D&D 5E Red Hand of Doom

[the Jester]

Id like to know more about it.

Without dropping in many spoilers, it's a war-themed adventure set up as a near-sandbox, in which the bad guys have a time line that the pcs can affect through their actions, there are tons of interesting bad guys, the pcs have a great deal of freedom of action but several obvious, big, meaty hooks that they can pursue, there are serious high stakes, and there are some awesome moments where the pcs' input affects e.g. the tactics (and therefore outcome) of a major battle.

I think RHoD is probably the best 3e module produced, and I only got to run about the first 20-30% of it before several of the players moved away and I, shortly afterward, did the same.

 

[Jester David]

Like all 3e published modules there's a lot of filler encounters. Fights that exist solely to get people to the requisite level. Well, that's a problem with 3e-5e really. With fewer encounters/level in 5e you could certainly jettison a few of the weaker encounters.

I ran the middle chapter for Living Greyhawk and found it... adequate. But it was one of the less interesting chapters. But it was still interesting and I'm curious enough to consider running it again in the future.

 

[pukunui]

I have some fond memories of running RHoD. My players probably less so. They started calling me "the DM of death" afterwards.

 

[AsmodeusDM]

Just wanted to add-in that this adventure is excellent and was one of the best of the 3.5 era for sure. It has a solid mix of wilderness/battle encounters and some fun small-dungeons. I also really enjoyed the "metagame" of managing Campaign "Victory Points" acquired for accomplishing objectives across the Nentir Vale.


As for conversion that vast majority of the creatures encountered should be playable straight out of the monster manual. Early on it's mostly humanoids (hobgoblins mainly) with the occasional troll or manticore thrown in. Each region has some small number of NPCs that will have to be converted. But as I recall they are relatively simple builds (unlike say a Pathfinder AP).

In my current group I still have a player who played it when I ran it years ago; otherwise I would TOTALLY re-run it.

 

[AsmodeusDM]

Hah just realized that despite joining ENworld in May 2005; this only my 33rd post. Not a lot to say I guess

 

[Blackbrrd]

Like all 3e published modules there's a lot of filler encounters. Fights that exist solely to get people to the requisite level. Well, that's a problem with 3e-5e really. With fewer encounters/level in 5e you could certainly jettison a few of the weaker encounters.

I ran the middle chapter for Living Greyhawk and found it... adequate. But it was one of the less interesting chapters. But it was still interesting and I'm curious enough to consider running it again in the future.

I don't agree that it has a lot of filler encounters, (or more precise, that they felt like fillers while running the module). I think the encounters felt quite natural. Some encounters were a bit too easy, but that was mostly due to it being a bit sandboxy. Should work better in 5e than in 3e though.

EDIT as Jester Canuck noted, in a later post, he felt that many encounters in the last dungeon was filler material, something I concur with, as my following comment notes:

I didn't like the finale of the module and never ran it. I think some alternate ending would be much more interesting.
[sblock]The ending is a big dungeon where you end up fighting a avatar of Tiamat. I really don't like dungeons and it just felt anti-climactic after the super-cool battle in the city. I chose to just end the module after the big city fight, without ever fighting the avatar[/sblock]

I would give the module 5/5. The story really works, the encounters are cool and it's not a dungeon crawl (for the most part)! It's also easy to run and doesn't feel like a railroad. If the players go outside the assumed scope of the adventure I think it would be relatively easy to modify it to reflect the PC's actions. It also has some sidebars talking about some assumed out-of-scope PC actions, which I think is really cool.

 

[AsmodeusDM]

Blackbrdd.. I did the same thing. I ended it after Part IV the big fight in the city and skipped the whole 5th part in HQ.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Blackbrdd.. I did the same thing. I ended it after Part IV the big fight in the city and skipped the whole 5th part in HQ.

We switched chapter 4 and 5. That worked really well. Just make sure the party or the aspect can flee (depending on how the fight goes) and let the aspect be the ultimate climax in the middle of Brindol!

 

[Pickles JG]

We played it all and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it.
Episode 5 was a tiny bit anti climactic especially as the dm had us clear the dungeon after we defeated the big bad.

 

[Jester David]

I don't agree that it has a lot of filler encounters, (or more precise, that they felt like fillers while running the module). I think the encounters felt quite natural. Some encounters were a bit too easy, but that was mostly due to it being a bit sandboxy. Should work better in 5e than in 3e though.

When you get to the big dungeon, there are a lot of superflous fights and encounters. Things in rooms that don't really add to the story or tone but exist to make sure that the PCs get the right xp and treasure. It's not a big deal in 5e with quicker encounters, but when you're blowing an entire thirty minutes on a room it had better be important.