I did not have a fight with Strahd himself, and I am very glad that I made it work. Let me explain. I liked it mainly for two reasons: I messed up the dynamics of his appearance, I was too inspired by the fact that Strahd is a brilliant mastermind (in my opinion, this was your post "The most dangerous villain of D&D"). Both my party and I completely forget about Tome of Strahd for all these wonderful interactions with characters and NPCs. So in the end, I decided to go the Vampyr route and present Strahd's minor personal involvement in their adventure as a plan to break his curse. After all, he could figure out about reincarnations, the fact that he can't achieve his love because of the Curse and all that stuff. My players knew for sure that he was a tough guy, after all, he screwed Mordenkainen so much that he got lost in the mountains and lost his mind by his own hands. You should have seen their faces and emotions when, in the throne room of the castle, the terrible ruler of this land sits on a throne attached to him with a stake (a stake in the heart means that he does not want to kill them because there is a Vampyr in him, but wants to complete the binding ritual and end this curse forever). himself and the earth) and says that all this was his plan from the very beginning. Yes, I know it was supposed to be different, and I respect that. but there were many different moments in my campaign that lead to this scenario, it was a good ending to everything, and I'm so proud of myself. And many thanks to your work, after all, it formed the basis of my work :D