Renown and Downtime in Curse of Strahd

[Aaron Berkowitz]

I've been reading the new AL Player and DM guides, and there was one question I couldn't find the answer to:

Are there renown and/or downtime rewards for players running through the Curse of Strahd hardcover?

I saw that DMs get 5 DT per 2 hour session, but didn't see any guidelines for distributing renown or downtime to players for the hardcover adventure.

 

[kalani]

Normally, characters earn 10 downtime and 1 renown each time they complete a chapter/episode of a hardcover adventure. As the campaign staff has (collectively) only just got our hands on the book (which was released today at WPN stores), it may take a week or more in order to determine where the equivalent points would be in CoS.

The only one I can say for certain is that characters who play the Death House sidequest in Appendix B will earn 10 DT and 1 renown upon completing that portion. Stay tuned for more information regarding where the "episode" breaks are in the rest of the hardcover itself. With any lucky, I would expect guidance on this to be out by March 15th (when it becomes available at non-WPN stores) as that would give us about 2 weeks to look over the adventure and find things that need rulings on (if anything).

 

[Pauper]

I actually have the book in front of me, so if you're willing to accept my guess (until we get something more official), I'll say this:

- Chapters 1 and 2 are primarily background material and are not really part of the adventure for purposes of awarding downtime and renown.

- Chapters 3 and 4 detail extended adventure areas (the Village of Barovia and Castle Ravenloft, respectively), and likely comprise multiple sessions of play, thus may be worth more than a single chapter's downtime and renown.

- Chapters 5 through 15 are all separate encounter areas that appear to be able to be run in a single session (though some may last longer depending on how much role-playing the players choose to do), and so likely count as individual chapters for the purpose of awarding downtime and renown, as well as allowing characters to advance in level.

It does seem as though more of an effort was made to make Curse of Strahd compatible with the Adventurers League playstyle.

--
Pauper

 

[kalani]

As a general rule there should be approximately 1 episode/ level (based on past seasons hardcover adventures). This isn't always the case however - as HotDQ episode 5 was very short and didn't give a level so this is not a hard rule.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Yeah, finding proper break points in this book may be harder than the others, as it is for levels 1-10 and not 1-15. So 2 big adventure chapters and 11 smaller chapters could get confusing.

 

[Ainulindalion]

It does seem as though more of an effort was made to make Curse of Strahd compatible with the Adventurers League playstyle.

Hopefully, since it specifically references the Adventurers' League in the text of the book.

 

[Byakugan]

Hopefully, since it specifically references the Adventurers' League in the text of the book.

I got my copy of CoS today, so i havent absorbed it all yet. Looks pretty good sofar. I still haven't found the part where the PCs get to escape Barovia. I assumed it was in a Vistani settlement.

There is 1 magic item I think was a pretty bad choice for AL...just because the realities of magic item management in OP. A certain tome...That said, it isn't really OP per se...just troublesome.

 

[Pauper]

In the hard-cover adventure, the only way to escape Ravenloft appears to be to kill Strahd.

The DDAL-written adventures may have other potential exits, but if you take one, don't go back and continue to play the hard-cover adventure.

--
Pauper