[3.5] An Eberron-flavored Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

[Coidzor]

Hmmm, all I know about Skather is that he was one-on-one against our party's barbarian at the top of some stairs he'd covered with caltrops... I think for about 4 rounds before he decided to flee and quickly outran the entire party, JUMPED onto the roof of a two story building in a single bound somehow and then turned around to take potshots at us while we closed before roof-hopping some more. So his main strength when we encountered him was that he had poison use (which got a couple of us with minuses to strength for the boss fight) and that his mechanics/the DM/scenario as written denied us much opportunity to engage with him.

[AslanCross]

Sweet. Thanks, Eldariel.

Coidzor> The ninja has the Great Leap class feature, which enables him to jump as if he were running and had the Run feat even from a standstill. Pretty awesome, though the Swordsage could approximate that with Sudden Leap.

[AslanCross]

Phew. I thought this thread would time out before I was able to post again.

Short session today; this served mostly as closure for the first chapter so we could cleanly introduce the new PCs next session: Linnea Leiranoff, cloistered cleric of Aureon, and Lyka aka "Pickles," a brilliant, savage, shifter warblade.

The party decides to bury Ashie quickly and send House Orien a lock of her hair should they wish to resurrect her. After resting (the previous session was a pretty solid thrashing), they woke up to find Teyani Sura entering the Old Bridge Inn.

Teyani, as haggard as she is, quickly fills them in on what happened to the Rhest Trail. It's beginning to become clear that the Red Hand is sweeping far wider than they had expected, and that simply taking out a bridge isn't going to stop them for long. She asks for a map to mark the blockade, and is surprised to see and hear from the PCs what else is coming their way. She quickly scribbles down notes on whatever scraps of paper she has, and leaves for Brindol without even getting her ale.

The Town Council
The party's immediate impression of Iormel is that he is a Grade A jerk; he harshly tells Holden to shut the hell up when he begins trying to plead against Iormel's stance (fight).

After hearing all of the council members' cases (one each for fight, flight and parley, one undecided [Norro] and one that's practically an abstention [Soranna]), they try to convince Kellin first. Holden rolls really badly at first (he's the only guy with ranks in Diplomacy), but the others are able to aid him in saying that the goblins wouldn't have tried to torch the town the previous night if they wanted to plunder. They get Kellin's vote.

Second, they try Norro. I assigned the lowest DCs to Norro (using The Giant's Diplomacy rules) since he isn't committed to any particular course of action. Kikkeni easily makes the case; Norro told them to destroy Skull Gorge Bridge if they had to, and they did. Norro changes his stance to flight as well.

Finally, just to be sure, they try the cantankerous Iormel. He has the highest DC for the flight option (DC 29), but Holden rolls a 20. His +6 modifier is bolstered by Jorr's testimony, the map, and their performance in fighting against the goblin raid.

<Holden> A town is more than its holdings. A town is its people too.
<Iormel> ...I...No way I'm fighting under the banner of the Lord of Brindol.
<Holden> Better to live to fight another day.
<Iormel> What do you know about fighting?
<Holden> We cleared out Vraath Keep. We defeated Wyrmlord Koth. We slew a dragon. I assure you, sir, we know about fighting. But we also know when to run, and no is one such time.
<Iormel> Fine.

The council reaches a unanimous decision to flee, and the town begins packing.

Chimera Attack
At about 2:30 pm, the chimera attacks. The thing died practically as it hit the ground. It rolled dead last on initiative, and even with its beefed HP and the party down one man, the combined firepower of Kikkeni, Loven and Holden takes it down to 13, then 3, then -21 HP before its third turn. The chimera does try to thrash Holden, but only hits with its first bite and gore. Its breath weapon (I gave it lightning instead) barely grazes Kikkeni.

Evacuation
As the party leaves, they decide to escort Norro, Soranna and the rear guard to Terrelton first, and then proceed to the blockades to the North.

Anyway, it's reeeeally early into the timeline and they've already sent the people along the Dawn Way packing. Rhest is a pretty small place and will be pretty easy to clean out if they observe it. The encounters are going to be beefed up a lot more. The speed at which the party slew the chimera is pretty insane.

[KillianHawkeye]

It's not strange for that chimera to get pulverized. One chimera against an entire party of 4 or more is pretty much doomed from the start.

[AslanCross]

I figured; I guess I was expecting it to be slightly more difficult because it was statted as "somewhat tougher."

In any case, the Chapter II encounters are going to be a lot tougher for them. With five members and a cleric plus a Barbarian Warblade optimized for speed, I'd think they're going to be able to do some serious damage. I guess the restats of Saarvith and Regiarix were in order.

[AslanCross]

Wonky schedules abound. Next session happens on the 11th.

Now I've been mulling over a certain build since the beginning: Should I swap Nurklenak's Bard levels for Beguiler? I never really thought Bard fit the concept of a torturer. A Beguiler seems to fit the bill much more cleanly.
He will still easily qualify for Mindbender, although by my reckoning he doesn't even really need this. The same build will work for all the other Mindbenders the PCs encounter later on. What do you guys think?

[Eldariel]

Sounds reasonable. It is indeed a better fit for an interrogator (although the fact that you won't have Cha-based spellcasting and thus can't prioritise it to the exclusion of all others is a drawback) and sorta more powerful overall.

The big question is whether you want to change him into Beguiler 7/Mindbender 1 or stick to Beguiler 6/Mindbender 2 or even Beguiler 5/Mindbender 3; the higher level abilities aren't really amazing, mostly replicating spells. Also, Beguiler gains far more skillpoints than Mindbender. Beguiler 8 or Beguiler 7/Mindbender 1 seems most reasonable here. That does give him 4th level spells though, which is quite a power increase so be careful with that.


Keen Intellect [DR318/Oriental Adventures] could be a great feat to give him since it'd make his Sense Motive (and Spot, Survival & Heal) keyed off Int instead of Wis, making him far better an interrogator (what good is an interrogator if he can be lied to right in his face?). Also gives him Int to Will-saves.

But overall, I definitely agree with making him a Beguiler.

[AslanCross]

Hmm yeah, I wanted to keep Mindbender 1 since it still advances his casting while giving him an ability he wouldn't normally get as a Beguiler. Telepathy would work quite well given the small area of the Town Hall.

[Eldariel]

Hmm yeah, I wanted to keep Mindbender 1 since it still advances his casting while giving him an ability he wouldn't normally get as a Beguiler. Telepathy would work quite well given the small area of the Town Hall.

Yeah, Mindbender 1 isn't bad. It's just that Beguiler gets so many more skillpoints and actually has worthwhile abilities on its own. But actually, Beguiler 5/Mindbender 1/Beguiler +2 gets a 4th level spell on the second Advanced Learning, which is definitely a nice bonus (overall, the plotting of the Advanced Learnings is funny, always being 1 level before you gain access to a new spell level), and can max out all the Beguiler-skills too.

Now, what to pick with the Advanced Learnings is another matter entirely.

[kjones]

Did you make a decision on Regiarax, with regards to size? I should warn you against boosting the difficulty of the Rhest encounter in general. It's very, very possible for the party to be encountering many of the foes of Rhest at once, which can turn a challenging encounter deadly. If they manage to sneak in and pick the Red Hand off one at a time - good for them. But you need to be prepared for the possibility that they'll have to take on all of Rhest at once.

That being said, making Nurklenak into a beguiler seems like an eminently reasonable choice, as do the tweaks you've made to Saarvith. Just remember that Rhest has a lot of potential to be a party-killer - your party will be (literally) out of their element, making escape difficult should something go wrong.

[AslanCross]

I boosted Regiarix to Young Adult for now, but I'm ready to fall back on the default stats if the party proves to be less intelligent than before. There's going to be 5 of them now with a full caster and two martial adepts, so I'm going to wait and see what happens in the blockade battle. I raised the difficulty of that significantly by replacing the ogres with skullcrushers, removing one of the sergeants and making the remaining sergeant more tactically-relevant Crusader 4.

[AslanCross]

My regular players didn't arrive, but they sent others to take their place and carry on with their characters. The new girl, who was playing a longstride shifter barbarian/warblade, took over for Kikkeni in addition to her character, while Holden and Loven were subbed for as well by another player. Unfortunately the cleric's player did not arrive, so the party had to slog through the adventure without a divine caster.

I'll try to go through the adventure by timeline.

Day 7, 5 pm:
The party departs from Drellin's Ferry along with the remnants of the militia, Norro Wiston, and Soranna. They head eastward towards Terrelton. Halfway there they camp for the night.

Day 8:
The camp begins to pick up and continue eastward. Random weather brings fog, slowing down progress, but they get to Terrelton around noon. There they meet Lyka, the new player's shifter. She was also an adherent of the Silver Flame, but not really given any special honors apart from a military rank in Thrane's army. She was dispatched to support Holden's efforts.

They immediately get thrown into the action when they realize that a nearby tavern is being looted. The newly-reformed party easily mops the spilled wine on the floor with the four looters. One has her head opened up by Holden's maul, while the second is torn to shreds by Lyka and Holden via AOOs. Kikkeni greases the remaining two inside the tavern; one fails his reflex save, faceplants in the broken glass, and fails to move when he tries to get up later. Loven snipes him fatally with his crossbow.
(Strangely enough, this new player snipes with far greater skill than Loven's usual player).
The last looter is Charging Minotaured into a wall by Holden, knocking him down to 3 HP. He sheepishly begs for mercy as the party knocks him out and ties him up for what's left of the local law enforcement (Leille, also a Silver Flame cleric) to deal with. The party then heads eastward towards Bridol.

Days 8-9
The party travels to Witchcross, passing through Nimon Gap and Talar. They part ways with the Ferry folk there and head north, but not before spreading word of the coming Red Hand. They arrive in Witchcross on the evening of the 9th day and continue to advise townsfolk to pack up and move toward Brindol.

Day 10.
Severe rain impedes the PCs' progress. They decide to stay in Witchcross for one more day.

Day 11: The Rhest Blockade.

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Leaving Witchcross at 6 am, they travel 12 hours to the Rhest Blockade. Due to tree cover, they're able to hide in a ruined cottage close to the palisade. Loven sneaks up to the blockade and uses his new crossbow skills to snipe. He easily takes out the 2 half-asleep sentries on the roof, then retreats as the guards go on alert (one of the roof sentries topples down the ladder).

Since the playing field is literally not level, the PCs decide to take advantage of their abilities. Kikkeni airbursts with her newly-learned energy ball and gets the drop on one of the ogres (made it a Skullcrusher), who runs into the tower in agony. The eastern half of the palisade is now on fire.

Kikkeni then turns to the other half and repeats. The ogres, being skullcrushers, are a bit smarter and decide to head for the cover of the tower instead of taking repeated hits. As the structure begins to burn, the hobgoblins and ogres dash out the front gate. The sergeant is a beefed up Crusader 4 brandishing a halberd, while his minions retain their generic Warrior 2 template. The skullcrushers drag with them barrels of throwing rocks.

Hiding out inside the ruined cottage, Loven continues to snipe, dispatching one hobgoblin with a headshot, while Lyka uses her awesome Jump modifier to leap onto the wall. The grunt hobgoblins and the injured ogre get mowed down rapidly by Kikkeni's suppressing fire, while the sergeant crashes through the woods to get to the PCs' makeshift bunker. Holden goes out to meet him, uses Battle Leader's Charge to close the distance, but fumbles. The sergeant duels him while Lyka leaps onto the sergeant from above.

Deciding he's taken too much damage, the sergeant tries to flee, using Douse the Flames on Holden to prevent AOOs. He takes one from Lyka, though, and is down to dangerous HP levels. The remaining ogre keeps trying to throw rocks (he threw one at Lyka while she was still on the wall, though she dodged that with great skill).

Loven snipes the last remaining grunt hobgoblin while Kikkeni wails on the sergeant. Eventually, his damage pool isn't enough to stem the damage, and he dies.

Holden draws Divine Surge and tries to take out the skullcrusher in one hit, but fails his attack roll by one. The ogre then offers the crusader a face full of morningstar, to which Holden gladly obliges. The ogre crits, smashing off half of Holden's HP. He then follows up with his spiked shield, but fumbles that roll. Lyka uses her agility and nails the ogre with Soaring Raptor Strike. Kikkeni fires a final energy missile that scorches the brute to death.

With night falling quickly, the PCs decide to spend the night in the ruined cottage, with the burning palisade to warm them in their sleep. They decide to continue going to Rhest, since Koth's map marks the ruins as suspicious.

Day 12: Heat Wave.

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The PCs trek the remaining 2 1/2 hours down the Rhest Trail. Lyka begins to take nonlethal damage from the miserable heat, though the rest of the party is none the worse for wear. They get close enough to the giant sinkhole where the ruined city of Rhest lies rotting, but Lyka decides to go ahead of the party to scout more effectively. She spots the soldiers in the town hall, the bell tower, their respective modifications, and the lizarfolk and their rafts.

Before they continue, the PCs try to make knowledge checks. Holden remembers a little history: Rhest was the capital of one of the goblinoid Dhakaani empire's provinces, although unlike most of the empire which slowly declined into civil unrest and anarchy, Rhest collapsed suddenly, though he doesn't know why.

Thinking the lizardfolk neutral and indifferent, Holden and Lyka go up to try to talk to them while Kikkeni and Loven stay some distance behind, with Loven hidden.

To their horror, Holden and Lyka discover that the lizardfolk were at least as big as the ogres they had fought, and were black-scaled. At first the unintelligent brutes didn't react much to their presence, and simply demanded why they were there. Holden is still clueless and asks if the party could use the lizards' boats. The lizardfolk demands that they not disturb the "dragon god" and that they leave immediately. Holden tries to maintain a respectful mien, but when the blackscale taunts him that the 2 PCs don't even know the dragon god's name and is are thus unworthy to enter his presence. Holden says "…is it Saarvith?"

The blackscale froths at the mouth and charges, rambling incoherently in broken Draconic, while its companion jumps out of its hut as well.

Kikkeni opens fire with energy bolt, which was of course a mistake. She badly chars the second blackscale and slightly injures the first. Loven snipes the second blackscale as well. He gapes as the bolt lodges itself firmly in the brute's skull but fails to kill it outright, though it begins to bleed profusely from the wound. The lizardman bounds toward Loven (he failed his snipe hide check) and swats him firmly with his greatclub. The blow leaves a massive dent, shearing off 25 HP. Just before Lyka's turn, a bell starts ringing in the tower. Everyone groans, but Lyka perks up:

"Permission to speak, sir?" she says to Holden.
"Speak!"
Turning to the blackscales, she screams "WE ARE WORTHY, YOU HEATHENS!"

…and executes a Soaring Raptor Strike on the first blackscale, critting and opening up its belly. Holding in its guts, the blackscale flails madly at her, hitting with both its club and its bite. Lyka takes over 30 damage. Holden decides to finish off the heavily-injured blackscale and uses Bonecrusher on its sternum. Its chest implodes, and it falls over backwards, quite dead.

Kikkeni realizes that while the alarm has been triggered, there's no point in delaying, so she blasts the remaining blackscale with energy missile. Burned and bleeding, the second brute drops dead.

With the entire camp in a flurry of action, the PCs decide to hightail it for now and flee toward the cover of the marsh. OOC, they lament on their lack of a full caster and gripe a bit about how the player didn't show up.

Anyway, back IC, Lyka once more asks for permission to speak. When granted permission, she simply whimpers "We are doomed, sir." With the lizardfolk being a lot larger than they'd expected and the superior visual range of the tower, they simply couldn't think of a way to get into Rhest. They pull back and decide to find a way to beat the heat before the badly-injured Lyka collapses from heat exhaustion.

They pull back about a mile away and then meet the Tiri Kitor elves for the first time.

Since both Lyka and Holden can speak Elven, they call out to the rangers. One of them lands while the others continue circling. Holden explains their situation, but the elf simply tells them that Rhest is nasty business and wishes them whatever luck they need. After the elves leave, Lyka is able to find a shaded mangrove spot for the party to cool off in.

Day 12, Noon: Scouting

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Since Loven is immune to the exhaustion from the scorching heat, they decide to send him to scout the sunken city once more. One key problem: Loven's sensory skills suck.
I tell the player that if he took time, he could actually end up seeing everything that someone with better sensory skills would detect in no time. He then stakes out the city for an hour, then three, then five.

He gleans the following from his observations:
-He hears the distinctive chittering roar. They haven't met any of the razorfiends yet, so he has no idea what it is.
-The troopers in the tower are indeed hobgoblins.
-The lizardfolk are not really part of the Red Hand. They simply worship the "dragon god" inside. This comes from his realization that Regiarix dissolved a couple of lizardfolk for bothering him.
-He sees Regiarix and Saarvith take off to go hunting towards the 5th hour of observation. Regiarix is a black dragon, and larger than Ozzyrandion by a noticeable margin.

Loven reports to the other PCs, and again, much OOC griping at the lack of a buffer. They attribute their success in taking down Ozzy primarily to their overbuffing. Kikkeni makes a knowledge check to try to learn what the creature is. I give her some hints, but I don't tell her what it is exactly---only that it's a spawn of Tiamat, and that it's probably either black or green given the surroundings. Without a buffer and without a way to get to the ruins in the first place, they begin to succumb to despondency.

They then wander around the swamp for a while, trying to find a decent place to rest. It is then that they come across the remains of Lanikar's Greater O RLY Owl Giant Owl and try to examine it---only to hear the distinctive chittering roar that Loven had heard earlier. Two razorfiends pounce.

Day 12, Dusk: Dance of the Harrowblades

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Kikkeni goes first. She uses her new death urge power on one of the razorfiends, and it fails its save.

The second razorfiend charges, clearing the trees on top of the hill and landing beside Kikkeni. It hits her, but rolls low. Loven, having trouble attacking an enormous angry draconic beast with razor-sharp wings at this range, draws his rapier and flanks with Lyka, shanking the beast for a heft sum. Holden draws Divine Surge and swats down hard on the injured razorfiend's wingblade and crits, shattering it at the shoulder and clavicle for 52 damage. Lyka then follows up with Soaring Raptor Strike and bisects the wretch for fatal 44 damage. The other razorfiend's turn comes around, and under the influence of Kikkeni's death urge eviscerates itself.

Dear Lord. 93 damage to itself. That's highest damage dealt in a single turn to anything I've ever seen in this game in my 3 years of play. (Death Urge forces a creature to kill itself in the fastest way possible; performing a full attack that automatically crits. So much for x3 multipliers on its wingblades. )

The PCs then search the dead owl (silly jokes about "Is it dead?" and the owl coming alive and saying "YA RLY" break out) and find the band. Realizing that the owl once had a rider, they decide to search the conveniently eviscerated corpses of the razorfiends and find Lanikar's ring.

Enter Killiar Arrowswift. With his cold demands, the PCs immediately try to be respectful and friendly. The PCs quickly catch on to why he's around and explain that they found signs of the owl's rider. Killiar demands the jewelry and then asks them to come with him to Starsong Hill.

Day 12, Evening: Starsong Hill

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The PCs catch a glimpse of Starsong Hill from above, and are mostly happy that they can get some healing now, as they don't want to just try sleeping off the damage. Loven is unfortunately very bad at repairing himself, so they can't figure out what to do for now.

Sellyria explains the events to them and also tells a little of the history of the place, confirming what Holden had learned: Rhest was the victim of a sudden collapse, not a gradual decline, and the Daelkyr (aberrant Lords of Madness from Xoriat, the plane of insanity) may have corrupted a hobgoblin Gatekeeper druid until he went mad and ruined the city he once saved; the city is now in the middle of an enormous, still-sinking sinkhole.

While the elves have dealt with some aberrant leftovers from the Daelkyr invasion of the city in the past, and the dragon and its blackscale cult have been there for a hundred or so years, the harrowblades (razorfiends) are a new threat, and moved in only a few months prior along with the goblins.

Holden explains the Red Hand horde, but Sellyria is unable to offer any aid apart from Illian Snowmantle's healing, consumables, and boats to take upstream back to the Rhest sinkhole.

The PCs dine, rest, and get up at dawn the next morning for Lanikar's funeral.

Day 13, Dawn: Storm Over Starsong

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A thunderstorm breaks out over Lanikar's funeral. Lyka is able to predict the weather will turn for the better in 5 hours, and the following day will be tolerable. The day after, however, will be a heat wave day once more.

After the solemnities end, the merrymaking and celebration of Lanikar's life begins. Holden is able to convince his sister Trellara to help them identify the loot from the razorfiends' coffer, which I had replaced with significantly more useful treasure. Unfortunately, Trellara can only cast Identify 3 times a day, and so is only able to identify three pieces of treasure: Dragonhide Bracers, Devastation Gauntlets, and a White Cloak of the Spider. Lyka takes the bracers and cloak, while the gauntlets go to Holden. Loven takes a crossbow, which Kikkeni is able to identify with her DC 30 Knowledge (Arcana) check (Magic Item Compendium rules) as a simple +1 light crossbow. The better to snipe with, anyway.

For now, the PCs plan: The best way to get to Rhest is not to use a boat, but to take Water Breathing potions from Illian and walk on the bottom of the lake (none of them have good swim checks, and slogging through the bottom is better than getting spotted on the surface). However, none of them have cleric spells, so they decide to consult Illian. Since the potions have good duration, they can easily take their time. I round down a mile to 5000 feet, and due to the pitch black water and its hazards, the PCs will have to take full round actions to move 5 feet.

I crunch the numbers quickly:
-5000 feet to traverse.
-5 feet per round.
-5000/5=1000 rounds of walking.
-6 seconds per round.
-6000 seconds of walking along the lakebed. This translates to 100 minutes or 1 hour 40 minutes.

Of course, this is only their initial plan. As substitute players, neither of them wanted to go ahead and execute the plan. They were also counting heavily on the cleric being around for the next session so they could proceed with less problems; they just know the dragon will be too much for them.

Thoughts

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-Kikkeni is getting to be a seriously powerful blaster. While the substitute player continued her fine tradition of mass incineration, those 4th-level powers are seriously deadly. Death Urge especially.
-Speaking of Death Urge. 93 damage. Seriously. I know the Razorfiend failed its save, but that's still crazy. Very worried as to what it might do to bosses later on, regardless of their base saves. (They're definitely getting action points now)
-I haven't really forced the PCs into a situation where they had to use action points. For the most part they've either passed checks with flying colors or utterly failed them. Maybe the boss battle with Saarvith and Regiarix will bring them to such a place.
-I've finished rebuilding Nurklenak (whom I renamed a less silly-sounding and meaner "Nurkulnaak") as a Beguiler 7/Mindbender 1. I gave him shadow conjuration for his 4th-level advanced learning, though I intend to use low-level teleportation spells like dimension step instead of blasting spells, which is just silly.
-The cleric. The party may be able to do fine without her now (they totally kicked ass), but once they start facing full-casting clerics and especially when they get to the Fane later on, they're going to need all the support they can get. Bad enough that they don't have a wizard.

[kjones]

Why didn't they meet the elves when they first arrived in the Blackfens?

[AslanCross]

They headed straight for Rhest and it was still early in the morning. I reckoned that the elves have been keeping away from Rhest since the arrival of the Red Hand detachment. Had they taken Rhestwash route they probably would have met the elves first.

[Eldariel]

Well, goes to show what an effect weather may have on the adventure - really interesting to see it played out.

Would be awesome to create grand scale weather patterns for Eberron; I guess it's sorta besides the point for an RPG, but logical weather (of course, "logical" could mean pretty much anything - I live on a cyclone zone so any predictions beyond two days tend to be wrong even with modern tech) would be another step towards an even more immersive experience.


Anyways, yeah, always getting next level abilities is a huge breakpoint in character power. Level 4 spells, level 4 maneuvers, that extra attack in melee (although only for non-Adepts; Adepts don't use their iteratives that much), etc. just vastly increase character efficiency.

Looking forward to the Rhest encounter. I'm really happy that your party had the brains to hightail the hell out of there when things got dire.

[AslanCross]

My players kept commenting how the weather in Elsir Vale was somewhat like the weather here in the Philippines: Hot one day, sweltering hot the next, and then suddenly raining like a madman. As far as weather in this part of the world goes, the random weather my players have been having is fairly realistic. @_@

Should I start giving monsters max HP now? Many of the grunts are dying without even getting a shot off, especially since Kikkeni has always been lucky at initiative.

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, if you want your mooks to last a little longer, you could always secretly set them to 1 hp whenever they'd first get killed. Basically, require 1 extra hit to kill them, unless the player crits or the damage is really high (like 2x remaining hp if not at full, or something). It might help them actually get a turn.

And considering how the next part went with Saph's group, I'm also really looking forward to the battles at Rhest.

[kjones]

Giving the mooks max HP isn't a bad idea, but it probably won't help that much. Their saves and AC are still too low to protect them, and their attack bonuses are too low to pose much of a threat.

I don't see anything wrong with the mooks dying off like... well, like mooks. Just make sure that they're never at the forefront of the battle. They should be distractions, at best.

[AslanCross]

Hmm, I guess you're right. It was pretty awesome how Loven's sub player actually used concealment and sniping to take out the sentinels on the blockade. Good planning and execution should never be punished, I guess.

[AslanCross]

What I expected would be a series of epic battles quickly turned into loads of crack.

A New Face

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Day 13
The day starts out as a continuation of where the party left off: waiting for the thunderstorm after Lanikar's funeral to dissipate. Enter Linnea Leiranoff, cloistered cleric of Aureon, found lost and wandering aimlessly in the swamp---utterly drenched except for her books.

Linnea performs an invaluable service for them: she identifies the remains of the loot they got from the razorfiends. This included a greater crystal of aquatic action, eyes of the eagle, third eye freedom, and a rod of silence.

The party formulates their plan:
1. Purchase potions of water breathing from Illian. These potions last 12 hours.
2. Paddle up the stream to the rim of the Rhest sinkhole.
3. Drink the potions and walk across the stream bed. The crystal of aquatic action obviates Holden's need for water breathing, and Loven doesn't breathe, so the party gets to save on potions.
4. Take the bell tower first, then investigate the town hall.

Capsize

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The party borrows a boat from the elves and paddles up the stream. Close to the sinkhole, they're ambushed by a blackscale and four poison dusk lizardfolk.
The blackscale is spotted lurking underwater, but instead of surfacing as they had expected, it easily capsizes the boat and dunks everyone into the drink.
The party is lucky that the stream is only 4 feet deep and that their shorter party members don't have problems with breathing water.

The lizardfolk are quickly overwhelmed; Linnea takes a poisoned arrow but her Strength isn't damaged much, while Holden takes a sound bashing from the blackscale, he easily drops the blackscale after applying Divine Surge to the beast's crotch.

Lyka, the shifter, is able to use her Jump to leap through the nasty undergrowth to grapple one of the poison dusks while Loven and Linnea apply some liberal fire from their soggy positions to take out two of the other snipers. Kikkeni freezes the last sniper with energy ball. Overkill, but it gets the job done.

They attempt to interrogate the remaining lizardfolk (again), but it only tells them the party stumbled through their territory. They dump him there---Kikkeni and Holden begin to argue about leaving him alive, while Loven just walks over to him and shanks the lizardman. They begin moving towards the tower.

Memorable lines:
<Lyka, to Holden> Look, sir, it is a large heathen!
<Lyka, to Holden> Look sir, it is a miniature heathen!
<Lyka, to Holden> Sir, it appears you have water in your eyes.

The Tower

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Traveling to the tower underwater, the party enters the submerged floor of the tower. Loven sneaks up into the second floor to scout and spots three of the hobgoblins inside.

The party decides to have him plant the exploding spike at the stop of the stairs. Loven plants it in and splashes loudly into the water. The hobgoblins investigate the sound, and the spike goes off.

All of them are burnt within an inch of their life, but they draw their swords anyway. Lyka runs up to skewer one of them, but misses both. Kikkeni comes in and wastes them all with energy missile. As they come up, though, they see someone running up the stairs and give chase.

Red Alert

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Lyka is the first to arrive on the top floor. Korkulan the bladebearer (now a Warblade 4/Fighter 2) confronts her, while the other hobgoblins drop their bows and draw their swords. Korkulan is initially able to counter Lyka's strike with Wall of Blades, but when Loven tumbles past him, his advantage quickly turns. Holden runs up the stairs and uses an action point to jump from one of the lower steps onto the top floor (over the railing) and joins the battle. However, one of the hobgoblins begins ringing the bell.

Kikkeni joins the fray with an energy missile, nailing all four hobgoblins. Two of them die, while Korkulan and the last veteran are able to stand a little while longer before Lyka cuts them down.

However, the party spots lizardfolk beginning to get into their rafts to paddle toward the tower.

Crack ensues.

Holden hoists up one of the guard corpses and begins waving its arms so that it appeared to be waving at the lizardfolk. In a loud goblin voice (he can speak the language), he tells the lizardfolk to leave, that it was a false alarm. And he rolls really well on his Bluff, and it was too ridiculous to not let slide, so the lizardfolk begin paddling away.

The PCs then go down and search the bunks, and discover Korkulan's potions of fly. They reemerge onto the lookout deck to spot the ogres on the Town Hall roof beginning to stir.

Last Flight of the Black Dragon

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One of the ogres jumps down into Regiarix's lair. Within a few seconds, the ogre climbs back out, and so does Regiarix.

The PCs quaff their potions---Holden, Loven, and Lyka are able to fly. Linnea inherited a potion of fly from Ashie as well, so she drinks but decides to stay in the tower.

Holden says: "We're like flies guarding a piece of ****."

Saarvith, astride Regiarix, wing angrily toward the tower. Kikkeni begins a devastating barrage of energy balls.

I roll horribly on their saves. By the time Saarvith and Regiarix close to breath weapon range, Regiarix is down to 105/152 HP. Saarvith is down to less than half (he started with a beefed 62 HP). This is despite me giving them action points and despite Kikkeni's player rolling badly.

Regiarix lets loose a breath weapon but only hits Holden. Despite Holden's failure to save, I roll badly and Holden only takes around 20 damage.

Holden and Lyka charge. Holden scores massive hits, while Lyka fumbles one of her two Two-Weapon Pounce attacks. The dragon retaliates with a full attack (bad idea; I should've remembered the dragon was supposed to keep his distance) , and rolls a mass of 1s and 2s. Not a single attack hits.

Holden and Lyka flank the dragon and combo him with Soaring Raptor Strike and Bone Crusher. At this point, the dragon is down to 32 HP. Kikkeni softens it up even more by detonating an energy ball BEHIND Regiarix, bringing the dragon down to 19 HP.

I should've wised up and had them run away, but no. The dragon flies upward and dives toward the tower. Saarvith uses his Arrow Storm but only hits Kikkeni for damage that is pretty much irrelevant at this point. (I should've used Hunter's Mercy on her instead)

Kikkeni simply blasts the dragon and rider with energy cone. Saarvith is already at -2 at this point, and he slumps back in the saddle. The dragon is down to 7 HP.

Enter Linnea. Blast of Force. 8 damage.

Regiarix rolls a 1 on his Fort save, and falls out of the sky. The fall (even into the water) kills both Saarvith and Regiarix.

It's All Ogre

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The regular ogres on the hall's roof hightail it when they see Regiarix fall out of the sky. The two remaining skullcrushers stay put and hurl some boulders ineffectually at the flying PCs as they close in.

Kikkeni blasts them once more, and Lyka and Holden quickly cut down the two ogres once they clear the space.

The Hatchery

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The PCs investigate the ruined building off the side and find the Razorfiend waiting. It breathes acid on Lyka and Holden, but they cut it down quickly before its next turn, and Linnea finishes it off with a scorching ray. The PCs hear the loud hooting of Nurkulnaak's ettin as it comes onto the roof. Nurkulnaak, wielding a rapier, emerges with them.

Final Showdown

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This battle gets silly quickly. Nurkulnaak rolls high on initiative and raises a solid fog; Lyka and Kikkeni get trapped in it. The other PCs are unable to get in good shots due to the fog, and Nurkulnaak quickly raises a greater invisibility to attempt to escape.

Linnea is able to dispel the fog after Kikkeni and Lyka extricate themselves, while Holden flies up out of the Hatchery to drop down on the Ettin. The two beatsticks attack the Ettin and damage it quickly.

Still invisible, Nurkulnaak blasts Lyka and Holden (and the Ettin) with confusion. Lyka makes her save, but Holden remains floating in the air, babbling like a moron.

Loven snipes the Ettin, which rolls 'attack nearest enemies' in its confusion and hits the two beatsticks before collapsing from Loven's bleed damage.

Kikkeni climbs onto the roof and tries to find Nurkulnaak with Lyka. Kikkeni tries to hasten the process by randomly choosing a spot to grease.

And dumb luck strikes: she catches Nurkulnaak in the area, and he fails his save, falling flat onto the ground, cursing loudly.

Lyka tries to close in on the grease spot and chooses one of the squares to attack, but she doesn't pick the right square. Nurkulnaak begins crawling toward the stairs leading down to the boardwalk. Linnea summons a Hound Archon and orders him to hunt down the hobgoblin by using detect evil. Kikkeni fires an energy bolt through the spot where she thought the beguiler was, but Nurkulnaak was no longer there by the time she does so.

The beguiler creates a major image trying to climb over the rampart and jumping down onto the boardwalk below. Immediately the PCs give chase (Holden rolls "babble incoherently" for 3 rounds); the Hound Archon is first. It slashes at the image with its greatsword, destroying it. Using its scent, the Hound Archon picks up the beguiler's trail, and Kikkeni greases the boardwalk to prevent Nurkulnaak from escaping toward the hatchery.

With Lyka groping around blind, swinging her sword as if at a pinata, Holden drifting lazily through the air babbling, Kikkeni down to the last of her power points and Nurkulnaak nowhere to be found, I ask them if they want to give up looking for him. The players yell "NO!" in unison.

The beguiler tries to escape into the water, but his own invisibility gives him away---the PCs see the bubble in the water. Holden rolls "flee from caster at top speed" and ends up hovering over the water, way out toward the southwest. Kikkeni uses the last of her power points to fire an energy missile at the beguiler, but misses (I rule that the miss chance still applies since the spell is aimed at creatures, not spaces).

The beguiler dismisses his invisibility and surrenders as the Hound Archon brings him down on his knees.

The party ties him up for interrogation later and drags him into the hall while they explore.

They find everything they need to find: Ulwai's letter, Regiarix's hoard, and most importantly, the Ghostlord's phylactery.

Linnea is able to provide the necessary information regarding the phylactery:
-It was most definitely a lich's phylactery, and the letter gave his identity away.
-Linnea's History check recalls that the Ghostlord was once Uriikel Zaarl, a hobgoblin druid who fought alongside the Gatekeeper sect against the Daelkyr invasion of Eberron more than 5000 years ago.
-After successfully slaying the Daelkyr who took over Rhest, Zaarl left, but after about 200 years a pride of ghostly lions ransacked Rhest, and an unnnatural quake collapsed Rhest into the sinkhole that it is now.
-The creator of the phylactery is not an arcane caster but a druid, and a blighter at that.

Kikkeni also points out the Ghostlord's lair on Koth's map.

Plans

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This might be the source of party conflict. Holden and Lyka want to destroy the phylactery and slay the Ghostlord, while the others are sure there might be a reason why the goblins have it.

Holden balks at the thought of trading the lich his phylactery for aid, but Kikkeni says "We don't necessarily have to ally ourselves with him.

Thoughts and Plans

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PLAYERS KEEP OUT!

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I MEAN IT!

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KATE

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-The PCs really wasted Rhest. The Ozzyrandion battle was harder.
-This might have been due to the adventure assuming the PCs don't raise the alarm until they are able to get into the building; I built my battle plans around this assumption.
-Despite being advanced, overbuffed AND having action points, Regiarix and Saarvith crashed and burned really badly.
-All dragons are definitely going to have max HP now. Also considering bumping up Abithriax to Huge and Tyrgarun to Gargantuan without advancing their HD.
-I really want Nurkulnaak to escape. He's a coward and an evil jerk, sure, but he should be smart enough to use his massive repertoire to escape and inform the Red Hand higher ups of the slaughter. This should allow the Red Hand to start sending out death squads and beef up the Ghostlord's lair security as well.

[kjones]

Wow, that was... slightly anticlimactic. I guess I expect the Battle of Rhest to be a killer, considering what happened with me and with Saph. That trick with the exploding spike was pretty cool, though.

A few thoughts - first of all, the way you told it, it seemed that they could see the town hall from the watch tower, but they're 1000 feet apart. According to the Spot skill, there's a -1 to spot checks per 10 feet, so technically they shouldn't have been able to see him until he was a few rounds away. A lot of people don't play with those rules, because they're kind of silly in practice, so if that's what happened, that's cool. But since my players weren't specifically watching the town hall, they didn't see Regiarax's approach until he had closed the distance significantly.

Either way, it seems like the chance to concentrate fire on Regiarax and Saarvith for several rounds made a big difference. Well, that and some very bad luck.

(Another thing you could have done would have been to have Regiarax make an underwater approach once he started taking fire. He moves pretty fast underwater, Saarvith can hold his breath for long enough, and water blocks LOE IIRC.)

Anyway, don't let this color your perceptions of the other dragons. Abithraix is a red dragon - most damaging breath weapon for age category around. A battle with him is likely to degenerate into rocket tag - average of 44 damage on a breath weapon, assuming your party is 9th level, that'll drop characters with d4 or d6 HD, and maybe d8 depending on their Con. (Of course, they'll probably be smart enough to resist fire, so...)

Resist temptation to boost up single monsters. It seems like your party is effective enough at blasting that they can toast any single target pretty quickly. Instead, try to add additional targets, forcing them to spread out their fire.

Of course, you know your party better than I do, but these are just suggestions. A juvenile red dragon with max HP has 256 HP - that's a lot. My concern is that you'll end up accidentally overbalancing the other way and nearly kill your party - I do this all the time. In my opinion, it's better to have an encounter that's too easy than one that's too hard, since it's simpler to correct.

But yeah, Rhest is a somewhat singular situation, one that won't recur for the rest of the campaign, so don't extrapolate too much from that single point of data.

Unrelatedly, sounds like you've got a good thing going on if you can inspire conflict regarding the Ghostlord's phylactery. Bonus points if you have a paladin in the party! (We did, but he died at the hands of that damned fiendish behir. Now there's a guy what needs no buffing. Watch out for him.)

[Kol Korran]

nice telling.

i agree that most of what took the dragon and his wyrmlord down was the focused fire beforehand. once they had taken fire, i'd advise them to take different tactics. they both aren't fools after all... that was a foolhardy rush on. when the party got to the dragon, instead of the other way around (like in saph's and Kjones diaries) he was a killer.

Loven and your psionic character (forgot her name) are proving mighty deadly.

you made the Ghost lord a blighter! awesome! i loved that twist! much better than what he is orignally as i get it... waiting to see how that would work out.
i love how you integrate the module into Eberron.

Kol.

[KillianHawkeye]

you made the Ghost lord a blighter! awesome! i loved that twist! much better than what he is orignally as i get it... waiting to see how that would work out.
i love how you integrate the module into Eberron.

The Ghostlord is a Blighter normally.

[Philistine]

Ahh... of course the party would be able to see the town hall from the watch tower. 1000 feet is less than a quarter of a mile; unless something is obstructing your view, you should easily be able to discern a human-sized figure at that distance. Larger creatures, such as ogres, or a dragon large enough to ride? No problem. A flying dragon should be almost impossible to miss.

The Spot skill as written works very, very poorly on the macro scale.

[kjones]

Ahh... of course the party would be able to see the town hall from the watch tower. 1000 feet is less than a quarter of a mile; unless something is obstructing your view, you should easily be able to discern a human-sized figure at that distance. Larger creatures, such as ogres, or a dragon large enough to ride? No problem. A flying dragon should be almost impossible to miss.

The Spot skill as written works very, very poorly on the macro scale.

I agree that it shouldn't be ruled as written - 1000 feet is not much more than a football field, and you could definitely see something 10 feet tall from a football field away (say... the bottom bit of the goalpost? Yeah, that's visible). However, Rhest is not just a lake. As I read it, there's ruined buildings sticking up all over the place. Sure, none of them are as tall as the town hall or the bell tower, but they could provide some cover.

I don't remember how clear I was in my writeup, but they did see Regiarax pretty quickly. However, they waited until he was within range for Solid Fog - ~200 feet IIRC. The next round, Saarvith cleared it with Wind Wall, and the fight was on.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't charge an entrenched location over open terrain.

I don't mean to criticize, Aslan. If my party had been smart enough to start hitting him as soon as they could, my battle would have gone very differently. (I didn't even think of the underwater approach until my post this morning, though I did use his water breathing to his advantage during the battle.) Hopefully, this is just a lesson learned - and Abithraix won't be as easy. For one thing, he's smack-dab in the middle of the Battle of Brindol.

[Olo Demonsbane]

That was...slightly anticlimactic.

Of course, not as much as my party...they didnt even get to act...yours sounded much more entertaining.

Thank you for writing this up.

[AslanCross]

I guess the moral of the story is, don't charge an entrenched location over open terrain.

I don't mean to criticize, Aslan. If my party had been smart enough to start hitting him as soon as they could, my battle would have gone very differently. (I didn't even think of the underwater approach until my post this morning, though I did use his water breathing to his advantage during the battle.) Hopefully, this is just a lesson learned - and Abithraix won't be as easy. For one thing, he's smack-dab in the middle of the Battle of Brindol.

My biggest mistake was this, yes. I thought 152 HP would be able to absorb enough of their attacks. I'd also forgotten how easy it is to hold one's breath, argh. 28 rounds should've been more than enough.

I still wonder if it would've mattered, though, considering I defied the laws of probability with my rolls yesterday. -_-

I always thought the tower was 500 feet away from the Town Hall, thought--at least that what the map seems to say, and what I'd been telling the party since they got to Rhest. I know the tower was 1000 feet from the shore, but not the Town Hall. That said, the spotting distance penalty is something I forget to apply a lot.

Anyway,

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The beguiler needs to escape. After going over his spell list I saw that he could Still several of his spells (unfortunately he's out of fourth level slots, so he can only still until 2nd level). They conveniently forgot to gag him.

-He's definitely going to cast Glibness, though he can't Still it because he's out of 4th-level slots. It would be great to give one thing from him now and another conflicting report from Ulwai.
-Touch of Idiocy for irony, but he needs to get out of his ropes for him to do that. I gave him some Escape Artist ranks (his modifier is +7), so maybe he could struggle out of the ropes and bluff that he has his hands still tied.
-Failsafe is just to have him cast invisibility on himself (the rope will turn invisible as well by RAW), then follow up with silence and count on his 50% miss chance to save his life.
Kikkeni is out of PP, so they can't nuke the place anymore, and I'm sure they'll execute him once they get back to dry ground. This guy needs to get away.
-I noticed how many Beguiler spells have M components, which is more than a little annoying. However, this guy needs to take advantage of the PCs' oversight---they didn't strip him of his gear. He should still have his component pouch with him.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, definitely anti-climatic, but as you pointed out, it was mostly how you played the monsters. Saarvith is definitely a ranged combatant (and yeah, you'd really want some buffs on before engaging) and as such, Regiarix should avoid engaging rather doing breath strafes primarily.

And as a Wyrmlord, engaging alone seems extremely uncharacteristic of him; as a ranged type, he's a support character and commander so not having any troops engage the opponents is rather foolish. But yeah, I strongly suggest against just making the opponents tougher; instead focus on playing them to the maximum of their efficiency within the given boundaries - that makes for more interesting fights while still giving PCs the quick win-alternative if they play their cards right. Also give the wyrmlords access to some healing; Wand of Cure Light Wounds woulda made pulling a very attractive option for Saarvith/Regiarix duo and a great treasure for the PCs (or even a heftier healing such as Faith Healing; yeah, actually, use that).


But yah, nice session, too bad you missed out on a good fight. Ah well, it's D&D and luck comes into play - that happens (oh yeah, if you find Dragons downing too easy, let them cast Mage Armor and Shield or some such on themselves; they're perfectly eligible and even likely to use those and that makes killing them through melee considerably more difficult - add Awaken Spell Resistance for caster fun).

[AslanCross]

While Holden isn't a Paladin, he still is a Crusader, and the players' been RPing his faithfulness to the Silver Flame quite well. Lyka considers herself his subordinate and is likely to follow his example. These two might push harder for the party to engage the Ghostlord.

Again any help regarding

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Nurkulnaak escaping

would be welcome.

[Coidzor]

Hmm, I'll turn my attention to that in a bit, but I just remembered a variant of the Scout called the sniper which might be interesting if you look into it. Believe it's in the Crystalkeep variant base classes pdf.

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Something sneaky

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that takes advantage of the telepathy.

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Hmm. Ravens have language.