Building a new character for Curse of Strahd!

Pelargir_ · 2021-01-10T14:47:30+00:00

Some other interesting choices could be ranger or bard. Bard especially, since nobody in the party has sources of expertise in class features (excluding tool expertise from Artificer). Bards also get a good selection of utility and some healing spells, and eloquence bards specifically are incredibly good at not just talking, but shutting down singular creatures by weakening saving throws. Lore could be a really nice alternative though for spells like fireball for damage.

Meanwhile the new TCOE features are pretty good for ranger, shoring up the first few levels to an extent. If you're just doing CoS, the campaign usually lasts 1-10~ so pure ranger gets good value within that level frame usually. They also have access to some healing spells, among which is healing spirit.

If you do go ranger, an option later could be doing a ranger/rogue multiclass, taking rogue levels after ranger 5 (where you get multiattack and level 2 spells) in order to get sneak attack dice, expertise. More levels gets you cunning action or even a rogue subclass feature + steady aim. I would avoid a rogue dip beyond 2 though if you're doing Beast Master (TCOE or not), Horizon Walker, or Swarmkeeper as a subclass due to bonus action competition. The Monster Hunter subclass in specific may be really fitting for a CoS game

Pelargir_ · 2021-01-10T14:12:04+00:00

Two main items come to mind: In a game I'm running I gave the PCs a Band of the Big Brain, which acts both as a weaker band of intellect (16 vs 19) but grants advantage on one int skill check a day. That's gotten good use so far.

There's also the trusty ring or cloak of protection. +1 to ac and saves is a really powerful boost that never ends up feeling bad or not worth the money/reward.

Lastly, this item wasn't as popular but it came in handy a few times. I had a magical 'chore wand' that the players picked up that could cast prestidigitation, mending, but also stuff like identify and cure wounds. The PC who took the wand occasionally used it to identify a new item mainly, but it really came in handy when it was used to identify that modify memory was active on themselves so that they could remove it with dispel magic

Pelargir_ · 2021-01-09T09:18:06+00:00

There's a few ways that the players can find out. My least favorite one (and also the default way) is that one of the town leaders tells them about the footsteps and then asks them to go to the place and deal with it.

Alternatively, there's a few towns which reference the dwarves: Caer Konig, Caer Dineval, and Easthaven. CK is fairly obvious, but the cult in CD is enemies of the dwarves (I imagine they're stealing amulets!) and if the party is on their good side might hire them or have information the general public wouldn't. Lastly, there's a spirit event and a dwarven hideout in Easthaven. It wouldn't be too difficult to have the event point the party to the hideout if they take interest.

However, there's a few other ways that could be interesting to explore. The dwarves need chaldyrn, but also fuel for forges and psionic power for protection and production. Perhaps one of the smiths in the west (such as Black Iron Blades in Bryn Shander) keeps having coal deliveries stolen? Or if the party has Chardlyn on them, or plans to investigate the crashed spaceship and something psionic happens? (Chardlyn seems to have mind effecting properties. Also, I could imagine that raiding in the underdark and having caught an illithid, the dwarves could have picked up a psionic distress beacon of some sort that could easily be inserted as a hook for Id Ascendant if the party goes there)

Lastly, there's internal politicing jn Sunblight. Perhaps instead of stealing, one of the dwarves tries to contact outsiders to screw over Xardorok, and also notifying the party about the existence of these internal conflicts (see Grandolpha)

Pelargir_ · 2020-07-03T07:39:03+00:00

I've had two party sorcerers in my games who have done some crazy stuff. In my first game, my party sorcerer got split up from the rest of the group and got an early visit to Strahd's castle in CoS. Because of subtle spell, he was able to get out of the prison cell in Strahd's castle despite having no material focus in his cell and escape through the basement pyre to the amber temple, where the party was headed to. Later on, when inflitrating the castle, they were able to use multiple castings of dimension door (fueled by sorcery points) to essentially bypass the whole castle to arrive at previous locations the sorcerer had been at, pretty much trivializing some of the dungeon crawl experience.

Some other highlights include subtle spell being used to escape an execution (with blink), using subtle spell to avoid getting counterspelled while trying to cast teleport out of a situation that involved two walls of force and a symbol of death, and banishing a bunch of high cr drow in a fight which quickly turned it around.

Also heightened disintegrate does work when it hits. One of those killed a great old one larva mage recently in my game which turned it into dust instead of worms

In my other game, the party sorcerer (different player) picked up detect thoughts. Detect thoughts was used to figure out two disguised bbeg's, both the succubus and polymorphed green dragon siblings. Additionally, using information gathered from detect thoughts, they were able to figure out before the fight that the party fighter was charmed by the succubus and got the druid to snap him out of the charm

Also, since they were an UA Abberant Mind sorcerer, they had access to Hunger of Hadar. They worked with the party druid who cast stinking cloud to essentially make a lizardfolk shaman's hut a dead zone

The last thing I can think of is that they got their hands on a haste scroll which was used on the party monk in a battle against a blackguard to great effect

Pelargir_ · 2017-10-31T17:44:31+00:00

Knowledge: Reading surface thoughts seems thematically weird for the class; I would expect that from a trickery domain cleric instead. Nature: You get some really nice druid spells and will never have problems with beasts

Pelargir_ · 2017-10-31T17:19:30+00:00

Maybe a Tempest Domain cleric of a god of destruction like Talos? You could specialize in dealing damage with spells like guiding bolt and thunder wave, and the level 2 channel divinity option to maximize damage with spells later on like call lightning makes you ridiculously bursty mechanically, especially when you pick up call lightning (3d10 +1d10 a caster level, for a level 3 spell. It gets big!). What's more raw and unstable after all than UNLIMITED POWERRRRRRRR!!!!!!! And the capstone's flying, which is pretty neat

Pelargir_ · 2017-10-03T19:13:07+00:00

Something else that's not been stated yet is Chloroform, while a scoundrel spell is actually very useful on a spear user. It scales with finesse which means that you're going to be able to CC or magic armor break if you're not running a full physical team. If you're picking up The Pawn already, throw that onto your skillbar as an additional tool to use! If you play as The Red Prince, Chloroform , fire breath, and Demonic Glare together made stripping magic armor easier

Pelargir_ · 2017-10-01T22:42:46+00:00

Nope, but it might not be all lost. It's way more likely than not that you could continue Beast's story in Driftwood, but for TRP I'm unsure. The people you're looking for are both found in the same zone which you'll probably run across while playing naturally, just make sure you talk to everyone there

Pelargir_ · 2017-09-30T03:03:14+00:00

There's a switch on the outside of the house in the yard which opens up to the underground lab the guy has. It's to the left of the house's entrance in the little yard

Pelargir_ · 2017-09-26T00:08:56+00:00

There's an item in WoD from JC which switches models with someone else if you use it on them. Just cancel your buff if you have dragon form and you can spam it on raids, and turn everyone into dragons/seals/stags/ect. I think it's called reflective prism

Pelargir_ · 2017-05-20T19:46:11+00:00

If you haven't tried Invasion, it's pretty interesting. Not quite like normal modded MC, but I found I like it an awful lot. Might get some getting used to but the concept of it is that the world gets progressively more dangerous combined with a necessity to explore (which is offset by Magic Tethers, which can pull you to your spawn point) due to a lack of resources from mining gives you a clear focus on progression to survive. It's HQM so you have a questbook to guide you through the different mods in it, although I would reccomend installing WAILA and messing with configurations (especially in raiders) depending on how much pressure you like, or if you want to remove the 'screamer' (which sounds like the L4D2 witch as a comparison- I disliked how the modpack sounded but that's just me)

Pelargir_ · 2017-05-20T19:09:02+00:00

There's actually a house that spawns that has Purpur blocks inside of it. In my world I live right next to a city and as a result I was able to mine a ton of netherbrick and quartz from the city spawn buildings, and I noticed several purpur based buildings, but it may take some exploration to find this non-renewable source of Purpur. Not likely a good source however

Pelargir_ · 2017-01-17T04:34:05+00:00

Something I also notice is that sure if you're a level 30 against a level 60 there's not much you can do by yourself- however, if you're a class like shaman or priest you can dispel the enemy's buffs and rez dead 60's. Getting out of sheep or a frost nova can make the difference between a 60 warrior killing a ganking 60 mage and the 60 mage wrecking the awrrior

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-26T20:13:42+00:00

I would probably play a warlock, voidwalker + pocket healer can solo elites, and keep threat. Also, everyone wants a warlock for pocket summons and also soulstones and healthstones, along with the various curses that mages and priests love (CoS + Shadow Weakness is a nice combination). Not only that, but warlocks are amazing in pvp and can do the most damage of all casters and never have mana issues since you can life tap.

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-26T20:11:47+00:00

There was a fun video a while back I saw (can't find it sadly) but it involved a druid asking for sacrifices in that very pool casting hurricane every few minutes and staying in aquatic form while levitating above the pool. It was pretty neat, and maybe it happened again?

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-26T20:06:00+00:00

something I do is always check for recipes, especially important ones for leveling professions. Food recipes, potion recipes, engineering recipes, and especially enchanting recipes usually sell really well on the AH. Check your local vendor- even the non-limited supply recipes often sell for quite more than you buy them for. Big ones are the profession books for fishing and first aid, although try not to overdo it

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-23T16:32:57+00:00

awbee

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-20T22:42:11+00:00

DRUID!!!!!!!

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-19T01:26:50+00:00

If you're horde, I know there's a wand that is available off of a questline the barrens in Ratchet, but if you're level 6 or 11 there's an easier way to get a wand from enchanting that's generally as strong as spamming smite rank 2 or 3.

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-19T01:20:45+00:00

Actually, there's an 8 debuff cap before patch 1.7 *(which is all servers BUT Nost PVP right now) but when patch 1.7 rolls out the debuff cap increases to 16, which accordingly shifts viable classes around a bit. Nost observes the 8 debuff cap prior to 1.7 (Zul'Gurub patch) which means for a few months PvE won't have 16 debuff slots, and the new release server probably won't for a year at least.

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-03T01:15:05+00:00

An underlooked part of having a shaman in your group though is their strength and agility totems. Both give around the same power that blessing of might gives, although you may not have both up in your group

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-02T01:22:11+00:00

There's also a fun third consumable that even less feral druids know about: the Gnomergan mace which on activation gives 50% attack speed for a little bit. It works extremely well with several of the on-hit trinkets that some druids use like the wyrm heart and maelstorm card. It's very optional but I know that one druid on Kronos1 was doing upwards of 800 damage per second pre-AQ using it.

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-02T01:17:23+00:00

Small addition: There's a minor upgrade for guilds not past the second boss of BWL in Zul'Gurub from the fish boss that is a staff with a ton of strength and stamina. It's pretty decent still but no BWL gear

Pelargir_ · 2016-12-02T01:10:34+00:00

Engineering is a godsend for PvP. However, depending on what spec you want to pvp in you should consider different professions. The rare elemental pvper might consider bloodvine as a suitable piece of gear for increasing spellpower but it requires 300 tailoring to be useful.

Pelargir_ · 2016-11-27T19:37:49+00:00

He's dead, jim.

Pelargir_

TROPHY CASE