D&D 5E Curse of Strahd (and limitations on 1st level play)

[pukunui]

Yes, I wasn't suggesting it for your group right now. Need to look ahead and all that.

However, you could take a standard CR 3 werewolf and remove its nonmagic b,p,s immunity and replace it with the Loup's regeneration ability, since you wanted to avoid them because of not having magic items.

I hope they do that for the 2024 ’thropes in the MM.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I also looked at werewolves and flesh golems as potential opponents, but the party can’t damage them since they have no magic weapons.

You do realise that "your weapons don't work" is a standard horror trope, and your players, as I understand it, asked to play a horror game?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Nah. It seems too heavy-handed to just materialize new enemies out of thin air. I roll in the open (not behind the DM screen) and it would look odd to start doing otherwise. Or inflating/deflating enemy HP would seem dishonest.
And then what do I do? Just decide on my preference which characters get to live or die? At that point, are we even playing a game?

They are not out of "thin air". They are other enemies that are within the radius of the encounter that can come join it when they hear fighting begin.

Taking your winery fight for example... what happened to the 30 Needle Blights that were outside the building in the fields? Did the party destroy all of those first before entering the winery? If they did... why did none of the druids and blights that were inside the winery at the three encounter locations (W9, W14, & W20) come outside when the fight against the Needle Blights happened (if they happened?) At least one of those encounters would have heard the fighting and come running.

By the same token... you had the large fight in Area W9 against the 1 Druid and 24 Twig Blights. Why did the 1 Druid and 2 Vine Blights that were just upstairs in the bedroom at W20 not come down and join the fight? That bedroom is right there, and opens onto the catwalk directly about everyone fighting down below. In fact, it makes little sense that they DIDN'T come down to help and instead just sat on their hands in the bedroom while their allies got slaughtered below. And heck... a case could easily be made that the 1 Druid and 5 Needle Blights in the basement at W14 could have heard the combat up the circular stairs as well and come up to join them.

So you had enemies all over the place that could come make this encounter larger and more difficult and last more than a round had you actually chose to. But you have to be willing to forsake this idea that having a dynamic world such as this is somehow "heavy-handed". That's just you blocking yourself for no good reason.

And to be honest... at this point you probably should stop guesstimating which encounters are just "too hard" and "probable TPKs" and re-routing your players away from them. At some point you just need to bite the bullet and let them go up against these supposedly unbeatable enemies, because chances are good these enemies AREN'T unbeatable, you and your players are just not taking risks. At the end of the day, if the only two combats in your campaign are "simple cake walks" and "unbeatable TPKs" and you are unable to design anything in between... you might need to do a little more work figuring out just what encounter building really consists of.

 

[mamba]

So you had enemies all over the place that could come make this encounter larger and more difficult and last more than a round had you actually chose to. But you have to be willing to forsake this idea that having a dynamic world such as this is somehow "heavy-handed". That's just you blocking yourself for no good reason.

in fact they probably should have come. Had the chars attacked the 30 blights outside, they would have arrived starting at round 3

 

[Paul Farquhar]

in fact they probably should have come. Had the chars attacked the 30 blights outside, they would have arrived starting at round 3

It has the capacity to be a Night of the Living Dead Twigs.

 

[Retreater]

in fact they probably should have come. Had the chars attacked the 30 blights outside, they would have arrived starting at round 3

They had cast Pass Without Trace and had ungodly high Stealth, so they weren't noticed until they got into the Winery.
The combat with the 24 twig blights and 1 druid in the fermentation room was over before anyone could've heard or gotten there (less than 2 rounds). And even if they would have joined the fight, we have two issues...
1) The area was too small to accommodate the creatures already there, much less adding more fodder.
2) The HP, attack bonuses, etc., are still too low to challenge the party.

The party hasn't yet left the Winery, so they will have to deal with the 30 blights outside now. (Of course, they can safely rest inside and go completely nova on the blights the next morning.)

 

[Retreater]

It has the capacity to be a Night of the Living Dead Twigs.

This party could kill 500 of them. It wouldn't matter how many are thrown at them. At the CR 1/8, they are as challenging as a field of No 2 lead pencils.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They had cast Pass Without Trace and had ungodly high Stealth, so they weren't noticed until they got into the Winery.
The combat with the 24 twig blights and 1 druid in the fermentation room was over before anyone could've heard or gotten there (less than 2 rounds). And even if they would have joined the fight, we have two issues...
1) The area was too small to accommodate the creatures already there, much less adding more fodder.
2) The HP, attack bonuses, etc., are still too low to challenge the party.

The party hasn't yet left the Winery, so they will have to deal with the 30 blights outside now. (Of course, they can safely rest inside and go completely nova on the blights the next morning.)

Uh...what?

Rest inside? For a full Long Rest? And you would just let them do that? Not having any of the other encounter groups show up to attack them while they are resting? Not having some other Random Encounters occur while they are resting? Not even having Strahd himself (or a few of his minions) show up after he learns about what happened here (it's his land, he's know everything) and confront them for their transgressions in his land?

I mean there are so many things you can do right now to make this whole scenario at the winery more than just this. Like move the two druids from M14 and M20 out of their respective areas and then have them entangle the building and decide to just set the winery on fire while the party is still within it. And that's just one idea. At some point you need to actually change things up and not just run every single Encounter location as just individual tiny battles scenes where the party wins, rests, and then finds the next encounter location. There's no point in that, and makes for a rather lame story.

At some point, you as the DM have to make this adventure what you want it to be, not just follow the book by rote. Otherwise, why even bother?

 

[Larnievc]

It has the capacity to be a Night of the Living Dead Twigs.

That’s kind of how it went with my table.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They had cast Pass Without Trace and had ungodly high Stealth.

They have a Paladin, don't they? Does this Paladin have a high Dexterity? Is this Paladin not in heavy armor? Is this Paladin actually proficient in Stealth? Even with a +10 for Pass Without Trace... this Paladin should be rolling all Stealth checks with Disadvantage, and you can declare any and all monsters to be making active Perception checks looking for threats and thus not just relying on Passive Perception. And then you have your groups of enemies divided into smaller groups where each one rolls their own Perception checks, and each one gets their own initiative counts. Even a Paladin with Pass Without Trace on them won't be able to avoid being noticed ALL the time by EVERY encounter group if you do this. And as soon as someone notices the paladin, they get to act and alert everybody else.

So there easily could have been any number of the Needle Blights outside that could've/should've had the chance to notice the party approaching the winery and signaled their approach. Especially considering even with PWT, you still need to be out of line of sight to stealth, so no one can just walk right up to these buildings free of charge. Especially not with a Paladin in probably chainmail or platemail.

At the end of the day, if you are letting your players just sneak up to every encounter, position themselves exactly where they want, and attack with Surprise each and every time because you are just following the basic rules of the game without any consideration to the situations at hand and not giving anyone in your encounters special abilities, extra rolls, or breaks... then you just have to accept that this is how your game is going to run. And if you want it to change, then you have to change how you are running things.