Check Out CURSE OF STRAHD'S Table of Contents!

THAT'S where the Mongrelfolk appear! That was a long time coming!

 

[MrHotter]

This is the first release in months and Elemental had a ton of new stuff. I'm very disappointed.

I'm not sure how much character creation extras they could add to a Ravenloft adventure.

I would not want to see playable revenants or vampires, and are there spells that we don't already have that would fit in a Ravenloft adventure? Maybe they could add a 'monster hunter' subclass for fighter or rogue, but I also don't think that there is nothing that we could not build ourselves from existing material.

We may still get a Curse of Strahd players companion, but I'm thinking that they released the introductory adventure instead of that.

 

[Jabborwacky]

Ooo, a wereraven! 8D

The upside to being a wereraven: You get a bird's eye view of the world.

The downside: In bird form, you have a strong urge to poop on vehicles.

 

[DEFCON 1]

We may still get a Curse of Strahd players companion, but I'm thinking that they released the introductory adventure instead of that.

I want to say that I've already seen in one of the interviews/articles that the folks on the D&D team have done that they said there was no planned Player's Companion or player material (other than the small bit in the book) for Curse of Strahd. I could be misremembering, but I don't think I am.

 

[JohnnyZemo]

What jumped out at me was the handouts. I've always loved physical items with adventures. I bought every 4E Essentials product for the stuff in the box, but I had nothing but the core books before that.

Handouts are great, and players love them. I hope WotC makes them available as a downloadable PDF so I don't have to scan in the pages from the physical book.

 

[MrHotter]

Handouts are great, and players love them. I hope WotC makes them available as a downloadable PDF so I don't have to scan in the pages from the physical book.

I was thinking the same thing. Back when the modules were not hardbound I had no issues cutting the pages out or loosening the staples and pulling the handout pages out, but I don't want to cut pages out of a book. Maybe they will be perforated like the fold out map.

 

[Ganymede81]

Well there's a page dedicated to "Strahd dies," so it seems the players will be able to defeat him in some way.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Well there's a page dedicated to "Strahd dies," so it seems the players will be able to defeat him in some way.

Probably the usual way: [sblock]getting his HP to zero, finding his coffin, and stabbing him with the sun sword. [/sblock]

 

[MNblockhead]

I admit that I'm out of touch. I started playing 5e after not having played DnD since 1e nor any TRPG since the early 90s. But when did it become an expectation that an adventure would have class options. I prefer to keep the crunch separate and really hope that WoTC doesn't go nuts with crunch. Maybe I should put it differently, I like the player supplements to be separate, stand-alone works that make it easy for me, as the DM, to say--no--we are not using that in my game. If you start putting a lot of this stuff into the adventure paths, it become really hard to not have to accept it all into my game.

Also, I don't want my players to be tempted to buy the book for the player options. It would be too easy for WoTC to add a bunch of player options in an attempt to have a larger audience to sell the books to. I'm grateful that they didn't stoop to this.

Even adding new monsters, spells, and magic items is optional. They should only be added if they really add the theme and story and I wouldn't at all feel cheated if an adventure path had none this, so long as the story, maps, and organization were all great.

...So basically, they already released the literally only piece of character-building content in the entire book?

Well that sucks.

 

[M.L. Martin]

The math's a little off--Castle Ravenloft gets 45 pages, of which 15 cover the dungeons and catacombs.

 

[RotGrub]

How does one run a Ravenloft module without campaign setting rules like Powers Checks, Horror and Madness rules, Modified spells, etc?

Sadly, this is yet another module that I won't buy. I was expecting to see a few pages about Ravenloft in general, but that appears to be absent. Of course, the same thing happened with the Realms. Everything is being released as a grand story without any regard for the essential and finer details of the setting.

IMO, if WotC would at least release a 5e primer on these campaign settings first, they'd at least appear to be a little more thoughtful.

 

[MrHotter]

How does one run a Ravenloft module without campaign setting rules like Powers Checks, Horror and Madness rules, Modified spells, etc?

Sadly, this is yet another module that I won't buy. I was expecting to see a few pages about Ravenloft in general, but that appears to be absent. Of course, the same thing happened with the Realms. Everything is being released as a grand story without any regard for the essential and finer details of the setting.

IMO, if WotC would at least release a 5e primer on these campaign settings first, they'd at least appear to be a little more thoughtful.

People ran Ravenloft when it was just one module with about 30 pages. It it still considered one of the best adventures of all time.

If you look at the table of contents you can see that chapter two is all about the setting and each area that you explore has it's own details in the chapter dedicated to it.

 

[Kite474]

So from the looks of it.

No new mechanics to use as a DM unless those marks of power are that. Even then that seems really small for a setting with a COMPLETELY different feel than the standard.

No new player options.

No real look of Ravenloft in any real depth. Just possibly a brief intro to Strahd and Barovia.

Man. This is starting to look disappointing. I know I'm not the target audience, but still..

 

[MrHotter]

The math's a little off--Castle Ravenloft gets 45 pages, of which 15 cover the dungeons and catacombs.

One of the pages is a map, so maybe a lot of art and conclusion information?

 

[GX.Sigma]

So from the looks of it.

No new mechanics to use as a DM unless those marks of power are that. Even then that seems really small for a setting with a COMPLETELY different feel than the standard.

No new player options.

No real look of Ravenloft in any real depth. Just possibly a brief intro to Strahd and Barovia.

Man. This is starting to look disappointing. I know I'm not the target audience, but still..

It is a remake of a 1e module, not a remake of a 2e campaign setting.

 

[Lackhand]

Ravenloft means so many things to so many people!

I think it's important to remember what we are getting here. It's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft_(module) not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft . I'm actually pretty happy about that myself, but I can see how others wouldn't be -- I just ran I6 for my players, and they barely crawled out alive, so I'm looking forward to seeing what some other bright minds added to the mix.

The DMG has some decent madness rules (IMO) and it's very reasonable to use them here. I think this particular adventure might not fit them, though -- Strahd is manipulative, but he only makes you crazy in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft_II:_The_House_on_Gryphon_Hill

I hope as the adventure gets into our grubby paws, We The Community will use it to talk about fun house rules to really ratchet up the fear and madness. You have to be careful about that stuff; it risks deprotagonizing the players, which is part of horror, but really has to be handled carefully -- better for long-form discussion than in-text IMO.
It also won't help the AL DMs, but I actually think that's a good move: AL is a terrible place to flirt with deprotagonization*.


* Which now sounds like something to save for Chem Lab.

 

[Kite474]

It is a remake of a 1e module, not a remake of a 2e campaign setting.

That's a fair point. I still feel their's a lot of lost opportunities in that though.

But at the end of the day the only thing that seems to sell is adventures... So I cant really blame Wizards for it.

 

[Corpsetaker]

That's a fair point. I still feel their's a lot of lost opportunities in that though. But at the end of the day the only thing that seems to sell is adventures... So I cant really blame Wizards for it.

I don't think it's sales to be honest. If the upcoming AP is successful and the followed it up with a Domains of Dread book covering all of Ravenloft then it would sell extremely well. They are trying to keep all the focus on Forgotten Realms while using Ravenloft as a little side trek.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Pros: The "Epilogue" chapter makes me think they worked really hard to make this a good read. I just read Rise of the RuneLords, which has a similar chapter, and RotRL book was a good read too. Maybe WotC is learning a few lessons from Paizo in printing APs. Looks like it will be a high quality purchase for those who buy it

Cons: They included an "Alterations to Magic" section but not an "Alterations to Alignment" section? Baffling, because alignment has more impact on players. All players have alignment, but only a few have spells. Terrible decision.

 

[RotGrub]

People ran Ravenloft when it was just one module with about 30 pages. It it still considered one of the best adventures of all time.

If you look at the table of contents you can see that chapter two is all about the setting and each area that you explore has it's own details in the chapter dedicated to it.

I'd expect nothing less from a module, but I didn't say it couldn't be a great adventure or that it wasn't playable.

Ravenloft evolved into campaign setting since the original module was released decades ago. Releasing a single module in the same manner ignores all that. This module is just a single story. It doesn't represent Ravenloft as a campaign setting.

 

[GrumpyGamer]

I had already known they were missing, but it is still sad to see a lack of Dark Power checks. Not having Dark Power checks in Ravenloft is a bit like not having psionics in Darksun.