module just change Drezen for Kenabres or any other suitable location). This can have Staunton Vhane as a returning villain, that was shamed by their success.

3. Dealing with the devil? Perahps the devils wish to break down the demons, and might offer help, for a price? Might make things quite interesting... They can offer armies, info, and lots more. The party is desperate enough to take any help. What will they be willing to pay?

I hope this helps, if you wish to discuss more, feel free. :smallwink:

[CockroachTeaParty]

Those are some good ideas, Kol Korran. As much as I enjoy adding devilsh things to games heavily featuring demons (I added a Hell subplot when I ran Savage Tide), the fact that the entire party is LG (with the exception of the inquisitor of Desna, who is CG), and has a paladin no less, means dealing with devils is probably not something they would consider.

However, if the devils tried to trick them, disguising their army somehow, that might work, but the paladin and the inquisitor can Detect Evil at-will, so unless it's an army of bards blowing Undetectable Alignment every day I still don't see that angle working.

I still think infiltrating the citadel is their best hope. The module even says that an army wouldn't be terribly useful once you're inside the fortress, so conceivably the same would apply to the enemy. I'm considering changing the following:

A.) No outside NPC assistance. They can bring NPCs with them into the fort, but there's too many enemies outside for Anevia or Aron to assist them with distractions and sniping.

B.) Replace fallen enemies easily, within 24 hours if not even sooner. Every time they make a raid on the citadel, they have to fight or sneak past areas they've already cleared. The more unique or powerful enemies can be permanently killed, but rank-and-file mooks are plentiful and easy to replace. The party did the Gray Garrison in one go, so they're used to 'endurance runs.' Of course, their resources are likely to be stretched pretty thin by the time they get to Drezen. Still, they've got stuff like Rope Trick to fall back on.

C.) If the PCs can get a good enough disguise going (likely the inquisitor, who has Undetectable Alignment, Disguise Self, and good social skills), they can do some limited shopping and information gathering in enemy-occupied Drezen; the module says it's functionally a small town, so that gives me a ballpark for the purchase limit, etc. They could liquidate some of their treasure in preparation for a raid or infiltration of the citadel.

It's just frustrating that they never even *consider* the possibility that the army could get wiped out in the module. There's a brief mention of 'adding some encounters' if you just want to skip the mass combat rules entirely, but I just wish there was a little more guidance.

[Kol Korran]

The XP from the mass combat isn't that significant really, and can be easily be replaced, such as... by gaining the info needed to infiltrate the place?

I'd stop just for a second about the devils: Yeah, the party may be LG, but this may be about choosing between two lesser evils. The devils do suggest an army, but they suggest it at a point of desperation- the party has nearly no chance of conquering Drezen otherwise. (I can't honestly think of a plausible way to do so). And trying to inflitrate make take a looooong time, in which reinforcements may arrive, their highly risky approach discoverd and more. The devils suggesting the deal should make it clear that the party HAS NO CHANCE otherwise, and they will fail, will lose Drezen and the Sword of Valor, and the entire campaign may falter. They've failed once, are they willing to fail again?

But, assuming you don't go with the devils, a few others porblems:
- While some party members may easily infiltrate, quite a few others (Paladin? Arabeth? The Shellyn cleric?) will find it a lot harder... I'm really not sure it will be anywhere near easy.

About Drezen itself- while it looks like a big dungeon, it really isn't- well, at least not in terms of population. The place is nearly deserted utterly (I can't understand this either- why make such a big place, when about 70% of the rooms have nothing in them? :smallsigh:). You may populate it more, but the dungeon itself is kinda... crappy, tell the truth. I utterly changed Drezen (Turned it into a major trap by Vorlesh, with Staunton Vhane a ghost haunting the entire place), so I can't quite tell if the place is easy to do in one go, but I'd hazard it is. The AP is known for being quite easy in terms of combats, and I had to "up the challenge" nearly the entire way just to have it be challenging. (It gets worse in the 3rd module onwards, where the writers seem to have forgotten that the PC's mythic tier up their ECL).

A few more, smaller issues:
- The chapel with the ghouls and such (Forgot it's name)- The module assumes the party goes there to rescue some kidnapped soldiers. But since no soldier... Ummm... That IS a big chunk of XP. I suggest allocating it near Drezen (Perhaps in the grave yard? Add the creature in the vault to it?) and enable the party to find some valuable info there, for their infiltration.
- The hive of the abyssal insects (Forgot their name)- Again, they are supposed to be a problem for the army, not for a small band of adventurers who can just circumvent them. Not sure what to do about this...
- There are 3 encounters in the siege of Drezen if I'm not mistaken, that are supposed to be handled by the PCs, not their armies, but for the siege- the vault creature in the graveyard, the bridge, and the siege engines. You'll need to find another context for them. I think you can put some of these in the citadel itself though, quite easily.

Final note:
While I was in the end of the first module/ somewhere in the second one, I read the other modules, and tried to map the main problems I saw with the AP. I wrote a long post then, though while playing I came to some solutions/ conclusions/ other stuff. I do suggest to read it though, just to know where you're headed.
The thread is here, if you're interested. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?396097-Wrath-of-the-Righteous-What-changes-have-you-made-to-the-adventure-path-Spoilers!&highlight=how%20have%20you%20changed%20wrath%20of% 20the%20righteous)