Check Out This Beefed-Up CR17 Strahd!

EN World member dave2008 maintains what is, in my opinion, one of the most useful, fun, and interesting threads on the whole forum. His 5E Epic Monster Updates thread contains dozens of gods (of the greater, intermediate, lesser, and demi flavours), primordials, demon princes, archdevils, dukes of hell, aberrations, abominations, constructs, dragons, elemental lords, arch-fey, monstrosities, and undead. While the thread is great to read at any time, he's just added a beefed-up CR17 version of Strahd von Zarovich (he's CR15 in Curse of Strahd). You can see it below, but click on the image and check out all of his epic monsters, as well as his 5E Epic Characters thread.

EN World member dave2008 maintains what is, in my opinion, one of the most useful, fun, and interesting threads on the whole forum. His 5E Epic Monster Updates thread contains dozens of gods (of the greater, intermediate, lesser, and demi flavours), primordials, demon princes, archdevils, dukes of hell, aberrations, abominations, constructs, dragons, elemental lords, arch-fey, monstrosities, and undead. While the thread is great to read at any time, he's just added a beefed-up CR17 version of Strahd von Zarovich (he's CR15 in Curse of Strahd). You can see it below, but click on the image and check out all of his epic monsters, as well as his 5E Epic Characters thread.
 

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Celtavian

Dragon Lord
6 HP per hit die is less than he has w/ his magic equipment, not sure if you where including that or not. Not overly worried about being hit, even less so when bless is out of the equation. Legendary spells aren't needed IMO, they are secondary afterall. I could see adding shield to the list, but he has good methods to escape harm that he can play a game of hide and seek and take the PCs down slowly. Didn't think about summoned allies, would have to see how that plays out.

Do you have any suggest for the 4 classes you would choose to take on Strahd? No MC.

Hmm. No MC. Harder to optimize with no MCing.

Eldritch knight or ranger hunter archer with Sharpshooter.
paladin oath of devotion or vengeance.
Cleric (Life or light)
Bard (lore)

We've been running without a dedicated wizard for a while now. We do have a sorcerer, but mostly a blaster and does generally inferior damage other classes than the occasional nova. Arcane casters in 5E are too penalized by Legendary Resistance. Just makes them not fun to play against enemies like Strahd or other Legendary Creatures. Their attack based spells do inferior damage to single targets. And if you're going to play a support class caster, might as well play the lore bard because they're the best at it.
 

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dave2008

Legend
Hmm. No MC. Harder to optimize with no MCing.

Eldritch knight or ranger hunter archer with Sharpshooter.
paladin oath of devotion or vengeance.
Cleric (Life or light)
Bard (lore)

We've been running without a dedicated wizard for a while now. We do have a sorcerer, but mostly a blaster and does generally inferior damage other classes than the occasional nova. Arcane casters in 5E are too penalized by Legendary Resistance. Just makes them not fun to play against enemies like Strahd or other Legendary Creatures. Their attack based spells do inferior damage to single targets. And if you're going to play a support class caster, might as well play the lore bard because they're the best at it.

Great! Thank you for the suggestions!
 



dave2008

Legend
My thoughts exactly.

Keep in mind that these are drafts for review and comment by the community (as noted in the OP of the thread) - not published material. I am trying to do as many as I can so I can get a draft of everything on my list posted by the end of the year (if not sooner), then I will go back and do the revisions and final editing.

Fortunately, the poster you quoted provided examples, so I have them corrected now (4 typos and 2 or grammatical errors) if you go to the original post.
 

dave2008

Legend
Hmm. No MC. Harder to optimize with no MCing.

OK, what would you choose for MC classes (4 characters).

FYI, in the back of my mind I've been thinking about submitting to the DMsGuild an"Optimized Monsters" series that contains monsters that would provide the correct challenge per the encounter guidelines for optimized PCs/parties.

However, to do that I need to know what you crazy kids are doing. Also, would that be helpful or useful? Or do people who play like you prefer to destroy "deadly" challenges and are fine with the system as is?
 


dave2008

Legend
Frankly, it seems rather boring.
Well the intent was to follow the official with minor tweaks, that being said it is also intended to be played with his lair actions in CoS. Are you familiar with them, because the are great fun I think. I wasn't trying to do anything special.

Now any chance you want to be constructive and provide some ideas to make it less boring?
 

Faenor

Explorer
Hmm. No MC. Harder to optimize with no MCing.

Eldritch knight or ranger hunter archer with Sharpshooter.
paladin oath of devotion or vengeance.
Cleric (Life or light)
Bard (lore)

We've been running without a dedicated wizard for a while now. We do have a sorcerer, but mostly a blaster and does generally inferior damage other classes than the occasional nova. Arcane casters in 5E are too penalized by Legendary Resistance. Just makes them not fun to play against enemies like Strahd or other Legendary Creatures. Their attack based spells do inferior damage to single targets. And if you're going to play a support class caster, might as well play the lore bard because they're the best at it.

Sorcerers for dual haste.
Then elemental adept and scorch.
 

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