RHoD Addendum - Remixing Victory Points

RHoD Masterpost

Hey folks!

Before we get into proper encounter conversions, today we'll be taking a look at the victory points system as written and proposing some changes (based on this document). In essence, we want Victory Points to actually matter, rather than basically being guaranteed!

You can see a condensed version at the end of my Chapter 4 Document (full blog post writeup here). Note that there's a lot of changes to the Battle Brindol as well - if you don't want to track achievements over the campaign and just want victory at the battle to be the deciding factor, feel free to rely on the modulated difficulty therein!

By Grzegorz Rutkowski on Deviant Art

Victory Points As-Written

So, what's the current breakdown? The PCS need 40 VP to win, and can earn up to 74 total:

• 10 from gathering Allies (1 from the Giants, 4 from the Dwarves, 5 from the Elves)
• 13 from disrupting Red Hand forces (2 from destroying Skull Gorge Bridge, 1 per up to 2 Blockades, 2 for the Hatchery in Rhest, 5 for breaking the Ghostlord Alliance, and 2 for exposing Miha)
• 3 for evacuating Drellin's Ferry
• 8 from the Council Meeting (basically setting the battle up for success)
• 10 for the Battle (2 for defeating the Giants, 2 for putting out fires, 4 for Streets of Blood, 2 for Catching the Sniper).
• 30 for killing commanders (8 for Kharn, 6 for Stormcaller, 4 for Saarvith, 2 for Koth, 4 for Abithriax, 3 for Varanthian, 2 for Regiarix, 1 for Ozyrrandion) - you could also frame this as 8 for Kharn, 12 for the other Wyrmlords, and 10 for the Dragons.

Broken down by location:

• 9 in the Witchwood (the Bridge, the Giants, Koth, Ozyrrandion, evacuating Drellin's Ferry)
• 15 in Rhest (the blockades, the hatchery, Saarvith, Regiarix, and the Elf alliance)
• 14 in the Thornwastes (Stormcaller, Varanthian, and breaking the Ghostlord alliance)
• 6 in Ch. 2 sidequests (Exposing Miha, Delivering the Gold to the Dwarves)
• 30 that's unique to Brindol (8 for the council, 10 for the battle, 12 for Kharn and Abithriax).
• Brindol also offers a chance to kill the other commanders (12 more VP) if they were missed earlier

So if you do the Battle perfectly, it's possible to just... skip the rest of the campaign. I mean you'd still wanna try, so you don't die from being under levelled, but you can fail every single goal throughout the campaign and still probably win as long as you beat Kharn. That doesn't feel great to me! I want my players to have to accomplish things throughout the campaign in order to win the day, not just fight well day of. I am perfectly okay with the party being screwed when they get to the final battle if they didn't do enough ahead of time!

Of course, that doesn't mean that we want the players to have to go to Rhest and the Thornwastes specifically, so we'll touch on some ideas for the players earning more victory points later on.

Tiers of Victory

Instead of a binary Success or Fail, there are several possible outcomes depending on how many Victory Points the players earn. Based on this document, found in the (new) Red Handbook of Doom:

• < 25 VP - Catastrophic Failure. The Red Hand overruns Brindol decisively with minimal losses. Even if the PCs survive, Dennovar and Elsir Vale are doomed. The war is lost! (Note: if the PCs survive, you can still continue the campaign, it'll just be a very different campaign, and they will be scorned wherever they go for their failures.)
• 25-39 VP - Defeat. The Red Hand overruns Brindol, though some defenders and civilians escape and manage to scupper the defenses to deny the Hand a useful stronghold. There is still hope for a second stand at Dennovar, but it is a slim hope. (Many will blame the PCs for the city's fate.)
• 40-49 VP - Stalemate. The fighting was brutal and bloody, with untold losses on both sides. The Hand's initial assault did not take the city, but they are sure to regroup and try again! (The PCs are largely forgotten unless they immediately take charge of the city.)
• 50-54 VP - Pyrrhic Victory. The Red Hand is driven off, never to return (at least not in its current form), but at a grave cost. Only a scant handful of defenders yet live, and many important NPCs died in the fighting. (The defenders are grateful to the PCs, but there is too much destruction for celebration and it takes decades to put the pieces back together. Few others even know who they are - they are just the ones who lived.)
• 55-59 VP - Costly Victory. The Red Hand is driven off at great cost, but the city and many of its defenders are still standing. Rebuilding will be slow, but it can be done. (While those in power or who fought are grateful to the PCs, most common folk simply don't know who they are! There were too many heroes that day, that gave much more than the PCs - gave their very lives! And it is they who are remembered.)
• 60-64 VP - Major Victory! The Red Hand is driven off for good, with only minor damage to the city. Several brave heroes fell, but many remain to rebuild. (The PCs are hailed as heroes for their efforts, their names known throughout the realm!)
• 65+ VP - Legendary Victory! The enemy crashed against the walls of Brindol and could not push through! The city sustains minimal damage and few casualties. (The courage of its defenders will be enshrined in myth for generations to come, and none more than the PCs who led the effort! No door shall be closed to them.)

Note: the PCs no longer have to defeat Wyrmlord Kharn! If they are overwhelmed, killed, or driven off, the rest of the defenders of Brindol together can eventually finish him off, as long as the PCs put them in a good enough position ahead of time (50+ VP). This will not earn the usual VP for killing him, as the forces of Brindol would be badly expended in the effort, and the Tier of Victory will be reduced as a result.

If you like the Tiers of Victory but want to go easier on the PCs, feel free to use the numbers from the doc, or split the difference and make the cutoffs 20/30/40/50/60/70 (making the Pyrrhic and Costly victories more likely, Major victories just as likely, and Legendary victories less likely)!

Feel free to tie treasure to the Tiers of Victory too, though I might wait on fleshing that out until Chapter 5 since that's when 

Additional Victory Points

The stakes are, literally, a lot higher! While I like that the PCs now have to actually accomplish things, this means that for the best result, as written, they could not miss more than 10 VP! That's a bit harsher than I want. So, we will be providing many more opportunities for VP!

• Delaying the Main Army. The PCs earn 1 VP per day that they delay the bulk of Red Hand forces, as the defenders get more time to prepare!
• Skull Gorge Bridge now gives 3 VP, not 2, as it delays them 3 days.
• Slaying Wyrmlord Koth and Allying with the Forest Giants each give additional VP equal to the delay (so Koth now gives 3 VP total if killed in Chapter 1, as does convincing the Forest Giants to harry their approach)
• The players can also come up with plans of their own, such as destroying the Blackwater Causeway, convincing allies to erect barricades, or similar. These delay the Hand by 1 day for most plans, 2 for really good plans, and 3 for extraordinary plans, and award a corresponding number of VP.
• Supporting the War Effort. Sortie missions to disrupt the Red Hand or long term projects! Award VP based on how effective this tact would be: 1 VP for minor accomplishments, 2 VP for moderate ones, or 3 VP for major ones / game changers. In general, more impressive accomplishments will require more time, manpower, etc. While you should follow the players lead in terms of what goals they want to go for, here are some simple examples!
• Freeing slaves/captives (1-2 VP depending on numbers, maybe 3 VP if they are veterans who will be useful in the battle).
• Destroying supplies (1-3 VP depending on scale). There's a suggestion from JMAX in here of allowing a tradeoff by going scorched earth on the towns leading up to Brindol. Basically, you get 1-2 VP per town, as you starve the Hand of supplies they might otherwise loot, but their pace increases by 1 day per town because they now won't be spending that time looting!
• Bolstering defenses (1-2 VP for most ideas, like helping ready flaming cauldrons or setting traps in the Hand's path. 3 VP should be removed for massive projects like building an entire moat around the city! If you're having trouble resolving those big projects, the WWN rules have advice).
• Expert Scouting (1-2 VP unless they literally steal the Wyrmlord's plans from his tent or similar)
• Handing out more than 3 VP should be reserved for things that take substantial time both in-session and in-world, such as full side quests or complex plans.
• Gathering Allies. I plan to add several factions the PCs can recruit in addition to ones present in the adventure, and you should feel free to come up with your own as well!
• The PCs can ask the Forest Giants to help in the battle instead of waylaying them! This will still earn 3 VP, but will result in them being able to help for the Battle of Brindol (see the next section) instead of slowing them down.
• The Hellriders, once called the Riders of Rhest before being led into Hell itself by an Angel on a holy crusade 300 years ago, are now scattered after a failed assault on the Ghostlord a few years ago. (I am considering running the Descent into Avernus Remix after RHoD, this is foreshadowing, but it's also just sick as hell.) Pulling them back together is worth 3 VP. 
• The Tribes of the Endless Plains, both Human and Orc, have no love for the Red Hand, but are busy fighting amongst themselves as much as against the Centaurs and Gnolls (neither of which are inclined to help). The PCs will have to negotiate these complex webs, but will gain 1 VP per Tribe that they get to commit warriors, or 2 VP if they commit the whole tribe.
• Feel free to add one or more Chromatic Dragons, earning 2 VP for each Young dragon recruited or 3 VP for each Adult dragon. 
• Training the Troops at Brindol takes 1 week and requires a relevant check (Warfare Lore DC 25, otherwise DC 30). Standard PF2 degrees of success: Crit = 2 VP, Success = 1, Crit Fail = lose 1. You might also give out situational hero points that can be used at any point in the battle! Probably related to the area of training - so melee, ranged, healing, or a specific type of save/defense.

Follow your players lead here! Reward whatever clever ideas they come up with so that they feel like they are the ones who shaped the outcome of the war. That being said, if they are struggling to come up with ideas or not spending enough time on the war / VP gathering effort, feel free to have NPCs interject or otherwise communicate to the players how dire things are as well as some of the options listed above!

It's worth noting that this conversion assumes you are using the Fast Levelling variant, but is relatively tight in terms of XP earned (there's not more than a few hundred XP to spare if you want the PCs on track). This has two consequences:

1. If the PCs skip lots of content, you should replace it with something else (sidequests or new arcs of your own devising), or they will have a tough time with encounters!
2. It is very easy to turn this campaign into more of a sandbox, with lots of mini-dungeons, side-quests, etc, by just returning to the normal XP system. In fact, since many have reported that the timelines are very flexible (meaning it's hard to run out of time), this is a great way to add an extra element of challenge and make the timeline matter!

That's it for now! Next time, we'll be going through the Battle of Brindol - both a straightforward conversion and an attempt to make gathering allies matter for more than just VP. See you then!

Next - Part 4: Enemy at the Gates!