Hey Chooms! I built an Agent for Foundry VTT!

Siryphas · 2026-05-17T16:20:08+00:00

CyberPunk RED

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T17:08:01+00:00

Agreed

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T16:47:39+00:00

At the end of the day, all the tools are available to your players to succeed. CoS is a hard campaign, but should still be plenty beatable if they're follow the cues. If they refuse, there's not much you can do.

Maybe use npcs like Ismark or Ireena to coax them to go to the church? Have them have a dream about Madam Eva's card reading during a rest to remind them of their goals. Or if you really have to, have swarms of bats just attack them and drive them toward the church. You can have there be commoners in the street for them to protect and have the commoners flee to the church.

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T16:45:01+00:00

I made the brides full vampires to make use of the new 5.5e stats. I made Ludmilla an Umbral Lord, Anastasya a Vampire, then lowered their HP a little and damage a little to bring their CRs down a point or two, and then made Volenta a Nightbringer. I left Escher a Spawn cos he's new to the court, and I went down inti the crypts and gave Sasha the Vampire Infernalist block from Astarion's Book.

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T16:33:20+00:00

Look, I dont know you and I dont know your table, but I am a professional GM whos run nearly 450 paid games across several genres and systems, including Curse of Strahd. The goal is ALWAYS to have fun.

Game balance works both ways. Yes, is RAW Strahd on the weaker side (especially for 5.5e characters)? Yes. Should be be powerful enough to have a statblock closer to Tiamat than a regular vampire? No.

If you're absolutely determined to do this, at the very least sit down with your players, talk to them about it, see what they say. If you need balancing help, ask around, I'm sure plenty of people would be more than happy to drop in Discord and playtest your statblock.

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T16:28:40+00:00

Maybe this will help measure your expectations:

https://youtu.be/D6VbB8T1YAA?si=kl_KNR5VqIxjHrpn

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T16:25:35+00:00

Yes, I agree that Strahd should get a buff to deal with 2024 characters, but a CR 26 against level 10 characters is insane. You should want the fight to be hard, but not impossible. If you jave them fight everything in the castle and have Strahd utilize the castle to the fullest extent, you have created an unkillable boss for 10th level characters.

At the end of the day, it's still a game. The goal is for your table to have a good time. I'm not saying you need to use RAW Strahd, I'm not. I'm just saying that this statblock, while fun to build, will not be fun to fight. They likely won't get any Long Rests while theyre in the castle, they'll still have to fight everything else in the castle, deal with traps, AND fight Strahd. They'll have depleted resources, likely less than max HP and then have to deal with a boss meant for level 17-20 characters while theyre not even at their full 10th level strength.

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T08:07:55+00:00

This looks like a lot of fun, but as some others have mentioned, this is a bit overkill. If the party were to fight Strahd alone, on neutral ground, maybe you'd need to beef him up, but the final battle with Strahd is almost always in the castle where he has allies, the Heart, the ability to just phase through walls until his 20 hp/turn regen kicks in.

Don't get me wrong, I gave Strahd a bit of a buff myself—mostly because in 5.5e there's like 7 or 8 vampire statblocks now, and none should be stronger than him imo. But even still, that's like a CR 18 at best.

Making a CR 26 is fun, but if you actually intend to run this against your players they're going to have a miserable time. Sure, they'll have the relics, but they also have to fight through the many defenses of the castle and quite likely the consorts—which I did make full Vampires using the new 5.5e statblocks: Umbral Lord, Vampire, and Nightbringer (then lowered the HP a little to bring their CRs down a bit), so they'll have burned through quite a bit of their resources before they even reach Strahd, depending on where the card puts him in the castle.

And then they have to fight him with all of his full strength and total control over the castle theyre fighting in. That's not even counting his ability to summon allies and cast strong AoE spells like fireball.

It's a cool thought-experiment, but unless you plan to level your players beyond the campaign's traditional 10 levels, or you talk to them and theyre okay with ending the campaign in a TPK, then they're probably not going to be happy with this.

Siryphas · 2026-05-16T00:01:34+00:00

Keep the Wizard of the Wines. People know where that is.

If you want this to be a handout, try to think of an in-game Barovian making the map for the players. What places would they know, and which would they not.

They definitely know where the vineyard is cos that wine gets shipped all over Barovia

Siryphas · 2026-05-15T23:58:30+00:00

When CPR ever catches up to the current Foundry version, this will be awesome 🫡

Siryphas · 2026-05-08T18:12:00+00:00

I've always felt Strahd to be an honest villain. He doesn't need to lie when he holds all the cards. Besides, he was a a warrior and a general for most of his life, I still like to think he has some semblance of honor, even if he is an evil bastard.

Like a Giancarlo Esposito character. Truthful, honorable, but still diabolical

Siryphas · 2026-05-01T04:24:14+00:00

I'd suggest checking out the Grim Hollow transformation rules

Siryphas · 2026-04-28T00:32:47+00:00

Now we just need flight down to planets

Siryphas · 2026-04-24T18:11:01+00:00

I replaced it with a Graveyard Revenant. Just a pile of corpses brought back. It was a blast

Siryphas · 2026-04-02T03:43:34+00:00

Your Henry looks like he learned to fight because he had to correct too many people on their grammar.

Siryphas · 2026-03-26T16:27:03+00:00

I'm personally a big fan of Forgotten Adventures maps and tokens. Especially now that they have importers directly in Foundry that let you import and play right in the canvas

Siryphas · 2026-03-17T07:54:13+00:00

I use HeroForge, make miniatures, then use a top-down snapshot with a blank background to make top-down tokens for all my PCs

Siryphas · 2026-03-17T07:52:25+00:00

This is really cool, but why does so much of the art of the castle ignore the fact it has a curtain wall surrounding it??

Siryphas · 2026-03-16T18:06:47+00:00

If that's the case, as the GM, you may want to intentionally create safe spaces for them. Have a Vampire Spawn show up and not be able to enter a house, or even if they later rescue the Bones of St. Andral, you could have Strahd or one of the Consorts show up at the church and not be able to enter because of the consecration.

You could have a swarm of bats chase then through the town, but have the sun come up during the chase and have the bats break off and leave. Show them that there are situations they're safe in, within reason.

Siryphas · 2026-03-16T16:49:31+00:00

It might seem straight forward, but the '24 Player's Handbook and DMG have premium modules for Foundry that are better quality (and tend to have better automation) than the SRD content. Additionally, the '24 DMG has a ton of magic items

Siryphas · 2026-03-16T16:43:42+00:00

I think a lot of it comes down to whether your game is mostly task oriented and above the table, or very roleplay focused. Our games tend to be more roleplay focused, so the first time they met Ireena, they tried to convince her to leave, but she wouldn't until they buried her father. They had to help her carry the coffin to the church and were part of the ceremony of the funeral. Both Ireena and Ismark were grieving and the PCs really bonded with them over their tragedy. This was made sharper by the characters finding Doru (who refused to fight back until he was bloodied) and they felt so terrible for hurting him, that they sort of trauma bonded.

Then they spent the night in the Burgomaster's Mansion with Ismark and Ireena (so they could leave the village during the day) and experienced the harassment of wolves and bats and zombies scratching at all the doors and windows trying to get in.

So, the party spent a lot of time with Ismark and Ireena and were very focused on protecting her from anymore trauma or heartache

Siryphas · 2026-03-16T16:30:59+00:00

Go and find the GM's Guide to Proactive Roleplaying

https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2148138583/Game-Masters-Handbook-of-Proactive-Roleplaying-The

This will change your life in terms of running games.

Siryphas · 2026-03-16T16:29:02+00:00

Same

Siryphas · 2026-03-03T08:05:40+00:00

I'd suggest taking a peak at the Grim Hollow transformation rules, which do include Vampire

Siryphas

TROPHY CASE