RHoD Part 1A - Marauder Attack, The Witchwood, Vraath Keep (p14-16, 21-32)

RHoD Masterpost

Welcome to the first actual conversion post! For folks just joining, I'm in the process of running The Red Hand of Doom for my players, and figured that - since I'm converting it to Pathfinder 2nd edition anyway - I may as well document it for other folks to use as well! 

We're going to start this post off with some general information about the overall conversion before getting into the meat of things. This post covers all of the encounters in part one, stopping just before Skull Gorge Bridge. It doesn't get into Drellin's Ferry at all, and while I've sketched in some preliminary notes on treasure I'm absolutely going to go back and revise things once I have a better sense of where the level breaks will end up over the first chapter or two.

How The Conversion Works

You can find the current version of the part one conversion here. As you can see, it is not in any way a replacement for having the physical module. For the most part, the actual conversion documents will focus entirely on monster stat blocks, traps, treasure, experience, check DCs, and other mechanical elements specific to pf2. I'll likely give more editorial thoughts on running the adventure here on the blog, but that will all be supplementing or clarifying rather than replacing.

Hopefully, the format of the document is relatively clear! I'm trying to keep formatting fairly standardized so that the document is easy to quickly reference, but obviously please let me know if you think it could be clearer. At the start of each level break, I include an Encounter Building table with standard XP amounts for encounters and creatures at that level, for folks who want to quickly adjust encounters. In addition, I repeat the following sections in most/all encounters:

• Creatures. This section lists how many creatures are present, what stat blocks to use for them, and how much XP the players should be awarded for defeating them. 
• This will not always follow the normal guidelines for awarding XP (most commonly I will award less if the party weren't mean to fight something, or more for boss fights).
• Award the full amount only if the party overcomes the encounter, half the amount if they partially overcome it, and none if they fail. For example, if Wyrmlord Koth escapes to warn his masters, award them half for driving him off, but not the full amount because he will still be a problem moving foward.
• Tactics. How will the monsters fight? Are there any big things the DM should be aware of, that won't be obvious from map placement? If the creatures start hidden, stealth DCs will be here too.
• Adjustments. How should encounters be adjusted for smaller/bigger parties? Usually in the format "(+1) +2 hobgoblin soldiers" or similar.
• Keep in mind that if you have 1-2 players, you will need to make much heavier adjustments than I have accounted for, or have the players at higher levels than indicated. You should still award the listed XP even for smaller/larger parties, however, as the XP is based on the relative difficulty rather than the number of creatures.
• Treasure. What will the players find in looting the area/creatures? If things are hidden, this section will include DCs for finding them as well.
• I might include other sections as well (such as skill challenge, accomplishment, information, or companion) based on the needs of the section. These will often include DCs and XP awards for non-combat aspects of the encounter/location.

Wyrmlord Koth

Just so folks know, I will be using two pieces of hombrew quite heavily in this conversion. The first is my take on Pathfinder 2e Overland Travel, and the second converts 4th edition's Minions in Pathfinder 2e. Neither are finished or sufficiently playtested, but both are runnable as is - if you try them out, let me know how it goes! I'll likely dedicate specific posts to them once I've made substantial updates, but this will have to wait until I have more experience with them in play.

Now, on to the conversion!

Overview

I'm not going to go into every decision I made, but I do want to highlight a few things. First off, the first half of Part 1 will give slightly over 800 XP on average, so I recommend using fast advancement levelling variant.

Marauder Attack. This fight is meant to be really tough! It should show that the hobgoblins are a serious threat, not to be trifled with. Therefore, it's an Extreme encounter, but split into two waves so that a savvy party should be able to come out ahead. Make sure to play the hobgoblins tactically - they are good at this, and while they underestimate the party at first they'll adapt quickly.

Random Encounters. To me, random encounters should annoy the players more than reward them. They punish players for spending too much time in a given place or for reckless behavior, and the best reward is avoiding them. When handled correctly, they push players to action, but also encourage them to think their way around problems rather than barreling straight in. Therefore, players only get 10 XP for each random encounter (or 5 in areas that are much lower level than them), and earn this whether they defeat the creatures or bypass them some other way. I only list 6 random Witchwood encounters despite the original module listing 17, because I highly doubt that many will come up, but if you'd like more variety feel free to use the table on page 22 as inspiration.

Vraath Keep. I highly recommend folks read through the introduction to this place, especially page 25. Unless the players make a mess of things, the keeps defenders won't be on their guard, but if the alarm is raised they will respond with military efficiency (in which case the party will likely have to retreat and come back later to avoid a TPK). Most of the encounters in here are fairly straight forward, and the one hazard comes from Tyler_Zoro's New And Old Hazards and Traps for Pathfinder 2e (if you read this, thanks for making these!).

Note: If you want Wilderness Travel to be a big part of your campaign, consider making the Bag of Holding only give 10 slots instead of 25!

Monster Conversions

Most of the monsters do exist in Pathfinder 2e, but certain agents of the Red Hand do not have easy equivalents. Specifically, the Doom Hand Cleric and Hobgoblin Bladebearer in the Marauder Ambush, and Wyrmlord Koth. One of the coolest things about this module is that it includes a Hook for each monster - I've replicated them in these stat blocks as well, and I highly recommend you go back and look at the ones for Hobgoblin Soldiers and the like.

Doom Hand Clerics are level 3 divine prepared casters, and are fairly straightforward. Since invisibility and hold person are not divine spells in pf2, I replaced them with blood vendetta and spiritual weapon as those felt like they fit the theme, but the spells are otherwise the same as in the original module.

Hobgoblin Bladebearers are level 4 dual-wielders. They are primarily damage dealers, but can definitely take a hit as well - I lifted some low-level fighter feats to give them the right feel. I might end up tinkering a little to give them a slightly higher damage output (either increasing the damage of each strike, or giving them 3 strikes for 2 actions rather than 2), but that's a future problem.

Wyrmlord Koth is a level 6 Bugbear Sorcerer. His spells are fairly similar to the original module, but I gave him the Draconic bloodline for some added electric flavor - this gives him resistance 5 to electric damage, as well as a really fun dragon claw attack.

Wrapping Up

Welp, that's about half of chapter one done! Still on the list are:

• Drellin's Ferry writeup
• The Battle of Skull Gorge Bridge
• Cinder Hill
• Encounters at Drellin's Ferry
• Revised Treasure for the whole chapter

See y'all next time!

Next - Part 1B: The True Threat