Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Peni Griffin" data-source="post: 3489158" data-attributes="member: 50322">Bits of this are embarrassing, and if anybody out there respects me as a DM you probably won't after this, but it's really too funny not to share.In a nutshell, my heavily-modified RHOD is getting more modified by the second.  The PCs arrived in Elsir Vale with a rep, two warhorses and a palfrey advanced under Noble Steeds, a war dog, and two paladin cadets (0 level).  Events in game - each and every one perfectly logical - have increased their reputation and increased the party size.  The paladin has a pegasus mount, which since we're under 3.0 is a real pegasus rather than a pokemount.  The cadets have been invested and are first level.  Two NPCs from Drellin's Ferry have been persuaded to ride along.  And the pegasus was persuaded to recruit good-aligned monsters from the mountains, resulting in two giant eagles and seven pegasi willing to act as scouts and periodically as mounts.The Red Hand is gunning for them, but most of the encounters in the book would, logically, run away screaming from this party, so I'm having to put together new encounters using the existing elements, and varying the suggested strategy to deal with the reality of situation.  Since I think Red Hand underutliizes a lot of elements, this isn't that hard - but so far it isn't working.  Last night's debacle is a case in point.At the suggestion of the PCs, the evacuees are scorching the earth behind them.  The landscape is not just deserted, but burnt over - very little cover apart from hedgerows and trees lining roads, in orchards, and acting as windbreaks.  The PCs, on their way to a mission, hole up for a day in an abandoned farmhouse, where the casters will be doing prep work for the mission while the eagles scout, and the fighting types plan to take an excursion looking for trouble, hoping to get the new paladins some experience before the main mission.  As they're gearing up, they see a wyvern, at considerable altitude, obviously casing the joint and then flying off toward another farm.This is in fact part of a plan by the strike force following them to split the party - lure away the "big guns," slip in, take a hostage/interrogation subject, and bug out again.  And the party took the bait.  Both clerics, all three paladins, and the combat monster fighter take off on pegasi, leaving two pegasi, two warhorses, the war dog, miscellaneous ground-based mounts, a stray cow, the bard, the rogue, and the timid, inexperienced-in-combat NPC wizard to hold down the fort.  Pleased, the two barghests, four durzagon (my modification of what's in the module), ogre, and hobgoblins sneak up the lane using the trees for cover.At which point, the rogue decides to climb out on the roof and take a 360-degree look around.  He maxes his spot check, and sees them before they get within bowshot; meanwhile, they don't see him seeing them!The rogue warns the bard and wizard, sends one of the remaining pegasi to catch up with the combat monsters and warn them, mounts his palfrey, and rides out to draw fire and, he hopes, lead them a merry cross-country chase.  The reality is much more absurd. The warhorses and pegasus ride out after him.  The wizard starts casting protection spells, the bard starts summoning monsters, and the war dog takes up a position to defend them.  The resulting combat is animal-based mayhem as the warhorses in particular (run by the players who run the PCs riding them) stomp the opposition into the ground.  By the time the distracted "big guns" return, it's all over but the gravedigging and interrogation.  One durzagon got away (with one hit point!) and one was saved for interrogation by the bard's binding his wounds in time; the others were piles of goo, including the ogre.  They never even got to the door of the farmhouse.Things would have gone very differently had the rogue not spotted them coming and had I not made a serious error when typing up the barghest stats.  I forgot their damage reduction!  So now there's such a thing as a minor barghest in my campaign, with most barghest features but no DR.  The durzagon were also rolling crap.  But it's totally worth the shame of screwing up for the mental picture of the reaction when the escapee and the wyvern rider carry back a report of being defeated by (from their point of view, since they couldn't see what the bard was doing) the Legion of SuperPets.And of course the next foray against them will be much, much tougher!The bard now wants to advance her pony under Noble Steed rules, too, and the party is much less nervous about leaving the mounts unattended when they fly off or go into a dungeon/castle/lair situation than they were before.  The horses are puffed up - their noses had been a little out of joint about the pegasi - and have been made much of.  No one knows what the stray cow thinks.</blockquote>

Verification