PDA

View Full Version : Gamer Tales Another Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal (3.5 FR)



Grey Guard
2019-05-17, 01:55 PM
You know it, you love it, the classic module about evil klingons hobgoblins, dragons, and an invading army!

This is quite possibly one of my favorite modules ever. I've run it several times (though only ONCE to full completion :smallfrown: ), but now I have two new players, and I felt it would be a good time to introduce some new blood to it.

I'll be running the game in the Forgotten Realms, during the time period the FRCS recommends you be running games at that point (1371 DR, I believe?). The most natural spot to drop the game is in the Shaar, which I'll be doing. African savannah and steamy dinosaur-infested jungles it is!

We'll also be using a lot of Grod_The_Giant's Giants and Graveyards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?329161-Giants-and-Graveyards-Grod-s-collected-3-5-revisions) houserules. We already had a lot of similar ideas in the past, but seeing as how he'd compiled a large list of them, we use many of them. We don't use all of them, though, and I'll try and note the differences when they pop up. Thanks Grod!

I have 3 players in total. The first session only has 2, though. I'll detail them below.

Vorn: Male Gold Dwarf Stalwart Warlock from the Giant's and Graveyards changes. The player practically squealed with delight at the changes to the Warlock. "More Invocations? I'll be unstoppable!"

He's a young scion from a noble house in the Great Rift. It recently came to his attention that an old keep in the Elsir Vale belonged to his family, as he just discovered the deed to it in one of his family's archives. Being also a member of the military, he's been "strongly encouraged" to get over there and scout it out, and see if they could use it as a forward scout post and re-establish a presence in the Vale. Nominally the dwarves claim the Elsir Vale as their territory, but they have almost no presence there, and the cities and towns pay lip service at best.

I'll call the player J. He's a veteran player, and has done Red Hand before, but he's more interested in playing around with the class and RPing. If I suspect metagaming, I'll make him pay. I'm changing some stuff around as it is, though.

Adira: Female Aasimar Druid. Using default druid, instead of the Giant's and Graveyards version. So it'll be stronger, as we'll see in short order. She has a leopard, and after the first session she tamed a deinonychus off screen.

Her character hails from The North, where she lived a rather peaceful existence in The High Forest. The player was going to play a character from Mulhorand at first, since she liked the idea of a character being descended from a deity, but found she preferred Mielikki, so changed her region. So the character is unaware she's descended from a god, but the player liked the idea, so we're running with it. She received a terrible vision, and has followed its promptings to the Shaar.

I'll call her player C. She's really new to tabletop in general, and especially new to 3.5, but she's taken to it like a fish to water and loves to RP. She's also really smart and careful about how she builds mechanically. Very impressed with her.

Can't Remember Her Name Because I'm a Bad Person: Half-Elf Rogue. Using both Half-Elf and Rogue from Giants and Graveyards. So it's like a gestalt Rogue/Factotum, with some things shaved off. I pretty much had to hold her hand through the character creation process, which is about normal, given 3.5 and how overwhelming it can be for a new person. She's interested in RPing, but glazes over mechanics. Could be annoying in the future, but we'll see how things play out.

The character art she chose definitely has anime-protagonist written all over it. She also has a pet (dire) wolf named Cream. She was raised by Awakened Wolves in The North, and prefers to deal with civilized society through theft and pick-pocketing.

The Dire Wolf thing was to be part of her backstory. She has Handle Animal, and the money to technically afford it, so I (foolishly) allowed it. This is bad for reasons we'll get into later. I mostly allowed more animals to even out the action economy, what with only having 3 players.

We'll call her character S. I sure hope this ends up being something she enjoys.

On the Road to Drellin's Ferry; AMBUSH!

Only Vorn and Adira were present for this one.

Adira, after experiencing a horrible vision of a peaceful southern vale being swept up in a massive horde of blood, steel and fire in the shape of a great clawed hand, has journeyed to the Shaar to investigate. Her journey was mostly uneventful, but she got to see some places she'd never seen before. After travelling south from Shaarmid, she stumbled into Vorn on the road to Drellin's Ferry. He himself having been coming from the east. They chatted a little and decided to stick together on the road for safety. Even though Vorn's pack donkey had a slight freakout with Leo, Adira's leopard animal companion.

When they came over a small hill, and saw a ruined structure though some trees, they also spotted armored humanoids with vicous, flat faces. Hobgoblins! All of the party, including Vorn with his impressive +2 to Spot picked them out. Adira and Leo ended up going first. She ordered Leo to charge in and attack a Hobgoblin,
and then moved a bit because directing Leo ate up her Move Action. Vorn spoke a command word and POOF, his self-crafted mythral full plate that had been sitting on the donkey was now on him and fully equipped. He pulled out his axe and started moving towards the closest hobgoblin.

The Hobgoblins shot arrows, and an angry red-scaled lizard-like or draconic-like quadrupedal creature bounded up out of the trees at the party as well.

Adira cast Hypothermia on the little lizard monster, killing it instantly and freezing it in place like a Popsicle. Vorn swings and misses a Hobbo.

One of the enemies emerges from the trees, and the party notices that it's not a hobgoblin, but some sort of golem. It yells out in Goblin (which Adira speaks) that he's not going to fight at range when the enemies don't have any bows, and closes in a bit. Most of the other hobgoblins continue shooting arrows, one going into close into melee as well.

Leo has finished ripping apart a hobgoblin, and gets an order to kill another one. Adira turns into a Leopard herself.

There is a lot of back-and-forth. Everyone takes some hits, a few Hobgoblins go down, until Uth-lar and Zarr show up with another Rage Drake. Uth-lar yells at the hobgoblins, berating them for for struggling with a lone dwarf and two kitty cats. He asks why the rage drake is a popsicle. When Uth-lar finally gets into the melee, he introduces himself to Vorn with a Mountain Hammer, which badly hurts. Vorn goes full turtle mode at this point, giving over a full 5 BAB for Combat Expertise and proceeds to still be able to hit the other hobgoblins now and again. Zarr gets a Hold Person off on Vorn, but he shakes it off the next round. Adira and Leo have gotten into the swing of things of Charging, Pouncing, Grappling, Raking. Zarr gets one more spell off before Vorn asks the cats to murder him. Which they do, as he fails his grapple check and is promptly raked and clawed to death.

It's getting close at this point. There's Uth-lar, a hobgoblin, the golem-man, and our heroes left. Vorn takes a risk, and full Power Attacks, and manages to crit Uth-lar, dealing something north of 40 points of damage. His head rolls from his shoulders. The other Hobgoblin apparently saw his chance, and got a crit of his own on Vorn, knocking him down into the negatives. He stabilizes though.

Adira and Leo finish off the last two, and and she heals her new dwarf friend. Success! They do some looting, and split up the gold them find. They bury the dead merchant and her guards they find in the old house.

When they get to Drellin's Ferry, they inform the guards about the hobgoblin attack, and are immediately amazed that two people and a cat fought and killed 7 hobgoblins and a golem man. They immediately grab their guard captain, Soranna, who comes over to talk with them about it. After she gets the skinny, she says she'll talk to the Archon (town speaker/mayor) about it, and to not wander out of town, since they've been dealing with Hobgoblins for awhile now, and some people popping by who can kick butt will be of interest.

They stick around, and when Vorn learns that Adira's goddess doesn't forbid her from wearing metal armor, he gets excited about crafting her some, and visits Morlin Coalhewer, the resident smith, about using his forge. Vorn barters away some of the loot they got in exchange to use the forge, but it's clear Morlin's overjoyed to talk with another dwarf from the Great Rift, and is eager to get the latest news.

Later that night, "Archon" Norros Wiston pops by at their inn with Captain Sorrana to ask them to go look into hobgoblin attacks. Vorn lets drop that he's actually here to see about that keep, and the Speaker pounces on it, telling him that while the locals might think it's haunted, he's sure the hobgoblins could be using it as a base of operations for the area, and if he wants the keep, he'd probably have to clear them out. The players agree, but says that they'll be busy in town for a bit, while Vorn crafts some armor for Adira.

So given that fight was made for 4 people, I was impressed at how well they handled the initial encounter. I left the Hobgoblins mostly unaltered, and our games tend to see our characters with awfully high stats. The only one I changed was Uth-lar, from Fighter into a Warblade. If they lost, I was planning to have them get taken prisoner, and use that to introduce S's character next session. Having her sneak in and free them. But I figured they could take it, and they did. :smallsmile:

We've had 2 sessions so far. I'll post the second one Soon(tm).

Grey Guard
2019-05-20, 10:05 AM
We've had another session, so after this one, I'll be one behind.

We finally got to introduce S's character, Sage! They also got up to the Hydra fight!

In a peaceful frontier town; the calm before the storm. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQEpOWTO6Qk)

Adira had taken a bad habit of taking her animal companion with here everywhere in town (Tharrma, the dwarven innkeeper, almost shot it with a crossbow), but between her Leopard, and her Deinonychus (that she conveniently picked up in a retcon/off-screen, because I'm far too lenient with newbies), the townsfolks were a bit wary of her, even if word had gotten around that she had killed some of the hobgoblins.

Enter Avarthel, the local half-elven druid of the Circle of Eth. Upon seeing her with some wild animals in her employ, struck up a conversation to learn more about her, and warn her that the locals get spooked by leopards and dinosaurs. He mentions he has a grove nearby, and they go to investigate. In the mean-time, Vorn sticks it out at Morlin's forge, talking with the old dwarven smith/priest, and crafting that breastplate for Adira.

Adira meets Avarthel's animal companion (another deinonychus) across the river at his grove, and Adira also sees a very agitated and uncomfortable wolf the size of a horse, something she hasn't seen since leaving The North. She inquires, and discovers that its 'companion' was apprehended by the guards for theft, and Avarthel calmed the creature around before it could start eating guards/the guards killed it, and took it back to his grove for the time-being. Adira goes to the Old Toll House, meets with Captain Soranna again about the thief, and in the interest of the wolf, and wolf only (druids...:smalltongue: ), wants the thief released. Soranna is willing to do so if Adira keeps an eye on her, and will be responsible if she's caught stealing again. She agrees, and they're off to the cells.

They meet a young brunette half-elf in the cell, who is hiding she was just in the process of picking the lock on the cell door. Soranna and Adira mention their arrangement, and the half-elf is rightly suspicious of the stranger she's basically being released to, but goes along with their idea when her wolf is mentioned. They go back to Avarthel's grove, and the half-elf is reunited with her wolf companion. She introduced herself as Sage, and Avarthel gives her a light scolding, as her clandestine activities ended up putting her companion in danger by the locals (and vice versa!). She mostly rolls his eyes at him. At this point, Sage and Adira get to talking about what's been going on, and they're investigating the hobgoblins and a nearby keep, and they'd like her and her furry friend to tag along. She agrees, but everyone has the impression she'll bolt if things get rough.

They get back to town and meet back up with Vorn. The dire wolf freaks out Morlin a little bit when he sees it, not to mention the other inhabitants of the town. Vorn's happy to have another person on the little scouting mission. Vorn finishes up the breastplate for his new druid friend. As they're getting ready to leave, Captain Soranna happens across them and mentions they should see about finding Jorr, a local who lives in the Witchwood. The party says they'll think about it, and then set out on their journey.

They find the path that would lead to Jorr's, and they decide that with a Druid in the party, and the directions that they got from the locals about Vraath Keep, that they don't need a guide, so they skip along. They miss out on some RP and EXP here, sadly.

They come across the causeway, and like a hawk, Sage and Adira spot the lizard head poking out of the water. Vorn's more curious about the ruined wagon. Adira goes down to investigate the creature, and is awe-struck as another head pops out of the water towards her, and another, and another, until finally there's 6 of them! Attached to an enormous body! It's a Hydra! Initiative!

The Hydra goes first, and immediately wallops Adira with its bites. She takes 3 hits and his none-to-happy about it. Vorn curses in dwarven and hops off the bridge into the marshy shore, and Sage isn't far behind. Adira can't back out without provoking attacks of opportunity, and is hesitant to cast defensively, given how difficult the house rules make that (DC: 15 + Highest Base Attack Bonus of creature threatening you + Spell Level. You get a bonus equal to your own Base Attack Bonus, though.), and settles for hitting it with her scimitar, while also ordering Leo the Leopard to attack.

They see a large amount of its wounds heal before their eyes and are horrified. The Hydra gets a few more hits on Adira, she's not looking too good at this point, but Vorn gets into melee after soaking some attacks of opportunity, and gets a solid hit in. Sage hesitates, not seeing a good way to approach and not wanting to take a bunch of hits for her trouble. The party is begging her to get her wolf friend involved at this point, but she's being protective about its well-being and doesn't really want to. The Hydra goes for Vorn, and is much less successful on hitting him thanks to his full plate. Vorn gets another hit in, and Sage, finally buckling to peer pressure, orders her wolf friend to attack.

The wolf trots up there, hits for a decent amount of damage. Then the trip attempt. Despite the hydra being Huge. Despite the Hydra being a quadruped, the hydra gets grabbed and yanked down. Gets another free bite, and the Hydra doesn't move anymore. :smalleek:

The party quickly goes to hacking it apart until they're certain it won't heal from being a messy pile of giblets. They harvest meat from it, and they discover the mythral breastplate in the wagon, and they're shocked by the amazing find, and Sage gets it, by virtue of not having any armor at all. They move up the trail a bit more, and camp a few short miles from Vraath Keep.

Well, that was an interesting one. I'm paying for my generosity.

I had Sage join in as locked up just as a vehicle to get her into the party. She seemed like a free spirit enough that motivating her might be tricky. In the end, she liked that people had watched over her wolf friend, so she was plenty amenable to travelling with the group. I hope they get to chit chatting a bit about themselves more in the future, and become friends, but they're all strangers to eachother so far.

I was a little disappointed that they didn't grab Jorr. They missed out on some XP, and they probably could've used his help, to be honest.

The hydra fight was mostly fun. I really liked how their jaws dropped when they succeeded on a Knowledge: Arcana check to ID it, and found out it had Fast Healing 16 (!).

I mentioned in the first post that I was going to pay for being kind and letting the PCs have their little pets? Well here it is. That wolf sauntered up to that hydra and laid it low real good. Both it and and the Deinonychus are CR 3, I figured it'd be okay, but man, that thing was nasty. Fortunately, it has an abysmal AC of 14, and takes hits real easy. Because of that, S is hesitant to let it get into melee too much. So at least it's being used sparingly.

It makes me wonder how I'm going to handle Skull Gorge Bridge. The wolf and dino will be useless against the dragon unless it gets grounded. In the past, I've made Ozzy large size, so now I'm wondering if I should do that again? Then again, I'm sure one Downdraft and Ozzy's toast? Decisions, decisions...

I think S, Sage's player gets a little overwhelmed and bored of too much combat. Any ideas on how to spark some RP here? Kinda sad they didn't grab Jorr so I could have a mouthpiece to facilitate more RP.

Grey Guard
2019-05-21, 04:14 PM
Okay, we just had the latest session a few days ago. The party made it to Vraath keep, and the fight turned ugly when they thought they were being clever.

Castle Ambush...?!

So the party cautiously skulks up to the keep. The weather is raining today, so they're hoping that helps them sneak. They see the ruined gate, the overgrown garden and the shack. They ask the rogue to check out the shack, who is able to tell that it's rickety and on the verge of collapse.

So the party gets the idea to make some noise with it, and ambush the guys who come to investigate. They hide around the northern corner of where the front entrance is, and Vorn uses Baleful Utterance on the shack. He shatters the door into splinters, there's a pause of a few moments, and then the whole shack comes tumbling down into a pile of rotted wood and dirt.

They can hear some sound and movement coming from inside the keep. A lone, wary hobgoblin, bastard sword ready, starts to walk out of the keep, but spots the dwarf hiding around the corner to the north. Players roll initiative, and the hobgoblin begins yelling about intruders as he runs back into the keep. They delay two rounds to see if the enemy comes to them; they don't. They hear more shuffling and and something big and guttural yelling in Giant. When they turn the corner, they can see that several hobgoblins have organized into a formation with some goblins riding worgs in front of them, and a large bull-man in the rear. They were ready for them.

The party and the Red Hand forces engage in the narrow area where the gate is, and both sides feel the strain of fighting in such close and tight quarters. The Red Hand have the upper hand in that they can keep some men back to use bows, and the next round the Manticore came out to see what the heck was going on. Karkilan the minotaur orders the the Manticore to start fighting, and it does with gusto. Cream the Dire Wolf, takes some hits and goes from 45 HP to about 14, and so Sage orders it to keep away. Vorn, counting on a similar tactic working here as the last time he fought them, did the dwarven thing and entered turtle mode while taking point for the party. He sacrifices -5 BAB into Combat Expertise, and even Karkilan is struggling to hit him at this point. This, combined with Entropic Warding, really gives the hobgoblins hanging back with bows, as well as the Manticore, a tough time hitting him. Sage is directed on how to flank and how Sneak Attack works, and she and Adira's player make two jaw-drops when they realize she's getting that 3d6 sneak attack on every flanking attack. Hilariously enough, Adira's player is seems to be a little jealous of that, as well as her tons of skill points.

Finally, some hobgoblins start dropping, but the Manticore manages to drop the Deinonychus into bleeding, and get Adira down to critical hit points. Adira gets some revenge by landing a Hypothermia on the Manticore, and he takes some modest damage, but fails the fort save, so now he's fatigued. At this point, he's out of tail spikes, he's about half health, and now fatigued. He's done. He flies to Koth's tower, bangs on the roof, and then starts flying away.

Vorn finishes off Karkilan, and uses his spider climb invocation to scale the walls, and starts firing his bow at the fleeing manticore. First shot misses. Second shot is an actual crit, and the Manticore is hit directly in the back of the head and goes down, careening into the jungle below it.

They finish off the last Hobgoblin just in time for Koth, having finished gathering the map and writing materials, to burst out of the barracks, hands filled with fire and lightning.

That's where we had to stop, since one of the players needed to leave for the night.

I honestly wasn't expecting them to try and lure the Red Hand forces by breaking the shack. I'm not sure if J was metagaming, considering they hadn't even seen any hobgoblins yet, or if he was just being really in character there. :smallconfused:

I think, given the state of his forces (all dead), Koth may just elect to book it out of there instead of fight. Anti-climactic, but it would be the smart thing to do. Bugbears aren't known for their brilliance, though, so I may just give them a fight, THEN flee after he gets low on HP. That said, the party is pretty banged up. I gave Koth Practiced Spellcaster, so I'm actually worried his 9d6 Fireballs/Lightning Bolts may just kill them in short order. :smalleek: Except the Rogue. Dang Evasion.

Hopefully they fight, and win, and they can interrogate Koth a bit. Get some RP going to make sure Sage's player doesn't think we're ALL combat (just MOSTLY combat!).

I wasn't counting on a whole bunch of feed back, since Red Hand in FR has been done more than a few times. If there's suggestions on how I could describe things to be a little more engaging, I'm all ears. :smallsmile:

Tajerio
2019-05-21, 07:50 PM
It is tough to work RP into the early stages of RHOD if the party don't capture some of their enemies. You have to count on them running into people like Jorr and Warklegnaw, or being really interested in chatting with the townsfolk. And the arc of the plot doesn't often align well with the latter. Not to mention that opportunities for rogue types to sneak around, open locks, and disarm traps aren't exactly overflowing either.

You've run it a few times, so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But I found that RP in the module really benefited from my being willing to adjust the motivations and political realities for both enemies and potential allies in the module--because as written they don't have much reason to do anything differently from the most straightforward path that the party would prefer anyway.

Grey Guard
2019-05-29, 11:41 AM
It is tough to work RP into the early stages of RHOD if the party don't capture some of their enemies. You have to count on them running into people like Jorr and Warklegnaw, or being really interested in chatting with the townsfolk. And the arc of the plot doesn't often align well with the latter. Not to mention that opportunities for rogue types to sneak around, open locks, and disarm traps aren't exactly overflowing either.

You've run it a few times, so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But I found that RP in the module really benefited from my being willing to adjust the motivations and political realities for both enemies and potential allies in the module--because as written they don't have much reason to do anything differently from the most straightforward path that the party would prefer anyway.

Yeah, so I've noticed. I had a little bit of fun RPing Avarthel due to the druid/nature theme two of the characters had going on, as well as the dwarven innkeeper (Tharrma, I think?) and Morlin the blacksmith. I think the players had fun with these interactions, too. It's just been a bit of a dry spell since then.

That said, we had another session! We didn't get much done, just finished the fight up, and had some RP moments! Another friend joined in for this one session with a class he designed based off of a Rogue-like game he likes. Basically just said he was watching the fight and let him jump in.

Fire, Bargains, and Legacies

After bursting out of the door, and seeing his soldiers all dead or dying on the ground, Wyrmlord Koth seriously considered drinking his potion of fly and taking off. However, Sage, Adira, the Deinonychus and the Leopard were all within Firballing radius... and he couldn't help himself. He lets loose one, and it's devastating. 9d6 damage is pretty big at this level. Adira drops down to bleeding, but the Leopard makes its save (has evasion), the dinosaur is blessedly missed thanks to Sage moving and forcing Koth to change where to land the Fireball; and who is slowly healing from a Vigor spell from Adira, and Sage... rolls a natural one on her reflex save. From the tail spikes from the Manticore from earlier, the 29 damage is enough to kill her outright. :smalleek:

Koth cackles, seeing that his troops had weakened them, and gets ready to finish the job at this point. Just then, a dire hawk of all things dives down at him and starts attacking him. Our temporary 4th player is now in the game. Given that Koth is dealing with a dinosaur and a leopard, he doesn't think much of another animal joining the battle. It immediately throws some sort of psionic energy 'web'. Vorn runs down to check Sage, who's burnt to a crisp, and then moves onto Adira to use his wand of Lesser Vigor on her. He takes a 10 on the check, but given his +9 modifier, is one shy of the DC 20 to activate.

Koth is getting pressured by the Deinonychus, the Leopard and now the Dire Hawk. The hawk spits out a psionic energy web onto Koth, and it starts hurting him every round. The leopard and dinosaur get some hits in, but Koth lets loose another Fireball, and hawk makes his save, and so does the leopard. The deinonychus finally bites the dust, however, and is one crispy lizard. Vorn fails to get get Adira up again, but continues to try and use his wand.

Finally, Koth having enough of the dang leopard hits it with a Blindness/Deafness spell, vastly hurting the kitty's threatening level. At this point, though, he's at 1/4th hit points, and drinks a potion of invisibility. Vorn gets Adira up, and she hobbles up and starts to peer through her spell list. Vorn, having See the Unseen, gets to the other side of the barracks, hoping to spot Koth.

Koth reads up on his scroll of fly, and starts to zip out of the barracks. Vorn, seeing him, directs the others to his location the best he can, and shoots at him with a bow. Hawk gets up there, and lands another psionic energy web. Adira begins to summon a dire bat, hoping it'll see the invisible foe. Koth is in full retreat mode, double moving out. It's not enough, however, and in two more round of dodging attacks from Vorn and the dire hawk, goes unconscious. The dire hawk tries to use another web on the unconscious bug bear in the hopes of stealing his body (I'll elaborate later), but he has too many hit die and it fails.

After the fight, the party loots the bodies, but we have a short scene for Sage. She sees a bright flash of light, and suddenly she found herself in a completely different place. The sky was gray and featureless, so too the terrain. She found herself in a small area, with a few other people, in a large city. A crystalline spire could be seen in the distance. Confused, she asked some of the people around her where they were, and many of them were just as confused as she was. With enough asking around, an old, white-haired dwarf surmised they had actually died, and were on the fugue plane.

This bit of information was met with congratulations and a slow-clap from a newcomer. A handsome human-looking man, two nub-like horns on his forehead, a barbed tail, and cloven hooves, and dressed in regal finery; a falxugon or a harvester devil. He explains to the group of people they all have, unfortunately, perished from the mortal coil. They are now simply waiting for their deity's representative to pop in and carry them off to their eternal reward (or punishment). He kindly offers to the others to help them settle any unfinished business left on Toril, but the old dwarf snarls and tells others he wants their souls. This spooks most of the people, and very few are willing to speak with him at this point.

He does, however, single out Sage. He invites her to speak with him privately, which she does, and he explains that he has a very special, unique deal for her. He introduces himself as Aryas, and that he serves Zariel, the ruler of Avernus and the first layer of Baator. While he doesn't know the specifics, he's been tasked to specifically speak with her, and offer her a rare deal: Resurrection. He's been told that his masters have a vested interest in her doing... whatever it is she's doing, and this deal can be had for a small price: One favor, to be collected upon at a later date. Promising that if it is an act of service, it wouldn't take longer than 24 hours.

Sage, not wanting to be dead, loves the idea. She's worried about the favor, but it seems a small price to pay for a second chance at life. But Aryas isn't done there. She doesn't have to go back empty-handed. If she would pledge herself to his master, and serve her in life and in the afterlife, she could have un-imaginable power (a Pact Certain from Fiendish Codex II). He offers her minimum of the Craven feat, and would allow her to collect on two more to be discussed in the future if she doesn't know now. Sage mulls over this for a few moments, and agrees to this. Aryas does a poor job of hiding his shock, but immediately conjures up a contract and quickly asks her to sign it. She does so (without reading it... mwahaha), and when she shakes his hand, she finds herself being pulled upward from her prone position, and sees that she is now sitting upright in Vraath Keep's courtyard.

The rest of the party, while I had been doing this scene with Sage's player, had been talking amongst one another. The dire hawk turns into an illuskan man! It was a person the whole time. He says that he saw them fighting some hobgoblins and, decided to swoop in and help when things looked a bit dire. He wasn't completely altruistic, since he wanted something from the bad guys. Which he demonstrates by using the psionic energy web-like power on an unconscious hobgoblin and worg to make them disappear from existence. This weirds Adira and Vorn out, but not so much as Sage seemingly coming back from the dead. Her wounds must've not been that bad after all! Vorn and Adira are rightly suspicious, and on cue, out come the knowledge checks to figure out what the heck just happened. They chalk it up to a miracle from the gods, that being the most likely thing that had happened. They barely glance at the map they got from Koth, and they go looting the keep, after the man-who-can-turn-into-a-dire-hawk takes his leave after poofing those bodies.

Adira is now very suspicious and weirded out by Sage, feeling this whole thing to be unnatural of her coming back to life. I honestly believe there's a little bit of metagaming going on with their behavior, but so far everything sounds reasonable from their end, so I'm not worried.

They find some mediocre loot, until Sage locates the hidden room in the tower. There, they find the long-dead Vraath Keepshome great-great-great ancestor to Vorn. Vorn, being both a little glad and sad to find the ultimate fate of his ancestor, carefully places his remains in his bag of holding, intent on taking him back to his family's crypt in the Great Rift later. With the corpse is a warhammer on the ground, engraved with the Keepshome crest. Vorn picks it up and the head begins arcing with electricity. He excitedly retires his old axe.

They loot the rest of the coffers, and we call it a night.

Hoo boy, a lot went on in this session, for only supposedly being the fight with Koth.

The 4th player, he plays in some of our other games, but can't make this one due to his schedule, except he had work off and wanted to join us. His class, called a Possessor, is from a Rogue-like game I'm not too familiar with. Basically, you kill things while that psionic web is on them, and you steal their body. You can only have so many bodies "in reserve", and only get so many of their traits. You're also limited based on their Hit Die compared to you, and how big they are. Not much of a playtest here, sadly.

I honestly wasn't expecting Sage to die. I actually anticipated her to be able to laugh off the AoE spells with her high reflex and evasion. That was some bad luck. The deinonychus dying sucked, too. But Sage and Adira's players took the death of their character and pets well, all things considered.

As for the scene in the fugue plane... I like devils. A lot. They're the best thing in D&D's mythos, in my humble opinion. And I know that the baatezu are there always trying to scalp souls for deals on Kelemvor's doostep. That said, I like to use that scene as a 'get out' of death card for some people. But at a cost. A potentially dire cost. My other players are rather wary of me and using devils, so watching a character take the Falxugon's deal was not something I was expecting, but it was fun nonetheless. Well, fun for me, at least. :smallamused:. The player is a little unsure how to properly play Lawful Evil, but that's okay, I'll help guide her on the best alignment if she wants it. :smallbiggrin:.

So far I've been impressed with Vorn's invocation choices. The spider climb and see invisibility ones have been very hand for him so far. At the keep he was basically Spider-Dwarf. See the Unseen was also responsible for stopping Koth from escaping, which they sorely needed.

Next time, I hope they read map and notes a bit. So far I'm leaning towards making Ozzyrandion Large sized. Dragons should be big and scary, but I think with some decent spell choices from Adira, they should be able to handle it no problem.

Grey Guard
2019-06-03, 10:04 AM
Had another very brief session. Sage's player couldn't make it to this one.

Of Blood and Giants

The players, having gotten a fat lot of loot from the keep, are fairly happy. While Vorn feels entitled to most of it, he doesn't have any issue with sharing, given the others all lent him a hand in clearing the keep. The players can't read Infernal, so they can't read Koth's notes, but the map itself makes the worry about the sake of the whole vale, if it looks like there's going to be some sort of invasion.

Vorn is already fearing the worst, and really wants to investigate the part of the map that points to the clans gathering. They make another sweep of the of the keep, just to be sure, and bunker down for a night to rest.

In the morning, they start to head north again, and investigate where the Manticore had crashed and died, only to discover it being chewed on by a few compsognathi (is that how you pluralize compsognathus?). Continuing forward, they find the tribal marker left by Warklegnaw. They debate investigating it, and they both come up with the idea that if giants still live in the area, they might not take too kindly to the hobgoblin presence, and could be of help.

They head on over, and stumble across the old forest giant in some old ruins, roasting an enormous boar on a spit. He rolls very poorly on hearing them, and the two of them are practically on top of the old giant, and hear him muttering to himself before they speak up. He spryly jumps up and and grabs his club, and warns them the small folk won't get the best of him, with a particular glare saved for Vorn, being a gold dwarf.

They both have their weapons put away, hold their hands up in non-aggression, and quickly speak about how they just want to talk about the hobgoblins running about. A gold dwarf and a vibrant-looking human wanting to chat with the old giant is enough of a peculiarity, that he chuckles and has them sit with him by his fire. He shares some of the dire boar that he's roasting.

They talk about the hobgoblins in the area, and Vorn and Adira let him know about what they've found, and it looks like it'll be an invasion of the whole vale. It sounds outlandish to the old giant, as he says those militant hobgoblins have been around and fighting each other in the mountains and hills for a long time. With some clever conversing, and a great Diplomacy check, they manage to convince the old giant that if what they're saying is true, it'll spell doom for the whole vale. Warklegnaw agrees to that, and says he'll bring his kin down if he sees more hobgoblins, and teach them a lesson for come through the woods uninvited.

After that, the party bid the old giant farewell, and headed up to Skull Gorge Bridge. They were being very stealthy, the druid even had Camouflage prepared to help. What they see really concerns them. A camp of hobgoblins camped on the northern side of the bridge, with more of those rage drakes mulling about. The biggest worry, is the large green dragon that seems to be hanging out on one of the turrets. At this point J and I get into a little disagreement about something, I'll detail below.

That said, it seems Vorn and Adira have some sort of plan in mind. Vorn lines up a shot directly at the green dragon with his bow, hiding in tree cover. The dragon swipes it out of the sky, looks in the direction the arrow came from, and takes off towards it, green vapor trailing from its maw.

That's where we ended for the night.

Short session. We spent some time BSing a bit, and J had to call it an early night.

The stuff with Old Warklegnaw ended up going real smoothly. Even when it became obvious that Warklegnaw was old enough to have been at the battle that saw Vraath keep destroyed. Vorn was amiable about it, saying he wasn't sure who originally started fighting who, but that between the keep's destruction, and the tribe's decimation, it sounded like justice had been meted out by both sides, he Vorn wasn't keen on restarting any of that.

Adira was a little at a loss of what she should be saying in the RP encounter. So was the player. I don't think she was prepared to talk to a giant, and had no idea what the proper things to say are. She asked what her experiences with giants were in her home area, and knowing the North... Frost and Fire giants, Hill giants... none of which are at all friendly.

So J, Vorn's player, had to ask about Tiamat and the Hobgoblins. Early on, in the Marauder attack, I mentioned the hobgoblin cleric had a holy symbol, and his first, immediate response was "I smash it", before I explained what it was. I took that to mean he didn't examine it or anything. He argued this session that he would've actually looked at it, especially if it wasn't to a normal hobgoblin deity like Maglubiyet or Nomog-Gaea. This didn't sound right to me, but for the sake of expediency, I did relent on this.

I'm not sure what they're plotting with the green dragon fight. Ozzy's just planning to spook them, probably assuming the arrow came from Koth's report of a "crazy hobgoblin-murdering woodsman" that lives locally. I know Adira has spells like Downdraft and Earthgrasp prepared, since they were afraid of fighting another manticore. They'll work just fine at grounding the dragon.

They've been scraping by each encounter by the skin of their teeth so far, so I'm looking forward to this fight. Oh, and in a few weeks, we might be getting another player. So that'll help them out!

DigoDragon
2019-06-03, 05:38 PM
This is quite possibly one of my favorite modules ever. I've run it several times (though only ONCE to full completion :smallfrown: ), but now I have two new players, and I felt it would be a good time to introduce some new blood to it.

I have yet to play in this module, so I'd be jealous of even an incomplete run. :smalltongue: Quite the feat for just two PCs taking on this ambush and getting through it!

Grey Guard
2019-06-05, 02:38 PM
I have yet to play in this module, so I'd be jealous of even an incomplete run. :smalltongue: Quite the feat for just two PCs taking on this ambush and getting through it!

Sorry to hear that! No group to run it? Or no interest? Sometimes it's hard to find a DM. I DM mostly because nobody else is willing or able, and I have a tabletop itch that I must scratch. :smalltongue:

DigoDragon
2019-06-05, 06:40 PM
Sorry to hear that! No group to run it? Or no interest? Sometimes it's hard to find a DM. I DM mostly because nobody else is willing or able, and I have a tabletop itch that I must scratch. :smalltongue:

My local group fell apart due to schedule conflicts and I haven't been able to get a slot with recruitment on these boards. It's just poor luck of the draw. I know that situation where you run often because others don't want to. Used to be that way for me with my old group back in the day.

Grey Guard
2019-06-10, 09:11 AM
My local group fell apart due to schedule conflicts and I haven't been able to get a slot with recruitment on these boards. It's just poor luck of the draw. I know that situation where you run often because others don't want to. Used to be that way for me with my old group back in the day.

Sucks, man. Sorry to hear that. Hope you get something soon, not getting at least a little gaming in is always rough. :smallfrown:

In other news, we had another session a few days ago. It was short, but made me chuckle. Sage's player was able to make it this time.

Skull Gorge Bridge... Retreat!!

Ozzyrandion, the green dragon, took flight to breathe some acid on the tree line, but as soon he was over the gorge, Adira was ready. She hit him with a Downdraft spell, but he thankfully made his save, only colliding with the gorge wall instead of plummeting to the very bottom of it.

The Rage Drake ran up to Vorn and breathed some fire. He pulled out his shiny new hammer and walloped the little lizard dog with it good. Sage grabbed Vorn's bow from his pack, expecting to help with the hobgoblins on the towers and the dragon. The hobgoblins on the north tower watched the dragon drop, and could see the southern forces fighting something in the tree line. Being otherwise unable to help, one of them pulls out a horn and blows it, letting the forces below them know there's trouble.

Ozzy climbs up the remainder of the gorge, looking a look bumped up and dirty, and very angry. He casts a Scintillating Scales spell on himself, just in case (turns out to be worthless against the party at this time), and gives Adira a death glare. The second rage drake makes it to the fight, just in time to have his buddy get walloped by Vorn again, and Frost Breath'd by Adira. One down, the other is dazed. The hobgoblins and warforged on the other side of the bridge begin to get organized, and prepare to march across the bridge. Ozzy takes flight and then hovers over the party, and finally gets a breath weapon off. Vorn and Sage fail (poor rogue, I've never seen this one fail so many Reflex saves), but Adira saves.

At this point, Adira casts her other trump card for the fight: Earthgrasp. Targets the dragon's Fort, but if he fails, he's grounded and can't fly for several minutes. I was sorely tempted to fudge this roll in their favor, but I just wanted to let the dice fall where they may, and Ozzy made the save no problem. Ozzy circles about a bit, then angrily nails Adira with a Ray of Enfeeblement, which crits. Didn't roll too good, though, so she only loses 7 Str in penalty.

At this point, the Red Hand is down one Rage Drake, but the party has taken more than a little damage, and they no longer have a way of grounding the dragon. They opt the run away at this point. Vorn and Sage know they can outrun the metal men and the hobs, but are worried about the dragon. Fortunately, it has only eyes for Adira. So when she turns into an eagle and darts away, Ozzy chases. There is a short chase scene here, where Adira is able to outmaneuver the bigger, slower dragon, but Ozzy is so fast, he keeps pace, but has to hustle to do it. Eventually he gets fed up with it and takes off back to the bridge, remembering his responsibilities.

The party agreed to group up at Old Warklegnaw's camp. Sage takes this opportunity to disappear, thinking these people are loonies for attacking a dragon. She decides she's better off skipping out.

That's where we ended for the night.

The thing I liked about this session, is that Vorn's player has been non-too-subtly trying to get the other two noobs to take more actions with planning and execution. Vorn has so far shown to be a young dwarf, and he's very brash. Alerting everything in Vraath Keep showed that, and just launching an arrow at Ozzy was another show of that brashness.

I like that he's going out of his way to RP the character, and not take the most efficient path. This time, it rushed them into a fight right away, and while Adira had some good spells for dealing with the flyer, luck was against them that he made both his saves. A small miracle he made the Downdraft, since that targeted Reflex, but the Earthgrasp wasn't as hard for him to make as a Fort save.

S is going to retire Sage. She says she's not really feeling the character, even before her little faustian bargain, and wants to swap out. We got the groundwork started for her next one. She wants to be a Ranger! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?260804-Ranger-Scout-recombination-(3-5-PEACH)&p=14192508#post14192508) Should be fun. Looks like it's basically Rogue//Scout. I'm sure she'll beg for an animal companion too. I'll point her in the direction of the Wild Companion feat.

Grey Guard
2019-06-18, 04:12 PM
Had another session a few nights ago. It was pretty uneventful, but I'll give an update.

Licking the wounds; One friend for another.

Vorn and Adira trundle along the Dawn Way. They didn't see Sage anywhere, but continued to Old Warklegnaw's camp regardless, as they agreed in the heat of the fight. Adira leads Vorn through the woods off the beaten path to save time.

When they get close to his camp, they see a large dirt clod go soaring into the air, only to be hit by an arrow and falling apart a few moments later. This happens two more times, until they can hear some laughter as they get to the camp. Warklegnaw is there, rolling up the dirt clods and tossing them, while an unfamiliar female moon elf lines up shots at the clods and is unerringly hitting them with a longbow without a problem.

Warklegnaw simply introduces her to Vorn and Adira as his 'little elf friend'. Says her name is Pandora. S, the player, is still a little nervous and unsure how she wants to portray this character, so she doesn't say too much, simply nodding. They discuss what happened at the bridge, informing the old giant and the new girl about there being a DRAGON at the bridge. Warklegnaw tells them there hasn't been any green dragons in this part of the woods in many decades, so he's not familiar with it.

After the party decides Sage isn't coming back, either dead or ditched, they decide to go find the woodsman they were told about before, Jorr, and Pandora decides she'd like to help out the group, too. She'd never seen a dragon before, so it sounded exciting. They rest, and when Adira gets her spells back, she cures Warklegnaw of his Red Ache, and cures 1 point of his Str damage. He's elated, and has to stop himself from embracing (and crushing) Adira. He settles for patting her shoulder and thanking her. After they all make survival checks (everyone but Vorn having it), and everyone bringing enough food back to feed a batallion, they bid one another farewell. The party to find Jorr, Warklegnaw to find his kin.

They have Adira Survival their way through the woods to cut straight lines to their destinations, and they eventually get back to the beaten path that leads to Jorr's cabin. His dogs bolt out from under the porch when they see visitors, but are quickly calmed down and made friends by Adira and Pandora. Jorr, a middle-aged Illuskan man, comes out of his cabin, complaining that if he wanted visitors he wouldn't be living in the middle of a nowhere in some steamy woods. His dogs like them, so they're off to a good start.

The party converses with Jorr, and they immediately mention hobgoblins. He tells them that he's noticed the woods have been "just filthy rotten" with hobgoblins and goblins lately. Some large warband seems to have come down from the Northern Wall, and he's been happily skulking about and murdering them when he's able. He says they're probably headquartered out of Vraath Keep, and the party informs him they were- and were summarily murdered by the party. After hearing that and what numbers the hobgoblins had, Jorr decides he likes these rascals.

The party tell him about the bridge, and he's skeptical about the dragon, but if there's hobgoblins to kill, he's their man. He'll happily lead them through the woods and help them kill hobs for the modest price of 10 gold a day. The party agress. Jorr spits into his hand and extends it to seal the deal, and Vorn looks askance at it, and is unfamiliar with the custom. Adira groans and spits into her own hand and shakes the old woodsman's.

Knowing better what their opponents consisted of, Adira has more Earthgrasps prepared, they march through the woods, bee lining straight for the bridge.

And that's where we left off.



So far, S likes her ranger better than her Rogue. Her Rogue had roughly a +8 to hit, and the Ranger has roughly a +13 to hit with the bow. She's pretty stoked by the difference.

There was talk of Adira taking revenge on Sage if they ever crossed paths again.

The party seemed to like Warklegnaw. He definitely got more screen time than he has in my past play-throughs (in one, he was a frost giant, though). I'm sad they completely forgot about the Huge gauntlet to give to him.

Jorr I gave a scandinavian (illuskans are kinda scandinavian expys, right?) pronunciation to his name. He was grumpy with the locals calling him "JOOR", and insisted his name was pronounced "YOOR".

Tajerio
2019-06-21, 04:57 AM
Good on you for having the flexibility to let someone ditch a character they're not feeling. It's not that easy to bring in a new character in Red Hand with an air of verisimilitude, given how isolated the Vale is supposed to be, but sometimes the players just don't care and it doesn't matter--as here.

Better luck to your players in Skull Gorge II.

Grey Guard
2019-06-21, 09:05 AM
Good on you for having the flexibility to let someone ditch a character they're not feeling. It's not that easy to bring in a new character in Red Hand with an air of verisimilitude, given how isolated the Vale is supposed to be, but sometimes the players just don't care and it doesn't matter--as here.

I try to be lenient on that front. Sometimes you make a character, and it doesn't perform in a way you like, nor do you connect with it well in RP. The player still wanted to explore the woodsy elf idea, and making her familiar with the area with an aging forest giant friend didn't seem too far fetched. The party was pretty good sports about it, and we got her into the game almost immediately.

Something playing in Living Greyhawk and a little Adventurer's League taught me is that more often than not, it's okay to break verisimilitude a bit if it means getting the players, y'know, playing.


Better luck to your players in Skull Gorge II.

Thanks, I'm sure they appreciate the sentiment. Armed with knowledge of the fight, and a cantankerous old man, I'm sure they'll do better this time around. Grounding Ozzy seems to be what they really wanted to do, but now with two bowmen in the group, even if they don't ground him, they could at least pin-cushion him until he flees, or gets killed from it. I think they'll do better.

DigoDragon
2019-06-21, 05:45 PM
Something playing in Living Greyhawk and a little Adventurer's League taught me is that more often than not, it's okay to break verisimilitude a bit if it means getting the players, y'know, playing.

Aye, I learned that lesson myself. It is important that the players find investment with the game and if that means switching characters, then it's for the best to accommodate that.

Grey Guard
2019-06-26, 03:51 PM
Aye, I learned that lesson myself. It is important that the players find investment with the game and if that means switching characters, then it's for the best to accommodate that.

Ayup. Couldn't agree more. Which, *coughs*, we'll see in short order.

We had another session! ...Minus S again, sadly. She wasn't feeling well. We did, however, pick up another person, they originally showed up to help in the Koth fight before. The character's name was a little odd, Zeezo, but okay. He's the guy playing the homebrew class about body snatching he calls the Possessor. Based on a class from a rogue-like.

Skull Gorge Bridge II, Electric Boogaloo.

The adventure starts a little ways south of Skull Gorge Bridge. The previous session, given their fast wandering in the woods, I had rolled for a random encounter. I got the 1d2+1 dryads. I briefly pondered on this, and remembered that Zeezo had the ability to turn into a Dire Hawk. The party hears some squawking, and comes across a dire hawk, caught in an active entangle spell, trying to get away from it. 3 beautiful, fair skinned women, wearing vines, grass and flowers for clothing, and having hair like leaves and moss, were surrounding the creature, talking among themselves.

When they hear the party coming, they get defensive, but less so when they see Adira. The party makes some wisdom checks and realizes it's Zeezo, the illuskan man who aided them at Vraath Keep. When Vorn tries approaching one of the dryads to talk with them, she panics and jumps into a tree, seemingly melding into it and vanishing from sight. The other two try and charm him, and against all odds succeed. He just regards them as friends, now.

After that initial worry there, the party asks why they're stringing up the hawk, and they explain that it's "not natural", and not "a real animal", and that they're considering magically binding and imprisoning it into a tree (cue Fern Gully jokes). There is some negotiating (and some failed Escape Artist checks on Zeezo's part), but eventually, the dryads trust Adira, the "daughter of the forest", after some diplomacy, and agree to release the bird. The dryads gift each of the characters with a vibrant, violet colored flower (cure moderate wounds effect, free action to use), give Adira a hug, and bid the party farewell.

Zeezo thanks them for their timely intervention, and the party seems to have repaid his aiding them earlier with aid of their own now. They explain they're off to the bridge, and Zeezo, being ever hungry for more bodies to snatch, agrees to go along and help.

The party gets to the bridge after a little more hiking. They see much the sight as they did before, except there's a goblin worg rider at the bridge as well now, and that the sentries at the southern towers have been replaced by Warforged. Zeezo puts up an energy resist power to get some acid resist.

The party opens up by firing arrows at the two warforged and the worg rider from the tree line. The warforged take some hits. Initiative is rolled.

The party rolls pretty bad, most of the baddies go first. Jorr however gets to move and shoot. The Giants and Graveyards Ranger is pretty hardcore here, and getting double your Skirmish damage on your Favored Enemies is pretty nice. Jorr one-shots the goblin riding the worg. Ozzy, not wanting to fly over the gorge again for fear of another Downdraft spell, flies over the bridge, and still gets to the party in one move action and unloads a breath weapon on most of the party. Zeezo takes minimal damage thanks to his buff. Adira remembers she has some minor acid resist as an aasimar.

Adira unleashes her 1st level apocalypse on her turn, and casts Entangle. The area of the spell says that it's a 40 ft. radius, which, despite the dragon being in mid-air, is in. So unless I read it wrong, the dragon is entangled in mid-air. It doesn't say you can't fly while entangled (at least in the entangled entry), so he stays aloft thanks to his Hover feat, but is otherwise unable to move unless he can break out. I explained it as vines shooting out of the trees and latching onto him.

It's at this point that Adira's player realizes that the spell doesn't differentiate between friend and foe, and ends up entangling everyone else in the party save for Zeezo. Some groans mixed in with cheers about the dragon being stuck.

One of the warforged on the towers blows a horn, alerting the forces on the northern side of the fight. The worg nuzzles his fallen rider for a moment, realizes he's cadaverrific, then angrily runs around the entangle spell to get to Zeezo, since Jorr is out of reach deep in the Entangle. Jorr spends his time firing at the Warforged on the towers. One goes down, but he spends the rest of the duration of the entangle firing at the other one and missing. The Warforged doesn't have much better luck shooting back.

Ozzy, worried he's going to swiftly be held in the entangle and be turned into a pincushion, takes this time to buff. He casts Mage Armor on himself. The following turn he puts Shield on himself, putting his AC to a lofty, nearly unhittable 28.

While he does this, Zeezo sacrifices his ability to turn into the Dire Hawk by 'summoning' it with his little homebrew stuff. It takes an AoO from the dragon getting in close, and over the next two rounds gets downed by one of the crossbow Warforged.

The Worg gets close to Zeezo, bites, trips, and bites again; but he's also within melee reach of Vorn, who gives it a solid wallop with his hammer after Zeezo shoots that psionic web thing at him. Poof. No more Worg.

Zeezo takes this moment to assume his new body, and turn into the worg. The rest of the hobgoblins have made it over, and are giving the the Entangle a wide berth. They advance around it to where Vorn and Zeezo are. Zeezo bluffs looking like a dazed and confused puppy dog, and the hobgoblin sergeant that makes it over doesn't know what to think, but he who hesitates is lost, and moves in to engage Vorn, who is stuck right at the edge of the entangle effect.

The dragon, getting angrier and angrier at the "forest lord" (Adira), and realizing he needs to actually land in order to try breaking out of the Entangle, drops, taking some minor damage, and quaffs a potion of bull's strength, readying for the Strength checks after this.

The hobgoblins that were with the sergeant stay back, and use longbows to fire at Vorn, after they all miss the first time, they start using Aid Another to increase the odds of a hit. This has some mediocre success.

Adira up to this point, has mostly been shooting at things with a bow with not much luck, and she finally dismisses the Entangle, and all hell breaks loose. Jorr can suddenly move and starts letting the Hobgoblins have it. Zeezo and Vorn lay into the Sergeant who goes down relatively easily. Ozzyrandion is beyond pissed, and doesn't bother taking flight, but moves into melee. Due to the the way the trees are situated, and his large size, he's unable to engage the person he wants to murder (Adira), and is forced to contend with Vorn first.

Vorn's pretty worn (tee hee) at this point, and the party elects to use a charge out of the Staff of Life for Heal. This was a good idea, because Ozzy was going to try and bite his head off. Dragon full attacks are nothing to sneeze at, and Ozzy's opener sees Vorn take every single hit in the bite/claw/claw/wing/wing salvo. Ouch. On the subsequent round, he tried going turtle mode, using full Combat Expertise, and the dragon STILL hit every time. It was unfortunate that I was also rolling crazy good that night.

Zeezo and Jorr slowly wittle down the remaining hobgoblins. Adira started to cast Summon Nature's Ally spells to off flanking buddies. Zeezo summons a hobgoblin regular he had in his storage to also offer Vorn a flanking buddy. The hobbos in the north towers finally start heading over to into the fight proper. With all the hits Ozzy is getting in, and the lack of hits Vorn is getting in, it's starting to look dire. Ozzy is down to around 75 HP at this point.

Jorr tells Zeezo to keep the hobbos coming in busy, he has a way of dealing with the dragon. He casts Hunter's Mercy, making his next ranged attack with a bow an auto-crit. Ozzy makes his Spellcraft check and is now very concerned by this, since he's not in a good position to attack Jorr. The dragon figures the bow crit is going to take him to about 50ish, and if he can do it again, that'll spell trouble for him. He eviscerates the summoned hyppogryph that's barring his escape, and takes flight to the north. After eating the attack from Jorr. It drops him to about 40 HP (the house rules give ranged attacks Dex to damage, and a composite bow also adding Str and on a x3 crit... ow.)

As Ozzy takes flight, Adira nails him with a Downdraft after he got to 70 ft. height, but made the save, only dropping 50 feet and hitting some small trees he barreled through. Jorr cast Hunter's Mercy again, and followed up with another attack on the next round. He's down to about 10 (!) HP as he makes his get away. He drinks his Potion of Cure Serious Wounds at this point. Eagle Eye Vorn steps up, and lines up a shot. He's twice now rolled 20s on fleeing, flying foes. I told that lightning wasn't going to strike twice (or three times), and wouldn't you know it, he rolls 20. Doesn't confirm, though, sadly, and nails Ozzy. Bringing him down to a grand total of 7 HP. One lucky lizard.

The two remaining hobgoblins start to flee, but Zeezo finishes one off. The last remaining Warforged in the South East Tower looks down at the field, sees that his allies have died or fled, and the stairwell to get down is directly where the PCs are. He throws down his weapons, flips his crossbow arm back to a normal arm, and waits patiently for capture.

Vorn and Zeezo go up to talk to him. "I am 4th Rook of the 5th battalion. I must give you my name and rank, and nothing more." Vorn starts to ask him questions, as the last time he dealt with the metal and wood men they appeared to be awfully honorable, refusing to used ranged weapons on enemies who had no ranged weapons in the first encounter. Zeezo, however, sees this as it being uncooperative, and Warforged by something alien to Faerun, regards it as a mindless construct and begins using his web on it to kill and steal it's body.

The Warforged, fearing it's simply going to be executed, tries to fight back by bull rushing Zeezo (in hobgoblin form) off the tower. It succeeds, and Zeezo tumbles off, while Vorn is yelling at Zeezo to cease, and that they're not in the habit of executing prisoners (unless they're hobgoblins). Zeezo and Vorn then get into a huge fight ICly (and a little OOCly) about this. Vorn gets heated and tells Zeezo to scram, and Zeezo is about to pack up his things and get out, but we called it there. OOCly they discussed calming down and working things out at the next session.

Eesh. This session was long for being just the fight. It was a huge slog; once Ozzy got buffed up, he was incredibly difficult to deal with.

For Ozzy, I wanted him to be large, but I didn't want to advance his age category. So I superficially increased his size to Large and left most of his other stats alone. I did increase his Strength from 17 to 18, bringing it up to Vorn's. However, with his drinking the Potion of Bull's Strength, and having Multiattack and Improved Multiattack, his full attacks were sitting at +16 for each attack. He hit Vorn on a 6 or better, or 11 or better when he went turtle mode. :smalleek:

Crits. I rolled a lot of them, and the party was definitely feeling it. I started picking up the die and showing it to them so they wouldn't feel like I was just fudging and trying to murder them. I mean, I was trying to murder them, but the dice were helping!

At one point I had completely forgotten to target Jorr with the baddies, and after C, Adira's player, pointed out it was odd they weren't, I mentally kicked myself. After he took a couple of hits the rest of the table was playfully yelling at her for possibly getting Jorr killed. :smallbiggrin:

The argument got pretty heated at the end with the Warforged's fate. Vorn regarded the creature as an honorable, thinking thing. Zeezo not so much, so Vorn was getting mad and assuming Zeezo was committing a war crime at best, senseless murder at worst. After OOCly explaining that obstinate stubborness was a classical dwarven trait, but that's more a shield dwarf trait, and that a sly tongue and clever communication was more likely to be a gold dwarf trait, J decided that he would approach it in character a little bit better as soon as we picked up at the next session.

For weeks now, Vorn's player has been looking at dipping into Dragon Disciple (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282016-Dragon-Disciple-(3-5-base-class-replaces-Dragon-Shaman-and-Dragonfire-Adept)&p=15167076) for that sweet front-loaded Con Mod to AC class feature at first level. He wanted to fluff it as going full Skyrim Dragonborn on Ozzyrandion, and after beating him, eating his soul. Sadly they didn't kill him, so I don't know if he's going to multiclass this next level or not.

Otherwise, they did great! Can't wait for them to see Cinder Hill.

Tajerio
2019-06-27, 10:07 AM
What do you plan to do with Wyrmlords/dragons that get away? By the module I think they just show up again in the battle for Brindol/Rethmar (since you're running it in FR). That's what I did when Reggie got away--teamed him up with Abby and it was a real fun time for the party--but it wasn't exactly the most imaginative thing I could have done.

Well done on the description, by the way. I though it conveyed the tension of the fight pretty well. And I hope your players come to a more successful compromise on how to approach their enemies post-hostilities.

Grey Guard
2019-06-27, 12:20 PM
What do you plan to do with Wyrmlords/dragons that get away? By the module I think they just show up again in the battle for Brindol/Rethmar (since you're running it in FR). That's what I did when Reggie got away--teamed him up with Abby and it was a real fun time for the party--but it wasn't exactly the most imaginative thing I could have done.

So, the last time I ran RHoD, I followed it by the book. Saarvith and Ulwai escaped, and showed up for a grudge match at Rethmar/Brindol. Ozzy and Reggie both escaped, and showed up again for the match against Tyrgarun. Ulwai was a headache for the party since buffing Kharn and his buddies was no small thing. Saarvith, too, with bard buffs turned very dangerous (Dragonfire Inspiration is crazy good). The dragon fight was delightfully fair, actually. The party probably would've curb-stomped Tyrgarun (they were pretty optimized) if he were alone.

Looking back, it might've been a good idea to have one teamed up with Abby. He got slaughtered by the party, but they prepared pretty heavily for him. Adding Ozzy or Reggie to the mix probably would've improved the fight, but I considered Brindol/Rethmar to Abby's time to shine, and I didn't think he'd want to share the glory of the battle with any other dragon.

Probably thought too much IC for them when I should've been thinking challenge for the players.


Well done on the description, by the way. I though it conveyed the tension of the fight pretty well. And I hope your players come to a more successful compromise on how to approach their enemies post-hostilities.

Thanks. Funny thing is, this isn't a new thing. My players having wildly different ideas on how to handle prisoners happens all the time. I like to think they're just that dedicated to RPing their character. Vorn, as explained by his player, said he would've been just fine with executing prisoners if they were hobgoblins. I guess even Lawful Good dwarves have their dark spots.

Grey Guard
2019-07-01, 03:33 PM
We had another session! Sad news: S has decided to drop from the game, citing real life obligations and issues as being a problem for her. So, she won't be joining us anymore. :smallfrown:

However, Zeezo's player may be joining us on a semi-regular basis. He did not join us for this session, however, due to some miscommunication on J's part. We'll call his player J2 in the future.

Quick rundown of the players, for clarity's sake.

Player: J; Character: Vorn, Gold Dwarf Stalwart Warlock 6. Gold dwarf from a prominent clan in the Great Rift. Family owns Vraath Keep and he came to reclaim it.

Player: C; Character: Adira, Aasimar Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 1 (:smalleek:) Druid from the High Forest. Unknown to the character, she's the granddaughter of Mielikki.

player: J2; Character: Zeezo, Illuskan Human Possessor 6. Backstory is a mystery.

Here, there be dragons; The customer is always right.

The party picked up right where we left off. At their victory at Skull Gorge Bridge. J2 was not present for this session, as I mentioned above, so J just said in the heat of things, he wanted to say Zeezo simply managed to kill the Warforged, wanting to put the whole thing behind him for now. I allow it, and it seems like we'll address that when Zeezo is next here. For now we decide he's backed away from the party for one reason or another.

Vorn, being a dwarf on a mission, begins surveying the bridge, hoping to find an easy way to destroy it. Both Adira and Vorn locate the week spot. The dwarf is about to get smashing with his new hammer until Jorr asks them to hold up, and asks to check on the location north of the map, where "clans are gathering under Kharn", before they go and destroy one of Drellin's Ferry's best trade routes.

Both the players realize they're jumping the gun and agree. They travel north, and they make decent time, given they have a druid and a ranger in the party at the moment. They get to Cinder Hill just as the sun is beginning to set, and they're completely dumb struck at what they see: an enormous army of thousands. Hobgoblin and Warforged troops, goblin worg riders, giants, dragon men, warforged that appear to be as large as houses, and a red dragon circling in the sky.

They each hit the deck, Jorr crouches down, Adira turns into a bat, and Vorn hides the now-diminutive Adira in his pocket. They discuss what they should do, and OOCly the notion of fighting the Horde comes up, and (fortunately) laugh it off as crazy.

They hightail it out of there, not even stopping to rest. They smash the Bridge apart without a second thought, though Vorn promises Jorr he'll rebuild it when he moves into the nearby Keep. Jorr grumbles about people moving into HIS woods.

They force march their way through the Witchwood at this point. I roll for a random encounter given their noise and speed, but nothin'. They're lucky.

Adira remains in bat form, and hangs out on Leo, her still blind leopard. She tries to finagle that doing so counts as resting, but I rule that without some sort of saddle or harness or... basket or something, that it's too bumpy and unsteady to rest on the large cat's back well.

The PCs get back in record time, it's just about noon by the time they reach Drellin's Ferry.

Now there is detail I forgot to mention in this little journal. When they first reached Drellin's Ferry at the start of the campaign. Vorn ran around town and did a minor bit of shopping. Mostly in an effort to unload some of the loot he got from the ambush. He went to Jarret Nurth's general store, and when he noticed she had healing potions for sale, he leapt on it. She even offered him a great deal: buy five potions, get 1 free.

He did that. What he didn't know was that they were poison. During the Skull Gorge Bridge fight, Zeezo had gotten one of these potions, and drank it, and it fortunately made the save, but Vorn was nothing short of livid when he found out.

Their first order of business when they got to the town was talk to Soranna. Who then insisted they grab the 'Archon' and inform of the developments. At first, when the party mentions they cleared out Vraath Keep, they were overjoyed, assuming that the hobgoblins had been completely dealt with. The party set the record straight, and both Wiston and Soranna go pale. They look to Jorr for confirmation and he gives them an "ayup". Wiston mumbles that he'll call the town council for a special meeting tonight. He's still white as a sheet.

The party then talks to Soranna about the poison potions. Vorn's angry and demands Soranna go with them to arrest her. She's hesitant, Jarret has been in the town for about 3 years now, and is an upstanding member of the community. She agrees to go with them to question her, and see if they can't get to the bottom of this. Jorr doesn't bother with going along for this one.

The party goes in, and Jarret smiles sweetly at them, and asks them what she can get for them. She also greets Soranna specifically. Vorn, having calmed down a bit, goes into interrogation mode, wanting to know if she has more, wanting to know if she knew she was selling poison, the whole shebang. She starts lying her pants off, (and I'm careful not to roll the dice so they don't know about the bluff checks) at the moment, and they don't bother rolling Sense Motive, so it's all moot.

She spins a tale about how she doesn't know who made them, just that she gets them from a traveling merchant from Shaarmid. Vorn asks to personally sample one of her current potions. And his player glares at me as I tell him to roll a Fortitude save.

He hacks and coughs and calls it poison. Jarret looks at him, quite concerned, but so far, the party and the NPCs are buying her story. She's inwardly celebrating until Soranna mentions that she's going to ask Sertieren the Wise, their local wizard transplant from Luiren to look into it. Everyone knows he's a decent Diviner. Jarret now knows it's only a matter of time if Sertieren gets involved.

Jarret sighs, and with a wave of her hand, the store to her shop slams shut and locks. She sorrowfully comments. "It's such a shame." her tone turns tense. "Why couldn't you just die in the woods?!" The lights go out in the store, and two inky, shadowy, vaguely humanoid figures come floating out of the ground. Initiative!

The shadows start out by trying to touch Vorn and Adira. Adira gets missed, but Vorn takes 1 point of Strength damage. Vorn successfully IDs them with Know: Religion and tells the others how to fight them. Soranna pulls out her shield and a horn, and blows it. Vorn whiffs a hit due to miss chance, but then manages to flatten it. Jarret casts Dominate Person on Soranna, which she tries to Moment of Perfect Mind, but still fails. Jarret has a new toy! Yay!

Adira takes a hit and gets 3 Strength damage, but then casts a spell that stuns. Soranna doesn't save, the Shadow is Immune. Next turn she gets a Sandblast (I think that's the name?) to do some very minor AOE damage, but force a save vs daze for both the Shadow and Soranna (as far as I can tell you can daze undead :smalleek: ).

Jarret starts gloating that it's only a matter of time before the militia gets here, and Soranna tells them all to kill the party. Vorn moves on over to Jarret and starts hammering her with his... hammer. Jarret tries to use Suggestion on him to get him to use the hammer on Adira instead, he makes his save, and makes a suggestion of his own- with the hammer. Without armor on, she's getting demolished by Vorn, and goes down in two rounds. They finish off the Shadow, but Soranna is still trying to kill them.

Vorn really doesn't want to kill Jarret, because he wants to do a Jack Bauer and get some answers out of her. He also doesn't want to deal with a homicidal Soranna directing the guards to kill them.

It's at this point that Adira discovers that she has the ability to turn into a Unicorn, and get its' Su abilities (:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek: ), and is able to create its Magic Circle against Evil effect, thus suppressing the Dominate. Soranna thanks them.

At this point, Vorn says he's going to get Morlin, Soranna suggests they get the town priest, Brother Derny. Jorr walks by the general story, and sees Soranna leaning against a unicorn. "Ayup." Is all he says, before being pressed by Vorn to go and retrieve Brother Derny, and that it's an emergency. Vorn then pulls the holy symbol off Jarret's unconscious form, triggering a contingency, and her body vanishes. Vorn curses a lot in dwarven.

When the militia start showing up, Soranna begins ordering them to do a sweep of the area, and a few to start searching the shop and Jarret's home. Vorn helps with the search. Brother Derny arrives, a slightly portly priest of Lathander, and he's able to hit Soranna with a Dispel Magic and dispel the Dominate. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Adira goes to Brother Derny and discusses options of saving Leo's sight, and we call it a night there.

Glazing over the fight between Zeezo and Vorn for now seemed fine, especially since Zeezo wasn't present for this one.

I loved C's reaction to the Red Hand Horde. She was shocked and worried.

Pretty sure Adira could've rested in Vorn's pocket or something, but she seemed fixated on hanging on top of her leopard.

Vorn's self-righteous anger towards Jarret was something, and I couldn't believe nobody was rolling sense motives while she fed them all kinds of lies about where she got the potions.

Jorr's 'ayup's were a little amusing to the party.

This is the first time the party has ever sniffed out Jarret's evilness. I got the idea for the poison potions at discount from another RHoD campaign journal around here. I'd credit it, but I've read more than a few, and can't remember which one. Sorry! :smallfrown: I put the contingency on Jarret, mostly to avoid too much of a side-track dealing with her, but I felt kinda bad about it after I did that. So her D-Door, being as short range as it is, I might just lower the DC and that they discover her as they search. So they can at least get some satisfaction from it.

Next up, town council meeting! I sure hope I can do all the characters justice, especially Iormel's curmudgeonly, cantankerous nature.