D&D 5E The Minimum* to Keep 5E at a Low Power Level?

[Cruentus]

If you want to try CoS, which I could understand might be tough, I’d suggest playing through some of the early modules from the original Ravenloft lineup.

Night of the Walking Dead is and can include waves of zombies (that’s where the plot ends up), plus a zombie lord BBEG who is no slouch. Make more waves, a tougher zombie lord, not to mention the serial killer running around. It’s okay to murderhobo, but the dark powers are watching - a curse here, a mutation there, I mean, doing bad things in Ravenloft isn’t helpful.

The Created - creepy murderous toys and marionettes. Add more. Make the BBEG tougher. Who is resting with the potential for these evil toys creeping up on you. Lots of poison…

And have abilities like cantrips not work well in Ravenloft - see, the dark domains are cut off from magic, and while it works, it isn’t like FR. Cantrips can only be cast PB times per day, or per short rest, for example. These things will have the action resource economy slow down substantially, which will make them feel vulnerable. No long rest benefits unless it’s in a safe space - and if you’re muderhoboing, that village is no longer a safe space….Ravenloft has so much to offer in terms of threatening PCs.

*edit. In the Realm of Terror book, they also list the character abilities, spells, and impacts of doing evil in Ravenloft (Powers Checks), in a section titled “reshaping of characters”, p14-17, and a separate section on Fear and Horror checks, and a separate section on how spells are affected. That book, for Ad&d2e from the Realm of Terror boxed set, seriously messes with your characters and what they can do. 5e CoS is fairly bland and unimaginative in comparison. Use the old stuff, and import it.

 

[TheSword]

@Retreater I’m a bit late to the party here but here are my thoughts. I think you’re going to have a bit of skepticism but you’re gonna have to trust me.

Firstly - Curse of Strahd is excellent! It one of the best campaigns I’ve DMd and it’s very well written. It’s going to offer you two things… firstly atmosphere. Secondly encounters that need to be thought about rather than just smashed through. If there was ever a campaign that would bring out the best in players it’s Curse of Strahd.

This is how I would run it.

- First off… DO NOT start at level 3. Throw them in at level 1. Early encounters are wolves, vampire spawn, possibly zombies… they can handle that, particularly with a party of 6, but not easily. Maybe some will fall to zero hp. Let them feel vulnerable. That is your greatest weapon.

- 2nd, if a PC drops to zero Hp they take a level of exhaustion until they get a long rest. This keeps dropping to 0hp scary but not crippling. If players die, let them die. Tell them it will be hard (but using core rules for the main part) but ask them to generate a back up character too. If they die make them wait a little bit then bring that character in.

- 3rd, use the elite stat array and assign. It’s harder to min max and still gives you a well balanced character - with the chance to be powerful. Make them pick and 8… the. Use that weakness against them

- 4th, Slooooooooowwwwww down the XP gain. Run off half XP for every encounter. Under no circumstances use milestone levelling (offer story awards that are slightly better than the XP for killing). I would be aiming to have the PCs 2 levels lower than the book suggests throughout. You get to keep all the creatures the same but the difficult stays reasonable. Lower abilities means players will get more chance to shine with what they have than a single character dumping a fireball. Keep progressing them, but take your time and enjoy those early levels. Aim for 5th or 6th level by the time they reach the far end of the valley and the Amber temple and 7th max when they enter Ravenloft. The sand box linked XP forces them to explore and search rather than skip to the levelling up.

- 5th, play monsters cruelly and intelligently. If a wolf downs a Pc to zero hp, have the wolf keep savaging them until they’re dead - unless attacked by someone else. Make it clear that PCs will need to save each other. Use ambushes, use magic, use trickery. There are werewolves at the end of the valley.. The party met a family heading to safety with a wagon. They warned the party there were werewolves in the west and they occasionally attacked the road. They asked if the party has silver weapons to defend them as that was the only thing that can hurt them… the party said no only a single silver dagger… the lead farmer said ‘good’ and they all transformed into werewolves.

- 6th. Let them laugh. There’s nothing wrong with jokes. Because when a character dies or an NpC they like then it will be a stronger contrast. If you think they’re pissing about, have the mists set in and then run a random encounter… in mist - that can only allow 10-15 foot visibility. Don’t forget the dark powers punish the cruel, the arrogant and the complacent.

- 7th. Let them see Strahd often and have him toy with them. They are his playthings. His regeneration is extreme - they’re gonna have low level abilities let them attack him - he will use every dirty trick in his book. Including dominate, polymorph, curse, enfeeblement. Etc

- 8th. Don’t describe any creature by name or game statistics. It’s not a ghoul, it’s a “hunched, pallid-skinned creature. With filthy claws, and teeth sharpened to points. You can’t tell if it has done to itself or if they have just grown that way.” Do not reveal game stats, few free to make minor changes to creatures liberally. The ghouls spider climb for instance and don’t seem willing to stand on the floor - they attack from the walls and ceiling.

- 9th Dont let the dice decide everything. Have lots of circumstances that there is a choice between the lesser of two evils. Make those choices hard. They kill a rival of Strahd like the Abbot by being murder hobos? Cool, have Strahd himself come and thank them personally. Mess around with the PCs every thing they think they have been successful at through murder hoboing has a unforeseen consequence.

- 10th make it all about Strahd. Link everything to Strahd and link every character to Strahd. By the time they are ready to tackle castle Ravenloft they should hate him with a fiery passion.

- 11th. Have magic items, but make each one mysterious and be liberal with curses.

- 12th. Make it clear the PCs are trapped. They can’t easily replace equipment, they can’t escape the mists and they can’t escape Strahd - other tha for a fleeting moment.

- 13th. Enjoy it. You can’t run a good game unless you’re enjoying it.

 

[TheSword]

As a separate point. If your wife is playing can’t you ask her to get on board with slightly less murder hoboing? Honest conversation,

“Darling, when you kill every NPC before they get chance to speak, you’re missing out on a lot of the fun of the game and also useful information… it’s also making it really unpleasant to DM. I want to do this for you and the local kids but there’s a limit…”

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This sounds like a toxic situation to me, that you need to withdraw from.

D&D is supposed to be a fun activity for all the participants. If you aint having fun you shouldn't be playing.

 

[TheSword]

This sounds like a toxic situation to me, that you need to withdraw from.

D&D is supposed to be a fun activity for all the participants. If you aint having fun you shouldn't be playing.

I think we have to remember that @Retreater is DMing for local kids. It isn’t the same as DMing for adults and it’s ok to get different types of satisfaction from a game.

 

[Retreater]

Firstly - Curse of Strahd is excellent! It one of the best campaigns I’ve DMd and it’s very well written. It’s going to offer you two things… firstly atmosphere. Secondly encounters that need to be thought about rather than just smashed through. If there was ever a campaign that would bring out the best in players it’s Curse of Strahd.

I've run it before (probably one of the factors contributing to my lowered enthusiasm), and my wife has also played it somewhat recently (albeit with another DM). And CoS has a great reputation - and I don't want it to fail to live up to those expectations. It's like expecting to watch the Godfather and someone puts on Dumb and Dumber - neither are bad films, but your expectations need to be reasonable.
I can take the suggestions and try to run it to the best of my ability - and then if it fails, just tell them "let's play something else."

As a separate point. If your wife is playing can’t you ask her to get on board with slightly less murder hoboing? Honest conversation,

“Darling, when you kill every NPC before they get chance to speak, you’re missing out on a lot of the fun of the game and also useful information… it’s also making it really unpleasant to DM. I want to do this for you and the local kids but there’s a limit…”

Well, they do give them the chance to speak. They capture and interrogate them, then behead them (sometimes in the sacred grove of a LG cleric ally). It's really what you'd expect from teenagers, I guess.
My wife doesn't want leadership at all, unfortunately.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And CoS has a great reputation

IMO, undeserved. The only thing it has a deserved reputation for is going pear shaped.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Really, really REALLY look at everything @TheSword wrote above and TAKE IT TO HEART. Especially the parts about not rushing through levels 1 and 2! Make the party go through the entire Village of Barovia section and the first dinner/night at Castle Ravenloft as Strahd's guests at 1ST LEVEL. Make them EARN their level ups and LEARN the issues they will have of being underpowered.

The absolute worst thing you could do with a 7 player table of murder hobos in CoS is let them jaunt about at 3rd, 4th, 5th level because you are right... they will just walk over everything. So any section of the adventure that gives a "recommended level"... keep the party at least one level (if not two) BELOW that recommendation.

Couple other things I'd recommend--

1) If possible... push the players to make more weapon-users rather than spellcasters. Or at the very least, do not allow more than two players to play classes that have healing magic (so cleric, bard, druid, paladin, divine soul sorcerer etc.)

2) DO NOT have the party go see Madam Eva until MUCH LATER in the adventure. The problem I found when I ran it is that by getting their reading at the very beginning of the campaign, they basically said "Okay! Let's go find the MacGuffins!" and thus cared very little of a lot of what else was going on in Barovia. Especially with murder hobos... their entire focus will be to just cut a swathe of bodies through the land looking for the items they need with little thought towards anything else. And as most likely a lot of the reading results will send them into the Castle itself into only specific areas, even when they go to the Castle they will just make beelines to where they need to go to get their MacGuffins. The MacGuffins become their end-all and be-all... and anything else will just get glossed over as not being important. And if one of those MacGuffins is the Sunsword? Then they will REALLY go hog wild on everything, thinking they have the magic weapon to kill everyone and everything.

But if you hold off on the Madam Eva reading until much later... until after they've really experienced all the crap going on in Barovia and they realize "Oh yeah, we NEED to get out of here, otherwise we're dead!"... at that point turning their focus to the MacGuffins and escape from the mists has the right timing on its importance.

Were I ever to run CoS again... I would not run the Madam Eva section until the players were GOOD AND READY to want to escape Barovia. Then Madam Eva becomes a lifeline and they are much more grateful to her than if she just gives them the hints of what is going on at the top of the campaign.

 

[Retreater]

IMO, undeserved. The only thing it has a deserved reputation for is going pear shaped.

Not sure I understand "pear shaped" in this context?

 

[Retreater]

Should I skip "Death House?" It has kinda fallen flat when I've run it before. It seems just a quick way to level 3.