Expidition to Castle Ravenloft - Spoilers and Answers

[Swedish Chef]

Greetings all.

I received my copy of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft two days ago and have been happily reading through it. I've seen mention in a couple of threads that people are waiting for it to be available for perusal before purchasing. I'd like to help those in need of information.

First, it is a "re-imagining" of I6, basically expanding and updating the original AD&D module. It is not a separate campaign booklet, so fans of the Ravenloft Campaign from 2nd Ed will be a bit disappointed.

The biggest change is that the castle is no longer in its own demi-plane. Mind you, this is not a huge deal. If you want it to be a demi-plane, it is. However, the book gives locations in which the village and castle could be placed in Eberron, Forgotten Realms and d20 Modern.

As well, someone seems to have been watching the George Romero "...of the Dead" films. One of the hooks is a Zombie invasion. Like the films, any character killed by one of these zombies arises as a newly infected zombie within 1d4 rounds. And these zombies are not easy to kill, weighing in at 6HD (42HP), with DR 5/slashing.

Most of the original encounters still exist, just updated to d20 stats. One interesting point is that Ireena is now a Lvl4 Fighter, and not just a damsel in distress.

The village has been fleshed out some more, with more NPCs for the party to interact with.

The biggest item to remain the same is the random generation of relic location via the Tarot reading. Happily, that has been expanded upon, allowing for even greater re-playability (is that even a word?).

As for the combats, that is the biggest change I am getting used to. Every encounter is discussed in the adventure, but it is not fleshed out right away. Instead, it is detailed in a separate section. This is strange to me in that I'm used to the information being right there, but I think it's a good thing in that the amount of information provided for each enounter (stat blocks, background information, scaling information and even miniature deployment on maps) is easily referenced without having to flip pages. Each encounter gets a two page layout for ease of use for the DM.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them. I will try to answer them throughout the weekend!

 

[Crothian]

How tough is the big bad Vampire? Do they have any special rules ofr the place lit something to make turning less effective?

 

[Swedish Chef]

Strahd weighs in as a CR15. He's a Lvl 10 mage. They have changed him a bit in that he has "performed some rituals to tie him to three sacred sites, increasing his power". This means that the party can drop his CR by 3 points by performing counter-rituals at the three sacred sites. All in all, if the party tries to bypass things and take him out early, they will die messy deaths. If everyone levels up to Level 9 (the max for the adventure), takes out the three sites, they might last long enough to defeat him.

Oh, and he's now got daylight immunity.

Edit: Level 10 Necromancer, not mage.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Strahd weighs in as a CR15. He's a Lvl 10 mage. They have changed him a bit in that he has "performed some rituals to tie him to three sacred sites, increasing his power". This means that the party can drop his CR by 3 points by performing counter-rituals at the three sacred sites.

Do they provide four different stat blocks for Strahd? Or does the book just give rules for modifying the existing stat block, based on which counter-rituals the PCs perform?

 

[Crothian]

Does each counter ritual do something different to him? Or is doing one as good as doing another?

 

[Swedish Chef]

Do they provide four different stat blocks for Strahd? Or does the book just give rules for modifying the existing stat block, based on which counter-rituals the PCs perform?

They provide different stat blocks for his alternate forms, and information on how to modify the main stat block after the party completes a counter-ritual.

Does each counter ritual do something different to him? Or is doing one as good as doing another?

Each ritual removes 1 CR from him. There are some stat modifications and immunities lost by each ritual. Each one does something slightly different. Cumulatively, they remove 3 from the CR of Strahd.

Edit: Now that I have more time to answer this fully: Each ritual removes specific bonuses and/or immunities from Strahd. For example, completing the Mountain Ritual removes 6 from his AC (dropping it to 21 from 27), and the PC that completes the ritual gains the bonus to his/her AC, as long as they remain in Barovia.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The biggest change is that the castle is no longer in its own demi-plane. Mind you, this is not a huge deal. If you want it to be a demi-plane, it is. However, the book gives locations in which the village and castle could be placed in Eberron, Forgotten Realms and d20 Modern.

Hardly a big change, since Ravenloft wasn't a separate plane to begin with. That was a later 2E perversion.

So how are the maps? Did we get 3D map goodness? The original I6 had the best maps of any TSR/WOTC product that I can think of, before or since.

 

[Swedish Chef]

Hardly a big change, since Ravenloft wasn't a separate plane to begin with. That was a later 2E perversion.

So how are the maps? Did we get 3D map goodness? The original I6 had the best maps of any TSR/WOTC product that I can think of, before or since.

The maps are a mixture. There are full colour 3d maps that show the layout of the castle. They look very nice, but they are small (most being 1/3 of the page or smaller). For specific encounters, there are small maps on each page similar to those found in the miniatures game. These maps also include tactical locations of any monsters, furniture, etc.

I am a bit disappointed that the maps are so small. I was hoping for at least a couple of full page maps. There is only one, and that is the one that can be found in the preview on the WotC site.

There are some nice 3d renderings of the exterior of the castle, but again, the pictures are less than 1/3 of a page.

From the looks of things, they tried to save page count by reducing the size of maps. Although I understand the reasoning behind it, it is a bit disappointing. Maybe a future web enhancement will include larger downloadable maps.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

From the looks of things, they tried to save page count by reducing the size of maps. Although I understand the reasoning behind it, it is a bit disappointing. Maybe a future web enhancement will include larger downloadable maps.

Disappointing, since the original had six full pages of maps, two in full color.

How is the Fortunes of Ravenloft (the random element for Strahd's motivations, etc) handled?

 

[Aeric]

I've never played or even read the original module, but I am thinking of running this for my group. My only concern is Castle Ravenloft. According to the ToC, an entire chapter of the book is dedicated to it. How "dungeony" is it? I don't want to set up this exciting adventure, only to have the last half of it bogged down by the old room-by-room routine all too common in dungeon adventures.