Red Hand of Doom - I feel like a butcher...

[MarkB]

I had a very similar experience with RHoD. It's an excellently written module that was great fun to DM, but in my prior two years of DMing I'd never had a single character death in one of my games, and in RHoD we rarely went a whole session without at least one death.

In the end, the campaign stumbled to a halt with a TPK outside the Fane.

I'm running Savage Tide at the moment, and after lulling me into a false sense of security by surviving three all-day sessions without anything worse than a few dozen very close shaves, yesterday the party suffered three character deaths in one session. I'm hoping to avoid this campaign ending in another TPK, but they haven't even reached the tough parts of the current chapter.

 

[Boss]

We didn't get far into the adventure, mainly because the GM had given us another quest to go on (modified White Plume Mountain), then decided to run us through RHoD to get experience. Of course, this was the one time that we decided to stick to the original adventure rather than get sidetracked, as per our usual SOP.

So we made it to the bridge encounter without being spotted and the GM allowed one of the others characters to make a Knowledge Architecture check to find the weak point of the bridge. My character was a fighter designed with Sundering ANYTHING in mind, and with his adamantium sword he rushed out to attack the bridges weak point (GM ruled it was near one of the towers on our side... I would have ruled a support pillar underneath or on the far side, but... heh). Three rounds later, the bridge collapsed. In the meantime the rest of the party was fighting the hobgoblins in the near side towers and the dragon flying above who was using its breath weapon to great effect (two characters died, I was down to less than 10 hit points). The order for the day became RUN AWAY! at that point.

We managed to kill the dragon in the forest in what I believe was a GM feeling very sorry for the players, and decided that it was time to make our way west towards the mountain and leave this part of the world to the mercy of the hobgoblin armies.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Ozyrrandion is young and therefore isn't that tough for a dragon. Not long prior to the main encounter, he'd pursued Sir Tib and the pegasus into the forest and been knocked down below one-half by those two acting alone, causing him to retreat to the bridge and consume his own healing potions plus one of the hobgoblins'. So he's still alive, but has been defeated twice! (And boy is he pissed off and humiliated. No mercy for paladins!) So I doubt your DM was being kind. Get him on the ground and hit him hard, he fades fast.

I'm puzzled by the simultaneous opinion that RHOD is "well-written" and "deadly." Different strokes, I guess. A well-written module, to satisfy my players, should not be any less (or more) survivable than a homebrew campaign. And a lot of survivability is the DM's responsibility, by which I don't mean dice-fudging, but making sound judgements about what the party can and can't do, and what the foes would and wouldn't do.

One reason, IMHO, that RHOD is so deadly is that it's treasure-poor. The DM can fix that. And yeah, the monsters will be using their treasure against the PCs - but not all improvements to treasure will in fact be significant against the PCs. For instance, it is logical for Ulwai and her unit to be equipped with a few weapons designed to be especially effective against undead. If you have the sort of party that's going to insist on taking on the Ghost Lord, the proximity of such weapons increases their survivability; but it's not a gimme, because they have to win them from Ulwai first.

Also, encourage them to use the NPC resources. The people of Brindol and Drellin's Ferry are eager to defend their homes. Although many of them have obvious other jobs, if the PCs are acting as a strike force and roleplay the interaction properly, they should be able to recruit assistance, finance the production of healing items for their own use, etc. A Wand of Cure Light Wounds doesn't take that long to make, and used properly (Sanctuaried and/or invisible cleric, Status or Deathwatch spell) has tipped many a battle. A lot of NPCs aren't detailed, but that means you can unobtrusively tailor them to take up any slack that's in the party.

Once you've got them trusting NPCs, you can also plant a spy on them. Y'know, just so they don't get complacent.

 

[klofft]

Treasure poor, true, but if the party has a bag of holding (not THAT unusual at these levels), there can be a lot of potential cash in looting the frequent low-level magic and masterwork arms and armor of the Horde. My party isn't going to get rich by this method, but it will be great supplemental income in the future, even considering that they donate most of this gear to the beleaguered townsfolk of the Vale.

 

[Peni Griffin]

We were specifically talking about survivability within the written parameters of the module, and long-term cash flow is not directly good for that. It's true that it facilitates getting magic items from NPCs. A good negotiator doesn't even have to trade the items for cash first. "Look, Sertieren, you're about to head out for Brindol, right? Prices for arms and armor have to be sky-high there. These masterwork bows are normally worth X, but you can probably resell them at a 15% markup! Now, about those fireball scrolls..."

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I think Red Hand can be lethal, and I am kind of looking forward to the expeditions I intend to buy (All but Ravenloft, actually).

My party died at the end of the second part becasue they went back to fight the black dragon one too many times. He was hurt, they were hurt, buyt the Dragon had a few too many helpers still alive to make it a PC success.

Ahh, well. Now we are going through Shattered Gates to level up high enough to continue Red Hand.

I remember that dragon. The dm i played with was a crazy. He upped every single challange in that book and calculated cohorts and added a lot of things that he said upped our ecl when it clearly did it (dmpc that did nothing except get crits but never dident attack enuff to make it worthwhile) The only way the fighter charicter could hit the dragon was on a 18, and that was also while flanking. We dident die, but thats becuse he fudge the encounter at the end and had the dragon fly off and it was killed by a flying claric with a tangle foot bag fetish.

The adamantine box was also indestructible. Even after doing over 20 points of damage to it, it still did not take any damage. Nore did acid erode its protective shell.

I have bad memories of that modual but i think i would like to play it again with a good dm this time.

 

[Agamon]

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil: L4-14: 37 PC deaths
Keep on the Borderlands (converted to 3E): L1-6: 8 PC deaths
Slave Pits of the Undercity (converted for 3E): L4-6: TPK (7 PC deaths)
Age of Worms (in progress, first 5 adventures complete, or L1-10): 8 PC deaths

These are the my most recent campaigns and don't include my homebrew stuff, where death is somewhat less problematic (though there was a TPK there, too). Just picked up RHoD. Looking forward to it.

 

[Kafkonia]

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil: L4-14: 37 PC deaths
Keep on the Borderlands (converted to 3E): L1-6: 8 PC deaths
Slave Pits of the Undercity (converted for 3E): L4-6: TPK (7 PC deaths)
Age of Worms (in progress, first 5 adventures complete, or L1-10): 8 PC deaths

These are the my most recent campaigns and don't include my homebrew stuff, where death is somewhat less problematic (though there was a TPK there, too). Just picked up RHoD. Looking forward to it.

Golden Palace of Zahadrak: 3 PC deaths
Temple of Existential Evil (converted to 3.5): 1 PC death
World's Largest Dungeon: 2 PC deaths

Not such a bad total until you realize that there's approximately 8 sessions between those three games (3 sessions to play through Palace, 2 sessions and counting for ToExE, and 3 or 4 -- can't remember -- for WLD before players left town.) That's a 75% kill-to-session ratio.

For comparison, the only one where anyone levelled was in the last session for WLD.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I'm puzzled by the simultaneous opinion that RHOD is "well-written" and "deadly." Different strokes, I guess.

Well written and deadly is very much possible within this game, and is desirable among a non trivial portion of the D&D customer base. This adventure has a good story and dangerous fights.

Survivable fights are all well and good, but there is survivable, and then there is waste of time. I dont want to have to break the flow of the game and run up a combat if the fight is trivially easy, regardless of how many resources it eats up. To be worth running, I figure a fight has to have an element of real danger. Consider a fight that goes like this.

- roll initiative
- monsters get a few attacks in and miss
- players kill 2/3rds of all the mooks of the monsters by fireball.
Rnd 2;
- A few spells are cast, players save against them. Mook Leader tries to heal
- Mook leader is dropped by party tank
Rnd 3:
- remaining mooks fall victim to Sleep / Web / Whatever
- Players mop up

If all the bad guys are capable of doing is showing up and dying, then the fight is a waste of time. If they can show up, and do some real damage to the players (ie: get in a handfull of hits, and force the players to use a handfull of spells), than the encounter is good. If I drop 3 out of 4 players and have the last player standing is facing down the last opponent who is in about as bad shape as he is, I consider it to be a job well done.

I also think that much of the danger of this campaign comes from the unusual number of encounters that basically state "your players are intended to need to run away". If the players are used to a DM that never puts them in this situation, they are probably either going to suffer TPK's or narrowly avoid them.

I expect to enjoy this campaign, but I do tend to emphasize tactical combat more then long term plot arcs. If you have a long term plan that requires most of the PC's to live to at least level 15, then this is probably not an ideal adventure.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[RodneyThompson]

In a party of four, we had 6 deaths before the last chapter of the adventure. It was pretty tough!