SPOILERS - Specific Questions about Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

I'm currently running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for my group, and I have a few questions for anyone who has either played the adventure all the way through, or DMs that have run it, though not necessarily to completion.

1) I'm not using the Weapons of Legacy rules, so the Sunsword and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind are not Legacy items. However, they still need to be bonded to their wielders to function at full capacity. It says at the introduction of Chapter 3 that two of the hags possess the specific knowledge to perform the bonding rituals for both items - specifically, Madam Eva knows the rituals for the Holy Symbol and the Drowned Lady knows the rituals for the Sunsword. However, it doesn't give any guidance for extracting that information from them. And, in the case of the Drowned Lady, she's completely bonkers, and the only way to cure her bonkerness is with Wish or Miracle, and it should be obvious that those are out of the question. Assuming the players have made the appropriate Knowledge checks for both items already, how are they supposed to get that information? Note: they will likely kill the Drowned Lady upon first meeting her, especially since she attacks immediately.

2) Is Madam Eva ever supposed to attack the PCs if the Fortune Telling session she has with them determines that they do NOT have to kill the hags to strip the Fane Signs away from Strahd? The beginning of chapter 3 says that the hags' responsibility to the Fane Signs is that they are their guardians, but it doesn't talk about Madam Eva specifically. Just how much 'responsibility' does she have to the Forest Fane?

3) Is Sir Urik supposed to join the party like Ashlyn and Ireena are? If not, why not?

4) How are the PCs supposed to find/fight the Werewolves in the Svalich Woods if no one can track, and Strahd's secondary goal is NOT Untamed Allies? Are they just supposed to go in there and wander around?

5) Concerning the Sunsword and Holy Symbol again, assume the PCs don't have the appropriate Knowledge skills, and so cannot make the checks that are prerequisites to performing the bonding rituals. How are they supposed to be able to do them?

6) Just how does a vampire's domination ability work? And for how long?

I think that's it, for now. I'm sure I have at least one, maybe two more questions, but I forget them right now.

Thanks a TON for your help, if and when you give it. It is greatly appreciated!!

-Tyler

Hi

I've only read parts of the adventure, but here are a few ideas:

1) I would probably roleplay the Drowned Lady as very threataning, but I wouldn't have her attack at once. Since she is completely mad, why not have her talking in riddles? This would require some preperation of course, and it could be difficult to pull of if your players ask questions that you haven't thought of beforehand (as in: haven't prepared answers/riddles for), but this could be solved by having a phrase or two prepared as "standard replies". Just as in the old Sierra text adventures when you entered a word the game didn't deem appropriate . "Can't understand 'hinge' ..."

Players - "Who are you, foul creature!? Reveal thy name, or taste cold steel."
Hag - "She is the one who lives beneath the sea. The undying one. Drowned she is, yet dangerous still. Keeper of the secrets of shining steel. Take your threats elsewhere, or be prepared to reap the maelstorm."

Standard reply - "The flesh creatures speak strangely, does it not? Shall we taste it soon?"


6) From the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm)

Dominate (Su) A vampire can crush an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the vampire must use a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. Anyone the vampire targets must succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the vampire’s influence as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 feet.

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Since Dominate Person has a duration of 1day/level, that should make it 12 days

1) Even if they fight her, have the Drowned Lady sputter relevant information like she was having prophetic visions ("The blade of light! Must be taken to the hollow heart of divinity!"). If all else fails, kill the hag and cast Speak With Dead on the corpse.

2) Madame Eva's motivations are inscrutable. If the cards tell that the PCs will defeat Strahd and break the signs, she might as well not attack them, heeding the cards.

3) Sir Urik, Ireena and Ashlyn are "backup PCs", designed to join the party as a replacement if a PC dies.

4) Have the Werewolves attack the PCs.

5) You could just do away with the mechanical requirements in favor of a roleplaying one (like, say, using the sword to slay a number of undead).

6) See the post above.

That being said, a part of your questions regard the PCs not being suited for the challenges of the adventure. You can remove some challenges (like Knowledge checks), but you might also warn the PCs before the adventure that it rewards players who have outdoors skills, who have knowledge abilities and who can fight undead. The players might be willing to put away their usual PCs in favor of more suited ones.

Klaus said:

That being said, a part of your questions regard the PCs not being suited for the challenges of the adventure. You can remove some challenges (like Knowledge checks), but you might also warn the PCs before the adventure that it rewards players who have outdoors skills, who have knowledge abilities and who can fight undead. The players might be willing to put away their usual PCs in favor of more suited ones.

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You could also tell your players that any players who stick to a particular build plan without taking game developments into account have only themselves to blame for difficulties they face. When I run games, I have no qualms about letting players be punished by their own decisions.
Of course, I'm usually pretty flexible with allowing them to adapt to circumstances. In the case of tracking down the werewolves, for example, if nobody wanted to invest in tracking, they could hire someone in town with some skill in it. They'd charge a lot of money, though, but those are choices you make.

Well, I guess the problem I'm having is that these things aren't written into the adventure like that. In fact, like with the Drowned Lady, they're written in the opposite of the suggestions here...