We just started Prince of Redhand, and I must say, I'm enjoying the material but I can't see this adventure staying on track at all. I have a very proactive player, and he is bound to see Zeech's ziggarut as a problem that must be solved NOW. I also think that when they're told they can't see Lashonna for a week, the PCs will plunge into Lashonna's manor house, which is completely undetailed, and then start using Commune and Locate spells to figure out where she is.
They have also noted the presence of an arena, and the prophecy about "a hero of the pit gifts a city to the dead"--which is at least going to get them competing in the games, and at worst, working out who the hero of the pit is (it's Zeech, isn't it?) and going after him right away.
The PCs are powerful and smart. They are not going to get themselves killed tackling the city organization; they'll use pinpoint tactics and probably succeed. But yikes, this is not what the prepared material is good for--I'm not looking forward to having to stat up Zeech's defenses, Lashonna's manor, etc.
Does this module stay on track in other games? If so, how?
Mary
Use Manzorian/Tenser, Eligos, Celeste, and Agath’s wisdom, experience, and intelligence to your advantage. The module also assumes that some PCs might be a bit gung-ho. These important NPCs should be looked upon highly by the PCs, and their advise taken seriously (i.e. there are a time for action and a time for restraint – this is the later). Although they will see things that disturb them (the Ziggurat being one of these things), these important NPCs made it perfectly clear that their ONLY mission was to seek information from Lashonna.
Your PCs may be powerful, which is assumed in the module, but they should be no match for Blessed Angels. They are Prince Zeech’s (and by extension – your) enforcers. If your PCs are more powerful than PoR Blessed Angels, substitute them for Advanced Blessed Angels from Dawn of a New Age.
Break into Lashonna’s manor?! Be my guest! Before they find anything noteworthy, they’ll have a six-pack of Angels on them so fast it will make their heads spin. And then they can sit in a cell until Lashonna returns at which point in time they may speak with her. Of course, they missed the party/meal, a great adventure, and lots of XP.
Within minutes of my PCs being in Alhaster, they witnessed a “hero” easily defeat a squad of hobgoblin town guard in the name of freedom. Quickly the Angels responded and terminated him quickly, without hesitation and or remorse. You might have to make a PC an example; my PCs got the hint.
Finally, ignore all the other side quests and consider shrinking the time span that the PCs must wait for the party from one week to a day or two – enough to keep idle hands and bad plans to a minimum.
The PCs in my group have just defeated the Overgod and found the loot stash. They have yet to discover what the ledger really is. So far they've kept from causing any trouble. I haven't yet pointed out the significance of the Great Project and how it resembles the Spire. I figured that a day or two before the Great Banquet, I'll have them see that the Ziggurat is being finished with the addition of a spire very similar to the one in Long Shadows. The only rumblings of possible future trouble that I've noticed is when one of the players said, "Guys, I think we may have to fight EVERYONE in this town before its all over..." They even decided on their own that raiding Lashonna's house wasn't the smart thing to do. They don't really know what to make of her yet from all the stories and hearsay.
My "totally undetectable" rogue PC broke into Lashonna's manor. I simply told him "You don't find anything incriminating" and let him steal a few things. Treat it as if it's just a place she visits occasionally.
They've nosed around the zig, the arena, and the palace, without much success. I've tried to keep them on track by reminding them it's Lashonna and Balakarde they're after, and threatening them with Angels a lot. They've had two nasty, intimidating run-ins with them so far, but haven't drawn blades yet.
The feast went as written in the book. No real problems there.
That's a really hard question to answer, as it totally depends on how your players react to what you put before them. The advice above is definitely useful, and along the lines of things I had in mind for my game (I ran it a few weeks ago), but in the end it played out pretty much exactly as written, my players didn't take it off track anywhere near as badly as I imagined they might given a very open scenario in a very different (i.e. evil) kind of place from where they had been before.
But I'd say too much intervention without giving your PC's a chance to play their own game here could look like you are being too restrictive / prescriptive - paint a picture of a very lawful city, and they should get the idea that evil and law & order are different, and this city might be evil but it's still far from chaotic.
My ultimate advice is to have a think about as many scenarios as possible, and how you might steer your players back on track before it gets out of hand. A lot of it has to do with how you've handled big cities in the past too, for example are they used to having to behave themselves in public places? Their experiences in the Free City should provide you a gauge - hopefully the players know what's OK while in the dungeons isn't OK in a big city, where there's always people more powerful than you to bring you into line (or failing that, sheer weight of numbers on the side of the local law).
For example, in my game, I...
Had Tenser brief the lawful good PC's about the evils of the city and surrounding area they were going to. Possibly a bit over the top on my behalf, but an interesting role-play situation. While as players they talked about having to kill everyone in the city, their PC's never actually picked a fight in public. I'm sure they expect to have to kill off at least some of the prominent evils in the city, but they got through the whole adventure without ever seeing a clear opportunity to do so, so they didn't.
...Made it clear the objective was to meet with Lashonna, but their first couple of attempts to contact her using dubious methods were foiled. In the end, another PC just went and asked the right questions and they found out she would be at the banquet they had heard of, so that stopped the sneaking around and also provided the dubious PC's with a need to go to this banquet.
...Planted Raknian at the banquet, but he arrived just as everyone was headed inside, then he kept away from the PC's, sussing out the other warrior types. My players put a couple of threats his way towards the end of the banquet, as part of the Boasting challenge, which went down fine as it was in the context of what was going down.
...Made sure my NPC's were all different kinds of shades of grey - the players got talking to a lot of them, and found that while they were all "weird" in some way, very few if any were "obviously evil". This was before and during the banquet, so it all made sense; even though the banquet itself was pretty sick at times, my players went along with it as best they could and eventually had their moments alone to talk to both Lashonna and the Prince.
I guess that's it for me, my players did a good job, better than I expected, of role-playing the adventure and behaving in the right kind of context, even though deep down I'm sure they wanted to just smash things. Too much to smash, too many people to smash them back, so they didn't even test the waters. I never had to use a big stick to keep them in line. The closest they got was staking out Raknian and co, trying to dominate him and take him off somewhere private for interrogation - or something, I'm not sure where it would have ended up, as two attempts failed, so in the end it was only Okral who was dominated and Raknain was already quite paranoid from the day before and never left very public places. So after a while the PC's gave up and left them alone - no doubt they didn't want to create a scene in public. I'll let them get to him later (so as to not frustrate all their plans), either in a less public place or once chaos comes to the city at the end.
Lashonna - my players have never suspected she was anything but yet another NPC who wanted to help them out - like Allustan, Eligos and Tenser before her I guess. Of that lot, it was Eligos that the players mistrusted for some time - "his picture looks so evil!" they said... So I'm hoping my players will contact Lashonna after their times in the Library of Last resort, providing the bad-guys a means of keeping up with their progress, and sweetening her final reveal as a baddie.
Anyway, hope that helps give some ideas / helps you think more about your own situation. I think you can never really prepare fully for this one, you just need to be able to react to whatever goes down and if it's likely to go off the rails, steer it back on course as best you can without seeming heavy handed or arbitrary. Who knows, your players might only bite at the right kind of hooks too...
p.s. to address a couple of specific issues you foresee:
Breaking into Lashonna's house is just that, breaking and entering, i.e. a crime, and not a way to make friends. Not a wise move if they want to get on her good side, which I'd hope they do. If they do not realise this, figure out a subtle way to remind them, or if you have to be less subtle e.g. ask them how they would react if someone broke into their house, would they treat them as a friend and give them the info they want, or what?
Going after Zeech, well they should understand they are looking at assassinating the ruler of a city - he was heaps of guards and allies, they should never be able to get to him alone, and to even consider it would, I'd suggest, be at best optimistic on their part; they should not be surprised if their efforts fail. After all, to use an extreme example, no-one ever managed to assassinate Hitler now, did they?
Good points Hastur:)
I'd always be a fan as well of having the PCs see the effects of a gung-ho attack, in fact if there had been room it would have been fun to have the PCs see the Angels in action and how efficient they are - perhaps you could write such a segment up?
As a matter of fact I'm just puzzling over a very complex segment of an adventure I'm running in the Styes campaign which has the premise that the base is far too tough to attack openly (the PCs are all thieves and after 'the greatest treasure of all' in the AP we're running just now), and giving broad hints about using the smog around the city to great effect. Part of the challenge as DM is to not railroad the players but make them see sense, so I've planted an NPC in the adventure who will come up with a few finer raiding points in an earlier part (hopefully earning their respect) and will suggest using the smog if the players don't.
Rich
I love Alhaster, I used the backdrop last weekend in my ongoing campaign and my players loved it. They feared the blessed angels (they are just 7th level) and decided to play nice while in town.
Whenever I get around to actually running the age of worms this will turn out to be some nice foreshadowing.
Backdrops and big maps of cities and towns are what I am going to miss when Dungeon passes away.
Right after coming to Alhaster, I let the PCs witness the execution of two traitors, Raknian and his Assassin cohort. (Great idea stolen from another post here somewhere. Many thanks to the author!) Shortly thereafter the crowd was scattered by Blessed Angels and the PCs overhears some peasants complaining about the "police force".
The PCs then come to investigate the burned down church very quickly, only to get shshsh´t away by a Blessed Angel.
This opening of PoH was enough to make the PCs very, very carefull.
The banquet does not work with my PCs and came out to be rather boring so I cut it down to the final meeting with Lashonna.
...in fact if there had been room it would have been fun to have the PCs see the Angels in action and how efficient they are - perhaps you could write such a segment up?
Exactly as I ran it (see my above post).
Frankly, this is one of the easier modules of the campaign to introduce new PCs.
Tell your players this in passing - see if they get THAT hint.
People are assuming I've got players who don't appreciate the danger they're in, just want to hack and slash, and will get into trouble.
I don't. I have a player who's an excellent planner and very careful. If he tries to get into Lashonna's manor he's unlikely to be spotted by Blessed Angels (the PCs had no trouble getting into the church of Cuthburt unseen, for example) and will not leave evidence behind. (Or he will have a rock-solid reason to have been there.) If he decides that the Angels have to be destroyed, he'll make sure he has the means to do it. If he decides Zeech has to die, it will be a surgical strike with an excellent escape plan and backup plans if things go wrong. The capabilities of 15th level PCs are pretty impressive.
So it's a real problem for me that there is nothing in the module about adjucating any of this. Making up Zeech's guards and defenses will be a lot of work. (No, I can't say "You can't even get close to him"--not if I want to run the banquet, where the PCs are supposed to get close to him. Being disarmed will not stop them--it won't even slow them down.)
At the moment I'm just hoping they find a less drastic solution, and that it actually points in the direction of the Library of Last Resort. I may have to put some other crucial information there. ("Why did Kyuss' ascension fail?" would be a great question, if only I knew the answer.) I don't think they will end up going there on Lashonna's say-so.
I think there is a real possibility that the next six months of play will be the liberation of Alhastor. Could be fun, actually. If only I had the time to prepare a regular campaign...but then I wouldn't be running from modules in the first place....
I was just curious, does _Redhand_ work for most groups or is it prone to fly apart? Sounds like it usually works, mainly because the PCs are willing to do what Manzorian tells them to do. Mine have decided that Manzorian is plotting his own ascension, which frankly makes more sense to me. They will use his information, but if he urges them to avoid doing something, you can bet they will at least investigate the possibility of doing it. (One of the PCs is interested in *her* own ascension, so if Manzorian wants to get hold of something, she figures she does too.)
Mary
I thought about your assumption that the characters would likely bring justice to the city of Alhaster, and what impact it might have. With the going assumption that you dont mind doing a lot of leg work (and you probably do mind given that you run from Dungeon), I suppose it could work. An abbreviated timeline might look like this:
1) Your neigh undefeatable PCs declare war on Redhand. This brings them into conflict with some of the more stalwart guards and later the armies still under control of regional commanders; the rest bail outta there like the dogs they are. They must also best the Blessed Angels, Zeech, his Elite Guard (every dictator has one), and Lashonna (for if her Ziggurat is destroyed, she has to start from square one - more on this later).
2) The town of Alhaster is freed from Zeech and the Ziggurat destroyed. Simultaneously, a battle is raging at Rift Canyon. The dragons defeat the giants and secure the phylactory. Because the Library of Last Resort was not consulted, the last battle against Dragotha goes unknown.
3) With the phylactory safely back in Dragothas hands, he awaits the coming of the worm god from deep in the rift canyon. Your PCs have had an uneasy sense of calm - yet the indicators of the Age of Worms remain. This is literally the eye of the storm. They better be busy collecting the other parts of the rod of seven parts and other artifiacts for the coming war to save the planet (this could be in the forms of adventures that effectively replace all of the adventures your party just skipped - lucky you the DM!).
4) The Worm god emerges. Without the help of major NPC assistance and great sacrifice (resources in the form of artifacts and possibly life), Kyuss, Dragotha and his most powerful minions defeats the heroes, and slowly constrict the planet under an evil that makes Alhaster look like Disneyland.
Do not underestimate Lashonna: She is a mastermind - unless you have a party built on 50 pt. charachter builds, she is smarter, wiser and more charasmatic than any of the PCs. She has plenty of cards under her sleeve. Consider Darl Quethos and company as an interested party. She may broker a deal with them to help her defeat these upstarts so that the Ziggurat remains standing. The moment she contracts Darl's assistance, all that "unseen sneaky rogue stuff" is pretty much through. He will know where they are at, how they got there and why they are there. There is little the champion of Vecna cannot discover.
Sounds like you have your hands full. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.
I like your ideas up until #4, but it doesn't seem entirely fair to me that direct actions by the PCs to stop the prophecies of the Wormgod should be doomed to failure. If Lashonna and her allies are too powerful and smart for the PCs to defeat in this fashion, why do they lose in the main line?
The module provides explicitly that if the PCs unlock the Library of Last Resort, everyone else finds out where the phylactery is. I presume that if an NPC unlocks the Library the same thing happens, so the PCs actually (if they only knew it) don't need to do Last Resort at all. Objectively speaking, the liberation of Alhaster might be a better use of their resources, assuming that that ziggurat is important. (I suppose it could be a very expensive red herring.) They can pick off the phylactery and Dragotha during rapid strikes while holding Alhaster. At this level almost no adventure takes any measurable time. Longshadow took the PCs six hours, and five of those were spent burying the old corpses!
Manzorian's plan is fated to bring the world to the brink of destruction--no one would want that final showdown if they had any other course of action. It may be hubris for the PCs to think they can do better, but if you're into saving the world you had better have a bit of hubris.
If they try this, I'll report on the outcome, assuming my head doesn't explode first. (I wouldn't mind writing my own adventures, but not at 15th level. *WAY* too hard for me. Not sure I have a choice now, though.)
Mary
It shouldn't be too hard to cut apart the end of the AP and reassemble it to adjust to your contingency, Mary.
1. PCs decide to focus on cleaning up Alhaster. Zeech's personal guard is made up of Blessed Angels (maybe headed by a few advanced ones using stat bloc from the last adventure). If you need to add a few other bad guys you can pull from other Dungeon adventures of an appropriate level, or pull some devils straight from the monster books. Put in a little roleplaying with NPCs who raise militias (there are several suitable NPCs detailed in PoR, including Hemriss and a couple of the local nobility types) as the PCs try to establish some sort of political control once the principle baddies are gone--emphasize that the PCs can kill anyone, but they don't have an army and will need to get some of these not-so-bad guys on their side and re-establish order, or they've done Alhaster no favors.
2. During the course of establishing control of Alhaster, have them run afoul of Lashonna. Probably this happens when they free the slaves working on the ziggurat, or something else that stops Lashonna's pet project. So, they throw down with Lashonna--you can use some of the lesser baddies from Dawn of a New Age, in numbers that your party can (barely) handle, and battle it out--perhaps in the (still topless) spire.
3. Once they take out Lashonna, they discover that Dragotha is trying to summon Kyuss back to the material plane from his prison. To defeat Dragotha they need to find his phylactery--evidence left behind in Lashonna's estate makes it clear that she was using Darl Quethos to flush this info out. Questioning at the port (or divination) reveals Darl left recently for Last Resort. The party pursues him there, and you can run the rest of the adventure more or less as written. KotR can also be run as written.
4. The finale of the AP then becomes Into the Rift. If PCs are ahead of the XP curve, draw on stuff from Dawn of a New Age to beef up the Tabernacle defenses, and make sure Dragotha has company. Especially, you should use Maralee (? Balakarde's sister) in the tabernacle. Once Dragotha is dead, have Kyuss emerge for the final showdown.
If you use the above suggestions, you may have to put in a few of your own transitions and leads to move the players in the desired direction, and you might have to move a few stat blocs from one spot to another and change numbers of enemies in certain encounters, but you won't have to retool too much, and you'll at least be able to use 80% of the existing scenery that's detailed without creating any new.
Hope this helps.
After reading this thread, I have one question: what are the intel scores of the PCs, especially the one who makes the plans?
Don't let your players make brilliant strategies if the highest intel in the group is a 12. (I see this all the time when someone plays sorceror instead of wizard.)
Finally, no matter what the intel score of the smartest PC is: Lashonna is smarter. Darl might be smarter. Kyuss is DEFINITELY smarter. Let them use every trick they have, every plot and plan designed to foil any nonsense these PCs might try.
As an aside, do you use just core rules, or do you also use splatbooks? If you use other books, remember to incorporate some of that material into the BBEGs like Lashonna, Darl, etc. Otherwise the PCs will steamroll over them. Like it or not, splatbooks enhance the ability to optimize to a given role. This isn't to say that a splatbooked out wizard is stronger than a core rules wizard, just that he can choose to focus in odd areas, have an ongoing theme (fire, ice, dragons) and still be as strong as the very specifically built core rules wizard.
Give Lashonna spells like bloodwind and wraithstrike, and your PC have something to worry about. Heck, give her Wraitstrike, then have an ally of hers cast Bloodwind on her. With improved invisibility on, she can make Touch attacks from 80 feet away at a -6 penalty for distance using her normal melee modifiers (power attack ahoy!). Which means even if someone does basic detection magic, she's out of range. True seeing would pick her up though.
I was thinking to myself that Mary must have 6 real-life CIA operatives in her DnD group with an investigative approach to the game. I’m exaggerating, of course; please don’t construe this as flaming – just in contrast to my group (kick in the door and scream initiative), it is starkly different. It brings up an interesting metagaming dilemma that’s beyond the scope of this thread, and ultimately since it is just a game, it isn’t really worth pursuing.
So how does a DM depict genius? Just like an author would: granting the genius hindsight and in-the-moment abilities.
Example. Consider Lashonna’s resources and possible PC oversights on breaking into her manor:
Lashonna: “Those ledgers you found?” She chuckles lightly, “Everything you think you knew was exactly what I wanted you to know. You didn’t break into my home, you walked right into an illusory terrain. Sword and magic is your weapon – strategy and manipulation is mine.” “There is one more thing that you should know: that you will not leave here alive.” (Good villains talk a gang of trash!) :)
After reading this thread, I have one question: what are the intel scores of the PCs, especially the one who makes the plans?
Don't let your players make brilliant strategies if the highest intel in the group is a 12. (I see this all the time when someone plays sorceror instead of wizard.)
Around 24, I believe. (Base of 18, +6 stat boost item, three raises given by level.)
The poor GM, on the other hand, might be a 16 on a good day. I agree that the NPCs probably ought to be able to outthink the PCs, but unfortunately they're being played by me, and I am no brighter than my player. (There is only one player involved here, which also means that his plans aren't ruined by someone else doing the Captain Chaos routine, as often happens in multi-player games.)
High-level play is awfully tough. I just wish the modules put a little more effort into not sending the PCs off track, the way the ziggurut is doing here, or even more the way they were repeatedly sent *by NPCs* into Raknian's house in Champion's Games, even though there's no map or stats for it. (Man, that was irritating. I finally had to say to the player, "I know everyone is telling you to go there, but please don't, unless you want to wait a day while I stat it up.")
Mary
I was thinking to myself that Mary must have 6 real-life CIA operatives in her DnD group with an investigative approach to the game. I’m exaggerating, of course; please don’t construe this as flaming – just in contrast to my group (kick in the door and scream initiative), it is starkly different.
Just one. But he's been playing for about twenty-seven years, and he's pretty capable. And with only one player, there's no one to say "Would you quit planning, already? I'm bored!" (It takes him a *long* time to set up the party for a major attack, such as taking out the Blessed Angels--an hour or more. Probably a multi-player group would object.)
He runs a SCAP campaign for some more conventional players, and they'd probably go through Redhand pretty much doing what they ought to, because planning its liberation would just seem like too much work to them. And they probably wouldn't notice the ziggurut or connect it with Kyuss' return.
I wouldn't trade. I'm holding my breath to see what the PC who has Mar'at's phylactery in her backpack does when he comes back to "life." If the price I pay is having to stat up the liberation of Alhaster, well, the game may be real slow for a while, that's all.
I'm just surprised it works as well as it does for as many groups as it does. It feels like the scenario is full of hints that point in a direction where it actually doesn't want the PCs to go (the "hero of the pit" prophecy and the ziggurut in particular). We had the same problem with Champion's Games: there were two very obvious "hints" that the PCs should go into Raknian's house, but the module assumed they wouldn't!
Mary
Ah ha, now I'm seeing your issue. Them's the breaks in open-ended kinds of adventure in cities - the players can do whatever they want, and us poor DM's have to do our best at ad-libbing some times. And yes, there are a couple of "red herrings" in some of them that I imagine most players are at least tempted to follow up on.
In my campaign, the player who runs the wizard-type has scouted out all sorts of potentially annoying places - Raknian's palace (for which I had a scratch map from another adventure, but no real idea of what to put in there), the ziggurat, Lashonna's palace, and (more successfully) the sick-house and under to the Ebon Aspect.
When he's going places I don't really want him to, I tend to picture the place as uninterestingly as I can, while playing up the potential disaster it holds, i.e. lots of people about doing things, no real chance to find a nook or crannie. Luckily he has always got the hint and moved on to easier things.
I guess it's like you say - easier when you've got a number of players, as for example in my games these are typically solo moments and while we all like a realistic game we all realise we can't have one player hogging the limelight for too long. No doubt running it solo means it's more likely for the player to try and take things on a completely different tack.
So I guess I don't have a lot of additional advice. Stress the lawfulness of the place whenever you can: the public execution in the adventure was good (my player was scouting around and readied an action to attack the executioner, until he heard it was the ebon triad being executed), stress the town guards being all over the place, and generally paint the populace as evil but law-abiding. And also, if you'd rather skip over a place (e.g. the ziggurat), do your best to make it seem like it's not worth worrying about, or just get it over and move on (e.g. in my game, the player looked around but saw nothing of interest except workers all over the place; no obvious powerful types, so he left it alone even though everyone suspects it's the next Spire - calling it a citadel rather than ziggurat would have helped a lot! in your game, you might just need to accept the player destroying it - it can always be re-built when the PC's are not around!)
If all else fails in your current adventure, I'd recommend Lashonna makes an early appearance, making it her personal business to get the PC's back on track. You might well end up missing the banquet, but your player might well not play along with that anyway so you might not be missing much.