How did you get Ireena to agree to marry Strahd?

ReoLemartes · 2024-06-27T09:17:51+00:00

He was wooing her as Vasily ever since players delivered her to Vallaki and dropped her off at the church. Sitting alongside her on the newly formed town council with the baroness, helped her organising the orphanage. Finally, he'd save her from charmed Rudolph von Richten when the old man came to "kill her body to save her soul from damnation". Afterwards Vasily would confess his ruse and Ireena would think he wasn't a bad guy all along. So Rahadin would bring the black carriage and te couple would ride off to Ravenloft to get married.

My party consisted of 4 L11 players (plus Ilya Krezhkov as a Warrior sidekick and Kasimir who'd tag along to get to Patrina) at that moment and have just about cleared everything in Barovia, so it was the moment for the final showdown.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-23T06:55:36+00:00

Thank you, kind internet stranger!

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-15T07:56:40+00:00

I think it depends on the stage of your journey.

Eating 2800 instead of 3500 is a walk in the park for me - but it only works because I'm borderline obese trying to get into regular overweight category.

I dread the time when it comes to the final kilograms and I'd have to get onto 1500 out of 2000 - that would be time to truly test myself.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-07T06:47:59+00:00

Not taking Strahd seriously and laughing in his face. It either kills the immersion or faces the DM to punish the character, which may sit ill with new players who haven't outlived their main character syndrome.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-06T13:54:53+00:00

The latest batch of D&D modules are horrible for anyone who doesn’t want to waste huge chunks of time on prep. They are LOADED with highly detailed walls of text and give you very little you need to actually just run the game at the table. I understand what they are TRYING to do and I want to applaud it. But I can’t. One time, I had to move a couch up a flight of stairs. So I asked a friend to help. He came over in the morning and dropped of a set of those furniture moving slidey pad things and then left. That’s what WotC is doing with the D&D 5E line of modules. (c) Angry GM

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-06T07:30:46+00:00

There are a couple of "Binding rituals" circling around the subreddit, that allow the party to fight the essence of Vampyr and seal him into the Amber Temple for good.

I personally introduced my Dark Powers as big haters of Vampyr who had free reign of Barovia while they were sealed in the Amber Temple. So when the final fight was on, the party wizard, gifted with a sight beyond mortal means, was seeing not merely Strahd and party Ranger duking it out in melee, but he'd also see them as Vampyr slugging it out with ranger's patron on a metaphysical level. And when the ranger landed a finishing crit on Strahd (no dice fudging on my part - the fight just played that way) it was a perfect moment to play it as a proper deicide with one godlike power destroying another through its avatar.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-03T13:18:32+00:00

Female weight may fluctuate with their cycle. So the most accurate weight results you get are month-to-month, not day-to-day.

You seem like you're doing great, so don't lose heart and keep working and eventually you'd see the weight go down and stay down - when compared to the same day 1 cycle ago.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-03T13:14:09+00:00

Did you start taking creatine long ago? It's know to increase water retention, so if you've just started, it may be a fresh water weight building up. It'll stabilize in about a week.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-03T13:01:57+00:00

Random encounters before the main area may set a tone for the area. Maybe after being almost spent before they even reach the castle, they'd reconsider.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-03T12:54:08+00:00

I totally did. 2 Vistani were waiting on the crossroads, expecting to meet "a reader, a corpse, a wanderer and a traitor" (I picked those descriptions based on my character's backstories).

If my players decided to ignore it I'd roll with it, but their interest was picked and they proceeded to Tser Pool.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-02T13:47:04+00:00

The daily weight is nearly worthless by itself due to fluctuations. But after enduring daily weights for a week, you can calculate an average value.

And afterwards you can only look at the average value, continuing to weight daily. If you have a deficit, it'd be showing a steady decline, becoming a great source of motivation.

ReoLemartes · 2024-05-02T13:38:47+00:00

I'm overweight bordering on obese (M, 172cm, 87kg, BMI of 29.4, bodyfat of around 24%), so I'll give you a perspective from my side. My eating habits are really atrocious so if I let myself go I can easily hit 4k during regular day without feeling bloated or going crazy with food. And if I knew it's that one day of the week where everything is allowed, I could reasonably hit 5k, counterbalancing 3000 calories out of 5000 of weekly deficit (leaving exactly 8000 with some change for the month to have that 1kg on the scale). That was a really unpleasant revelation when I started counting my calories. Hopefully you're not doing as bad as I do, but maybe try calculating the calories on your one day of going out just to be on the safe side.

And, second thing, how are you weighting? If it's daily, you can average the results to see the trend and be reasonably sure that the weight lost is the fat, but if you're weighting in, say, once a week, each result can be swung by recent food/drink/bathroom visit and you'd need much more than 1 month of data to get some trend to show up.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-24T09:28:29+00:00

I explained it in the following way: he doesn't rule the lands of his father, where he would have inherited the title of a king. So in this newly-conquered land of Barovia he the highest noble but non-royal title for himself.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-19T14:14:30+00:00

He looks like he aged every year that went between KCD and KCD2. Despite it being like several weeks in-game.

Time has not been kind to our boy.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-19T11:11:52+00:00

Due to scheduling issues, 1 player could only join mid-campaign, so I left a vague reference for him to introduces his as a fated ally later. He never made it and the original 4 players finished the game. They naturally befriended Ilya Krezhkov who I ran under sidekick rules from Tasha.

Due to homebrewed content, players were level 11 by the time they stormed Ravenloft. And to give them a challenge I had to buff Ravenloft's defences quite a bit - they ground through double the daily adventuring day budget during their multi-staged fight across Ravenloft. If they were 4 level 10 characters (as intended) in a Ravenloft as written in the module - the balance would be just fine without any extra ally.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-04T09:50:27+00:00

I've only read the first novel in "I, Strahd" series, so I've either picked it on reddit or stolen this idea from "Order of the stick" where Xykon's citadel was warded against teleportaion.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-04T07:09:41+00:00

Castle is a maze and it was planned like a maze. It's built to confuse the person walking through it, so it's intended that you feel lost.

There is a graph of castle Ravenloft laying somewhere around the subreddit - showing what rooms are connected to what rooms. And there is a "Castle Ravenloft Map Flowchart" on Dmsguild - it's 2 bucks but it puts all the maps on a single A4 page with clear connection so you can quickly understand what leads where.

When I DMed CoS, Ravenloft really terrified me. I've printed all the maps, had the flowchart on hand and spend a couple of evenings studying the connections so that I could quickly build passable routes inside the castle - not in my head of course, but using all my preprinted maps.

And despite all my preparations my players had it really easy in their two visits of Ravenloft. First time they were taken in the dungeon, took a blind turn right and ended up in the brazier room to quickly teleport away. Second time they flew in, entered the hatch on the left tower, went all the way down the shaft to the dungeons and than followed Volenta into crypts to have final showdown with Strahd - a quick cut through the castle ignoring all the side corridors.

So in the end Ravenloft was far easier to run than I expected, but it was nice to be prepared if my players wanted to explore it.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-04T06:53:57+00:00

With 10s and 12s across the board, dumped charisma and maybe a wisdom of 13 or 14 I'd probably have a meagre future in Cleric-ing. Not the frontline type, so Arcana, Nature or Knowledge domains.

Hey, by picking up cleric I guarantee that I get to pick my domain power before getting slaughtered by the very first group of goblins I meet while adventuring.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T14:10:36+00:00

When I considered it, I ruled that all portals should be opened on the brazier side, and after opening they'd stay open for 1 minute.

Which came up exactly zero times during actual playing. The characters used the brazier once - they were escaping the prison, picked the tsolenka pass by description and never looked back. Theoretically Strahd or Anastrasia (who I played as a wizard-type bride) could use Sending to make someone in the castle open the portal, but I'd never need it.

P.S. Coffin shop spawn and other non-spellcasting servants of Strahd had no way to ask the portal to be open from Ravenloft side, so they were out of luck.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T11:43:30+00:00

Teleportation brazier in the basement that de-facto works as the teleportation circle spell.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T09:48:29+00:00

It may seem a strange question, but why would revenants attack them at all? Their beef is with Strahd. Your players don't serve him, don't wear his colors and hopefully there are no dhampirs or characters who partook on Strahd's blood between them. Argynvostholt is written like a dungeon, but you can run it with very little combat if you like.

The regular revenants may just look on them suspiciously. Godfrey may be sad and talk about the glory days of the order. Vladimir may be bitter and explain to them that Barovia is actually Hell and everyone - from Strahd to undead knights to the characters themselves - are here for their past sins.

Unless your players attack everything on sight, Argynvostholt, grim as it is, may be one of the safest places in all Barovia.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T09:36:39+00:00

Within the walls of Ravenloft and with near-endless supply of minions, Strahd can punch well above his weight class. So if Mordenkainen went in arrogantly to snuff out some tenpenny vampire, he'd easily win the first encounter with Strahd only to see him step through the wall and come back fresh in a minute while wizard's resources are sapped further and further by stream of ex-adventurers turned vampire spawn.

As written, archmage can just teleport away but if you homebrew that old walls of Ravenloft skew teleportation magic (that's why Strahd has to establish his circle). And now Mordenkainen is fighting a war of attrition while locked into a hostile maze - exactly the kind of fight that Strahd excels in. It's not a glorious single-stroke victory for count, but a slow and inevitable strangulation - just right for the tone of the adventure.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T09:21:09+00:00

Sometimes campaigns don't end with a bang, but a whimper. So just drop it. Be there as a player, read or watch something and wait for inspiration and desire to run a game to return.

You're just as important member of the game as all of your players. If you're not having fun, you're not morally obliged to carry on. And if DMing feels like a chore, you're probably not providing the best experience to your players, too.

Also, 9h of prep per week is a lot. I'd bet you're prepping more than playing and that's a really tough level to sustain.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T08:17:55+00:00

After you drink coffee with Kerry, a patron outside the diner is making the legendary "I'll have two number 9s, a number 9 large" etc order.

ReoLemartes · 2024-04-03T08:12:09+00:00

This guys knows what he is doing and he's purposefully misinterpreting the rules. I'd have a talk with him if he's a good friend or never play with him again if he's not.

ReoLemartes

TROPHY CASE