D&D 5E Curse of Strahd help

[hastur_nz]

Indeed. I'd also recommend you try not to teach them not to play via deus ex machina, i.e. don't have your DM-PC(s) save their bacon; by all means offer some friendly advice via NPC's, but let them make the decisions, and if necessary let the results teach them, otherwise I think the won't actually learn anything at all.
(I'm reminded of when I ran Against the Giants for a group when 3.0 rules first came out - I splattered a couple of 'dumb fighters' early on, until the players realised that 'stand and deliver' tactics would not work against a group of giants...)

 

[Wepwawet]

Hi guys, my players have just arrived at Krezk, next session Something Blue will happen, hopefully (yeah, we're slow.. we only play fortnightly)

I'm planning on having dark clouds form in the east approaching quickly, Strahd comes flying on Beucephalus and attacks the party. I want to give them a taste of his full power, but on his own to make it easier. They're 5th level now, the holy symbol is in the gazebo and it will be uncovered after the bolt. I will allow the (sort of) cleric to use its power once before even attuning.

How did this event go in your games? I need some ideas. Did your Ireena escape? How did Strahd take it? How does he go from being livid to a few days later being gracious and invite them to dinner?

 

[pukunui]

So they survived the night, retrieved the sword, and went up to the castle. They're all still alive but only just barely. They're currently hiding out on the roof of one of the guard towers, hoping Strahd's animated armor doesn't see them. They defeated Rahadin but found that they couldn't take even a short rest without something or someone coming to disturb them, including a surprise visit from Strahd. They're badly beat up (I think they've all got less than 10 hp) and are hoping to get out of the castle altogether. Of course, they were missing the cleric (his player couldn't make it), which didn't help ...

How did this event go in your games? I need some ideas. Did your Ireena escape? How did Strahd take it? How does he go from being livid to a few days later being gracious and invite them to dinner?

My group allowed Ireena to go into the pond. Strahd zapped them with lightning. Yeah, he's angry, but he's a 400-year old vampire lord. He's good at regaining his composure quickly, and his invitation isn't really him being gracious. It's a trick. He wants to kill them, but he wants to do it in the castle, where he can use all his tricks and traps to torment them beforehand.

 

[hastur_nz]

My group never went to Krezk, so Something Blue never happened. But from memory I did have a similar situation when they went to Yester Hill, and Strahd eventually turned up; the PC's were probably around 5th level IIRC. I opened with a Fireball at range, possibly enhanced for extra dice. That certainly got their attention...

 

[texastoast]

I'm playing my Strahd as more of a patient long game player, secure in the knowledge that his power and immortality mean he never has to react hastily. Yes, he's annoyed with the trouble the PCs are making, but he's at least as pleased to have a diversion from the humdrum of Barovia. And I'm playing up his goal of finding a successor, possibly one of the adventurers, who can take over ruling in his place and (at least the way I'm running it) free him from his obligation to do so, allowing him to leave if he wants.

Given that, my Strahd has not been very in your face at the players. At Yester Hill, for example, he watched the ritual, which the PCs didn't try to interrupt. The ranger actually took some longbow pot shots at him, and he just laughed at them. Then, as Wintersplinter was charging off, he told them to see if they could survive it and, if they did, invited them to dinner at the castle.

At Something Blue, accordingly, I didn't have him appear in person. One of the PCs (and Izek) pulled Ireena back from the pool. Then Strahd's voice boomed and lightning struck, as the book described, but that was it. In his view he will get Ireena in his time, and enjoys the game of cat and mouse.

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[Wepwawet]

Last night Something Blue happened in my game... What an emotional rollercoaster (for me at least)

First, they didn't let Ireena get in the pool. I was shocked! I described the pool shimmering even though there was no sun, an apparition of a handsome young man with a noble visage, Ireena calling him Sergei, all that dialogue in the book... I really thought the intent would be obvious, but the players nope, kept her away. Especially when the water hand comes out. I'm not a native english speaker nor a storyteller, but I would think my skills were enough to impart this... But nooo. Now I'm stuck with her... Good thing is that now Strahd won't rest until he take her out of the picture.

Well, for one thing the players didn't have time to chat with the locals (not that they would anyway) because she heard the voice and ran away as they were taking the wine to the burgomaster's cellar. But on the previous session I had made them remember the card readings again, along with Rictavio's interpretations, hoping that they would keep them in mind and actually know about the *SACRED POOL*.

So, a big lightning bolt destroys the pool and the gazebo, uncovering something shiny. The clouds form into a giant face that says "she's mine!" and out of the mouth comes a black horse with flaming mane and a rider. While he's approaching, the monk goes and grabs the holy symbol. I made him and the druid/cleric roll religion to learn that it's a holy symbol but that only clerics can actually use their powers.

The fight was amazing. When the characters manage to land a hit they would see a brief red flash and the wound closing quickly. They did manage to land 40 hit points on the Heart of Sorrow after which Strahd broke the connection (I made them roll insight to notice him doing it, no one did). The druid held up the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, concentrating hard on it and cast Chain Lightning. At that point, as he channels magic energy I made the symbol activate and emit bright sunlight (the 5 charges power, it was a 3rd lvl spell after all). The spell wasn't cast, but he still spent the slot. From then on Strahd took quite a beating. They all thought that the holy symbol was stopping the regeneration, when it was in fact the broken connection. They will have a big surprise next time.

One big mistake I made was when the drow bard was standing in front of Ireena, Strahd comes to them and casts sleep. To which the bard replies, I'm an elf, I can't be put to sleep That caused a lot of laughter at the table, great moment. But I forgot that Ireena should have fallen asleep, even before the bard would... Which meant that she was able to run away and hide.

Strahd went down to only 12 hp!!! So he left, steaming from all the sunlight, unable to find her... I didn't want to give the players the satisfaction of "killing" him

I'm really glad I ran this, even on his own (he did call swarms of bats, but they took 4 rounds to arrive).
Now I have a much better idea of how he works, and how the party can fight him. That's the whole point, right?
Also, I'm definitely using @pukunui's idea of having the Heart of Sorrow grant immunity from sunlight to Strahd. Otherwise he'll be too easy..

EDIT: Party composed of 4 characters all 5th level: Bard, Druid, Monk and Rogue.

 

[pukunui]

Also, I'm definitely using @pukunui's idea of having the Heart of Sorrow grant immunity from sunlight to Strahd. Otherwise he'll be too easy..

My group managed to recover the sun sword from its new hiding place and then went straight to the castle. They found the secret passage behind the organ and (not intentionally) went straight to Rahadin's office. They killed him but took a beating in the process, so were desperately trying to find a place to rest. They barricaded his door but that didn't stop Strahd from showing up and taking a sip of blood from one of the PCs. The paladin whipped out the sword and turned it on (cue the eye-rolling lightsaber jokes - I threatened them with negative inspiration if they kept it up!) but Strahd just laughed, much to their horror. One of them was like, "But but but it said ..." and another was like "Well, he's had four hundred years to figure something out ...". They ran down the secret stairway, fooled around with the brazier a bit (but didn't figure out how it works) and then went up the stair that leads to the study. They toyed with the idea of setting Strahd's library on fire, but then went into the cake room and out the window onto the parapet. They spotted Strahd's armor and hid up on top of one of the guard towers at the front of the castle. They've all got less than 10 hit points, and they're now talking about trying to escape.

 

[pukunui]

OK, so tonight the PCs used feather fall to get down from the guard tower, and the green slime wasn't enough to do anything other than destroy the lead PC's armor really. So they hightailed it all the way back to the Village of Barovia, although they met a ghost along the way that turned Ismark into an old man. They got a long rest (except for the PC being haunted by Morgantha) in Ismark's house, but he stayed behind to take up his duties as burgomaster.

Instead of going back to the castle, however, they decided to head for van Richten's tower. On the way, they stopped in at the Vistani camp outside Vallaki to talk to the dusk elves. They presented Kasimir with Rahadin's head, and he told them a bit about Rahadin's past and a few other tidbits. Since I'm not using the Amber Temple in this game, I modified his story so that he simply told them about his sister and that if they could find a way to bring her back to life, she might be able to help them.

Off they went and, for some reason, they opted to go to Berez to try and recover the second winery gem. Instead, they ended up getting their asses whooped by Lysaga and her hut (with help from a scarecrow or two). I probably should've had some wereravens help them out ... but anyway, it ended with three PCs down but stable and the fourth hidden in the mansion ruins. I had Strahd show up and stop Lysaga from killing the downed PCs. Instead, he had them carted off to the castle, and they're going to wake up in the dungeons*.

The fourth PC made it out of Berez and swam across the river and met Muriel. Over the course of the campaign, his character has shifted to chaotic neutral, so we're not certain what his next move is going to be. I suppose Strahd could send minions out to pick him up and bring him back to the castle too. But then the Keepers of the Feather might try to hide him.

As for the others, would Strahd strip them of their gear? One has the holy symbol and another has the sword. Would he take them away and get rid of them, stash them in his instant fortress treasury, hide them in the castle for more fun and games? He's not technically not afraid of the sword, since I've combined the Heart of Sorrow with the Dayheart (from the 3.5 adventure), which means the sword's light doesn't hurt him.

I guess the question is: Is Strahd finished toying with these adventurers yet or not? I guess if he wasn't, he could have just left them to die at Lysaga's hands. He wants them dead because they let Ireena escape. He wants them dead because they killed Rahadin. But he's so bored with his unlife that he still wants to wring every last drop of pleasure out of tormenting them before finally doing them in.

Does that sound reasonable for why he doesn't just let them die? (I'm trying to justify letting the PCs live long enough that we can spend at least one more session exploring the castle and hopefully come to a more satisfying conclusion.)


*Or maybe Strahd puts them in the guest room and lets them get a good night's sleep to give them a feeling of false hope?

EDIT: I think maybe what I'll do is have the three PCs Strahd has captured tied up in chairs facing the bed in the bedroom. As they regain consciousness, they'll see Strahd getting busy with the PC he took away before, and just at the climactic moment, he sucks her dry, looking at his captive audience as he does so. Assuming none of them are able to break free of their bonds at that point, he'll then get up and start getting dressed while Clovin comes in and fetches the body. I'll have him carrying a shovel as well as a lantern, as a clue to the whole "you have to bury the body in order for it to transform into a vampire spawn" thing. He'll take the body away. Once he's dressed, Strahd will leave. As he's closing the doors, he'll say "Try to get some rest." If they stay put, they can have a rest without any random encounters. If they leave the room, all bets are off.

Still need to figure out what to do about their equipment. Perhaps he puts most of their gear in the closet behind the bathroom. But what about the sword and holy symbol? I still think he could have some fun by hiding them in the castle and giving the PCs clues as to where to find them.

 

[hastur_nz]

Tricky situation there... as you know, Baba Lasagna with helpers is definite TPK potential, I didn't realise just how tough her Hut was until I was wasting you with it. From my reading, Strahd and Baba-L don't hang out together, but what's done is done; I guess Strahd has stepped in and "claimed his kill", Baba-L now does what...?

Anyway, I think you i.e. Strahd definitely need to take the key items off the PC's; that's the price of failure. As for what he does with them, well I don't see any clarity in the adventure as to their back-story i.e. how they get to their 'start positions', so I'd say Strahd gives the items to Baba-L, and over time she might re-distribute them, depending on how her war vs the ravens goes, of whatever. But for now, that places them somewhere well defended, but in theory your players could get them back. But I'd never let the players know where they are - they all 'die' at the hands of Baba-L, then wake up somewhere else...

I like the idea of Strahd taking the PC's back to his castle, it's very 'cat and mouse' of him. I'm reminded of a rainy day we left our cat inside by herself, and we came back to find she'd ran riot with various soft toys all over the house, she's even jumped up on the table and found some little tomatoes which she chased around and squashed... there's some kind of analogy for you there, I think.

However, if you put the PC's upstairs, or on the ground floor, chances are they will run away again. So I'd put them in the dungeons somewhere. Unfortunately the layout of the castle makes that problematic, because the dungeons are not really connected to the catacombs. I like the idea of Strahd using an old PC as bait, ideally the PC's should feel like it's a rescue mission, and if they get to the place where their reading said Strahd would be found, they might also save that PC from their doom. How to set that up is the question... it could be a whispered dream sequence just before they wake, a scene kinda like you described (except the place the body is to be taken must be pretty obvious), or whatever.

 

[pukunui]

We're playing again in just a few hours. I've more or less decided to put them in the Guest Room (K50). When Strahd is finished tormenting them, he'll tell them to get what rest they can before the night falls. (They can get a short rest, but if they try to get a long one, the witches will come.)

He's going to put the holy symbol and the sword down in the dungeons/catacombs somewhere, so they won't have to leave the castle if they want to recover them. I'm going to randomly determine where he puts them using the cards.

As for Strahd and Lysaga: No, I don't think they hang out much either. I was thinking of it more in terms of "Hey lady, don't steal my kills. Those foolish adventurers belong to me." And Lysaga, since she thinks of Strahd as a son, would of course defer to his wishes.

EDIT: So that worked out really well. The PCs are now on a mission to stop their dead friend from rising as a vampire. They took a short rest in the guest room, then found the trap door in the closet and went and beat up the witches. They took one prisoner and learned a bit from her (like where the garden is and how to get there), then headed down the stairs. They talked to Escher, fought the rug and painting, found Lief, fought some flying swords and shadows, then fought the gargoyles in the entry hall - at which point the fourth PC (who'd avoided being KOed in Berez) showed up with Ezmerelda. They defeated the gargoyles and made it down to the chapel, where they were able to take a long rest, despite numerous interruptions (Strahd's bloodied hanky showed up twice, as did a floating candelabrum and an animated broom).

I had Ezmerelda do a card reading to determine where Strahd had hidden the sword and holy symbol. I had two players draw from just the cards with locations in the castle. Turns out Strahd put the sword in Mad Dog's crypt and the holy symbol in his own. [And they know they can find him in his brother's crypt.]