D&D 5E I'd really, really like to hear about some fights with Strahd . . !

HawaiiSteveO · Sep 21, 2016

My group just had closest scrape with him yet. His movement is crazy due to his legendary / lair actions and he messed the party up a little bit.

The PCs are exploring the castle now, and he's going to pop in from time to time to harass them. Aside from that we'll see what the PCs do. Messing with the heart of sorrow is for sure going to draw his attention!

Daern · Sep 21, 2016

So far, I've only had him fight for a couple rounds at a time. The group has the Sunsword now, so he's fairly well handicapped.

Delazar · Sep 22, 2016

Unfortunately, we only met him at the very last. He was vanquished in less than one round (only 4 out of 6 players got to act, then he was already dead...).

Biggest disappointment of the whole adventure.

HawaiiSteveO · Sep 22, 2016

Delazar said:
Unfortunately, we only met him at the very last. He was vanquished in less than one round (only 4 out of 6 players got to act, then he was already dead...).

Biggest disappointment of the whole adventure.

Whaaat? What was Strahd doing this whole time - texting

?

Seriously though, if the group came up with a clever plan I'd like to hear details.

Strahd has allies, minions, spells, spider climb, crazy mobility, legendary saves, lair actions, legendary actions, etc. He can act / move when it's not his turn (x3). So what happened??

ad_hoc · Sep 22, 2016

HawaiiSteveO said:
Whaaat? What was Strahd doing this whole time - texting ?

Seriously though, if the group came up with a clever plan I'd like to hear details.

Strahd has allies, minions, spells, spider climb, crazy mobility, legendary saves, lair actions, legendary actions, etc. He can act / move when it's not his turn (x3). So what happened??

Don't forget his spells or his DC 17 charm ability which he uses on the character with the worst save.

Delazar · Sep 23, 2016

I think the DM was just tired of the campaign. Apart from a TPK in Death House, we steam-rolled through the whole module.

We met Strahd in the tower where the "heart" was. We had already destroyed the heart from a distance, while fending off some vampire spawns.

Maybe the DM thought Strahd was more powerful on paper, because he just faced us head on. We were all under "protection from evil", our paladin had the Sunsword.

The sorcerer tried to paralyze him with the holy symbol of ravenkind, where he used his legendary save. Cleric hit him with a higher level guiding bolt. Fighter (me) action surged for 4 attacks, two were crits, so I got to make a 5th attack (GWM). I didn't use the -5 to hit, because I wasn't sure how hard to hit he was (not that hard, it seemed). Paladin hit him twice with sunsword, and two high-level smites. And it was over.

I haven't read the adventure, so I don't know if there were suggestions on how to handle Strahd, but the Sunsword is really powerful against him. Which I suppose it's the way it should be.

HawaiiSteveO · Sep 23, 2016

Delazar said:
I think the DM was just tired of the campaign. Apart from a TPK in Death House, we steam-rolled through the whole module.

We met Strahd in the tower where the "heart" was. We had already destroyed the heart from a distance, while fending off some vampire spawns.

Maybe the DM thought Strahd was more powerful on paper, because he just faced us head on. We were all under "protection from evil", our paladin had the Sunsword.

The sorcerer tried to paralyze him with the holy symbol of ravenkind, where he used his legendary save. Cleric hit him with a higher level guiding bolt. Fighter (me) action surged for 4 attacks, two were crits, so I got to make a 5th attack (GWM). I didn't use the -5 to hit, because I wasn't sure how hard to hit he was (not that hard, it seemed). Paladin hit him twice with sunsword, and two high-level smites. And it was over.

I haven't read the adventure, so I don't know if there were suggestions on how to handle Strahd, but the Sunsword is really powerful against him. Which I suppose it's the way it should be.

I can see why you were disappointed . . .too bad! No sense rehashing it as it's done now, but suffice to say Strahd should have been tougher.

mcintma · Sep 23, 2016

Im seeing alot of anecdotal evidence that boss monsters are weak in 5e. I was just reviewing OotA and seeing the ~CR23 Demon Lords have 300-400HP and thinking "Hmm, don't fighters and paladins dish about 100-200HP damage per round at these levels ...?" ACs in the 17 range at CR23 seem weird to me too, compared to the -7 to -10 (i.e. extremely hard to hit) of yore.

The main chorus seems to be that minions are required for these guys, lair/legendary actions don't cut it. Which is a tough adjustment for longtime D&D players (well, me at least). Also, magic items - most monsters need a boost as the assumption seems to be no magic items (i.e. for the demon lords, their Resistances would be reducing their damage by half,strange as it is to picture a party level 18 having no magic weapons ..)

ad_hoc · Sep 23, 2016

Delazar said:
I think the DM was just tired of the campaign. Apart from a TPK in Death House, we steam-rolled through the whole module.

Doesn't sound like CoS at all. A lot of the creatures you can encounter are much more powerful than the party. The idea is to find other courses of action rather than just killing everything.

I haven't read the adventure, so I don't know if there were suggestions on how to handle Strahd, but the Sunsword is really powerful against him. Which I suppose it's the way it should be.

Pretty much the opposite of what happened. He has been scrying on the party since they entered Ravenloft. He is supposed to use all of their weaknesses against them and be as devious as possible. He has 5th level spells, a DC 17 charm ability (and he knows the Wisdom saves of the party so he can target the weakest one), he can walk through walls, and he can summon many types of minions.

This is literally from the book: "Strahd attacks at the most advantageous moment and from the most advantageous position."

The bottom line is that CoS is not a combat focused adventure. I'm sorry your DM presented it that way.