D&D 5E Curse of Strahd - revenants

[pukunui]

Hi all,

I'm curious to know how others have been playing the revenants in Curse of Strahd. Normally, a revenant has a sworn enemy against which it uses its Vengeful Glare and extra-painful Fist attacks. It's unclear to me, however, whether the revenants in Curse of Strahd work the same way.

For one thing, they all have a sword attack that deals extra damage. Is this meant to replace their normal attack actions, or is it an additional action? If they still have their Vengeful Glare and Fist attacks, who is their sworn enemy? Strahd? (Vladimir deals the usual extra 4d6 damage to Strahd on a hit with his greatsword, after all.)

If the PCs kill a revenant, do they become its sworn enemies?

How have you handled these guys in your campaign?

Cheers,
Jonathan

 

[Savage Wombat]

I assumed that the extras only worked against Strahd. The sword damage seemed to be more than sufficient to work over my PCs as-is. You could decrease the CR if you wanted.

 

[pukunui]

OK. Thanks.

 

[CapnZapp]

Isn't this a matter of PCs and NPCs being completely separate, with no expectation they'll follow the same rules?

A NPC revenant is essentially only a monster. It works just like it says on the lid.

A PC revenant can be a much more sophisticated entity, and I'm getting the feeling your questions are really only appropriate for a PC revenant.

 

[hawknsparrow]

Hi Jonathan. The timing on this couldn't be better. I'm an experienced DM, but I haven't worked with Revenants. My take is that they were generally brought into Barovia because of this epic tension between Good and Evil. But, there's no common reason for their vengeance. So you can use individual monsters or groups of them however you want. One group is going to be against Strahd. There's a potential Alliance there. But there's also the possibility that the NPCs change their Vengeance if negotiations don't go well.

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[BookBarbarian]

Isn't this a matter of PCs and NPCs being completely separate, with no expectation they'll follow the same rules?

A NPC revenant is essentially only a monster. It works just like it says on the lid.

A PC revenant can be a much more sophisticated entity, and I'm getting the feeling your questions are really only appropriate for a PC revenant.

The PC Revenant has not entered this conversation at. His question is about an NPC Revenant specific to the Curse of Strahd campaign versus the Generic NPC Revenant in the Monster Manual.

I would say that Vladimir has his own unique statblock, and non of the abilities in the MM Revenant statblock.

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

The Revenants in CoS are somewhat unique. Strahd is their sworn foe, but they don't want him destroyed. They despise him so much that they want him to suffer his curse for all eternity. They are stewing in their hatred. They will try to stop anyone who wants to kill Strahd.

So yes, if adventurers "kill" the Revenants they can come back and have the party be additional sworn enemies. That makes fighting them dangerous, but their gear should suffer because they would have to animate other corpses with inferior armor and weapons.

I had the Revenants stomp around Barovia picking fights with the party a few times, then had them lay in wait right before the bridge into Castle Ravenloft in order to keep the party away from Strahd. They even made a covered pit-trap to ambush the black carriage.

 

[hawknsparrow]

Fleetwood, yes. That is why I stated that their vengeance may change when the PCs state that they want to end him.

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[pukunui]

The reason I'm asking is because Sir Godfrey is the PCs' ally, and we ended last session with the "armed conflict" with the other four revenants about to begin. I am unsure how to proceed. Will the revenants focus their attacks on Sir Godfrey, or will they split up and attack both their "traitorous" brother and the PCs? If the PCs manage to kill any of the revenants, what then? They find new bodies elsewhere in Barovia 24 hours later, but what do they do? Do they track down their killer(s) and use their special abilities against them, or do they just go back to Argynvostholt and continue to await orders from Vladimir?

Assuming at least one revenant survives, would it report to Vladimir? Would Vladimir order his knights to hunt down and attack the PCs? Or at least work to prevent them from getting to Strahd?

 

[pukunui]

Here's how it turned out: The revenants made to attack Sir Godfrey as a group. The PCs tried to intervene, so the revenants split up. Two attacked Sir Godfrey while the other two attacked the PCs. I made it so Sir Godfrey didn't want to hurt his comrades, so he just dodged every turn. He still ended up going down pretty quickly, although he revived the next round (since his comrades haven't got any attacks that deal radiant or fire damage) and shouted "Fire!" at the PCs.

Unfortunately, the PCs didn't really have any fire attacks of their own. When the fighter went down, the other two fled. I made it so the revenants didn't pursue. They just went back to sitting in their chairs. I'm not sure how they could've disposed of Sir Godfrey, but I'm going say they did it somehow and have him show up again later in a new body.

So now I have a new question: should I award XP each time the PCs defeat a particular revenant, or only if/when they defeat it permanently?