5 Ways to Make Curse of Strahd Better
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
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I saw someone asking about the other changes I made to the campaign that didn't make the top 5 list so I figured I'd post them here. They're in no particular order
#6: I rewrote the vampires at the coffin makers shop to be a past adventuring party that failed to defeat Strahd and were turned into vampires. I personalized their stats a bit and even revealed that some of them were connected to other campaigns.
#7: I put one of the Martikov gems at the Old Bonegrinder mill. I wanted to go ahead and tease the Martikovs and needed a place to put the 3rd gem since the book leaves it up to the DM so that location worked best for me.
#8: I made a change that allowed Strahd to be permanently defeated as long as the players had all the items alluded to in the tarroka reading present at the time of his defeat. Strahd just coming back regardless seemed to make the entire campaign feel pointless IMO and this change gives more reasoning behind hunting for those items.
#9: I started the players at a higher level. My players carried over their character for LMoP so I let them start at lvl 5 and we skipped the death house completely. This made the campaign a little less brutal at the start.
#10: I made some pretty big adjustments to Strahd's stat block. I kept him the same for the first half of the campaign, but by the end I bumped him up a few CR lvls (CR 19 maybe?) to make the final fight more challenging, otherwise that final fight can potentially turn into a bit of a cake walk to an experienced party.
Feel free to use or ignore any of these!
Great stuff. Thank you. Could you list your first five that you mentioned in this video please? I'm going to use most of them with very little adaption in mine which is coming up soon. :-)
These are really great adjustments. I'm stealing all of them.
#1: Stack the deck. Choose which tarroka cards are drawn so that you can better prepare
#2: Introduce Strahd early and in disguise. It lays the groundwork for a good twist later and establishes Strahd as someone who likes to play with his food
#3: Explain the sunsword's sentience as it housing Sergei's soul. It gives you opportunities to delve further into the lore of Barovia and Strahd and makes the sword more interesting
#4: Beef up Ireena's stats. I made her a champion fighter that leveled up with the party. I've heard of others that just gave Ireena the same stats as Ismark.
#5: Raise the stakes at the festival of the blazing sun. I had this event kick off a large scale attack planned by Strahd and Lady Wachter that forces the party to flee the town. This is also where I had Strahd reveal he was in disguise.
Maybe this could be a topic for a different video but I've gotten some mixed messages about the final Strahd fight. Some say that it's essential to buff Strahd a bit, while others say that with proper tactics Strahd is essentially unbeatable.
I agree with most of your changes! I've run CoS 6 times as a GM and every time has been unique.
1. Tarokka Cards I stacked, though I gave several to several players.
2. Strahd was introduced fairly early on and delivered a eulogy that had a whole script and pamphlets handed out to my players.
3. The Sun Sword I also changed, I made it into two parts: Hilt and Blade, and they were reforged in the Pool of Krezk.
4. Ireena's stats changed depending on our party composition. My reasoning is she's had many lives previous, and when she peered into the Pool, she saw a lifetime from before and absorbed those experiences.
6. I also re-wrote the vampires the same exact way!
7. I moved mine into the Durst Manor, though the players knew not what to do with it until a lot later.
8. There's a great video on Epilogue to CoS done by Lunchbreak heroes, where to permanently defeat Strahd you'd have to bind Vampyr. During 5/6 of my campaign's he was incapacitated but in my 6/6 run he actually participated and helped, as when he was defeated Sergei and Ireena left him, as well as he also didn't want to be chained to Barovia.
9. Most of my campaigns also start in LMOP prior to entering CoS, 4/6 of them actually. I always keep them at level 3, and have them run through Durst Manor regardless. LOTS of changes to the house, but it can be done very well. It was very memorable for my parties.
10. Strahd himself is pretty squishy, but once you have him inside his castle, he can be as invincible as you want. His phasing and summoning and locking of doors and regeneration and using Beaucephaleus to dimension shift is extremely difficult to fight against. He's also a warlord and extremely intelligent. He KNOWS the party, and very well. I actually had to dumb him down a little because of how I played him in the castle was too overpowered.
Love to hear your thoughts from fellow GM's!
On the High Rollers’ play through, the dm made Irina a bard and made Tatiana able to talk through Irina and guide the party. I thought that was pretty cool
My personal change for the sunsword was that it was inert unless it was bathed in the beacon of Argynvostholt, visited Sergei’s tomb, or reunited Ireena with Sergei at the shining pool.
I also made a couple of change I found suggested in reddit threads, one was making the three brides of Strahd actual characters, gave them unique vampiric abilities as well. They made great side antagonists. The other change was moving Gertruda from Strahd’s bed(1, eww, 2 made her findable outside of endgame) and made her a hag child. The hags at the windmill took her a week before her thirteenth birthday and the party has that long to rescue her before she is turned.
This advice is great -- particularly introducing Strahd early and making Ireena a strong character that can hold her own.
I personally differ in opinion when it comes to revealing Strahd as openly hostile in Vallaki. The way I read it, Strahd knows that he has to win Ireena over willingly -- all past attempts to take her by force have failed or ended in her death. I think it would be hard for Strahd to win Ireena over if he acts like an openly-hostile murderer. So, in Vallaki, I have agents of Strahd doing the fighting so that the Count himself can maintain plausible deniability / swoop in and offer to "save" Ireena if things get super hairy.
I always enjoy hearing DM thoughts on how they improve Curse of Strahd. Strahd as Vasili and sowing clues for the players to discover that is extremely enjoyable.
My players had two near calls with Vasili where they were suspicious but just thought he was an asshole. Then they found him in the dungeons and released him to go into battle with Strahd.
The gasps from the table when I used him to stab Mordenkainen (their Tarroka ally) in the back just before said battle were the sweetest sounds I ever heard.
@@madmadame1508 I love the idea of putting him in the dungeons. I'll definitely consider that as a possibility in the future.
I am about to run this module again for the second time! It's so nice to see someone post about their changes. Great work! I will def be putting some of these changes into effect!
Thanks! Glad you liked them!
I highly recommend checking out Lunch Break Heroes work, they have an entire series on the module that I found invaluable for my games.
My first time as a dm, I ran my own homebrew version of Curse of Strahd, and I had a ton of fun with it. I took a bunch of the characters from the story and changed their roles to be enemies and bosses throughout the story, like Madam Eva acting as Strahd's right hand. I had a ton of fun, I hope to get to finish the campaign someday
I added Vasili, I threw in a few twists. I had very trope-savvy players, so did what I could to obfuscate/subvert their expectations.
1 - I renamed him some other Romanian name in case we had players that peek on the internet. Anyone that types in "Vasili von Holtz" into image search will immediately see major spoilers.
2 - At Argynvostholt, I let the players know they had to put the body of Argynvost to rest like in the book, but like a few other DMs did, I made the dragon Argynvost into a dracolich, who is a perversion of the original under Strahd's control.
3 - There are two creatures that are posing as "Vasili" - Strahd, the other is Argynvost, who has retained his ability to shapeshift.
4 - Vasili remains interested in wooing Ireena, makes excuses about going onto hallowed ground, etc.
5 - when the players get suspicious of his identity and confront him or set a trap expecting a confrontation with Strahd, they are in for a shock as the Vasili begins to contort into an enormous creature. Cackles with "Strahd? No... not Strahd.", etc. At that point, the "real" Vasili appears on the scene, "clearing his name"
6 - They have to fight an undead, but not one they were prepared for. Possibly a Shadow of the Colossus style aerial encounter.
7 - Tropes state that the PCs would automatically trust that the "real" Vasili is human from here on out and called it wrong.
8 - Vasili gains Ireena and Ismark's trust, adventures with the party, swashbuckles against Izek, lives vicariously with the party, etc.
9 - Strahd has an earnest opportunity to continue wooing the girl in and 'prove' his worth before dumps the truth onto her.
I made it so that irenna needed to be the one to kill strahd with the sunsword in order to break the curse and free barovia and send it back to the mortal plane. Nice to see you went with a similar idea.
Your changes were amazing! (I especially loved the sun sword!!!) But I think my favorite part of the video was the amazing blooper at the end 🤣. “Oh geeze, it’s a map!” Made me laugh so hard! Great video.
I ran CoS in an Old west American gothic type of campaign. Strahd was a gunslinger lol.
That sounds awesome!
@@misfitadventurers ya, I liked it but my players were none too happy since I added lightening rails (trains), changed the village of Borovia over to Tombstone. Plus the players would keep pointing out certain things were not in "the book". So if your group knows you well and are not strangers, then changes are acceptable. Anyway, just a thought lol.
Dude, that sounds fucking cool. I may have to steal it. Did he look like in the books, or did he look like Sheriff Lucas Buck, from "American Gothic"? Because that's who I will be using as a template for Strahd.
Pretty sure players aren’t supposed to know what’s in the book. Buncha cheaters. 😁
Thanks for this. These are some great tips definitely going to give these a look at incorporating some into my campaign. I Just started A Curse of Strahd Campaign. The biggest twist I did was to put it in Spelljammer. The players are crew on a spelljammer that was tasked with trying to track down a missing ship. They track it to the mist covered region with trees that reach out fo the mist to pull ships in. In the course of trying to free the ship they get stranded in the lands beyond the mist... Barovia. It gives them a distinct goal. repair the spelljammer that crashed. If any PCs die they can easily bring in another character who can be part of the crew so I can skip the awkward introduction of a person they have to trust in a land you really don't want to trust anyone. And more importantly it lets me continue the campaign after the end of the book. Since it Stops at level 10 it just seemed like a really short adventure. Plus it lets them all play any race from any of the source books since, well, people end up in the astral sea from an endless number planes.
These are fantastic ideas! making ireena tougher is a great idea for a dark fantasy game. If you’re going for a horror game though, the less your character and npcs are capable of against the enemy the more terrified they are. I’m semi quoting John wick (the author of legends of five rings not the character) but he likens it to the difference between the movies alien and aliens.
In aliens, the xenomorphs are everywhere but you have smart guns, pulse rifles, exo suits and nukes. When the xenos come for them they bunker down, throw up some auto turrets, scream “LET’S ROCK!!“ and get to blasting. The xenos win, but they can be fought and even defeated.
In alien however, that one xenomorph is unstoppable. Whatever plan the crew puts together it just reverse cards and eats one of them. And the plans they do come up with aren’t bad either: that thing is just unstoppable. It goes about picking them apart one by one until no one is left. When rippley is singing “wishing on my lucky star” it’s because she’s low key preying in the final moments because of that last trick doesn’t work she’s dead.
When running ravenloft, any part of the demiplane of dread, I always ask my crew if they want dark fantasy or horror. If they want dark fantasy I bump them up to level 3 to start and they end the game around 10-12. They’re tough and capable but not impossibly so. Things are bleak, but if they fight smart they can win.
If they want *horror* though, they start out as tough as ireena in the book, which is that they’re not. They’re not powerful warriors, they may be level 1 or lower (I’ve ran horror games where they were level 0 kids with like 4hp) they’re average dudes and dames against an impossible scenario. They might be exceptional in other ways such as academically or have financial backing from being well to do but these are not trained warriors or mystics. They may not even have weapons on them. The game is forced into the fact you have to outsmart and out maneuver the threats pursuing them.
Horror rules may not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for something to scare your players I recommend it. Great job with this video!
Really good stuff. I would talk to the players first before drawing the cards and find out what places in Ravenloft they were excited about, or at least what kind of places they would want to see in a vampire story. Then choose to focus the campaign on what they will be excited about.
I love you changes to the fall of Vallaki; my players are currently in that town doing various things (the bones, flirting with Rictavio, I added the orphanage also) so they're pretty invested in the place and people, which will make it possibly burning to the ground that much more impactful.
CoS is my first campaign as a DM also. I had a completely different experience in Vallaki. One of the players identified the assassin in the mirror and used it to kill the burgomaster because he hated him. I made him do a luck roll to see how it would play out and he rolled a 1. So it unfolded where his wife interfered and they both got assassinated. I chose to give their son Victor a redemption arc. He publicly executed the Wachter family after the players convinced they were working for Strahd and hired the assassin, and so he gained the trust of the town.
One thing I had trouble with as a first time DM was introducing the areas of Barovia. I feel like the book lacks giving you options on how to introduce new areas if the players aren't willing to literally explore everything. So, I made Victor form a committee of the townsfolk with Ireena being his right hand. They uncovered rumors about the different areas of Barovia and created a rough map of the land for the players. It also made Ireena a much more interesting character.
Just wanted to share my experience if anyone reading this has the same issue and wants to help give players more guidance. The party really liked this and were able to form a true plan for the rest of the campaign instead of feeling scattered around all the time.
I definitely love your sword idea and am going to use that. It works well seeing how they want to go to the Amber Temple right before going to the castle. One of my players has a romantic relationship with Ireena though so I am very excited to see how that all pans out 😂
Everyone I know has run this game, had interesting changes to this module. Thanks for sharing this. And yeah this was great.
These are really good tips. I wish I'd thought of having Strahd pop up in disguise, that's genius.
Nautical themed d&d homebrew? Almost broke the mouse subbing so fast..
Im starting CoS next week. Your video has given me a bunch of ideas as two memebers of the group is 100% new and never played and the other two have played a little but still learning. Thank you for putting this out. Its got my DM brain thinking
I’ve run this three times now for different groups and when it comes to Strahd I think you need to look at your parties composition.
Some dish damage so quickly that just added more DR and HP doesn’t really do much, it just delays the inevitable. Others that would make the fight really hard and impossible.
Here is what I adjusted
- adds (brides, werewolves, etc), this added challenge through tactics.
- abilities, I adjusted his abilities adding things like cloud kill or darkness. Made it just that much more interesting when some bizarre effect would go off forcing the party to deal with it.
- traps and events, a floor that falls away, or an illusion, the mists of ravenloft are all consuming after all.
I find stuff like this worked better in the end and provided more of an “epic” feel to the fight.
I've watched a lot of videos for COS preparing for my campaign, and I really enjoyed yours. Very practical and fantastic alterations for role-playing fun and general flow of the campaign. I greatly appreciate your ideas, they make great sense. I wish you had more of these for the different locations of COS. While I appreciate the other content creator in this space greatly, I have to say this was one of the more inspiring videos for me personally. Good job, and thank you.
Love the changes with the sun sword & Sergei! As a fan of the novels also, I’ve thought about bringing the Ba’al Verzi assassins and the notorious dagger into the story. I’ve heard a few other dms do that to add an extra cool magical item for the party to find.
Really cool changes! I’ll definitely use these if I ever run Strahd
These are all great changes! I did the first two as well and it has been amazing! I'll be doing #3 now, what a great idea!
Thanks! Let me know how it goes!
In my own upcoming rendition of Curse of Strahd I'm actually ignoring Irina and replacing her with Esmerelda. In my campaign it's Esmerelda who is the reincarnation of Tatyana.
I love that idea!
@@misfitadventurers The idea I had is that Baba Lasayga revealed to Strahd that Tatyana would soon be reborn to a Vistani woman. Strahd sent Rahadin to fetch the baby but her mother was warned and they fled. Rahadin chased the mother and the baby amd cornered them over a waterfall. To save her baby the mother lept over the falls. Rahadin searched but couldn't find a trace if them and returned to Strahd empty handed. In anger Strahd slashed Rahadin across the face with a clawed hand, leaving him with garish scars across his face. But the mother and the baby survived and made their way to Rudolph Van Richten, who honored the mother's final wish and took the child in. He raised her alongside his own son Erasmus and trained her how to fight but never told her of her true heritage. But Esmerelda has dreams and strange flashes of deja vu because deep in her subconscious she has memories of past life.
Really tempting to steal this idea. My players have already heard of Irina, but they haven’t met her yet.
@@TheOGSpartanNinja Go for it!
im soo gald i read this. i didnt know what to do with her till now, i wasnt going to use esmerelda at all untill i read this. (rick and morty) you SOB! IM IN
Going into this adventure in a few weeks. You've definitely given me some things to consider. I was trying to figure out how to work Strahd in. Didn't even consider make the PCs feel like he could be in disguise as a friend. LOL Thank you!
I like it! I am setting up and preparing to run it for the first time.
I intend to use some of this, but instead of the wondering merchant, Im going to straight up have the party meet Strahd almost immediately at a dinner party.
I am also going to give some of the spawn some character and maybe have some conflict of interest between the spawn and Strahd and at some point the party will be lured to their demise by this small misfit gang of vampire spawn and Strahd is going to intervene and kill the misfits.
I am definitely going to stack the deck
Great video and great advice! I'm about to run Strahd for the first time and am absolutely going to use all of this. Thank you so much!
Thank you! Good luck with the campaign!
Yeah I wanna watch that campaign. That sounds like an amazing story to enjoy!!!
This was such a good breakdown! Thanks for going through your reasoning too
Thanks so much!
Thanks for the gift
These changes are wonderful!
Thanks so much!
Guildgates and Goblins did a CoS campaign and it’s really good. If anyone is looking to run the game you should check out their version. They added a lot of unique twists that help the story move along
Thankyou!
Great videos. Keep up the good work.
Cheers for the video, some great ideas I’d like to implement as I’m looking to play strahd for my first campaign as GM.
Also love your jumper.
Thank you for sharing these alterations. I particularly like no.3, it reminds me of the end of the legacy of kain game series.
I hope to try some of these with my group (if they ever get to 8th level...)
These are some great ideas! I'm still hoping to run CoS, and these are definitely going into the mix. Great job!
Glad you like them!
Thanks. =) Good stuff. I've made some of my own changes to the campaign, but I also gave Ireena fighter levels. I took away that sissy rapier that the module gives her and had her two-hand a longsword. I also greatly expanded the "Bones of St. Andral" quest to add a dungeon and a Strahd fight.
Some of my party members had read Strahd novels (I, Strahd, by P.N. Elrod is particularly good!) so I couldn't use "Vasili von Holtz." Instead, I simply replaced him with "Marek Stefanovich," gave him a hat of disguise, and had Ireena fall in love with him. Marek saved the party in a big fight on the road and traveled with them for a long time; they left him to care for Ireena when they went after the Bones.
Now they're in Berez, and I want to enhance the Baba Lysaga story... she's too cool to just be a single fight. I need to get them more information about her and make the fight more memorable.
Anyway, thanks for the video! It was great. New sub here. =)
Good shares. Love the ideas
ive been rewriting chunks of curse of strahd for like 2 months to run for some friends - one thing i added after changing some of strahds motivs/personality was one of our players is his lost child, cursed through the unknown bloodline to be a dhampir, and we've been talking about possible scenes between them when they find out about the family ties and we JUST started playing lmao
This is once of those videos who's content and comments are a gorram treasure. About to wrap up a 2.5 year campaign, this is once of those "I wish I saw this" type videos.
Subbed! I have yet to play Strahd with my group in Norway but my D.M is open to suggestions so these ways could make it more interesting if we ever gonna play it, still on the Phendalver campaign
Thank you for this! GOing to run it soon :)
Hope you enjoy it!
Great ideas. Especially for the sun sword.
Thank you! 😊
One way my group raised the stakes was having Strahd able to leave Barovia and desire to conquer all of the realms including the Sword Coast, Eboron etc. What made things worse was that my character, Zelda, is the last surviving Alagondar, heir to Neverwinter, one of the strongest city states on the Sword Coast. Throughout the campaign there was this political tension between the Alagondar and Von Zarovich families similar to the conflict between the Starks and the Lannister's from Game of Thrones. Additionally in our campaign Strahd had a second brother younger than Sergei. This youngest brother, Alexander (also a vampire in the campaign), is currently working with the party and has developed a wholesome romantic relationship with Zelda. This added political tension has become central to how we view the Sword Coast as well as our options on dealing with Strahd. It has also inspired a lot of character development among the party as they have to navigate being among royalty and other members of the court.
I've watched a couple of these, but no one has mentioned what I did for my campaign. I redrew the map to make it much bigger (taking advantage of a really cool massive piece of some brownish-parchment-type paper I found at work, and used lots of Sharpies to make it colorful). Barovia as is always seemed so small to me, just like the AD&D version, kinda. Making the distances longer means more wilderness encounters, more RP during travel, more exposition with a helpful guide, and now Vallaki is far away from the castle, the houses are brightly painted in defiance of the atmosphere, and it's inhabitants have more resolve when asked about fighting Strahd, and can give viable support to your party.
I based the new map on my theory that the Dark Powers will occasionally bring new people and even landscapes into Barovia, to see what Strahd would do with them, so it grows.
Great ideas!
Glad you like them!
I agree Strahd should not show up in person early on, and if he does it is in disguise as the Rahadin henchmen can fill in as whatever the GM needs for interactions with the party. The Coach, who runs a patreon if you watch his live playthroughs has Strahd show up in the carriage, not really talk to the party, but during the burial of the burgomeister and I thought why is strahd there when Rahadin could be there, and if spell effects are needed just treat Rahadin like a conduit, such as a familiar plays so spells Strahd casts take effect trhough Rahadin. Done, problem solved, and if Strahd were to meet the party before their first visit to the castle it would be strahd in disguise and if the GM thought they read or played the module before, change up who he is disguised as. You never know that npc you interacted with is Strahd. Anyone could be Strahd.
Great video! I'm a crazy person, I a forever dm for my group and decided to run 3 campaigns back to back: first is waterdeep dragon heist, then dragon of icespire peak and ending with curse of strahd. I'm planning on adding elements and characters from all 3 throughout the campaigns so I stealing your idea of introducing strahd early say in the yawning portal as Vasili. This will prove very interesting. Thank you.
We're running this one right now, the only real change I would make to COS would be to add a few more (non-consumable) magic items. I know it's made to be a "there is nothing about this place that you will like, we make no pretenses about foes being intelligent and trying to kill you" type module but throw us at least a small bone.
In our current run, our DM did make Ireena more viable as a character. She has more HP than I do, and we gave her a silvered sword (so lycanthropes are no longer as much of a concern). Vallaki also got pretty well screwed over, no lube.
Finding the crystal blade in order to use the sun sword is how the weapon worked in early editions. It was only in 5E that the sub quest to restore the weapon is not present.
Interesting ideas. Now I need to find same for Tomb of Annihilation
Nice thumbnail by the way, it worked
New sub here.
Love your alterations to Stahd. Looking forward to watching the other videos on your channel.
Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friend.
Awesome! Thank you!
What do you think of making the Sunsword connected to the Silver Dragon Argynvost so his soul is now trapped within or merged with the Sunblade, or how about that Saint Markovia or another good character from the lore.
This was quite helpful. I'm getting ready to run my first campaign for paying customers and Curse of Strahd has been chosen as the jumping off point. (I run a couple of games for friends and family already but this is going to be a way to hone my skills with players who don't know me on a day to day basis). We'll see how it goes, but some of the ideas in your video and in your pinned comment are super creative. So thanks for that. -- Also, I saw on your IG that you went to your first RenFaire, that one is only about 90 minutes from me, I went before the pandemic and it was a blast. Glad you enjoyed it :)
Thanks! And the ren faire was so much fun! I can't wait to go again
@@misfitadventurers Glad you enjoyed it :) I just to my first one since the Pandemic a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast. Even got to watch the Highland games.
Cool ideas, ty for sharing :D
There is a community mod for more of these in reddit.
Full story Overhauls of dragnacarta and mandymod are popular ones.
I actually had the idea to make Curse of Strahd, more like Bram Stoker's Dracula. A carriage takes them to Barovia, and back then, they did not expect they would be trapped there. The carriage is conducted by a mysterious driver, who does not speak, but manages to scare off a pack of wolves by raising a pale and almost skeletical hand. Then, when my players meet Strahd, I would describe his hand in the exact same way, hoping my attentive players realise that the driver wss actually Strahd himself.
That was a big moment in Bram Stoker's Novel, and I feel like it would bring so much creepiness to him. As Jonathan Harker says in his journal
"The thought of it froze my blood in my veins. For, if the driver had been able to control the wolves so easily, much like even nature itself would obey him, what else is he capable of?"
Curse of Strahd is going to be my first campaign dming too!!
I liked these ideas
Amazing advice! #7 is amazing as well! Could you imagine the bonegrinder "flour" being given its dream property because they were grinding the bones on the third gem. Could even lead to a quest to cleanse the gem after.
I also had the gem give off a wild magic area effect which made that hag fight pretty entertaining. A unicorn showed up and helped the party mid fight 😂
I've loved wild magic since it first showed up in the earlier editions! Always a blast, as long as you have a DM who is willing to fudge the numbers to avoid "wipes you from existence" results unless they REALLY make the story better. *Grin*
Cool ideas
I also made her helpful she was a cleric and levels with the party, I also made her connect or be close with one of the characters.
Hey Google: How do I delete from my brain that my homeboy Vasili is Strahd?
I've been planning CoS for a few months and after some interparty drama and restructuring, I finally have a group that's ready to play! These tips are awesome, totally gonna take some inspo.
Super proud of you!!!
Thanks! ❤️
Playing through right now and I love some of these changes. The storyline of Rictavio you gave him is great! We kind of destroyed vallaki. Killed the burgomaster, made the twins in charge since we had them under our thumb. Then they betrayed us by letting strahd in to kill us when we were visiting. So we killed the leaders again and now it is a lawless town 😅
Oh no! 😂
I like the idea of splitting the sword, I'm going to run CoS for the first time later this year and I'm trying to think of ways to encourage my players to explore the locations
Im currently in the middle of starting up curse of strahd and i was thinking of introducing strahd as a child in need of hold from bandits only to reveal that the bandits where another group of adventures and strahd pit them against each other just for entertainment and seem who was the stronger group
Great list. Subscribed.
I stacked the deck but chose the Tome to appear in the Burgomaster mansion, holy symbol in VRs tower, and the Sword at Argynvolstholt. For the ally and Strahd's location, I removed some cards, but drew those randomly. Ended up with Kasimir and the chapel.
Very cool! I had the sword appear super early at Madam Eva's, I think the other locations I picked were Argynvstholt and the Amber Temple. I believe the party's ally ended up being Esmeralda for our run through
You went with a random ally? I picked the werewolf girl, specifically because I wanted the party to understand that not everything here is an enemy, even if they look scary. You have to go by their actions. Kind of like an episode of "Supernatural", where some monsters are just trying to raise their kids, not take over the world. The one where Garth gets married. Seemed like a good template.
The other stuff I did randomly, because those are just locations.
i've subbed. Good content.
One more option is to include the brides of strahd as mini bosses on their own. I made ludmilla the warrior Princess. Volentia the eldritch wizard and anastrasya the arcane archer if i want to pressure the group. The group have a lot of hate for the brides at this point. They even killed my the dm's pc
Gertruda was an NPC I felt existed just to be fridged, so I merged her and Ireena into a single character named Ireena. In my playthrough, Ireena was a little more powerful than is presented in the book, maybe at or just above player character power. Giving her more or less power on the character sheet depending on how hard you want it. Also giving her more or less knowledge of what is going on and why, based on how hard you want it.
Good video 👍
Those were amazing and thoughtful changes. And only the top 5! I'd love to hear more. Do you have a list you can share? If you do, I'd love to peruse it.
Thanks! No list yet, but I'll add it to my list of things to do!
I pinned a comment that lists some of the other things I adjusted. Hope you find them helpful!
@@misfitadventurers Thank you for sharing!!! 🤘🔥
One of the players in my curse of strahd game actually convinced Ireena to take levels in Bloodhunter. She had been bitten by a werewolf and he was a lycan bloodhunter, who believed Ireena could control her hybrid transformation.
Good vid. Wow, find the missing component ... before coming across this video I was musing a McGuffin style version of CoS, where the PCs have to find all the pieces of a morninglord icon that fits at the base of the sword on the hilt... once the icon is fit into place, the sword wakes to power. Strahd couldn't destroy the icon due to its holiness, only separate its parts that were brought together to create it in the first place, so he has them hidden throughout Barovia, some having stayed hidden with families or folks for centuries. This could make for good fodder for conflict of loyalties and what not, i.e. perhaps a faction of the werewolves is more than happy to reveal the whereabouts of the part that is in their caves, perhaps others would like to do so but fear Strahd would find out they betrayed him, etc.
I'm about to start my SECOND run of curse of strahd for a mostly new group (2 people I just met and 1 player from the previous run of CoS)
One of the big ways im planning on changing the module up are i'm going to have each Bride of Strahd be a mini-BBEG for each village in the Valley.
(I was surprised how little the Brides actually came up. As written in the module iirc they only show up as guards for Strahd's coffin.)
I love that idea! It's honestly a shame that his brides don't play a bigger role. Hope it all goes well!
@@misfitadventurers Thanky :3
awesome!!! thanks for this. I am about to run this game for my group once we finish Icespire. Did you guys record your play through? I'd love to get an idea of the module :)
Unfortunately our play through happened long before we had the bright idea to record, but I pulled a lot of inspiration from the How We Roll Podcast's run through of the game
I actually played as Ireena for a significant chunk. My PC contracted lycanthropy while resolving the werewolf issue and made every save UNTIL Strahd cast moonbeam during his dinner invite, and the party pushed him out a window to deal with that as they fled through the castle. My DM had made her a wizard from the beginning so I had to learn 7 levels of spells after a year of playing a rogue, but I played as her for the entire Amber Temple, the decent (we accidentally teleported there trying to get out of Ravenloft), and a few minor locations until we got to the winery where the Martikovs had suppressed the effects for my Rogue. I was actually kinda sad to return to my PC.
I am running CoS currently as my second campaign and was not ready…it’s been a year or so so I’m feeling better, but. Yeah. It took a lot of changing to get it playable for me and my table.
Almost all the encounters were rewritten and I pulled a ton from MandyMod on the curse of Strahd subreddit. I haven’t cracked the book in the last 5 months or so (they’re headed to the Amber Temple next, so I’ll have to brush up on that)
Just stack the deck and make it look like it was random, my opinion. Keep on keeping on 😎🤘🍻
CoS was my 2nd campaign but 1st module. As a CR fan, I ran it as Curse of Sylas (Briarwood) set in between S1 and the Wedding offering my players a chance to save the wedding from being attacked. Knowing he'd be trapped, he tests his victims to see if any are worthy to rule Barovia/handle the curse while he plots his revenge on Vox Machina. Esmerelda and Rictavio are Vex and Percy in disguise and on the hunt for the escaped Sylas. I think I nixed the love triangle and if i didn't the animated series definitely made my version of events not possible. I added Demiurge and the battle maids from Overlord. Demiurge was the constant threat instead of Sylas bc he was trying to recruit them; so they had a more social involvement with him instead of violence. If he wasnt so adamant about killing Ireena to rez Deliliah, I probably would have convinced them to take the deal to rule Barovia.
I’m running CoS for the first time fairly soon, so I greatly appreciate guides such as this. You mention stacking the deck. Can you describe which cards you would have players draw and how they should be arranged?
For my game I was the one doing the drawing since we were playing virtually. But as long as you put them in the correct order, you can have your players draw them if you really want. Just make sure they draw from the top. The cards you decide on is really up to you and what you're going for. I just put mine face down on top of the deck. The first card you draw should be on the very top so you might want to practice a bit to make sure they're all in the correct order
Ah, but if it was up to you, what would you pick? I’m interested in your perfect layout.
Got it! Well first, I tried to prioritize the locations that interested me that I was afraid the party would miss out on. I put Strahd's journal in Argynvostholt and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in the Amber Temple. However, I put the Sunsword in Madam Eva's camp. I made a lot of changes to the sword and how it connects to the story, so I wanted the party to have as much time with it as possible. There are plenty of other cool locations that would be great choices but I felt that most of them had other plot reasons that would take the party there or they were close enough to the major roads that the party would happen upon them naturally.
When it came to picking the ally that would help the party I basically just picked the NPC that I thought I'd have the most fun playing as, so I decided to go with Esmeralda. Rictavio would have been my next choice, but I still found fun ways to incorporate him more despite him not being the card drawn.
The last card is where Strahd can always be found so I had a hunch that it would likely be where the party has their final show down with him. I tried to be a bit more strategic about this choice so I picked the crypts in castle Ravenloft. I figured that during the final fight I could have Strahd run around and open the crypts full of monsters to help him fight or buy him time to heal if he needed it.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for the detailed response. I am so happy I found your channel. It’s good to have the extra bit of guidance. I look forward to doing a deeper look into the videos on this channel.
Hi I really loved your video and helped me a lot with the campaign prepping! I just started the first session, and it was a blast. Just a question: Do you remember where you put exactly each artifact? In the video you mention the amber temple and Argynvostholt, then I assume you put the Sunsword in Vallaki? :)
I do! I put the sunsword at Madam Eva's camp, Strahd's Tome in Argynvostholt, and the holy symbol of ravenkind in the Amber temple
@@misfitadventurersuh wow, so they had the sunsword since the beginning? That's how you developed the Sergei thing, you had all the campaign more or less ^^ nice! Was it fit to be underpowered in the beginning?
Yep! I nerfed it from the beginning. Otherwise they would mowed down every enemy they came across 😂
I like the idea of Sergei's soul stuck in the sword and can pass if he gets his revenge
Don't forget the morning lord's influence though and the sword should be in a forgiveness / revenge dillema.
Ireena and even other npcs can use the sidekicks rules from Tasha's
Basically increase their hp per level with the party using level X their hit dice average
And at level 5 give them two attacks. Makes like kassimir, increase his firebolt damage by one extra dice.
Remember creatures that fear Strahd would never harm Ireena
The other change that is needed is Esmereld is a Mary Sue and her state block is artificially 'too good' but she then is written with a wooden or artificial leg. Fine, but then they give her a 19 Dex, and guess what in D20 system in the past being Disabled means -5 penalty, so is 5e a system where that is not true? Say she has a 19 dex +4 and -5 Disabled then that is a -1, but I don't think that would or should work that way.
She should be a much lower Dexterity and sure before her injury having a higher Dex is fine, but why give her a Disability other than Social Justice Victim Points, if she is going to run around like an olympic gymnast doing Acrobatic skill checks with her 19 Dex. Nope, sorry, that is stupid, so give her the wooden leg and impose the normal Disabled trait, so she would have slightly slower movement, 25 ft or 20 ft perhaps per move, and a -5 Dex penalty applied to all Dex based skills. OR remove the wooden leg, make it a Limp or something, either way the writers were dumb for making the state block how they did. I say take Ireena and make her more Buffed out, more like Esmerelda, so if you want Ireena to have a 19 Dex, which is a bit Mary Sue, but ok fine, does that really need to be the case. Not really, but this is DnD and players will love min/maxing so if this were a real character and Dex is that big of a thing then a real player would probably choose a higher stat in dex.
Now Ireena is more of a 'monster hunter' or can grow into one, and Esmerelda can help but is there as a back up, who cannot go at the monsters alone, but once she might have been able to and needs the player characters party to help her and Van Richten so together all three of these NPCs help the party as auxillary npc's who can function as part of the party.
Yes Ireena can protect herself and should have a "I don't need a Man' Feminist attitude. But does she also not need a woman? You could have her say that too "I don't need a woman". Exactly, you don't need either a man or a woman. Feminist translation: I don't need help. I am a Strong and Independent Wamen, and Girlboss who does not need protection. The players, especially the straight Cis Guys, if they are sane, will respond with "Ok then, you do it your damn self, and DO NOT step in and help her or save her. Let her wear her Big Girl Pants and if she fails, that is counted as a learning lesson that builds character. If she succeeds, great, that's a win for her. let the die determine her wins and loses.
Decent tips. Mind, I'd recommend to anyone planning on running this just to read the original 1983 Ravenloft module. From there, all this flows. The current WOTC staff don't really know how to write adventures...
3:10 Absolutely. Even if you're a great improv DM, it's better to know what the layout of your campaign needs.
We just finished our 5th session, in which I introduced Vasili. The party escorted Ireena and Ismark to Vallaki a couple sessions ago, but they hadn't stopped to see Madam Eva yet. On the way back, they see Ismark on the road, who's heading back to Barovia Village to take on his duties as the new Burgomaster. After visiting Madam Eva, they see a cart overturned, covered in claw marks. A few feet off the road, a man is lying on the ground, his head resting on a bloody rock where it impacted. The party helped him back to his cart, and escorted him back to Barovia village where he had business at Bildrath's, and the tavern, where he will be residing temporarily. I picked Barovia because, aside from the Death House, Doru, the dream pastries, and escorting Ireena, there's no reason to return.
Absolutely agree that Ireena should be a stronger character. I also built her a Fighter character sheet, a Battlemaster with 18 STR who is a total badass -- though slightly under-leveled compared to the party. Since the module never mentions her mother, I have her wearing her mother's armor and weilding her mother's sword in honor of her memory. Ireena can and should be a meaningful character beyond her story points.
Really great changes, my only qualm would be the Vallaki bit. Although sounding very epic, how does the party escape Strahd. They're in his land and if he would actively chase them there would be no where to run. I feel as if Strahd abhors the chase, it's too mundane for him, or else he would've come for Ireena himself. That being said, I can see Strahd stopping his chase once Rictavio joins and reveals himself to be his arch nemesis, momentarily distracting Strahd from the party.
1. I am planing to give my party sun sword and Strahd armor , and I am planing to make strahd armor also sentient, so the sword and the armor didnt like each other and wielder will be constantly under heavy stress like a child between screeming on each other parents or if two separated people they became to hate each other(its actually weapons that hate each other but they communicate by fealings so with time it will be hard to tell which feelings are from items and which are real) ) or maybe Strahd armor will have the good side of Strahd , before transformation so sword will hate armor but armor will feel guilty, so party will have a chance to make strong bond with armor so there will be double betrayl
2. I add some character from old lore or books(whatever) - Jacqueline Montarri. Why? I will give you a hint , my Ireena was beheaded and her head stolen from the start. So now my characters also work for Strahd as detectives! They are actualy in conflict an he already killed some of them but hey... your campain can go different ways)
I worked with some of these ideas before, but the one with Ireena is specially good. I will make a new character sheet for her (and maybe for Ezmerelda, who is the sorted ally for them). I really like the last one too, maybe I can do something like that for them.
I always 'tweak' modules so players don't know what's coming. Often I turn them on their heads.
In my plan to run COS, Strahd is actually the tragic hero of the story.
Strahd became a vampire only to combat Ireena and Sergey's betrayal / coup.
They sought to sacrifice the entire realm so they could become immortal.
Strahd's intervention only partially foiled their plans.
He became a vampire, while she became a lich and Sergey a Death Knight. ...
Ireena and Sergey are the puppet masters pulling the strings, using political and "media" control to make Strahd out as the evil force. THEY seek the Sunsword to kill him and complete their evil quest.
So everyone believes Strahd is the actual villian and Ireena and Sergey have been killed.
Strahd actually wants to help the players, but must do so without alerting his foes...
Nice video. I disagree with letting Rictavio die though. I feel like he should be a long term NPC if you ever run some of the other domains of Ravenloft. Sound like your players had a fantastic time though and that's what's really important.
Fair enough! I'd probably just let Esmeralda fill that role if we ever returned to the domains of dread. Thanks for watching and commenting!
What is the background soundtrack? I would like to have it played whire runnig the campain!
I believe it's a track from monument studios' package of instrumental music called Fantasy Complete. I highly recommend them!