Ok, let me just point something out, ok? Go back to 2e, when Domains of Dread was first created. Look at the pages and pages of changes to how spells and abilities work, ranging from "doesn't work", to "screws you over and laughs at you for trying". Now, go look at the Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium- no wait, you know, here, I'll give you an example.
Sure. Of course, back then, Ravenloft was literally a "weekend in hell." You played an adventure there and then went back home. You'll note that nearly every single spell that "doesn't work" is one that allows you to teleport or scry outside of Ravenloft, and "screws you over" is a 1-2% chance of having the Dark Powers notice you.
Also? Many of the spells that worked weirdly in the Black Box set were removed from the altered spells list in Domains of Dread--because by that time, the game had changed from weekend in hell to a setting you could be native to and have an entire campaign in.
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This fine fellow is the Greater Wolfwere. This is not an isolated, standout monster. It is simply one of many examples of where "make players afraid" translates to "overpowered ridiculous monsters". Upon encountering this creature, you will no doubt mistake it for a werewolf. If werewolves had the equivalent of 5e 22 Strength and all the powers of a 1st-11th level Bard, that is. Or the ability to summon 4d6 wolves or 2d6 dire wolves.
But what really makes this creature insane, as if all that wasn't enough, is that, "Iron weapons (or those of a +1 enchantment_ are required to harm a greater wolfwere. However, unless the blow is instantly fatal, the wound will quickly repair itself as the wolfwere is able to regenerate all of it's hit points at the end of any given round". Now, what level would you be expected to encounter such a creature, you may ask?
Feast of Goblyns, an adventure for 5-7 characters of levels 4-7. Possibly as a
random encounter. Not a "boss" fight. Not the final, dramatic, setpiece battle. You could just run into one as a matter of course.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't take a bad DM to make Ravenloft a miserable experience for the players. It takes a very good DM not to.
I hadn't read
Feast of Goblyns before because I generally don't use pre-written adventures (I have rewritten the heck out of CoS, which is the only RL adventure I've ever bought). So I'm not going to defend it if it was a badly-written module. That being said...
This is, indeed, all bad DM stuff. It's bad DM stuff that may be written into the game because there wasn't much in the way of balancing encounters back them, but a
sensible DM would read this and realize that it was OP. Of course, since there wasn't much balance back then, it's quite likely that these level 4-7 players have several magic items. There was no magic item budget then, only warnings about not going Monty Haul.
Also, as a note, I looked up the adventure. Wolfweres and a greater wolfweres were on an
optional encounter table with a note saying that the encounters weren't necessary and were to be used primarily for flavor:
It is recommended that the encounters for a party be hand picked to reflect the situation they find themselves in. For example, if they have just fought off an attack by a pair of werewolves, they might be haunted through the night by the howling of wolves in the distance. It is also important to remember that not all encounters should lead to combat. It may be far more effective simply to have the party know that the woods around them are full of dire wolves than to have half a dozen such creatures charge into their camp every few hours.
In fact, the adventure goes on to say that they are
optional encounters and not
random encounters. A DM has to actively choose to put one in the game. They can't hide behind "it's a random encounter table, I had to roll on it."
FoG also has this note:
In the Monstrous Compendium, wolfweres are noted as being hit only by iron or +1 or better weapons. The word "iron" is up to interpretation here as to what qualifies. It is important in this module to keep wolfweres a threat to the PCs. A band of three wolfweres should be a formidable foe, perhaps nearly invincible. However, if you interpret "iron" as meaning any metal weapon, then all your PCs will be able to hit the wolfweres without needing magical weapons.
In game terms we suggest that you take this to mean nearly pure iron. Such weapons would be older than most of those carried by the PCs (who tend to have steel weapons in most games). Furthermore, iron weapons are generally inferior to steel weapons being more brittle and easier to chip and break. In combat, any natural roll of a I indicates that such a weapon has broken if it is being used on a harder substance (like steel).
This gives you some flexibility in controlling which of your PC's non-magical weapons will be effective against these creatures. If none of the PCs have magic weapons, you will probably wish to have a couple of them carrying old iron weapons or make such weapons available to them early on in the game. If many of your PCs have magic weapons, you should decree that all of their normal weapons are either steel or very impure iron (not qualifying them to damage a wolfwere).
Emphasis mine. So right away, the game makes it pretty easy to let the PCs be properly armed against wolfweres. The DM has to make the conscious decision to have the PCs be useless against wolfweres.
The game also states that if your PCs are weak/low-level, then you can use werewolves in place of wolfweres and standard wolves in place of dire wolves (and conversely, if your PCs are higher level, to substitute loup-garou and greater wolfweres in place of regular werewolves and wolfweres). There are a lot of examples like that in the book. "Your PCs encounter the master of the wolves. He can be a werewolf or wolfwere if you desire." Or he can be a normal person.
What this means is, if you played in this game and were killed or almost killed by an OP random encounter, then that indicates that the DM wanted to put you through a meat grinder, rather than actually produce a horror game.
Perhaps this will surprise you, but in the close to two decades I've run Ravenloft, I've had
three PC deaths, and two of them were because the players wanted their character to die (one person had to leave the game entirely; another player didn't like her character). Only one of the deaths was in combat--and it
was a boss fight, in 5e.
