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[Let's Read] DM's Guild Ravenloft Sourcebooks
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9175297" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/L6I35BZ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Companion notes that the blights individually are very weak to send against 5th level PCs, and their large numbers make traditional combat with them a drag. Additionally, the book notes that with their silver immunity it’s highly unlikely that the wereravens would have been defeated by mere blights and a few druids. In order to rectify this, the book provides some battlefield alterations to the opposition: the druids made use of a plant known as crowpoison which has similar effects as wolfsbane but also removes a wereraven’s shapeshifting and silver immunity abilities. Additionally, the companion reduces the number of twig blights inside the winery but gives the druids within the winery unique names, stat blocks, and thus tactics. There are some suggested actions the druids can take making use of the surrounding environment, such as exploding a fermentation vat with a Thunderwave spell to release a flood of poisoned wine, or readying an action to Produce Flame on the brown mold and locking the door behind the PCs (free use of an object interaction) to try and freeze them to death. There’s a generic horde of blights outside the winery which are less of a straight fight and more of an obstacle to overcome, and PCs with carpenter tool proficiency can spend an action to barricade a door or window against them from entering through that specific space.</p><p></p><p>In terms of stats the four druids are “partial druids” in that each individual has but a small suite of the class’ abilities: Drekht only makes use of spells and can grant resistance to an elemental damage type to themselves or a nearby ally as a reaction; Esmardeus wields a Gulthias staff which if broken kills all the blights around the Winery, and can spend charges to heal damage whenever he strikes a foe with it; Nala is also spell-only but with no unique features; Revyr has hardly any spells but fights with a maul, has a unique rage-like rampage that activates if she sees Esmardeus die, and can wild shape into beasts of CR 1 or less.</p><p></p><p>Where are the Martikovs in all this? Instead of hiding in a grove nearby, they’re further away huddled in a shack. Should the PCs find them, they can engage in some interactions and roleplay. Helping heal some of their wounded will aid their trust, and Davian can explain the situation and also the power of the Gulthias staff. The Companion also alters the backstory of the Martikovs in that they’re the descendents of druids, and their family had a falling out with that group when most druids converted to Strahd worship.</p><p></p><p>I do agree that it feels odd that the blights overpowered creatures immune to their major damage types, but I feel that adding crowpoison is a bit superfluous when wolfsbane can still act as a general-purpose anti-lycanthropy herb in terms of lore. Giving the druids silver weapons along with wolfsbane would’ve been an adequate enough explanation in my opinion.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/CglCboG.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Curse of Strahd’s other infamous TPK machine gets a major rewrite in the Companion. Trull is of the opinion that the base dungeon is too full of monsters which takes away from the true horror: the brooding sense of dread and the “deal with the devil” in the form of the vestiges. Thus, this version of the Amber Temple cuts down on a lot of the monsters within, such as the flameskulls and arcanoloth. Instead, he makes the Amber Temple a sentient entity who wishes to turn the PCs evil. It does this by imposing automatically failed death saving throws the further they go into the temple, sending them visions and offerings to remove these debilities…should a character willingly become evil in alignment. The failed death saves come in the form of violent seizures and spasms, sometimes accompanied by horrific visions.</p><p></p><p>Embracing evil also reduces the difficulties of other dangers in the temple, such as becoming immune to the extreme cold environment effect that persists throughout the dungeon. The auto-fail death saves can come either from the passage of time, or triggered at certain points within the temple, and the Companion suggests doing one rather than both. The amount of active Vestiges and Dark Gifts are also cut down, with Trull removing ones that feel redundant with other Gifts or that don’t feel “gothic enough.” A few Gifts are revised, such as Covenant of the Grave Wyrm forcing the gift-taker to roll Charisma saves in order to avoid feasting on corpses and grave dirt.</p><p></p><p>Several new events are provided for various NPCs: one such event has the PCs encounter surviving Barovian witches from Castle Ravenloft attempting to open one of the vaults, and they may not initially be hostile. Vilnius is searching for a specific vault: Seriach the Hell Hound Whisperer. Should he attain its Dark Gift, he will summon two hell hounds and turn on the party. Should Kasimir be traveling with the PCs, he will attempt to gain the powers of resurrection from Zhudun the Corpse Star. Vesimir is dead-set on this in order to revive his sister, and no amount of persuasion by the PCs can veer him away from this. In fact, he will become violent if the party persists in obstructing him. Kasimir will become evil alignment in doing so, but unlike Vilnius he’ll still regard the PCs as allies unless they give him reason to think otherwise.</p><p></p><p>The Amber Temple will have sealed its physical exits after the party’s arrival, and will attempt to kill the PCs by giving premonitions of even more seizures when the party wraps up any loose ends. Evil PCs will not get seizures, but still have a dreadful feeling that the Amber Temple is keeping them trapped as their newest playthings. They have to escape via the teleportation circle, ideally accomplished with a spellcaster who can help them out. Thankfully Exethanter still exists in the Companion, so he can be used for this. Making it out of the Amber Temple in time is resolved as a skill challenge, where they must gain 5 successes before 3 failures. Should the party fail, all non-evil aligned PCs will die, which can end up being a total party kill.</p><p></p><p>I do agree that the Amber Temple is pretty crowded as a dungeon, and I can understand Trull’s reluctance to have PCs killed off so close to the campaign’s end as a result.* I also like the idea of reducing the amount of Dark Gifts, which can otherwise make the Vaults feel like too much of a “shopping trip” and remove a bit of the mystery and horror.</p><p></p><p>*which would make coming up with a replacement PC feel all the more out of the blue.</p><p></p><p>But I’m a bit iffy on the alternative temptations the Companion provides. The Vestiges serve this role well enough by default, and the “become evil to avoid failed death saves” is much more of a hammer than a scalpel. There’s also the fact that the forced alignment change may not be that big of a penalty depending on how a PC roleplays their character. It can either be a relative non-issue, or for DMs who treat alignment as a straitjacket an excuse to mandate how players play their character as a result. The offering of Dark Gifts feels more appropriate in that it comes with a carrot, not a stick, and thus is accepted by a character of their own free will.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jVsKyL3.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>A relatively short chapter, the Companion still makes some big changes: first off, the scene where Strahd Von Zarovich personally appears is excised. Instead, a new NPC is given known as the Prophet. The Prophet is a dhampir who believes himself to be Strahd’s illegitimate son, is the leader of the druids, and heading the ritual to awaken Wintersplinter. Several of the berserkers and druids have been reduced in number, with some vine blights to replace them.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, several of the Martikovs have been taken hostage and their blood is being used to water the Gulthias tree. The events at Yester Hill are time-sensitive: the PCs only have enough time to either disrupt the ritual to awaken Wintersplinter, or free the Martikovs before they bleed to death. They may have enough time for both if they split the party. Wereravens rescued (plus Davian) can fight alongside the party as allies and also help rescue their brethren. The PCs can learn about the Martikov’s capture the next time they return to the Wizard of Wines, where they find an injured Davian restrained by Gulthias roots who can tell them what has happened.</p><p></p><p>The Prophet is statted up as a druid who can use the Quickened Spell metamagic ability once per day. He can Shadow Crash as a bonus action where he teleports and deals necrotic damage and the frightened condition to those within 10 feet of his teleport destination. His spells are mostly elemental and “battlefield control” themed, such as Call Lightning, Gust of Wind, Thorn Whip, and Mass Cure Wounds/Mass Healing Word. The Gulthias Tree isn’t a creature, but it is alive and has its own lair actions such as shooting out twig blights from its body, raking damaging branches against nearby targets, or restraining targets with its roots.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/TJSk8p6.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Companion’s take on the werewolves is much more of a straight dungeon crawl. Dispensing with the internecine politics, they are first and foremost straightforward monsters to slay. Even so, Zuleika Toranescu will still seek to be an ally and offer to help defeat the current werewolf leader. The big twist to this chapter is that most of the children kidnapped are Vistani from the camp outside Vallaki. Arabelle is one of those kidnapped, and possibly other children rescued during the course of the campaign. Arabelle’s father, Luvash, has taken several Vistani adults in an attempt to rescue them. They have no silver weapons, meaning that their mission is a fool’s errand unless the PCs help them out.</p><p></p><p>Another big addition is that Mother Night herself doesn’t endorse the werewolf’s kidnapping of children, and will give a vision to one PC explaining the situation as well as a promise of the goddess’ favor should they kill the werewolves.</p><p></p><p><strong>Content Warning: Child Death</strong></p><p></p><p>[spoiler]Kellen, one of the children, is infected with lycanthropy, and is praying at the Shrine to be cured. Luvash and the Vistani will seek to kill him, something which Zuleika will violently object to. Unless the PCs intervene, both sides will fight to kill each other.</p><p></p><p>During the tournament, the longer the PCs take the likelier it is that one or more of the kidnapped children will have been forced to kill each other.[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Should the PCs be successful in the rescue attempt, the party can loot all they desire from the Shrine to Mother Night without risking curses. Any PCs infected with lycanthropy are cured, as are infected children should one of the PCs request this on their behalf. Luvash will also reveal that his brother Arrigal is working for Strahd should the party not already know this, and offer to take any messages to the PC’s loved ones in their own homeland.</p><p></p><p>For one, I like the idea of the PCs gaining aid in fighting the werewolves. Much like the wereraven allies at Yester Hill, this shows that the PCs aren’t the only ones trying to do something about Barovia’s threats. Even if said NPCs are a little in over their heads. On that topic, while the non-Luvash Vistani exist more or less to be cut down, due to the action economy this can be a lot of people for the DM to track during combat. We have the generic Vistani, Luvash and Zuleika as unique NPCs, the possible addition of Ireena and a Destined Ally, and the enemy werewolves. And that’s saying nothing of the noncombatant children!</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/I5kVIr8.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Companion’s take on Death House still serves as a “prologue dungeon” like in the default adventure. But like the other chapters it has quite a bit of changes. For one, it more or less incorporates Trull’s two free products on Death House: the addition of descriptive boxed text to just about every room, and replacing the omnipresent death traps in escaping the dungeon with a skill challenge. Some other changes include placing the manor on a hill east of the Village of Barovia rather than inside it, the library is given some actual books with titles and summaries which can foreshadow future campaign elements, and PCs who lay the bones of the Durst children to rest gain temporary hit points for their troubles. Several of the monsters have been removed or altered: the grick has hardly anything to feed on, the ghouls in the basement are spread out and don’t attack all at once, the broom of animated attack is instead changed into a one-attack trap, the shambling mound is replaced by a gibbering mouther, and the nursemaid’s specter is too deadly for 1st level characters and will only deliver one attack before fading away.</p><p></p><p>Two of the more significant changes include the sacrifice in the final room having to be a sentient creature (animals don’t qualify), and the skill challenge for the house isn’t an instant TPK should three failures be accrued before five successes. Instead, one PC is left behind and fails to make it out. If five failures are accrued, two fail to escape.</p><p></p><p>One more major change the Companion does is providing a unique prologue: the PCs begin as part of a larger caravan in their home setting. A group of Vistani have joined them, and they relate the tale of Barovia but don’t mention Strahd’s name. During the trip, foul weather occurs over the course of several days, and during one night six werewolves attack. The PCs are free to flee or fight, but the DM is encouraged not to infect any PCs with lycanthropy this early in the campaign. As it’s unlikely that 1st level PCs can overcome the werewolves, they’re encouraged to flee, where they end up surrounded by Mists and brought into Barovia. While fleeing the PCs can meet up with other survivors who will gradually be picked off. There’s even one tense scene where the party is faced with the choice of holding open the Gates of Barovia for others but at risk of having a werewolf pass through. Or they can close and lock it, ensuring the safety of those who made it past but dooming the stragglers. This is resolved via skill checks, and even on a success only one NPC will survive: one of the children of the Vistani leader who joined the caravan.</p><p></p><p><strong>Content Warning: Child Death</strong></p><p></p><p>[spoiler]The Companion suggests that said child become lost in the Mist or be the first target of a monster attack should the DM not want the hassle of managing a persistent NPC, or be a possible sacrificial victim on the altar at the end of the dungeon.[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Overall, I like this revision of Death House. It still maintains the creepy feel and sense of risk yet cuts down on the lethality and randomness by replacing monsters with more general traps. The added boxed text is a blessing, and the skill challenge still maintains a sense of risk without bogging down the party in die rolls for virtually every room like the default adventure does. I actually used the Skill Challenge in my own campaign, and it worked out very well.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> In comparison to the disappointment of earlier chapters covering the land of Barovia, I like these ones quite a bit more. They’re not needlessly railroaded, make use of allied NPCs that aren’t powerful enough to overshadow the party, give some faces and unique abilities and tactics to the otherwise rank-and-file druids, and the changes to Death House are well thought out. The only chapter I really didn’t like was the Amber Temple for reasons I explained above.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we finish this review with a bang in the Wedding at Ravenloft!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9175297, member: 6750502"] [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/L6I35BZ.png[/IMG][/CENTER] The Companion notes that the blights individually are very weak to send against 5th level PCs, and their large numbers make traditional combat with them a drag. Additionally, the book notes that with their silver immunity it’s highly unlikely that the wereravens would have been defeated by mere blights and a few druids. In order to rectify this, the book provides some battlefield alterations to the opposition: the druids made use of a plant known as crowpoison which has similar effects as wolfsbane but also removes a wereraven’s shapeshifting and silver immunity abilities. Additionally, the companion reduces the number of twig blights inside the winery but gives the druids within the winery unique names, stat blocks, and thus tactics. There are some suggested actions the druids can take making use of the surrounding environment, such as exploding a fermentation vat with a Thunderwave spell to release a flood of poisoned wine, or readying an action to Produce Flame on the brown mold and locking the door behind the PCs (free use of an object interaction) to try and freeze them to death. There’s a generic horde of blights outside the winery which are less of a straight fight and more of an obstacle to overcome, and PCs with carpenter tool proficiency can spend an action to barricade a door or window against them from entering through that specific space. In terms of stats the four druids are “partial druids” in that each individual has but a small suite of the class’ abilities: Drekht only makes use of spells and can grant resistance to an elemental damage type to themselves or a nearby ally as a reaction; Esmardeus wields a Gulthias staff which if broken kills all the blights around the Winery, and can spend charges to heal damage whenever he strikes a foe with it; Nala is also spell-only but with no unique features; Revyr has hardly any spells but fights with a maul, has a unique rage-like rampage that activates if she sees Esmardeus die, and can wild shape into beasts of CR 1 or less. Where are the Martikovs in all this? Instead of hiding in a grove nearby, they’re further away huddled in a shack. Should the PCs find them, they can engage in some interactions and roleplay. Helping heal some of their wounded will aid their trust, and Davian can explain the situation and also the power of the Gulthias staff. The Companion also alters the backstory of the Martikovs in that they’re the descendents of druids, and their family had a falling out with that group when most druids converted to Strahd worship. I do agree that it feels odd that the blights overpowered creatures immune to their major damage types, but I feel that adding crowpoison is a bit superfluous when wolfsbane can still act as a general-purpose anti-lycanthropy herb in terms of lore. Giving the druids silver weapons along with wolfsbane would’ve been an adequate enough explanation in my opinion. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/CglCboG.png[/IMG][/CENTER] Curse of Strahd’s other infamous TPK machine gets a major rewrite in the Companion. Trull is of the opinion that the base dungeon is too full of monsters which takes away from the true horror: the brooding sense of dread and the “deal with the devil” in the form of the vestiges. Thus, this version of the Amber Temple cuts down on a lot of the monsters within, such as the flameskulls and arcanoloth. Instead, he makes the Amber Temple a sentient entity who wishes to turn the PCs evil. It does this by imposing automatically failed death saving throws the further they go into the temple, sending them visions and offerings to remove these debilities…should a character willingly become evil in alignment. The failed death saves come in the form of violent seizures and spasms, sometimes accompanied by horrific visions. Embracing evil also reduces the difficulties of other dangers in the temple, such as becoming immune to the extreme cold environment effect that persists throughout the dungeon. The auto-fail death saves can come either from the passage of time, or triggered at certain points within the temple, and the Companion suggests doing one rather than both. The amount of active Vestiges and Dark Gifts are also cut down, with Trull removing ones that feel redundant with other Gifts or that don’t feel “gothic enough.” A few Gifts are revised, such as Covenant of the Grave Wyrm forcing the gift-taker to roll Charisma saves in order to avoid feasting on corpses and grave dirt. Several new events are provided for various NPCs: one such event has the PCs encounter surviving Barovian witches from Castle Ravenloft attempting to open one of the vaults, and they may not initially be hostile. Vilnius is searching for a specific vault: Seriach the Hell Hound Whisperer. Should he attain its Dark Gift, he will summon two hell hounds and turn on the party. Should Kasimir be traveling with the PCs, he will attempt to gain the powers of resurrection from Zhudun the Corpse Star. Vesimir is dead-set on this in order to revive his sister, and no amount of persuasion by the PCs can veer him away from this. In fact, he will become violent if the party persists in obstructing him. Kasimir will become evil alignment in doing so, but unlike Vilnius he’ll still regard the PCs as allies unless they give him reason to think otherwise. The Amber Temple will have sealed its physical exits after the party’s arrival, and will attempt to kill the PCs by giving premonitions of even more seizures when the party wraps up any loose ends. Evil PCs will not get seizures, but still have a dreadful feeling that the Amber Temple is keeping them trapped as their newest playthings. They have to escape via the teleportation circle, ideally accomplished with a spellcaster who can help them out. Thankfully Exethanter still exists in the Companion, so he can be used for this. Making it out of the Amber Temple in time is resolved as a skill challenge, where they must gain 5 successes before 3 failures. Should the party fail, all non-evil aligned PCs will die, which can end up being a total party kill. I do agree that the Amber Temple is pretty crowded as a dungeon, and I can understand Trull’s reluctance to have PCs killed off so close to the campaign’s end as a result.* I also like the idea of reducing the amount of Dark Gifts, which can otherwise make the Vaults feel like too much of a “shopping trip” and remove a bit of the mystery and horror. *which would make coming up with a replacement PC feel all the more out of the blue. But I’m a bit iffy on the alternative temptations the Companion provides. The Vestiges serve this role well enough by default, and the “become evil to avoid failed death saves” is much more of a hammer than a scalpel. There’s also the fact that the forced alignment change may not be that big of a penalty depending on how a PC roleplays their character. It can either be a relative non-issue, or for DMs who treat alignment as a straitjacket an excuse to mandate how players play their character as a result. The offering of Dark Gifts feels more appropriate in that it comes with a carrot, not a stick, and thus is accepted by a character of their own free will. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/jVsKyL3.png[/IMG][/CENTER] A relatively short chapter, the Companion still makes some big changes: first off, the scene where Strahd Von Zarovich personally appears is excised. Instead, a new NPC is given known as the Prophet. The Prophet is a dhampir who believes himself to be Strahd’s illegitimate son, is the leader of the druids, and heading the ritual to awaken Wintersplinter. Several of the berserkers and druids have been reduced in number, with some vine blights to replace them. Additionally, several of the Martikovs have been taken hostage and their blood is being used to water the Gulthias tree. The events at Yester Hill are time-sensitive: the PCs only have enough time to either disrupt the ritual to awaken Wintersplinter, or free the Martikovs before they bleed to death. They may have enough time for both if they split the party. Wereravens rescued (plus Davian) can fight alongside the party as allies and also help rescue their brethren. The PCs can learn about the Martikov’s capture the next time they return to the Wizard of Wines, where they find an injured Davian restrained by Gulthias roots who can tell them what has happened. The Prophet is statted up as a druid who can use the Quickened Spell metamagic ability once per day. He can Shadow Crash as a bonus action where he teleports and deals necrotic damage and the frightened condition to those within 10 feet of his teleport destination. His spells are mostly elemental and “battlefield control” themed, such as Call Lightning, Gust of Wind, Thorn Whip, and Mass Cure Wounds/Mass Healing Word. The Gulthias Tree isn’t a creature, but it is alive and has its own lair actions such as shooting out twig blights from its body, raking damaging branches against nearby targets, or restraining targets with its roots. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/TJSk8p6.png[/IMG][/CENTER] The Companion’s take on the werewolves is much more of a straight dungeon crawl. Dispensing with the internecine politics, they are first and foremost straightforward monsters to slay. Even so, Zuleika Toranescu will still seek to be an ally and offer to help defeat the current werewolf leader. The big twist to this chapter is that most of the children kidnapped are Vistani from the camp outside Vallaki. Arabelle is one of those kidnapped, and possibly other children rescued during the course of the campaign. Arabelle’s father, Luvash, has taken several Vistani adults in an attempt to rescue them. They have no silver weapons, meaning that their mission is a fool’s errand unless the PCs help them out. Another big addition is that Mother Night herself doesn’t endorse the werewolf’s kidnapping of children, and will give a vision to one PC explaining the situation as well as a promise of the goddess’ favor should they kill the werewolves. [B]Content Warning: Child Death[/B] [spoiler]Kellen, one of the children, is infected with lycanthropy, and is praying at the Shrine to be cured. Luvash and the Vistani will seek to kill him, something which Zuleika will violently object to. Unless the PCs intervene, both sides will fight to kill each other. During the tournament, the longer the PCs take the likelier it is that one or more of the kidnapped children will have been forced to kill each other.[/spoiler] Should the PCs be successful in the rescue attempt, the party can loot all they desire from the Shrine to Mother Night without risking curses. Any PCs infected with lycanthropy are cured, as are infected children should one of the PCs request this on their behalf. Luvash will also reveal that his brother Arrigal is working for Strahd should the party not already know this, and offer to take any messages to the PC’s loved ones in their own homeland. For one, I like the idea of the PCs gaining aid in fighting the werewolves. Much like the wereraven allies at Yester Hill, this shows that the PCs aren’t the only ones trying to do something about Barovia’s threats. Even if said NPCs are a little in over their heads. On that topic, while the non-Luvash Vistani exist more or less to be cut down, due to the action economy this can be a lot of people for the DM to track during combat. We have the generic Vistani, Luvash and Zuleika as unique NPCs, the possible addition of Ireena and a Destined Ally, and the enemy werewolves. And that’s saying nothing of the noncombatant children! [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/I5kVIr8.png[/IMG][/CENTER] The Companion’s take on Death House still serves as a “prologue dungeon” like in the default adventure. But like the other chapters it has quite a bit of changes. For one, it more or less incorporates Trull’s two free products on Death House: the addition of descriptive boxed text to just about every room, and replacing the omnipresent death traps in escaping the dungeon with a skill challenge. Some other changes include placing the manor on a hill east of the Village of Barovia rather than inside it, the library is given some actual books with titles and summaries which can foreshadow future campaign elements, and PCs who lay the bones of the Durst children to rest gain temporary hit points for their troubles. Several of the monsters have been removed or altered: the grick has hardly anything to feed on, the ghouls in the basement are spread out and don’t attack all at once, the broom of animated attack is instead changed into a one-attack trap, the shambling mound is replaced by a gibbering mouther, and the nursemaid’s specter is too deadly for 1st level characters and will only deliver one attack before fading away. Two of the more significant changes include the sacrifice in the final room having to be a sentient creature (animals don’t qualify), and the skill challenge for the house isn’t an instant TPK should three failures be accrued before five successes. Instead, one PC is left behind and fails to make it out. If five failures are accrued, two fail to escape. One more major change the Companion does is providing a unique prologue: the PCs begin as part of a larger caravan in their home setting. A group of Vistani have joined them, and they relate the tale of Barovia but don’t mention Strahd’s name. During the trip, foul weather occurs over the course of several days, and during one night six werewolves attack. The PCs are free to flee or fight, but the DM is encouraged not to infect any PCs with lycanthropy this early in the campaign. As it’s unlikely that 1st level PCs can overcome the werewolves, they’re encouraged to flee, where they end up surrounded by Mists and brought into Barovia. While fleeing the PCs can meet up with other survivors who will gradually be picked off. There’s even one tense scene where the party is faced with the choice of holding open the Gates of Barovia for others but at risk of having a werewolf pass through. Or they can close and lock it, ensuring the safety of those who made it past but dooming the stragglers. This is resolved via skill checks, and even on a success only one NPC will survive: one of the children of the Vistani leader who joined the caravan. [B]Content Warning: Child Death[/B] [spoiler]The Companion suggests that said child become lost in the Mist or be the first target of a monster attack should the DM not want the hassle of managing a persistent NPC, or be a possible sacrificial victim on the altar at the end of the dungeon.[/spoiler] Overall, I like this revision of Death House. It still maintains the creepy feel and sense of risk yet cuts down on the lethality and randomness by replacing monsters with more general traps. The added boxed text is a blessing, and the skill challenge still maintains a sense of risk without bogging down the party in die rolls for virtually every room like the default adventure does. I actually used the Skill Challenge in my own campaign, and it worked out very well. [B]Thoughts So Far:[/B] In comparison to the disappointment of earlier chapters covering the land of Barovia, I like these ones quite a bit more. They’re not needlessly railroaded, make use of allied NPCs that aren’t powerful enough to overshadow the party, give some faces and unique abilities and tactics to the otherwise rank-and-file druids, and the changes to Death House are well thought out. The only chapter I really didn’t like was the Amber Temple for reasons I explained above. [B]Join us next time as we finish this review with a bang in the Wedding at Ravenloft![/B] [/QUOTE]
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