D&D 5E Enhancing "Curse of Strahd" (and DDAL adventures)

jayoungr · Mar 5, 2016

Now that Curse of Strahd is out, I figure this is a good time to hear about how people are planning to run it! My own table is going to start CoS as soon as we finish Tyranny of Dragons (we were going to do Princes of the Apocalypse, but my players are major Ravenloft fans, so as soon as this was announced, it went to the front of the line).

So, let us know what changes you make and how they work out at the table!

How are you starting the adventure, if your campaign doesn't take place in the Forgotten Realms? Is anyone moving Barovia wholesale to a different world/plane?

I'm also particularly interested in hearing about how the DDAL adventures can be worked into a Curse of Strahd campaign, or vice-versa.

NOTE: This is now a wiki thread. Please post favorite ideas below (or summaries, with links to the posts that explain them in detail). Thanks!

The following is a quick index into the posts of this thread broken down by book chapter:

Introduction

DDAL Adventures: #4, #14, #148
Links Roundup Posts: #28, #46, #55, #71, #82, #101, #115, #133
DM's Guild Resources: #95
Subreddit: #149
Miniatures: #8
Approaches to running the adventure: #16, #34, #59, #60, #67, #82, #97
Prep: #140
Backstory: #69, #134
Info in MM and DMG: #72, #74
XP vs leveling: #105
Over-planning: #114

Ch. 1: Into the Mists

Traveling to Barovia: #2, #22
Knowledge of Ravenloft: #20

Ch. 2: The Lands of Barovia

Strangers: #30
Vampire Spawn: #64
Tarroka Reading: #78, #142, #143

Ch. 3: The Village of Barovia

March of the dead: #21
Morgantha: #77

Ch. 4: Castle Ravenloft

Strahd: #31, #38, #43
Attacking the castle: #80
Tome of Strahd: #86

Ch. 5: The Town of Vallaki

Event Timeline: #37
Things to do: #92, #111

Ch. 6: Old Bonegrinder

Ch. 7: Argynvostholt

Ch. 8: The Village of Krezk

Abbot: #39

Ch. 9: Tsolenka Pass

Ch. 10: The Ruins of Berez

Approach: #138
Marina: #134
Church: #141

Ch. 11: Van Richten's Tower

Ch. 12: The Wizard of Wines

Letter from Strahd: #138

Ch. 13: The Amber Temple

To cut or not: #146, #147

Ch. 14: Yester Hill

Ch. 15: Werewolf Den

Epilogue

App. A: Character Options

Trinkets: #33
Backgrounds: #33
Creation guide: #140

App. B: Death House

Ending: #23
Hooks: #25
Purpose: #30
Walter Durst: #36
Location: #68
Challenge: #70

App. C: Treasures

App. D: Monsters and NPCs

Strahd: #31
Barovians: #31
Zombies: #31

App. E: The Tarokka Deck

#142

App. F: Handouts
Maps #28
Further Reading

Indexed up to: #149

Enevhar Aldarion · Mar 5, 2016

Barovia is not part of the Forgotten Realms. There are entrances into Barovia from all the D&D worlds, or rather, people stumble into Barovia from all the other worlds. So you do not need to move it or modify it unless there is something you really want to change or adapt.

MerricB · Mar 5, 2016

I'm posting session reports and DM notes on my blog.

My version of Barovia *might* be in the Forgotten Realms... I've made that quite unclear to the players. No mists greeted their entrance...

Cheers!

Z. H. Darkstar · Mar 6, 2016

jayoungr said:
I'm also particularly interested in hearing about how the DDAL adventures can be worked into a Curse of Strahd campaign, or vice-versa.

The DDAL4-X adventures are designed to be run consecutively and separate from CoS. Unlike previous seasons, these were written as two contiguous storylines, DDAL4-1 to DDAL4-6 and DDAL4-7 to DDAL4-14. I wouldn't bother trying to mix them with CoS, as they have modified xp progression when compared to previous season DDAL adventures.

jayoungr · Mar 6, 2016

Enevhar Aldarion said:
Barovia is not part of the Forgotten Realms. There are entrances into Barovia from all the D&D worlds, or rather, people stumble into Barovia from all the other worlds. So you do not need to move it or modify it unless there is something you really want to change or adapt.

Yes, I phrased the question badly. I'll be running this for a group of experienced players who have already run through the previous Castle Ravenloft adventures, but they placed Ravenloft in their own homebrew world. It's been located there since 1E. I was wondering if anyone else was moving Curse of Strahd to a different setting, and if so, what problems it might pose.

Z. H. Darkstar said:
The DDAL4-X adventures are designed to be run consecutively and separate from CoS. Unlike previous seasons, these were written as two contiguous storylines, DDAL4-1 to DDAL4-6 and DDAL4-7 to DDAL4-14. I wouldn't bother trying to mix them with CoS, as they have modified xp progression when compared to previous season DDAL adventures.

Is that the only reason? I'm not worried about XP, as I'll be using milestone progression. Obviously we haven't seen all the DDAL adventures yet--unless they're up somewhere I don't know about--but I had the impression the storyline(s) would dovetail with Curse of Strahd at least to some degree.

MerricB said:
I'm posting session reports and DM notes on my blog.

Great! I'll just put a direct link to the CoS category here for anyone who might want it: http://merricb.com/category/curse-of-strahd/

My version of Barovia *might* be in the Forgotten Realms... I've made that quite unclear to the players. No mists greeted their entrance...

What things do you need to modify in the adventure to make this work?

jayoungr · Mar 7, 2016

Also adding a link to [MENTION=9342]merric[/MENTION]'s recap and GM notes thread here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?480073-Curse-of-Strahd-play-reports-and-DM-notes

MrHotter · Mar 7, 2016

I've not gotten my CoS book yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to be using miniatures and a battle mat for parts of it.

Now I need to figure out how many miniatures I'll need to find. I figure I'm going to need more than the two wolves that I have and I don't have any bat swarms.

Z. H. Darkstar · Mar 8, 2016

MrHotter said:
I've not gotten my CoS book yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to be using miniatures and a battle mat for parts of it.

Now I need to figure out how many miniatures I'll need to find. I figure I'm going to need more than the two wolves that I have and I don't have any bat swarms.

Honestly, I wouldn't stress too much over making sure you have the exact miniatures. I have a Bag O' Zombies that I use for grunts, plus a set of generic fantasy minis, colloquially known as the Blue Man Group and the Red Man, that are used for middle management and bosses.

The key to successful miniature using is making sure that you have enough pieces of appropriate size, rather than of appropriate types.

BTW, a soda can fits a 3x3 space, making it useful for Huge creatures in a pinch.

Greenstone.Walker · Mar 8, 2016

Z. H. Darkstar said:
The DDAL4-X adventures are designed to be run consecutively and separate from CoS. Unlike previous seasons, these were written as two contiguous storylines, DDAL4-1 to DDAL4-6 and DDAL4-7 to DDAL4-14. I wouldn't bother trying to mix them with CoS, as they have modified xp progression when compared to previous season DDAL adventures.

Is it possible to run the DDAL4* adventures without buying Curse of Strahd?

Z. H. Darkstar · Mar 8, 2016

Greenstone.Walker said:
Is it possible to run the DDAL4* adventures without buying Curse of Strahd?

Yes. You simply buy the DDAL modules from DMsGuild. The only thing you'll be missing is the Haunted One background, which was already released on its own for free.