D&D 5E CoS: My players defeated Fate

[Kannik]

Luckily this is a text-based game so I went back to see what exactly the prophecy said. It seems I quoted the CoS book exactly-

Center: "The final destination. Your enemy is a creature of darkness, a being with powers beyond mortality. This card will lead you to him."

Maybe even use the Abbot from the monastery. He is a fallen angel and could play into that.

I've not read (nor played) CoS yet, but there could be a fun and interesting combination of several of the suggestions presented thus far: When the PCs arrive at the room foretold by the deck, they meet the Abbot (or someone prior they considered an ally). Whether the Abbot is free and walking about, acting all nice, or is bound and thus "needs" to be rescued is up to you... the fun part is whether the players/PCs remember the prophecy and thus recognize that the Abbot is the evil. Have the Abbot try to get them to leave.... maybe it's part of his plot that if nothing is disrupted in here (an altar, the heart, coffin...) their plans will come to fruition. Maybe he tries to ambush them. Letting the scene play out, with the Abbot acting just weird enough so that the players begin to suspect something... until they remember the cards and that this was where they were supposed to meet the enemy. That moment of dawning comprehension. Then all heck breaks loose.

However it goes, here's to it turning out wickedly cool for you and the group!

Kannik

 

[Irda Ranger]

However it goes, here's to it turning out wickedly cool for you and the group!

Kannik

Thanks! For better or worse though they've been all over that prophecy like white on rice. They've figured out the next room "is it" and are buffing up. So the sort of trick you mention won't work.

Hmm, I could try having a wraith and also a "prisoner" that's the real enemy but they're unlikely to fall for it.

They've already read the Tome of Strahd and know he struck a bargain with Death, who made him a vampire, so it's believable that Death is the real enemy. They don't need to know the name Injaira for now.


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[dave2008]

Wasn't it established that the "vampires burn to death in sunlight" trope originated in the movie Nosferatu? I always thought it interesting that it wasn't actually in Dracula, at least explicitly.

Well, if I recall correctly, Dracula actually walks in the sunlight, he is just weaker / doesn't have his powers in sunlight.

 

[Quickleaf]

Thanks! For better or worse though they've been all over that prophecy like white on rice. They've figured out the next room "is it" and are buffing up. So the sort of trick you mention won't work.

Hmm, I could try having a wraith and also a "prisoner" that's the real enemy but they're unlikely to fall for it.

They've already read the Tome of Strahd and know he struck a bargain with Death, who made him a vampire, so it's believable that Death is the real enemy. They don't need to know the name Injaira for now.


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Oh man, that'll be a lot of fun! Keep "Inajira" to yourself as the fiend's True Name But play it as Death, straight up. Like Death from that Francisco Goya painting, or any number of classical paintings, or from the Deck of Many Things. Maybe it challenges them to a deadly game of chess for their souls?

Hmm. You could use the stats of an ultroloth (CR 13), beefing it up with more hit points and a scythe that deals more damage with a trait similar to Angelic Weapons, maybe some Legendary or Lair Actions too. But instead of summoning yugoloths, give it the ability to summon Avatars of Death keyed to specific PCs (see DMG pg. 164 under deck of many things).

 

[Ralt Gaither]

[MENTION=1003]Irda Ranger[/MENTION] Could you please post a link to the "Epic Villains" thread you mentioned? Would like to take a look at the powered-up villains.

 

[Barolo]

Oh man, that'll be a lot of fun! Keep "Inajira" to yourself as the fiend's True Name But play it as Death, straight up. Like Death from that Francisco Goya painting, or any number of classical paintings, or from the Deck of Many Things. Maybe it challenges them to a deadly game of chess for their souls?

Hmm. You could use the stats of an ultroloth (CR 13), beefing it up with more hit points and a scythe that deals more damage with a trait similar to Angelic Weapons, maybe some Legendary or Lair Actions too. But instead of summoning yugoloths, give it the ability to summon Avatars of Death keyed to specific PCs (see DMG pg. 164 under deck of many things).

A lot of great ideas here! I would go as far as to put them in a situation they do not expect, something to give them a real sweat. Like, making them believe a direct confrontation is pointless or unwinnable (by selling the idea that Inajira is really Death), and then engaging them on another kind of challenge, like the suggested above chess game for their souls. Creepy "The seventh seal" style, I would love it! You can put at stake their own freedom from the dark demiplane, the lives of the innocents living there, etc. and create a situation where winning something means giving up something else, to give that tragic gothic touch the adventure calls for.

The more I think about it, more I get convinced you can still turn the initial "loss" into a great win for the table.

 

[CapnZapp]

Sounds like you messed up and didn't play Strahd the way the book instructs you to.

The only thing left to do here is conclude the campaign and try again in a new one.

No he didn't mess up - Wizards did, for giving Strahd pathetic stats that isn't even close to what a experienced/lucky party of well-built characters can overcome.

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[JangPotatoes]

It is for exactly this reason that I erased the 'unless he is in sunlight, then he is destroyed' line from Strahd's Misty Escape feature. Sunlight will still prevent his regeneration from working, but when he is knocked down to 0 HP anywhere except his coffin (and regardless of any sunlight out) he turns to mist and floats back to his crypt to recuperate. It is only when he is staked through his heart in his coffin after returning there in mist form is he truly destroyed.

It allows the PCs to "kill" Strahd as many times as they want, but he will always float off to eventually come back. But to truly end the scourge of Lord von Zarovich they have to go chasing after his mist form back down into the crypts and destroy him there once and for all. I much prefer the standard mythos ending of having to kill the vampire with a stake to the chest in his coffin than any "hey, hit him with any number of these items we've given you that cause Sunlight and end the threat here and now!" Way too anticlimactic for my tastes.

I wish I had read this two days ago. My party just slapped strahd silly with the sunsword/thighbone combo and vaporized him at the top of the tower by the heart

It was a good flight,climactic and all, but I think if they'd had to trek all the way down to the catacombs and figure out how get past the teleport traps before he regenerated it would have been more thematically strong.

The boss vampire always gets tracked to his coffin in the movies

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[Eltab]

Inajira is in THAT room, waiting to ambush Stradh's mist-form (or his soul) when it floats by, when the PCs come in. They are really a distraction to it. So it offers them something time-consuming (such as Bilbo & Gollum's riddle game), but is clearly distracted and not paying full attention to them. If they attack it, it summons Personalized Avatars of Death - as described above - to keep them busy. At a dramatically-appropriate moment, Stradh's soul / mist enters the room. A three-way fight is now in play; how do the PCs react? Stradh and Inajira will try to make the other take the brunt of any PC attack.
Inajira wants Stradh's soul, and can gather it no matter who 're-kills' him.
Stradh wants to escape to his coffin.

Full disclosure: I haven't read or played CoS, so this may make very little sense, in-story.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I wish I had read this two days ago. My party just slapped strahd silly with the sunsword/thighbone combo and vaporized him at the top of the tower by the heart

It was a good flight,climactic and all, but I think if they'd had to trek all the way down to the catacombs and figure out how get past the teleport traps before he regenerated it would have been more thematically strong.

The boss vampire always gets tracked to his coffin in the movies

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That's exactly the why of it.

As it stands, unless Eva's card reading says that's Strahd's "always there" location... there's little reason why the PCs would ever go down to his crypt. If you can kill him outright anywhere and everywhere just because you have the Sunsword and/or Holy Symbol as per written... you're almost never going to need to. Especially depending on the size of the party, you'll knock him down to 0 HP rather quickly and then 'poof!' threat gone. Which I personally find to be 'Meh!'

So I changed things. Added things. Made things more difficult. Made things more interesting in my opinion. And now... just because they mist him, doesn't mean the threat is over. It's not over until they make that one last trek down into the catacombs... fighting every single monster in the Castle along the way... all to put that final stake in the heart. Then and only then is Barovia freed.