Finished Red Hand of Doom (spoilers)

[Ed_Laprade]

I wasn't just talking about the Silence. (Which was bad enough, although legal.) It was that and the Boss Monster at the end of the adventure that you're supposed to run away from that really would have done it for me. Any so-called Hero who runs away from the ultimate fight at the end, isn't. (This is pure meatgaming, of course, but the whole point of the game is for the palyers [including the GM, of course] to have fun. Therefore, most players will automatically assume that if a monster shows up at the end of an Adventure, they are supposed to defeat it, not run away!)

And yes, that is bad GMing. Anyone who would leave that in an adventure, unless they know that their players are cool with that sort of ending, is a Bad GM (tm). Just because something is in a module doesn't mean it has to be used. (Ok, it also can be the mark of an Inexperienced GM, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.)

 

[Lord Zardoz]

You can't say the command word (which many magic items require) if you're silenced.

This came up in my game 2 weeks ago. There is nothing in the description of Wands saying they explicitly require a command word for activation, and unless I am mistaken, there is a bit of text saying that wands 'may or may not' need them based on the particular wand.

When I get home I will see if I can find the exact text.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Found it. And crap

Activation: Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast however, has a longer casting time than 1 action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.) To activate a wand, a character must h9old it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for non-humanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area. A wand may be used while grappling or while swallowed whole.

Spell Trigger: ... No gestures or spell finishing is needd, just a special knowledge of spell casting that an approprite character would know, and a single word that must be spoken.

Ok, I guess I got that one wrong 2 weeks ago. Carry on.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

Lord Zardoz, I find it very cool that you posted and admitted your error.
It sounds lame, but I find on internet messageboards, admitting when one makes an error seems to be a skill that eludes 99% of the populace.

A cookie for you, sir.
(Um is there a cookie emote icon?)

Sadly, I've just read RHoD, not played or run it. I like it. I also happen to like the fact that you are expected or highly encouraged to run in two sequences: the Taking of ...um, shoot that little town with the dwarven bridge you "start" in...shoot, help me out.
And the final battle.

It teaches humility, that even heroes sometimes have to run away to fight another day, and many times even victories come with heavy casualties.

Now, isn't there a chance you can make it to Kulkor's ceremony chamber before he finishes the ritual? If not, there should be. Look to "City of the Spider Queen" - when you invade the keep of Myrmaedra, isn't there a sidebar that lays out a time line starting at the moment the keep is alerted? So, maybe when you invade Kulkor's stronghold, RHoD should present a timeline, similar to the timeline presented earlier that maps out the Red Hand's movements, that indicates from the moment the PCs enter the stronghold, they have x minutes, rounds, turns, hours, etc to get to Kulkor's chamber to prevent the ritual.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I have some questions for those who have played red hand of doom. If you could change something to make it more fun, what would it be (like the final battle for instance)

Someone said something about having the red dragon last.

That got me thinking i would switch red dragon with the blue dragon perhaps. Maybe even make the red dragon the father of the bbeg at the end. I'm not sure though


The biggest change I have made is add a evil half elf bard who follows the party and sets up most of the encounters that they face (like steeling the fallachery?) and tricking them with "marked for death".. he will replace the war priest as a half fiend warblade (with cool transformation). He is also going to turn out to be a sun of (insert main god of Brindol here) and wants to destroy his fathers temple and the city as well.(thus the obsession with destroying the temple).

I am seriously considering changing the final fight with the blue half dragon boss. I was thinking of having him be a cripple or a half born fetus (thus commenting on the incompatibility of dragons and humans). Maybe give him a small anti magic and anti life field instead of the silence effect and beef up the creatures around him as he will take no actions except for summoning Tiamet. When he dies, the five statues will come alive and devour him and Tiamet will be reborn from his body.

Thoughts?

Right now the party is about to face the ghost lord. so i can still change part 4 and 5 if it will make for a better game.

sorry for the thread jack. Awesome story RangerWickett

 

[Mark]

We switched four for five, and then I put the dungeon crawl on the back burner for another time. We had had enough fun with four-fifths of the RHoD and were ready to move on to another campaign.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Lord Zardoz, I find it very cool that you posted and admitted your error.
It sounds lame, but I find on internet messageboards, admitting when one makes an error seems to be a skill that eludes 99% of the populace.

On the message board, i admit the error. I figure if I did not own up, someone else would mention it. Better to point out your own mistakes rather than have someone else do so. If someone else points out your errors, you do not get a cookie.

In my game, since I had a Wizard that was nailed by a Silence spell basically spam 6 die Fireballs from his wand, I just informed my players by e-mail that I got the rule wrong, but that the wand is now a Wand of Metamagic Silenced Fireball.

Also, the name of the town is Drellins Ferry.

For making the game more fun, I do not think you need to do the Red Dragon last. To me, that is kind of cliche. Doing the largest dragon last is the right way, and the Blue is a bit older than the Red.

I think the best way to make the adventure more entertaining is to give yourself some leeway to make the Red Hand forces reactive to the players, and to have things happen during the adventure that are more specific to your own campaign than to the adventure.

In my game, the kingdom that the adventure is happening to take place in is just getting out of a Civil war. The rightful heir to the throne (the Prince) was displaced by his uncle (The Duke). The Prince is also an evil bloodthirsty bastard with an over developed sense of entitlement, and a more effective military commander than The Duke. The players met the prince early on, were 'encouraged' to swear fealty to him, then asked to murder some prisoners in cold blood to prove their loyalty. They faked it, then went on a 'scouting mission' and have yet to return from it. Early on, the Prince was being manipulated by Koth into raiding his uncles forces, softening up Drellins Ferry for the Horde. However, there are still problems. The Prince is accused of putting soldiers loyal to the Duke directly into the most dangerous fighting. The Prince had been promised adequate resupply in towns loyal the duke, but that has not quite been lived up too. This results in the Prince dumping the Dukes men into the heavy combat because he has no choice. The players will need to do something about that in order to be sure that it does not impair the effort against the Red Hand.

The players also have a long running feud with a powerful and rich family called the De la Roche family. This started in the very first game, and so far, with the players putting Giovanni De la Roche in the ground (killed in first combat encounter in the campaign). His family has sworn vengeance. This has resulted in the deaths of Giovanni's son, his brother, two of his nephews. The players have a pretty big bounty on their heads which makes it difficult to do much of anything in any town. The players have started a rumor that the De la Roche family is in league with the Red Hand. They even went to the lengths of having Saarvith (under the influence of a Domination Scroll obtained from the Mindbender) write letters thanking the De la Roche family for their assistance. In the 2nd chapter, there is an encounter where the players recover a cart with 3 chests of gold for a mercenary contract. In my game, the papers with the gold indicated that the gold was supplied by the De la Roche family. The players really do not want to let the De la Roche family do anything that works against their own plans to ruin them. It is kind of hard to convince people that the De la Roche is in league with the Red Hand forces if they are hiring mercenaries to fight against them, after all.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Moggthegob]

I have to admit when I played through this in Living Greyhawk, I remember quite clearly mopping the floor with this encounter. A handy divination spell let us in on the Silence thing and so we dispelled it before we got up there and then the aspect of Tiamat lasted two rounds against our barbarian and the summoned demons had a hard time because everyone had protection from evil up.

Cheesy perhaps, but the group had a loremaster who enjoyed his work and a cleric who liked using almost all of his spells before combat so he could fight when he got there and so we worked the way we were designed to work

 

[Pedestrian]

My group just completed it.

Some things what I did:

Generic atmosphere changes i.e. add some NPCs (the Autarch, Allejandro of the Ruby Knights); change the aspects of some of the gods (Eastern v. Western Wee Jas, Templar v. Orthodox Pelor); switch some monsters (Lizardfolk changed to Gnolls).

Specific things:

General Karn changed from Favoured Soul to Crusader - emphasise that he is general and champion, not another spell-caster in the Hand's command structure. Also, secondary benefit of being easier to run.

Removed most of the Fane: The fight with the Blue dragon outside took so much time, I hastened things along to a conflict with Azur Kul. It helped that the party knocked down the front door, alerting most of the inhabitants and damaging the Fane.

High Wyrmlord Kul changed from a Cleric to... well, a monster-ific thing, also in the spirit of the Tome of Battle. Given a handful of Swift/Immediate actions, some elemental attacks, themed around elements/dragons. Also granted boosted HPs and attack. One lucky crit from the Warblade, and down he went! Silence didn't effect group, as there were no casters (Warblade, Binder, Warlock, Swordsage at that point). Managed to remove cohort cleric completely, reduce Binder to -1hp before he choked.

Expanded Tiamat encounter. She appears mad at Brindol, so off she flew. Battle took place over ruined Brindol, involving a holding action at the gate to reduce divine aura, running battle through streets to stop her consuming people (and souls) culminating in furious battle in the skies. Awesome! Gave her abilities tied into a limited pool of divine power, allowing immediate actions from her heads - fire shield, command, sleep, nasty bite, deflective frost, self-healing.

 

[Sitara]

Pah, and Raistlin defeated her all by himself...)i.e. takhsis, one of the aspects of tiamat!) Well, by drawing her out of the portal he did, or was supposed to. Before his brother stopped him.