Red Hand of Doom Run: Better baddie levels?

[desmond1323]

So, my DnD group just finished Red Hand of Doom....liked it so much, wanted to give my go at DMing it.

But I have a problem with the big battle with Hravek Kharn.

For a quick refresher, Kharn is a Favored Soul 6/Talon of Tiamat 4....and while he did pose some problems for our group (mostly because of the 6 ogres the DM added), overall, I felt this build didn't really suit Kharn and was a poor fight initially.

Now I don't have access at the moment to a Draconomicon, so I don't know the details of the ToT fully....but my current inkling is to just substitute those with Fighter, or maybe Barbarian levels.

Suggestions? Counters?

[The Glyphstone]

Most RHoD rewrites I've seen substitute ToB classes for the named enemies, usually Warblade. Makes them far, far nastier.

[Eldariel]

Just rebuild him as a Cleric. All the Wyrmlords save maybe for Ulwai are pretty poor builds; Saarvith is just sad as a no-damage dealing non-caster doing nothing, Kharn's problems are obvious (he should just be Cleric 10 or Favored Soul 10 if you must make him a Favored Soul, or a PrCd version of either) and Koth can really benefit of a spell swap.

Some journals here used Kharn as Crusader 1/Cleric 4/Ruby Knight Vindicator 5 (reflavored for Tiamat) which is already far more impressive than the base build. For reference, you could check out the various campaign journals on RHoD around:
Campaign Journal- The Red Hand of Doom (by Saph - the first)
An Eberron-flavored Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal (by AslanCross)
Yet Another Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal & Part II: Fane of Tiamat (by kjones)


Along with this Red Hand of Doom, any advice?-thread.

[AslanCross]

Hi there. As Eldariel said, I've been running RHOD myself. There's already a lot of advice on my journal, but I'm willing to send you some statblocks myself. I'm currently working on the Kharn statblock (I already did it before, but I screwed up somewhere and have to reconstruct it). I can send it to you when I'm done.

My Kharn encounter is shaping up as such:

Spoiler

Show

-Kharn (Crusader 2/Cleric 3/Ruby Knight Vindicator 5)
-Wyrmlord Ulwai (as is)
-Rage Drake (Kharn's mount)
-2x Skullcrusher Ogre Fighter 1/Warblade 1 (different builds)

They missed out on killing/capturing Ulwai, so they're going to be in a pretty dire situation. They need to figure out which buffs to dispel.

Not yet so sure if I'll be adding any more to that. The players have slain all the dragons up to Varanthian, so they don't have to deal with any deadly air support.

EDIT: seems the wrong link was posted. Here's the link to my journal.

[Eldariel]

EDIT: seems the wrong link was posted. Here's the link to my journal.

Oh, wops! Apparently my computer refused to copy the address (or I didn't press ctrl+c hard enough) so I ended up pasting Kjones's journal twice. Meeh. Fixed it in my post too.

[kjones]

My journal is so good you should read it twice.

The Cleric/Crusader/(refluffed) RKV build worked very well for Kharn. (It was actually Eldariel's idea, IIRC - thanks Eldariel!) although action advantage was a problem - I gave the party a lot of NPC allies and everyone sort of ganged up on Kharn. Still, it was fun.

[desmond1323]

I've actually finished Saph's journal, and am starting on yours kjones.

And I've had my imagination stirred quite a bit from this point....and also felt a lot of intimidation based upon the sheer kickass skills of Saph as a DM.


About the ToB suggestions....yeah, I'm not touching that book with a ten foot pole. Definitely not my style.


I'm still relatively new to DMing...and more or less, I'm trying to keep things simpler. Currently I've just been running this group through one shots I've pieced together one step at a time....the adventure hook for RHoD was a divine quest from an Archon who then teleported the party to another continent.

Anyways....I'll look into the RKV, although I think I'm going to shy away from that.

The Cleric idea had hit me....but Azarr Kul is a cleric, and that seems a little dull to me...so then I was discussing maybe some fallen Paladin/Blackguard, which also made a lot more sense for Kharn in general.


Also, the group has only finished the opening attack and are just now headed to Vraath Keep....so I'm not sure how much I'm going to have to scale, be it up or down.

Played it in a group of 7 PCs...mostly, at least. Also, shortly into it, I discovered the Spell Compendium which my DM later highly regretted allowing, heh. So it'll take a few encounters to see just how this group deals with things.

Thanks for the suggestions and links so far...it's really been helpful. I'll be sure to come back with any questions once I see how the party handles things...your all's experience is very helpful!

[Delandel]

Just a word of caution -- I wouldn't go about remaking BBEG's until you've already acquired your group. Once you have their sheets in front of you and see their initial strategies it's easier to make an appropriately challenging NPC. You don't want to overkill. Positioning is very significant too.

[Karsh]

Some of it depends on the party, as well. I DMmed RHOD with a group of pretty casual players consisting of an elven Wizard (who was more used to playing as a sorc and liked blasting), a dwarven Cleric (pretty decent all-around support), a whisper gnome rogue, and a zombified goliath monk. I added in some Vecna subplots to the story because of the zombified monk (the party was powering up the Sword of Kas while fighting the Red Hand), but otherwise ran it as advertised.

The party was unsuccessful in killing any of the dragons and failed to take out Saarvith (due to the aforementioned difficulty w/ dragons) or Ulwai, so the final battle was really serious at the Battle of Brindol for them. I actually think they would've gotten wiped if I hadn't had Jorr show up to help them out because they gave him the +1 Freezing Burst Bastard Sword that they found at the beginning of the adventure. I was going to have him get killed in the Witchwood, but decided instead to reward them for their generosity.

Most of the encounters were pretty tough for them, but then again, they stayed almost entirely core. If you're dealing with more splat-booked PRC combos and whatnot, you might do well to tweak the encounters, but the adventure was plenty tough for a casual group of non-optimizers.

[desmond1323]

Most of the encounters were pretty tough for them, but then again, they stayed almost entirely core. If you're dealing with more splat-booked PRC combos and whatnot, you might do well to tweak the encounters, but the adventure was plenty tough for a casual group of non-optimizers

*nods* Understandable....but a little more detail is in order.

The party currently consists of five PCs played by four players....two players have done RHoD before (the same game I played in, one of them DMed it--they are both under the strictest orders to try and let the newer players handle most of the important stuff and not spoil anything). The other two are still really new to DnD.

The new players: Level 5 human Monk and a level 5 Human Bard.

Experienced players: Level 5 Dwarven Fighter (added as a last minute need for a better meat shield than just a Monk), Aasimar level 4 Healer/1 Favored Soul, and a level 5 Gnomish Wizard.

For comparison....the party I played through the campaign with (and therefore where most of my experience comes from) was as such:
Gnomish Paladin, Tiefling Monk, Human Fighter/Rogue, Elven Barbarian, Dread Necromancer and a Wizard Nec spec (one a Drow, the other just an Elf...never can remember which), and my Human Druid (who, to the DM's delight, eventually had some help from the Ghostlord...albeit uncontrollable).

Most of the time, the DM had a hard time balancing (though he did well IMO), and we were either mopping things up or struggling to survive.

From this experience, I'm hoping to avoid such problems now.

Once you have their sheets in front of you and see their initial strategies it's easier to make an appropriately challenging NPC. You don't want to overkill

Very very true, and something I'm keeping in mind...but playing against Kharn, he really needs a different build...I'll worry about everything ELSE in conjunction to when the party gets there.

After some more discussion with Coidzor, I'm really leaning towards a Paladin of Tyranny and Blackguard build.

Though one of the bigger problems I'm still seeing a lot is Kharn getting ganged up...definitely gonna have to figure out a way around that.

Thanks for all the good thought generating ideas, everyone!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If Karn goes straight Favored Soul, you may wish to use the humble Sanctuary, maybe Heightened to his highest spell level to increase the DC on the save. Most 'beatsticks' have poor Will saves. As long as Karn keeps being Mook Support rather than 'blast-cannon and beatstick', they will have a hard time trying to hit him.

Failing that, Shield of Faith + Magic Vestments = higher than expected AC.

If instead of Warblade, he goes Swordsage, some Setting Sun maneuvers and counters can really play havoc with trying to lock him up and beat him down.

[PinkysBrain]

After some more discussion with Coidzor, I'm really leaning towards a Paladin of Tyranny and Blackguard build.

I wonder, is that level of limburger (using a class variant to get stacking abilities when they were never ever meant to stack) something you would let your players pull?

PS. your old group was quite a bit more powerful than the group you are going to be DM'ing ... the existing tips for improving the encounters are probably not needed, they are all geared to slightly higher powered groups.

[cZak]

I'm currently prep'n RHoD for my group.

And I'm kinda with the OP, ToB just doesn't thrill me. But I wonder about the 'lack o' love' for Saarvith.

With his Mounted combat & archery feats, battling PC's over a lake riding Regiarix, I'm seeing him as a fairly credible threat. Granted, he's not doing massive damage (except my players happen to be mostly elves & humans), but he's also going to be pretty hard to tag.

Fools are made to suffer, not to be suffered

[desmond1323]

But I wonder about the 'lack o' love' for Saarvith.

With his Mounted combat & archery feats, battling PC's over a lake riding Regiarix, I'm seeing him as a fairly credible threat. Granted, he's not doing massive damage (except my players happen to be mostly elves & humans), but he's also going to be pretty hard to tag.

You would actually be surprised to know that even when riding a dragon, as long as you have a decent spell caster, he's not that tough.

My Druid took him out easily shooting lightning via Call Lightning at Regiarix...even after my DM nerfed the spell due to some misunderstandings about rule wordings. Heh, he was pretty peeved when I blasted Ozyrrandion out of the sky nigh instantaneously. Always kept trying to get back at us....but then later I blew a hole through Regiarix when he came back to kill our party, thanks to a slightly less-than-good power boost from a cursed amulet given to my Druid by the Ghostlord.

Sadly, the local lizardfolk found the ranger's corpse and had him res'd.....we later finished him off during the battle with Kharn.

I'm actually going to give Saarvith one or two more levels, and change him to either a Mystic Ranger or a Non-Spellcasting Ranger.
I've long been a nonbeliever in the spellcasting potential of Rangers...just not that nifty, IMO.

However, I'm going to peruse the Spell Compendium first before I eliminate Saarvith's spell casting ability....that book does wonders for making non-standard Arcane classes useful, once again IMO.

From a more characterization point of view, I also think Saarvith is one of the most weakly developed...I think that's why he always kind of gets overshadowed. I mean, Koth is the first Wyrmlord you fight, so of course he's memorable....Ulwai, at least to me, added some exotic flavor to the campaign, what with the Stormsinger PrC. Kharn and Azarr Kul are thrust so hard into the spotlight it's impossible not to see them. While Saarvith sits on the back of a black dragon. It kinda pales in comparison.

[Rising Phoenix]

*Stuff about Saarvith*

Exacting Shot, from the spell compendium, is nasty against favoured enemies! Be warned!

I rebuilt him as a lv8 mystique ranger and he nearly killed the human and elf members of the party twice.

Against non favoured enemies, however, he was pretty useless. The dragons mobility gave my PCs headaches , but they don't have an arcanist.

Cheers!

R.P.

[AslanCross]

I'm currently prep'n RHoD for my group.

And I'm kinda with the OP, ToB just doesn't thrill me. But I wonder about the 'lack o' love' for Saarvith.

With his Mounted combat & archery feats, battling PC's over a lake riding Regiarix, I'm seeing him as a fairly credible threat. Granted, he's not doing massive damage (except my players happen to be mostly elves & humans), but he's also going to be pretty hard to tag.

You'll see why in my journal. As I was preparing for the encounter I planned it all around the assumption that Saarvith and Regiarix would be flying over the Town Hall.

This didn't happen. The players holed up in the bell tower and waited for Regiarix and Saarvith to fly by to investigate. As the dragon flew in, the psion saturated them with energy balls. Both were down to half HP before they even got close enough to attack, and these were heavily buffed---Regiarix up one age category and Saarvith rebuilt with the Mystic Ranger variant.

This was perhaps the worst battle I ran in the game, since I didn't play them smart enough to run back out of range and get back onto the Town Hall roof.

Anyway, for groups that don't use ToB (which is a shame), I'd recommend using Fax Celestis's Mantle Paladin variant. That variant will definitely make him a more credible threat as well as allowing for non-LG paladins. Since the UA paladin variants are simply just the core paladin for other alignments, they don't really have much in the way of class features. I daresay such a Kharn would be even more underwhelming. At least as a Favored Soul he has more mobility.

However, I'm going to peruse the Spell Compendium first before I eliminate Saarvith's spell casting ability....that book does wonders for making non-standard Arcane classes useful, once again IMO.

This is a great idea---the Ranger gets a bunch of incredibly good spells in Spell Compendium. (So does the paladin, actually.)

[arguskos]

Random question: where is the Mystic Ranger variant? I'd love to see it, since folk keep mentioning it and it sounds pretty neat honestly.

[AslanCross]

It's a Dragon Magazine variant, but CrystalKeep's base classes PDF has it detailed in its entirety.

[arguskos]

It's a Dragon Magazine variant, but CrystalKeep's base classes PDF has it detailed in its entirety.

Ah, that's why I can't seem to find it anywhere! Thanks Aslan.

[Eldariel]

For Kharn, if not using ToB (and thus RKV), I'd suggest Cleric 4/Ordained Champion 5/X 1. Ordained Champion reflavored for Tiamat of course (it's for Hextor/Heironeous by default). That should be sufficiently different from Azarr Kul to be interesting, and sufficiently powerful to make for a good fight, and Ordained Champion heavily resembles a Paladin anyways (except does it better).

Straight level 10 Favored Soul isn't bad either, but I personally find it to be kinda poor fit for Kharn.

[desmond1323]

Ordained Champion reflavored for Tiamat of course (it's for Hextor/Heironeous by default). That should be sufficiently different from Azarr Kul to be interesting, and sufficiently powerful to make for a good fight, and Ordained Champion heavily resembles a Paladin anyways (except does it better).

That's actually an excellent suggestion...and the nice thing about messing with gods and divinity is that it's easy to justify.

This is a great idea---the Ranger gets a bunch of incredibly good spells in Spell Compendium. (So does the paladin, actually.)

Very yes. I actually had the same opinion about Paladin spells as Ranger spells....then I discovered the SC. And their spellcasting FINALLY became useful a lot more often.

A long time player in our RHoD group actually learned that herself a few times...a Paladin spell called Find the Gap was what let us defeat Azarr Kul.

Bards benefit a lot from it too.

Since the UA paladin variants are simply just the core paladin for other alignments, they don't really have much in the way of class features. I daresay such a Kharn would be even more underwhelming. At least as a Favored Soul he has more mobility.

Honestly, it's more of a characterization problem for me, rather than any class features. I mean...I'm sure there's more possibility in Kharn...but what I see in him is basically someone who's supposed to physically bar the PCs way. The PoT changes are more flavor than anything else...I mean, sure, abilities that hinder enemies rather than support allies...ability to cause disease....all sort of nice. *shrug* But in the end, he's leading an army. He's effectively the Red Hand's champion. Which is the feel I want.

Obviously, it's a tough encounter...so if I sit there and pump more strength into Kharn, I have to keep in mind that the rest of the encounter needs some toning down.

And all of this hinges on how the party actually does going through. Most of this brainstorming is for potential problems.

Thanks for the tips and suggestions as always. Now I'm just itching to get closer to these to put some of it in action!