D&D 5E Curse of Strahd help

[pukunui]

I'm trying to figure out a way to get them to Blinsky's so they see the Ireena doll, but my party isn't much for exploring the town, so I haven't found a way to push them toward Blinsky's.

I had the monkey, Piccolo, performing in the street as the PCs approached. When he was finished, he started running down the street toward the shop, then stopped and looked back, as if waiting for the PCs to start following him. They took the bait and went to Blinsky's. They never bothered to investigate Izek's thing with the Ireena dolls, opting to kill him at the first opportunity instead, so they never found out that Izek and Ireena were siblings.

I think I could have handled that part of the adventure a bit better, in retrospect. They chose to leave Ireena and Ismark at the Blue Water Inn while they took Arabelle back to the Vistani camp. As it was late in the day, they opted to spend the night in the camp and didn't return to Vallaki until the next morning. I think it might have been more fun to have Izek kidnap Ireena while the PCs were away, and maybe convince the baron to lock up Ismark on trumped-up charges of "malicious unhappiness", so that the PCs would have to rescue them both upon their return. (It's too late for such shenanigans in my campaign, though, as Izek is dead, Ismark is dead, and Ireena has escaped with Sergei via the pool.)

If this is thread hijacking and I should start a new thread, just let me know. I don't know all the etiquette for this forum yet.

No worries! Ask away!


I have had a thought of my own: the PCs are faced with a tough fight against a large group of revenants in Argynvostholt. I am wondering if it might be worth having Strahd show up to help the PCs. He wants to kill them himself, not have them get killed by the remnants of his former enemies. OK, on the one hand, he might just let them die at the hands of the revenants because that would show that they're unworthy of his attention, but they've already gotten his attention by helping Ireena escape, so he really wants to get back at them, and they haven't accepted his invitation to dine at the castle yet. Why would he let them get themselves killed at the hands of Argynvost's undead knights? He might always want to do it just to mess with their heads a bit: "No, of course I don't want to kill you! Look, I'm even helping you! Aren't I so nice? Won't you please come and have dinner with me at my castle?"

What do y'all think about that?

 

[Wepwawet]

I have had a thought of my own: the PCs are faced with a tough fight against a large group of revenants in Argynvostholt. I am wondering if it might be worth having Strahd show up to help the PCs. He wants to kill them himself, not have them get killed by the remnants of his former enemies. OK, on the one hand, he might just let them die at the hands of the revenants because that would show that they're unworthy of his attention, but they've already gotten his attention by helping Ireena escape, so he really wants to get back at them, and they haven't accepted his invitation to dine at the castle yet. Why would he let them get themselves killed at the hands of Argynvost's undead knights? He might always want to do it just to mess with their heads a bit: "No, of course I don't want to kill you! Look, I'm even helping you! Aren't I so nice? Won't you please come and have dinner with me at my castle?"

What do y'all think about that?

Sounds really cool! He could come, attack the revenants, try to get rid of them as quickly as possible, working with the players, but barely looking at them. Then as the fight is over he turns to them, say "now it's your turn!" and attack them straight away, no rest.

Some characters' powers will be depleted, but so is Strahd (as he used the big guns to finish the revenants quickly), that balances it a bit... Except that Strahd must still have the upper hand.

I love to confuse the players with allies/enemies. They might see it coming and start attacking Strahd. And you'll have a complicated threeway fight

 

[Wepwawet]

I'm trying to figure out a way to get them to Blinsky's so they see the Ireena doll, but my party isn't much for exploring the town, so I haven't found a way to push them toward Blinsky's.

My players found a malformed doll by the road with the label "Is no fun is no Blinksy".

When they got to Vallaki crossing the whole town to go to the church, I was describing the noteworthy places. The simple mention of a store sign with a rocking horse and a letter B got them very interested to go investigate.

The Ireena dolls didn't impact them as much though... And they also killed Izek pretty quickly

 

[Savage Wombat]

My players seemed to love the running Blinsky joke. Were this a video game, they'd have been working on the "toy collector" 100% achievement.

 

[pukunui]

I think I will have Strahd help with the revenants then. I don't think I'll have him attack them afterwards, though. What I do think I'll have do afterwards is warn them that the revenants will be back and angrier than ever, so they'd best seek safety in his castle ...

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

My players seemed to love the running Blinsky joke. Were this a video game, they'd have been working on the "toy collector" 100% achievement.

This.

My squad bought everything in the shop and when the encounter tables in the Castle came up Blinski, you would have thought it was Christmas morning.

 

[pukunui]

My guys weren't all that impressed with Blinsky. They even criticised his "macabre" selection of toys to his face. They did agree to look out for the "mechanical man" in Castle Ravenloft for him, though.

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

My guys weren't all that impressed with Blinsky. They even criticised his "macabre" selection of toys to his face. They did agree to look out for the "mechanical man" in Castle Ravenloft for him, though.

Is no fun? IS NO BLINSKY!

 

[pukunui]

That's what he said!

 

[texastoast]

We had a productive two-steps-forward-one-step-back session this past weekend. Many thanks to the suggestions in this thread and others! The party rescued Arrabelle (and murdered Bluto, but who can blame them too much), and we ended with them taking her home and then having the card reading with Madam Eva. Arrigal was absent, and they got on very well with Luvash; he approved them killing Bluto and gave them some swag. Between those two achievements and what they did previously, I'm going to award them 4th level when we start next session. They're going to need it, because I'm going to have Strahd show up in the woods before they get back to the main road, charm my character,* a tiefling fiend-pact warlock, and have a little chat with the party. I'm not sure what he should talk about; I'll probably have him focus on Ireena and the PCs' involvement in his schemes around her, particularly given that they've left her in the Burgomaster's house with Izek. I'm thinking about having him then bite my character to scare the dickens out of the other PCs before retiring to let his friends say hi: some wolves and dire wolves. We haven't had any combat since Death House, and I allowed everybody to create new characters after that and swap out, so this will be a chance to kick the tires. (Previous characters were out of the Starter Set; now we're previously unavailable and hopefully more interesting races and classes.)

*I'm kinda sorta playing a character alongside DMing, mostly so we have 4 in the party so I don't have to constantly recalibrate the difficulty of things.

The card reading was good news and (maybe) bad news from my perspective. The possibly bad news is that all three relics are in Ravenloft, so they'll have to venture in there at least twice. I think I'm just intimidated by the huge dungeon crawl and have been procrastinating familiarizing myself with the ins and outs. Their Ally is Rictavio, which is great because they've already formed something of a relationship with him. While they were on the way through town with Arrabelle, they got distracted by Rictavio's wagon. One character (my 12yo) went back to the inn to ask Rictavio about it, and he told them to keep out. Then I had the Wachter boys follow him out and suggest breaking into it, which he totally agreed to. The rest of us kinda stood back and watched while the Tyger Tyger event occurred. (SMH) I basically let them off the hook for any real consequences; the Wachters bolted and I let the PCs help Rictavio get the tiger back in the wagon, since the event describes that it just prowls the town but doesn't attack except in self-defense. Rictavio gave them a pass too since they helped undo the damage. I'm planning to have them meet Rictavio driving his wagon out of town toward the tower, not exactly exiled but just ahead of the law, when they head back to Vallaki. They don't have enough clues yet to guess (and convince Rictavio) that he is their all ("entertaining man with a monkey"), so I'm not sure why he would mention his tower to them as a suggested destination, but I kinda need him to so they know where to find him.

I think I'll have the monkey performing in the street as suggested; now that they have the card reading they should be fully eager to find out where he came from, and that should get them to Blinsky's. If that doesn't get them to make the Izek-Ireena connection and go to the Burgomaster's on their own, I may have Ismark meet them on the street as they leave Blinsky's. I have visions of Izek, upon realizing Ireena is his long-lost sister, essentially losing interest in being the Burgomaster's muscle and becoming Ireena's fierce protector, although he would still be no match for Strahd if it came to that. But if that's the way it goes, I want the players to earn it; I don't just want it to be "Izek kidnapped Ireena, they put 2 and 2 together, and now he's on your team!" I'm definitely still open to suggestions on how to handle the rest of Vallaki. We have no cleric or paladin (side note: how do we use the Holy Symbol when the time comes?), so nobody has shown any interest in the church. I've seen it suggested on these boards that it's good to allow the attack on the church to occur rather than pushing the players to restore St. Andral's bones, and unless the PCs push in that direction I'm inclined to do that.