Published adventures for pre-Red Hand of Doom?

[Dimitri Mazieres]

I am reading through this adventure, and was wondering what published adventures could be used before it, to take PCs to the appropriate level requirement. I was thinking preferably about city-based adventures, so as to attach the PCs to Brindol and the Elsir Vale region.

So, which ones have you used, or thought that might fit with RHoD?

 

[Freakohollik]

I'd say the first two adventures in the Age of Worms Path. Dungeon #124 and #125. They're both good adventures about as city based as you'll get. Some other recommendations would be Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury, and the moathouse from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Though those aren't city based.

 

[Nebten]

When we played RHoD, we started with Barrows of the Forgotten King. We started at level 2 and it got us to just about level 5 for RHoD. He just placed the town along the trail on the southwest part of Eslir Vale. At the end of the adventure, we had some diplomatic mission that took us to Brindol thus starting the Red Hand of Doom. Very smooth transition.

 

[CapnZapp]

I placed Vault of Larin Karr in Elsir Vale, planning to run RHOD once the party have explored (and hopefully emotionally become attached to) the valley.

(Because I'm running all of this in 4E, I'm much less sensitive to the specific levels of the 3E material)

 

[delericho]

I would probably go with "The Sunless Citadel" and then either "Forge of Fury" or "Sons of Gruumsh".

However, none of these adventures are city-based.

 

[amethal]

I am planning (one day) to run Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury before RHoD.

My idea is to replace the village in Sunless Citadel with one of the communities from RHoD.

Mild Sunless Citadel spoilers

[sblock]I also changed the plot around a bit. The goblins are independent operators who are causing trouble and raising tensions in this region of the Vale, while the Red Hand want things to be calm and peaceful until they are ready to strike.

As a result, they sent the kobolds into the Citadel to deal with the goblins, but unfortunately ther goblins are more numerous and better organised than they anticipated and the kobolds are struggling.

The citadel used to be a temple to Tiamat rather than Ashardalon.[/sblock]

 

[Voadam]

Freeport Trilogy is city based and takes you from 1st to about the right level.

I don't think the Island city state of Freeport connects up well though to the RHoD stuff.

The WotC AP all deal at least loosely with dragon stuff, so the first few to get you to the right levels should do the trick.

 

[delericho]

The WotC AP all deal at least loosely with dragon stuff, so the first few to get you to the right levels should do the trick.

Isn't that AP a kinda-sorta sequel to "Red Hand of Doom"?

 

[timbannock]

I've never had a campaign run so good as the one I'm currently running, which is:

Lost City of Barakus (Necromancer Games, city & surrounding wilderness, levels 1-5; I've run it levels 2-6)
Red Hand of Doom


LCoB was a great city setting with a similar "frontier" theme as the rest of the Vale in RHoD. I just renamed it Dennovar (the most Easterly of Elsir Vale's cities) and kept the bureaucracy as written in LCoB. They don't flesh out Dennovar in Red Hand anyway, so it was easy.

A couple random side-treks lead the PCs to go to Brindol (they were originally from there, so they already had some info on it) and a couple of the little towns nearby, all to get a sense of the Vale, and then back to Dennovar and finish up the dungeons of Barakus, and fighting the Lich therein.

This was nice because I also tied the Lich in Barakus to the Lich in Red Hand (The Ghostlord, I believe he's called), giving the PCs some extra foreshadowing. Furthermore, I tied some of the dragons from Red Hand with the dragons in LCoB, for added foreshadowing.

All-in-all, it was like the two modules were meant for each other!

 

[Remathilis]

This would be a good time to plug any old 3.x Goodman Games DCC...

For example, the two Rat King modules (Idylls and Revenge) would get you in a good place for RHoD