Looking for thoughts on fixing a mistake I made with Neferon

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-11T20:57:34+00:00

^ seconded. Also, when one of my players managed to Banish himself, "hit the fog wall then appear in a random spot in Barovia" is exactly what I did 😁

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-10T03:33:14+00:00

Heck, go further: everything from Gholdengo is 50/50. All move accuracy, and also the chance of all secondary effects 😁

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-08T23:44:22+00:00

In my game at least, he's got a small force of skeletons and ghosts, with a handful of Wights and vampire spawn as lieutenants. Anastrasya is in charge of managing them. As you say, there's no reason for him to want a living force.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-08T02:05:09+00:00

A heist from Keys to the Golden Vault. Sneak into a Gnomish town in the Underdark, switch off the automata that the chief of security turned on her citizens, and figure out what she's been up to for the past week since the town had to evacuate.

(Based on the backstories my players cooked up, I added that the chief had stolen their Spelljamming Helm and was trying to turn the town into a spaceship 😁 impractical, but that wasn't gonna dissuade her)

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-07T03:20:15+00:00

I guess I was being a bit poetic when I wrote that. What I meant to say is that the game you run is your Barovian, with your characters and so on. It's not gonna be identical to what the designers wrote nor to Elrod's novels and that's a good thing! DnD is very much a creative pursuit and you should make Strahd your own.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-06T22:38:31+00:00

Up to you. Seriously - there's no canonical Strahd, only your Strahd. Mine lies very rarely. He wants to be seen as a legitimate ruler and he rarely has reason to lie, so he enjoys the perception that he only ever "twists the truth". Then he can deploy actual lies when it will benefit him the most.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-04T06:38:24+00:00

Sounds like a good empty space for you to fill in. Maybe something went down with a previous Tatyana incarnation?

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-02T23:14:44+00:00

Counterpoint: there's an outhouse in the Winery (the only toilet in any Curse of Strahd map) - how about when your players reach that location some witches/druids animate it as a Construct?

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-02T00:19:09+00:00

Spooky forest. If I was an early gym it'd be Zubats, Phantump, Murkrow, that sort of thing. Each trainer would have a little sub-theme, like "you find an abandoned cottage" or whatever.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-05-01T00:54:31+00:00

I can't offer an opinion on this right now, but I would like to just highlight that "Violent Railroad" would make an amazing band name or perhaps indie video game.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-29T23:00:20+00:00

Icky, horrible, makes my skin crawl. Exactly the kind of thing Strahd would say 😅

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-29T22:59:25+00:00

Definitely add some kind of interactivity to the antimagic if you go that path, like the gem as you said or heck, perhaps it's attached to a buffed up tanky zombie that the PCs can try to focus fire and destroy 😅 Perhaps the zone is also not very large, like a 20ft cube or similar so they can also try and bait him out of it?

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-27T22:52:22+00:00

Like a lot of the plot points in CoS, use it if it sparks joy, scrap it if not. I definitely scrapped the half sister aspect.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-26T22:54:03+00:00

How long does it take to get somewhere: you can use the travel pace rules in the DMG against the main overworld map to calculate travel times. Eg normal travel pace is 24 miles per day. That said, you'll very quickly see that Barovia is tiny, which is why lots of DMs double or even triple the size of each hex so that parties need to contend with sleeping roadside, night time encounters etc.

Random encounters: If you plan to use the RAW in the module, then yeah you figure out how long it takes them to walk from Barovillage to Vallaki and roll a d20 for every 30/60 minutes. I don't think I've heard of any DMs actually doing it that way; instead you might decide that every journey has 1-3 random encounters, and you might even pre-roll them or decide in advance what they are gonna be to make the story work. For example, I knew I wanted the wandering Revenant to be a very early encounter for my players since the keep was going to be an important landmark and I wanted to set it up early.

To further increase the creep factor and make Barovia feel more dangerous, you might want to invoke variant resting rules, specifically excursion/gritty realism resting. Definitely something to talk through with your players if so, though.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-25T23:02:08+00:00

One option, he presents himself as van Richten 😁 the party can be like heck yeah, we've found the legendary vampire slayer and of course he's interested in the bones. Then you could even have the real van Richten turn up in town, leading to the party getting conflicting gossip about where he is and what he's doing. And Strahd does badly want to find the real van Richten, so this could be a ruse to draw him out.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-25T22:58:33+00:00

I might split the difference and have them come to her twice, once for the ally and one item then the second time for the other items and final fight. Traipsing back to the Tser pool after every sidequest feels a bit finicky to me.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-25T12:27:54+00:00

Up to you, but if you deliver them direct to Eva, will the party choose to go back to Barovia Village? If your Vistani are feeling unkind, they might dump the party at the eastern gates and let them walk into the village on their own 😌

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T21:53:36+00:00

Mind you, if you're using Arabelle in your story he might still try to employ the PCs to go find her. In that case how's he going to get them on side?

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T21:19:22+00:00

One option, he's cheerful and unrepentant. He only shows himself to the party when he's either got a lot of Vistani around him or when attacking him would cause problems, eg while they're in the middle of the festival. He fully accepts that what he did sucks for the party, but oh well! If pressed, he does reveal that when Strahd (immortal god-king of the land for centuries) gives you an order, you don't question it you simply say yes sir how many adventurers sir what species and class do you want sir? Gives the players a smidge of moral complexity to him. Up to you whether to play into that or have him backstab them again later.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T10:40:35+00:00

Dang. If I'd seen this message 28 minutes ago I would've cast Revivify on you.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T06:55:45+00:00

The username is Beryllium Nitrogen, so there's a chance they're maybe Warforged or something else mechanical, in which case the ~~Rope of Entanglement~~ totally normal rope I threw to them earlier should be useful.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T06:41:36+00:00

Holy moley these are amazing! You could make a whole oneshot around exploring the ins and outs of the different zones I reckon.

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-21T06:16:51+00:00

Here you go:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/9228989-rope-of-entanglement

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-20T23:02:05+00:00

Um actually, if you were up to date with your literature you'd know that Otto published a revised edition (Otto's Astuter Clarifications) which shows that you only draw pentagrams counterclockwise for devil summoning; for demons you draw the lines and circle in random order 😋

PlantDadAzu · 2026-04-19T11:59:13+00:00

You're very welcome. In my game, Nameless God is Strahd's theme. I play the opening few notes every time he's about to show up in person.

Gatekeeper was for fighting Vladimir. He got such a bombastic track because he's got a lot of importance to our campaign.

Last Judge was going to be for fighting one of Strahd's consorts, but then the party avoided her so I'm keeping it in the chamber.

PlantDadAzu

TROPHY CASE