Red Hand of Doom - help for a new GM

[hackmastergeneral]

In the first encounter (the ambush) I added 3 hobgoblins to each wave. That clearly wasn't enough. I'm going to need to jack the ratings through the roof for this. They mopped the florr with the group - never a doubt what was going to happen, and no problems.

 

[Thurbane]

Consider dropping the healer NPC - in a large group like this, SOMEONE should be able to play a healing type character, even if it's someone with Wands of Cure Wounds.

For the enemies, the simplest idea is just to jack up the numbers. Lots of encounters in RHoD are large numbers of mooks with a few tougher type leaders. If an encounter says its 6 hobgoblin warriors and 3 blade bearersm try 9 warriors and 4 blade bearers etc.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Obligitory spoiler warning.

I have been running Red Hand of Doom for a while. Due to various external difficulties, I have not ran as much of it as I might have expected, but I do know the first part fairly decently.

The adventure is unique in two ways. First, it is an event driven adventure. If ran as intended, things will happen if the players do not advance onward quickly enough.

Second, much of the challenge is delivered by having fights against large numbers (6-8 on average) of opponents that, while not individually impressive, go well beyond 1 hit wonder status. But, it is still balanced for a party of 4 PC's.

There are some helper NPC's made available to the party in the early going, most notably a ranger, but also a guard captain. Simply making them non combat types will go a long way towards bumping up the difficulty.

- In the first encounter, you can easily improve the encounter by putting a few more Hell Hounds in play, or subbing them out for stronger monsters. Stick to something that fits with the 9 Hells.

- Add more heads to the Hydra, and force the players to enter the swamp before starting the combat. Maybe add more heads. But beware, the Hydra fight also takes place in a swamp that can restrict movement. With reach, a swim movement, and fast healing, the Hydra can have some scary staying power, and tear apart a careless PC. There is no 5 foot step in the swamp, so anyone having to close to full adjacency will eat an AoO.

- Add 2 more Worg riders to Vraath Keep
- Customize Koth's spell list
- Advance the HD of Karkillian (the Minotaur)
- Reduce the amount of treasure within Vraath Keep.
- Advance the HD of Ozzyrandion

Other than that, you could consider making the Red Hand Forces much more active, and use some warg riders to engage in gratuitous hit and run attacks using mounted combat. This can be very effective, but as always, beware of making things more difficult for your players later on.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Dragon Snack]

I have to echo dropping the Healer, from actual play it shouldn't be that important. Once the Red Hand starts to move, there will be plenty of use for a Healer among the civilian population. If you must keep him, have him stay in the background taking care of them.

When I ran it, the Cleric was killed by a random encounter in part 2 and wasn't replaced (well, she was replaced by an Incarnum, a Knight, and then a Swordsage - can you tell what books came out while I ran it?). They made it to part 5 without a Cleric (well, a new player brought in a Cleric/Wizard for a few sessions, but he was more of a Wizard), before a TPK (but see below). They survived quite well on scavenged healing potions (which there are a lot of, and I did bump up their potency) and healing wands (Cleric on a stick) that I allowed them to buy (which your Ranger or Paladin could use if the Cleric is not there).

SPOILERS (only if you don't know what the Red Hand is about)

There were 2 deaths before the TPK, but having a Cleric/Healer would not have stopped them.

Spoiler

The Warmage was separated from the party and went down to a Dragons breath weapon (with a Potion of Resist Energy still strapped in his potion belt even though he had plenty of time to drink it). The other after the Order of the Bow Initiate one shotted a Dragon (Arrow of Slaying) and was taken down in a concentrated attack.

As for the TPK, I doubt a Cleric/Healer would have saved the majority of the group. For whatever reasons, the players aware of the enemy stood around and didn't inform the others that something was casting spells. That allowed a buffed Tyrgarun to rip them apart with near impunity. It was not pretty, but the Swordsage held her own for a little while...

 

[Peni Griffin]

What is this, a broken record? The guy doesn't want to get rid of the healer.

I'm running a bigger, higher level party myself, and beefing up the numbers is an important part of the mix. Make sure every guard post has enough people/monsters to cover all the shifts, for one thing, and make sure you play the grunts as a team, not as individuals flailing around. Let them cover each other to get chances to drink their CMW potions, fire and fall back as a unit, use aid another, give each other flanking bonuses, the works. Increasing the numbers in each encounter by the same percentage that your party is larger than the assumed four-player-standard is a simple calculation.

Study the troops assigned to some encounters - particularly the Sack of Drellin's Ferry, that the module doesn't intend you to have to use - and see what troops are used in them that can be applied elsewhere. Can you use wyverns (those poison stingers are nasty!) as air support? Are there more manticores and minotaurs in the Horde, or did Koth have the only ones? How many giants does the Horde have? Should mindbenders be deployed as spies? What's the best use of the mobile worgriders? Should Kharn have a warmount? Should the lizardmen have poison arrows? Should each fighting unit have a spellcaster?

Not all the NPCs are equipped optimally for the jobs they do. Ulwai has no magical instruments, for instance; nobody has much in the way of communication gear. Devise a means for troops on the ground to talk to each other at a distance, and they can keep tabs on the good guys, avoiding or ambushing them as appropriate, until your players want to strangle you. I know it'd get on my players' nerves if they were hunting down raiding parties, and the raiding parties kept hitting villages the day after they leave!

Be sure and adjust the Horde's tactics every time survivors have a chance to report on their defeats. Your PCs will learn from experience; the bad guys can, too, and can devise specific tactics to address the strengths of your PCs.