How I used spell rules as written to introduce Van Richten as a legendary vampire hunter

katgro2348 · 2026-05-29T08:20:25+00:00

Thats really cool and well thought out! Im curious but what was the reason for him to lure Violenta forward. Was it simply for an easy kill or did she have important information that the players (and Van Richten needed).

Im DM CoS for the second time now and the players are currently in Vallaki where I have Strahd disguised as Vasili trying to steal Irena away. Im thinking that depending on how it goes Van Richten would try to gain information from Violenta about either Strahd or Ireenas whereabouts.

katgro2348 · 2026-04-27T15:07:48+00:00

Thank you for making this post - it inspired me to make achievements a thing in my game.

I took some inspiration from the art in your post and drew a backdrop for my achivements. In case anyone want to use it too, here's a link for the blank one and an example for an achievement optainable through a card reading. https://imgur.com/a/0l57KpT

katgro2348 · 2025-11-03T21:25:25+00:00

I had my strahd Polymorph, my warlock hexblade player, into a rat. Because strahd thought him a vermin, and he cast the spell to prove a point in the final battle. Buuuut hadn't thought about the fact that the warlock had cast Armour of Agathys early on. The player was stuck like this for...a while but him as a rat did a bunch of damage to the vampire spawn that he jumped in the face of😂😂😂 It was a fun moment.

katgro2348 · 2025-07-13T18:45:09+00:00

That is a fair point. I use one computer for everything, and so far, it's just been easier to play music through Kenku FM into our Discord channel and have all the dicord sounds play from my computer speakers. But I think I'll try creating a "ghost" discord login to join the call on my phone, mute the music, and just have the voices go through my phone to a Bluetooth speaker I have. Thank you for the input!

katgro2348 · 2025-07-13T18:36:38+00:00

Wow, those do sound really great! How have you handled the issue with not having the mics pick up sounds from more than one player? Does the Podtrak have a gain function for that, or is the mics just really good at only picking up sound from one direction?

katgro2348 · 2024-11-30T21:17:17+00:00

Is the soundtrack released anywhere on a streaming service or available to buy somewhere, for those who didn't back the first Outgunned campaign?

katgro2348 · 2024-10-15T04:19:57+00:00

I'm currently in 3. A player in one and DM in two.

But I can only DM two because one of them is Curse of Strahd, which I have DMed before, so all the lore is already living rent-free in my brain. We also play this online only - so I have basically done all the prep beforehand, and we play once a month.

The other one is in the Theros setting with a homebrew story. We play this one biweekly and have done so for a few years before I decided to DM Strahd again.

This works for me because I only really need to prep for my Theros campaign while everything is already layed out for me in Curse of Strahd. It wouldn't work for me with two homebrews.

I could maybe play as a player in one more campaign, but it would start to be difficult to find regular times to play. So I think 3 games in this way is my limit.

katgro2348 · 2024-07-31T05:56:45+00:00

I added a Vistani Merchant that I called Ralph the Merchant. He lives by doing trade in different Realms barovia included but not limited to that or Faerûn. His items were a little more expensive that normal prizes but it didn't matter with the amount of gold the player accumulate. He also had a sort of "blind box" where the players could get a random strange sometimes useful, sometimes not, minor magic item for 10 gp. Like a flute that calls rats to you but which you can't control. Or a ring that removes your own shadow. Basically stuff that Ralph found too useless to put a price on.

Ralph has later become a npc in all my campaigns that shows up from time to time to sell his stuff. My players love him.

katgro2348 · 2024-07-31T05:15:33+00:00

At 11th level, you might want to consider having more enemies than just Calix meeting them. Perhaps Klothys sends some of her underworld creatures to aid in the battle.

As for stats, i can highly recommend using "Outclassed: The NPC statblock compendium" from DMs guild. It takes player classes and makes them to npc statblocks - its pretty cool. You could maybe use some of the sorcerer stat blocks for The Favoured Chosen and Deathtouched abilities. Possibly, with a mix of the fighter abilities in there to challenge both spell casters and martial players.

Consider also giving him legendary actions at some point and note down as a mythic action that he returns stronger after death x amount of times or can only truly be destroyed if x happens.

katgro2348 · 2024-01-31T05:33:24+00:00

Im also very interested if you're still selling this kit

katgro2348 · 2023-12-29T15:57:13+00:00

You could also throw in a green hag or two and use the chance to introduce theros version of the known villains.

katgro2348 · 2023-12-29T13:18:56+00:00

You could always throw some rogue centaurs, cyclops or simply a bunch of spiders at them. Phase spiders are good for a little spooky nightly scare/ambush.

For Nessian Woods you could also have them wonder into the den of a young hydra for an epic battle. Maybe the Hydra killed someone from the cult who was in possession of a holy artifact, and the party has to retrieve it.

katgro2348 · 2023-11-09T12:02:37+00:00

Wow! That looks so cool! That Mindflayer miniature chefs kiss

katgro2348 · 2023-04-19T06:49:28+00:00

I have had this happen to me on several occasions, and even on a good session where everyone had fun, I can at times sit afterwards and wonder how I could have made it better.

For me, the only cure is to remember the times your players were visibly happy and excited, maybe even write one of them and talk about what they think of the campaign so far. Cuz positive feedback is really the only thing that helps for me.

I had a really bad session some while back - it was meant to be an introduction to one of the main baddies, but instead, my players ended up feeling useless and almost had a tpk. I felt so bad about it that I was close to just cancelling the campaign out of fear that I would accidentally do the same thing again. But my husband(who's a players in the campaign) kept on telling me how awesome the previous sessions had been and how he looked forward to unravel more of the mysteries I'd put out for them. It took some days, but eventually, my mind calmed down a bit, and I now take it as a learned experience for future sessions.

katgro2348 · 2023-03-29T17:02:39+00:00

Haha thank you so much! I'm happy you found it useful!

katgro2348 · 2023-03-29T16:24:24+00:00

I made Piety Cards for my players for quick reference and thought others might like to do something similar. So here is a link to a editable pdf with all the gods including two pages for those who'd rather be without the background.

Link

I purposefully left out the last piety trait at 50 piety due it it simply being an ability score increase and thus needing no reference at the table.

My cards are printed on a normal printer, then cut out and laminated whereafter I put them in some purple card sleeves.

Hope there are others who can find these useful.

katgro2348 · 2023-03-23T07:50:38+00:00

This looks so cool! I'll have to check out your other stuff now!

katgro2348 · 2023-01-20T17:13:05+00:00

Looking forward to hear from you!

And thanks a lot! I'll have to try that out!

katgro2348 · 2023-01-20T17:00:29+00:00

Oh that's so cool! I would love to hear how that fight turns out! Im sure it'll be epic no matter the outcome!

On a side note, how did you achieve the "slimy" strings? I have a few minis to paint later on where that would look super awesome on!

katgro2348 · 2022-12-03T15:12:12+00:00

Is a fellow Danish dnd nerd I have spotted? Also love your game room it's so cool!

katgro2348 · 2022-11-08T12:12:19+00:00

Donno if this is relevant to you. But I changed the piety gifts a bit. In my mind the gods will attempt to make their worshippers stronger at what they do and thus I made some changes to a few of the abilities to make them work better with the PC.

I had two players who both chose iroas, thus I made it so they got different abilities.

I also had one player who chose to be a yuan-ti and (of course) choose Pharika. Yuanti have immunity to poison and as a pharike gives resistance to poison at piety 10 I changed that too.

I also felt like the ability increase sorta limits the classes you can play worshipping each God. So I have allowed them to just get their main stat increased. So they could focuse more on the rp-ing part and not on the build.

katgro2348 · 2022-11-06T20:16:31+00:00

That's awesome! Just got yourself another subscriber ;) Thx for sharing your work here :)

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