Red Hand of Doom; my players--stay out!

[Barendd Nobeard]

Just in case they're hanging around, my players please stay out! (This means you, Tod, Bob, Jude, and Monte!)


I am running The Red Hand of Doom for a group of four players. They've got a well-balanced group, along with a tag-along NPC who's just one level behind them (thanks to a death at the hands of a random encounter).

We have a house rule that gives lots of feats (one every level, except "stat bump" levels). So the only really change to the mod is that I have to add feats to all the bad guys. It's been fun to change them around, but I'm a little stumped for an encounter that should be coming up soon.


SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!! Do not read ahead if you haven't played this mod yet.


The final encounter is with the leader of the Red Hand of Doom. He is a half-blue dragon hobgoblin Cleric 11. Under our house rules, I need to add five feats to him, and I'm drawing a blank on what to add.

Currently, he has: Ability Focus (breath weapon), Craft Wondrous Item, Divine Vigor, and Weapon Focus (heavy pick).

I am going to add Craft Arms and Armor (and then bump his weapon and armor a bit in power), but after that I am drawing a blank on what else to add. He has a low Dex and Int (10 and 12) that limit feat choices somewhat, but Str, Con, Wis, and Cha are all 16+ stats for him.

Cleric seems to be a class where I never know what to do with feats; adding extra ones just makes it harder.

Any suggestions?

 

[Elethiomel]

Power Attack
Spell Focus (school of spell that has important save attached)
Gr. Spell Focus (same)

Extra cheesy:
Quicken Spell
Divine Metamagic (Quicken Spell)
Extra Turning

Extra Melee-y:
Cleave
Improved Bull Rush (push PCs into persistent area spells, off bridges, etc.)

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Imp. Bull Rush might be especially fun.

 

[Starbuck_II]

You could give him a Devotion feat since he is a Cleric from Complete Champion.
Depending on the character Protection isn't a bad one.

 

[Shin Okada]

If you run him as written, he casts a lot of buff spells and then either casts attack spells or go into melee. So, I do not recommend divine feats which spends 1 round to use.

Above mentioned Divine Metamagic (Quicken) will be good to shorten his buff-time. Also, consider giving him Power Attack and Divine Might (Complete Warrior) for melee. I do not bother to give him cleave, unless PCs tend to summon a lot. Silent Spell (and maybe Divine Metamagic (Silent Spell)) will be useful, too, if PC cleric likes to use silence.

And, Improved Toughness (Complete Warrior), Great Fortitude and Iron Will are always useful for the boss of the game. He should be durable.

 

[Runestar]

Considering that he is a one-off fight, you can afford to give him feats which grant a powerful effect that is usable just 1/day. Bearing in mind that the battle with him will last an average of 3-5 rounds, it makes sense to optimize his feat allocation with that in mind.

For instance, item creation feats are dead weight (just give him the eq you want him to have). He is surely not going to be able to use them in combat, that is for sure.

Feats which give you more actions (or the equivalent) are also very useful. For example, quicken spell potentially doubles your spell output (eg: quickened divine favour in conjunction with divine power).

I am personally not a big fan of ability focus on breath weapon since a half dragon classed npc's dc will be very crappy (since only racial HD is factored into this calculation, so PCs will have no problems making their reflex saves). Still, quicken breath (if you can manage the 19 con) can be useful as a 1-shot blast. I suppose that if you took recover breath enough times, you can use quickened breath every round (since it is technically a free action which does not compete with your 1 swift action/round quota).

 

[Shin Okada]

I am personally not a big fan of ability focus on breath weapon since a half dragon classed npc's dc will be very crappy (since only racial HD is factored into this calculation, so PCs will have no problems making their reflex saves). Still, quicken breath (if you can manage the 19 con) can be useful as a 1-shot blast. I suppose that if you took recover breath enough times, you can use quickened breath every round (since it is technically a free action which does not compete with your 1 swift action/round quota).

Before taking those metabreath feats, he must take Dragon Breath feat from Races of Dragon. Without that feat, a Half-Dragon can only use his breath weapon 1/day.

 

[Runestar]

Good point that.

I second DMM: quicken as well.

 

[timbannock]

Slight aside:

What do you do for non-classed creatures to ramp them up?

I ask because I like the sound of this houserule.

 

[Runestar]

Probably add more feats as well. The feat selection of the monsters in the MM is downright horrendous - you will be amazed at how much more powerful they can be just by swapping in a few new feats.