So i ran a tutorial mission for the players so that the 2 new players could see mechanics etc. without the threat of immediate death and they're going to enter PN with a miniature bag of holding (50pounds) and a trinket worth ~150g to the right buyer.
going to use that "innocent man" sidequest to give them the opportunity to place a bet on him (he's desperate for cash and is fairly fit, will tell the players he's sure of his chances and they are to place his and his husbands life savings on him) to give them a wee bit more padding so they can afford a guide of their choice and 2 canoes with some repellent and catchers to go along.
I'm not liking the look of the hex crawl, taking months to get from one side to another whilst hopping from 1 empty hex to another seems like it could wear a group out quickly. Will have to see how it pans out.
tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Everything is just so grim and dour and nothing we seem to do makes the Realm a better place. There are no shenanigans to be had. No silliness. When we save a town from some threat or kill an evil hag terrorizing the land its always, "Yeah, so? Strahd is still there."
Gothic Horror just is not my jam. The DM and one other love it, the other two abide it more readily that I do and we already lost our 6th group member a few weeks ago when he got fed up with the same things I am frustrated with.
I'm the one who keeps trying to interject some *real talk* about it, as we like to advocate here.... and today it blew up in my face.
Its like half an hour fresh.... so I'm feeling pretty shitty about it right now since this was the group that I've been gaming with for 20 years. No idea whats going to happen. Not guilty, mind you, just shitty. I wasn't having fun in this campaign and explaining why (admittedly for the 7th time) and the other player who loves the setting was tired of my bullshit and quit the group chat. He's got one of those prickly, outwardly aggressive personalities that is 98% bluster and I am not in the mood to placate or mollify or let it blow over. So I wished everyone well and also quit the group chat. (Our game related chat. We have another general talk chat too.)
Sorry for the vent.
Man, that sounds rough. Here's to hoping this prickle gets confined only to D&D and won't spill further.
Everything is just so grim and dour and nothing we seem to do makes the Realm a better place. There are no shenanigans to be had. No silliness. When we save a town from some threat or kill an evil hag terrorizing the land its always, "Yeah, so? Strahd is still there."
Gothic Horror just is not my jam. The DM and one other love it, the other two abide it more readily that I do and we already lost our 6th group member a few weeks ago when he got fed up with the same things I am frustrated with.
I'm the one who keeps trying to interject some *real talk* about it, as we like to advocate here.... and today it blew up in my face.
Its like half an hour fresh.... so I'm feeling pretty shitty about it right now since this was the group that I've been gaming with for 20 years. No idea whats going to happen. Not guilty, mind you, just shitty. I wasn't having fun in this campaign and explaining why (admittedly for the 7th time) and the other player who loves the setting was tired of my bullshit and quit the group chat. He's got one of those prickly, outwardly aggressive personalities that is 98% bluster and I am not in the mood to placate or mollify or let it blow over. So I wished everyone well and also quit the group chat. (Our game related chat. We have another general talk chat too.)
Sorry for the vent.
I mean, part of the shtick with ravenloft is that no matter what you do, it doesn't really make anything better, just different since the demi-plane is effectively working against you; even if you were to kill strahd it would just replace him with someone just as shitty but in a new sort of shitty.
Which isn't to say that you're wrong for not enjoying it just that if you've been gaming for 20 years you should have been aware of ravenloft's reputation.
Everything is just so grim and dour and nothing we seem to do makes the Realm a better place. There are no shenanigans to be had. No silliness. When we save a town from some threat or kill an evil hag terrorizing the land its always, "Yeah, so? Strahd is still there."
Gothic Horror just is not my jam. The DM and one other love it, the other two abide it more readily that I do and we already lost our 6th group member a few weeks ago when he got fed up with the same things I am frustrated with.
I'm the one who keeps trying to interject some *real talk* about it, as we like to advocate here.... and today it blew up in my face.
Its like half an hour fresh.... so I'm feeling pretty shitty about it right now since this was the group that I've been gaming with for 20 years. No idea whats going to happen. Not guilty, mind you, just shitty. I wasn't having fun in this campaign and explaining why (admittedly for the 7th time) and the other player who loves the setting was tired of my bullshit and quit the group chat. He's got one of those prickly, outwardly aggressive personalities that is 98% bluster and I am not in the mood to placate or mollify or let it blow over. So I wished everyone well and also quit the group chat. (Our game related chat. We have another general talk chat too.)
Sorry for the vent.
I mean, part of the shtick with ravenloft is that no matter what you do, it doesn't really make anything better, just different since the demi-plane is effectively working against you; even if you were to kill strahd it would just replace him with someone just as shitty but in a new sort of shitty.
Which isn't to say that you're wrong for not enjoying it just that if you've been gaming for 20 years you should have been aware of ravenloft's reputation.
Yes, but it absolutely sounds like the DM isn't sticking to the book
You are not supposed to just run Curse of Strahd as nothing but unrelenting grimdarkness
I had a session where the party had to watch a small boy be butchered before being force fed the pie made from him
the session after that was basically a beach episode, but in Barovia, in a dark lake filled with an Aboleth, and everyone had a lot of yucks
don't want to follow up that dark session where everyone feels kind of down after getting thrashed directly with the baron throwing kids in stocks, so I delayed a bunch of events in Vallaki
MOST of that comes from the players themselves though, they like to do silly shit
Everything is just so grim and dour and nothing we seem to do makes the Realm a better place. There are no shenanigans to be had. No silliness. When we save a town from some threat or kill an evil hag terrorizing the land its always, "Yeah, so? Strahd is still there."
Gothic Horror just is not my jam. The DM and one other love it, the other two abide it more readily that I do and we already lost our 6th group member a few weeks ago when he got fed up with the same things I am frustrated with.
I'm the one who keeps trying to interject some *real talk* about it, as we like to advocate here.... and today it blew up in my face.
Its like half an hour fresh.... so I'm feeling pretty shitty about it right now since this was the group that I've been gaming with for 20 years. No idea whats going to happen. Not guilty, mind you, just shitty. I wasn't having fun in this campaign and explaining why (admittedly for the 7th time) and the other player who loves the setting was tired of my bullshit and quit the group chat. He's got one of those prickly, outwardly aggressive personalities that is 98% bluster and I am not in the mood to placate or mollify or let it blow over. So I wished everyone well and also quit the group chat. (Our game related chat. We have another general talk chat too.)
Sorry for the vent.
I mean, part of the shtick with ravenloft is that no matter what you do, it doesn't really make anything better, just different since the demi-plane is effectively working against you; even if you were to kill strahd it would just replace him with someone just as shitty but in a new sort of shitty.
Which isn't to say that you're wrong for not enjoying it just that if you've been gaming for 20 years you should have been aware of ravenloft's reputation.
Yes. I am aware of Ravenloft's reputation. I was under the impression though that, this time (us being the big damn hero PC's and not those other chumps who make up the parade of the dead) we would make a difference.
Instead, our DM has decided that the setting is the star of the campaign and not the players. Which, fair enough I suppose, but its not something I was enjoying.
I did not think the conversation would escalate as quick as it did and here we are.
I've played COS a few times and this is my second time running it, and the most enjoyable campaigns seem to have a progression from "players feeling about as safe as the protagonists of a horror movie" to, sometime around level 5, realizing that they might be able to actually do this, to after surviving the Amber Temple (it's always the Amber Temple) a switch being thrown: We Will Kill Strahd
but you gotta throw in little wins in the interim. the landing page for my curse of strahd page for my vtt used to be full of living enemies (and there are more the players haven't faced yet, since im driving this car to level 14)
just as a visual indicator of some kind of progress
The lack of little wins is what wore me down. We had wins in the objective sense, (windmill, winery, actively working on arganvolthost, Baba Yaga etc...) but nobody in-world gave a shit. Its been unsatisfying. I was SUPER excited to play an iconic campaign where we rid the land of an evil vampire lord. But clearly ennui filled gothic horror is not for me. IMO, the big damn heroes are supposed to come in and fix Ravenloft, not be subsumed by its awfulness.
I have no illusions on my culpability here. I expected A when I got B. And I did not hide my unhappiness as well as I should have to maintain the groups dynamic. And when asked about my unhappiness I was pretty direct about it, more than once. This IRL strife is weighted heavily on me.
I just feel bad that it escalted this much. I didn't think the other half of the group would take it so personally. Alas.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
No roleplaying game/campaign/group is worth being perpetually unhappy for in real life, period.
Your mental and emotional health is more important, period.
It is better that you recognized this and ejected, than stuck it out.
If the other players and GM are truly your friends, they'll recognize and understand why you left the game. And if not? That's on them, not you.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Horror and suspense are not built off complete relentless grimdark. In fact, quite the opposite, because if you don't have anything non-bleak and awful to compare it with, players rapidly become numb to what's happening.
My interpretation of Curse of Strahd, having come into it more or less blind (other than having heard from osmosis that it's a Crapsack World and everything sucks) is that the best the PCs can really hope to achieve is to kill Strahd and escape with their lives. Best case scenario, whatever mechanism that cuts off Barovia from the Realms stays open for at least a little while and maybe some of the more decent NPCs get to flee and have happy endings.
Based on that thought, I am vaguely thinking I might set up my Warlock's ending as taking control of the realm after Strahd is slain in order to allow the rest of the party (and the Warlock's sister) to escape. And of course, he starts his rule with the best of intentions to try and make the place livable, but he slowly becomes corrupted by the plane preying on his pride because surely he can't fall into the same trap as Strahd. Things must be getting better, and these complaining people are just trying to undermine his authority and ruin all the progress he's made!
My interpretation of Curse of Strahd, having come into it more or less blind (other than having heard from osmosis that it's a Crapsack World and everything sucks) is that the best the PCs can really hope to achieve is to kill Strahd and escape with their lives. Best case scenario, whatever mechanism that cuts off Barovia from the Realms stays open for at least a little while and maybe some of the more decent NPCs get to flee and have happy endings.
Based on that thought, I am vaguely thinking I might set up my Warlock's ending as taking control of the realm after Strahd is slain in order to allow the rest of the party (and the Warlock's sister) to escape. And of course, he starts his rule with the best of intentions to try and make the place livable, but he slowly becomes corrupted by the plane preying on his pride because surely he can't fall into the same trap as Strahd. Things must be getting better, and these complaining people are just trying to undermine his authority and ruin all the progress he's made!
The cleric PC in CoS campaign i ran did this and that's exactly correct as to the well intentioned but then...
The lack of little wins is what wore me down. We had wins in the objective sense, (windmill, winery, actively working on arganvolthost, Baba Yaga etc...) but nobody in-world gave a shit. Its been unsatisfying. I was SUPER excited to play an iconic campaign where we rid the land of an evil vampire lord. But clearly ennui filled gothic horror is not for me. IMO, the big damn heroes are supposed to come in and fix Ravenloft, not be subsumed by its awfulness.
I have no illusions on my culpability here. I expected A when I got B. And I did not hide my unhappiness as well as I should have to maintain the groups dynamic. And when asked about my unhappiness I was pretty direct about it, more than once. This IRL strife is weighted heavily on me.
I just feel bad that it escalted this much. I didn't think the other half of the group would take it so personally. Alas.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Have you told them what you've written here?
You appear to sincerely be feeling guilty and bad about this, I think that expressing that to the group would patch over the IRL stuff.
The lack of little wins is what wore me down. We had wins in the objective sense, (windmill, winery, actively working on arganvolthost, Baba Yaga etc...) but nobody in-world gave a shit. Its been unsatisfying. I was SUPER excited to play an iconic campaign where we rid the land of an evil vampire lord. But clearly ennui filled gothic horror is not for me. IMO, the big damn heroes are supposed to come in and fix Ravenloft, not be subsumed by its awfulness.
I have no illusions on my culpability here. I expected A when I got B. And I did not hide my unhappiness as well as I should have to maintain the groups dynamic. And when asked about my unhappiness I was pretty direct about it, more than once. This IRL strife is weighted heavily on me.
I just feel bad that it escalted this much. I didn't think the other half of the group would take it so personally. Alas.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Have you told them what you've written here?
You appear to sincerely be feeling guilty and bad about this, I think that expressing that to the group would patch over the IRL stuff.
Yes, but I'm not apologizing anymore. My feelings are just as valid as the next group members. My attempts at dialog were met with aggressive dismissal. We'll see what happens after a few days to cool down.
Thanks everyone for your support. Its appreciated.
Yeah don't apologize, write up what you did here about why you feel this way
like one my favorite moments from D&D is when my Aasimar wizard stood before a shocked crowd after we killed Izek and the Baron, and I activated my Aasimar racial and told everyone that it was going to be okay, there was an end to the darkness, and the townsfolk threw us a big party, DM describing them singing throughout the night
somehow I ended up fading to black with the Baron's son (I really wanted access to his spellbook, don't judge me). Vasilli Van Holtz provided much of the entertainment, and Ireena shared a few drinks with him. Danika Martikov cracked open the hidden reserve of red dragon crush and the ancestral flag of Vallaki was thrown up
it's such a simple little scene but it's one the most memorable ones I have from D&D because of how fucking dark the lead up was, and how stressful it was, the Baron was having Izek kill people for associating with us rather than having his men fight us directly, the Rogue stabbed the baron in the middle of town (a huge "oh shiiiit" because we had no idea if we could survive), I accidentally killed a guard, it was a cluster fuck that ended with a reasonably high body count - but the people had been freed from their oppressor and the town was now back under the rule of the kindly (so we thought at the time) Wachter family
We had our first session of the Curse of Strahd intro adventure (Death House I believe, we never mentioned the title in game). Been a while since I've played as a lvl 1 character (not counting BG3).
Our party was High Elf Ranger (me, trying out Tasha's alternate Ranger, hoping to go Gloomstalker once I hit lvl 3), a Warforged Artificer (planning to go Armorer), a Human Dragonblood Sorcerer and a Human Tempest Cleric. So far we seem to be perfectly balanced for the content: at each restpoint we've used all or most of our resources, a few people went down, but we managed to prevent them from dying (we did get a very lucky roll on a Turn Undead against a group of Ghouls that allowed us to focus kill them one by one). But we're not through yet (one-shots never seem to finish up within one session). Lvl2 now, had planned to go archery, but two-weapon fighting is more fun right now.
Steam/Origin: davydizzy
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
Especially if you are starting at 1st level it's very easy for players.
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
Know that characters at Level 1, pretty much across the board, are made of wet tissue paper. It is very easy for a new DM to overdo combat encounters and accidentally TPK the party.
Once y'all get to 3rd level, everyone starts coming into their classes proper and (mostly) won't get one-shot by a random sword swing.
As for your particular character? Whatever sounds fun, really. Maybe look at Tasha's Cauldron if you are feeling Ranger-y, but otherwise if you haven't played in ever/forever there's plenty of meat in the PHB to work with.
Uh, if my good friend was dipping their toe for the first time into the DM-ing pool I would stick to a core book class that isn't that complicated and/or weird. Depending on the others in the group, I'd probably aim for a class that helps things work out along standard expectations, like a Fighter or Cleric.
Uh, if my good friend was dipping their toe for the first time into the DM-ing pool I would stick to a core book class that isn't that complicated and/or weird. Depending on the others in the group, I'd probably aim for a class that helps things work out along standard expectations, like a Fighter or Cleric.
I think as long as the player knows their characters abilities, spells and skills very well then it doesn't make a difference to the DM which book its from. Especially at low level.
Actually that does ring a bell: anyone playing a spellcaster must have ready access to all information about their spells (including stuff like DCs, ranges, concentration, duration etc...) without needing to look it up in the book.
Same is true for all player stats and abilities but with spells it is especially important.
Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Uh, if my good friend was dipping their toe for the first time into the DM-ing pool I would stick to a core book class that isn't that complicated and/or weird. Depending on the others in the group, I'd probably aim for a class that helps things work out along standard expectations, like a Fighter or Cleric.
I think as long as the player knows their characters abilities, spells and skills very well then it doesn't make a difference to the DM which book its from. Especially at low level.
Actually that does ring a bell: anyone playing a spellcaster must have ready access to all information about their spells (including stuff like DCs, ranges, concentration, duration etc...) without needing to look it up in the book.
Same is true for all player stats and abilities but with spells it is especially important.
The one Caveat to the book thing is if you use those bookmark tabs that you can stick in the book. I'd allow those. Otherwise, write those spells down, copy them from online source or SOMETHING. I spell caster who doesn't know how their spells work is the biggest time suck in the entire game, next to bickering about rules.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Spell cards!
Spell cards, Spell cards, Spell cards!
SPELL CARDS!
The players in my game would literally be unable to use their spells without them.
To be fair, my players are a touch clueless sometimes, and I basically had to plonk the parsed pile of cards in front of each caster and half caster to enable them as such.
That was the one thing that sold me on Dndbeyond... to pay real money for a glorified character sheet.... the ability to mouse over or click on your spells and have the details pop right up.
also barbarian isn't the easiest class for newbies because the amount of damage they do per swing keeps changing based on whether they are raging, imo monk is actually the easiest class next to the champion fighter, who is basically just a fighter without a subclass if we're being honest
Probably the rogue. The monk has more resource management but the rogue has almost none. Monks have multiple options for their bonus action that all overlap. Rogues have maybe two but really only one. Monks have multiple options for their reaction. Rogues have one.
But a rogue can be made really simple
1) Cunning action every round (unless you miss then you might twf)
2) Roll sneak attack if your DM tells you to
3) the first time you're hit with a bit hit you uncannily dodge.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The players in my game would literally be unable to use their spells without them.
To be fair, my players are a touch clueless sometimes, and I basically had to plonk the parsed pile of cards in front of each caster and half caster to enable them as such.
My group used to use spell cards. Problem is that the more complex spells have stuff left off the card. That was a fun surprise.
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
If you want to use dndbeyond.com - Have the DM make a campaign and then invite me and I can share all of the character creation options.
You can then print off the character sheets and play as though you copied them out of a book. (If you want to keep playing using dndbeyond to progress characters I would need to stay in the campaign so unlocked content persisted)
Probably the rogue. The monk has more resource management but the rogue has almost none. Monks have multiple options for their bonus action that all overlap. Rogues have maybe two but really only one. Monks have multiple options for their reaction. Rogues have one.
But a rogue can be made really simple
1) Cunning action every round (unless you miss then you might twf)
2) Roll sneak attack if your DM tells you to
3) the first time you're hit with a bit hit you uncannily dodge.
yes but in my experience monks are actually easier to play, you don't have to worry about positioning, or have the hide rules explained to you, or have surprise re-explained to you 300 times after you insist that assassinate works this time because literally every new player creates an assassin not knowing how surprise works (and frankly 2/3 of 5e DMs don't either)
The resource cost ends up being pretty easy to work out because its equal to your level and everything uses exactly 1 resource, (generally) your to hit doesn't change, your damage bonus doesn't change, you don't tend to have a contextual source of advantage, your damage abilities don't change if you have advantage or disadvantage, etc
like on paper I agree the monk is more complex than fighter, rogue, and barbarian, but in practice I always see new players handle the monk easier than anything except champion fighter because of its consistency (until level 5 when they can forget their monk save dc constantly)
My brother in law wants to run his first ever d&d game using fifth edition, which I haven't looked at since the lackluster launch. Anything I need to know before diving into character creation?
If you want to use dndbeyond.com - Have the DM make a campaign and then invite me and I can share all of the character creation options.
You can then print off the character sheets and play as though you copied them out of a book. (If you want to keep playing using dndbeyond to progress characters I would need to stay in the campaign so unlocked content persisted)
The new separation of race and ability scores at creation (in the Tasha's book I think?) is really nice and you should do that. Consider buying the CMM as well (it's Pay What you Want) and building from there. https://gabejamesgames.itch.io/cmm
Definitely use the Ideals-Bonds-Flaws system and have the players either roll, pick, or come up with a new one that isn't on the list. It's a great way to bootstrap players into early fun RP ideas and gives the DM some easy hooks to engage them.
My latest CoS session was yesterday. We picked back up with the party trying to kill Duro in the undercroft of the church. I think the combat lasted maybe 3 rounds, max. Between shit rolls on my part for Duro, the party picking up that radiant damage prevented him from regenerating, and having a cleric and avenger paladin, they cut him down quick. I'm starting to think I need to up the difficulty of future fights. Death house was no issue for them and they handled the siege of the Burgomeister's manor pretty easily. My original plan for Bonegrinder was to have two of the hags there and then have the third show up about 10 rounds after combat begins, but now I'm rethinking that. I don't want to TPK, but I also don't want another fight that ends up being a push over for the party.
After they killed Duro, they untied Father Donavich and left him to grieve. When they reached town, they heard the church bell let out a single dong, and then silence. No one mentioned that they picked up on the implications, but the party is starting to get pretty beat down by the gloom and doom and hopelessness (based off the conversations in the thread, I should mention this is in character. The players are having a blast). They met up with Ireena, who had acquired a wagon and horses, and set off for Vallaki. They stopped at the Vistani encampment for the night, where they were treated like long-lost friends and given all the food and drink they could want. The party LOVE the vistani, especially after their first few days in Barovia. They received their fortune telling from Madame Eva and they each got a personalized telling except for the Tatyana reincarnation, the cleric. Instead, Madame Eva took his hands and told him the Dread Doom had its gaze upon him. This spooked the party but they all still believe Ireena is who Strahd is after. After that, they settled down for the night and began going over the fortune telling. Unfortunately, we ended up calling the session early as I started to get a killer migraine. Next session should be Bonegrinder and arriving in Vallaki.
My latest CoS session was yesterday. We picked back up with the party trying to kill Duro in the undercroft of the church. I think the combat lasted maybe 3 rounds, max. Between shit rolls on my part for Duro, the party picking up that radiant damage prevented him from regenerating, and having a cleric and avenger paladin, they cut him down quick. I'm starting to think I need to up the difficulty of future fights. Death house was no issue for them and they handled the siege of the Burgomeister's manor pretty easily. My original plan for Bonegrinder was to have two of the hags there and then have the third show up about 10 rounds after combat begins, but now I'm rethinking that. I don't want to TPK, but I also don't want another fight that ends up being a push over for the party.
After they killed Duro, they untied Father Donavich and left him to grieve. When they reached town, they heard the church bell let out a single dong, and then silence. No one mentioned that they picked up on the implications, but the party is starting to get pretty beat down by the gloom and doom and hopelessness (based off the conversations in the thread, I should mention this is in character. The players are having a blast). They met up with Ireena, who had acquired a wagon and horses, and set off for Vallaki. They stopped at the Vistani encampment for the night, where they were treated like long-lost friends and given all the food and drink they could want. The party LOVE the vistani, especially after their first few days in Barovia. They received their fortune telling from Madame Eva and they each got a personalized telling except for the Tatyana reincarnation, the cleric. Instead, Madame Eva took his hands and told him the Dread Doom had its gaze upon him. This spooked the party but they all still believe Ireena is who Strahd is after. After that, they settled down for the night and began going over the fortune telling. Unfortunately, we ended up calling the session early as I started to get a killer migraine. Next session should be Bonegrinder and arriving in Vallaki.
You shouldn't approach the hag fight as something they can win, a vampire spawn is an utter chump compared to night hags. The party would have to land critical hits, basically every single one of them, to kill a night hag before it could shift to the ethereal plane to escape, and once the coven is together they can either just pop out and lightning bolt the party into oblivion or follow them in the ethereal plane and Nightmare Haunting them, everywhere except the two hallowed grounds in Barovia (one of which is unhallowed per a quest)
The hags sounds like a perfect opportunity to show the party where they currently are in the pecking order of Barovia
(assuming they're level 3 or 4, a level 5 party could realistically kill a single night hag in one round, but it would require INCREDIBLE luck)
If they aren't in a coven, the night hags should fuck with them and flee at the first sign of real danger to form up as a group of 3. If they want to fight a threat without the whole coven, using etherealness to escape, then pop up far away and fling magic missiles, and flee again before any melee can reach them is a solid option
The group of 3 of them should be a nigh-insurmountable challenge for a party of 6th or lower level, if they all cast lightning bolt your party will mostly be smoking boots with no body attached for sub 50 max hp characters, given the number of slots they have and how fast fights are, I wouldn't mince letting the party cast a spell either - counterspell counterspell counterspell. If they want to have more fun with it, they can all spam hold persons to paralyze the entire party by upcasting it and being choosy, then use point blank auto critical hit ray of sickness to do high poison damage
After a few lightning bolts don't neglect the utility of using a spell slot on Sleep. A party of 5 adventurers with 15 hitpoints left is still very dangerous, but a 5th level sleep will likely put them all out (except elves, but one elf against 3 hags is not a winning position, then the hags can drag them to confinement or do something grizzly like chop off their arms and legs
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Thanks for the advice everyone, I made a warforged monk, my wife made a gnome druid and I think the other two players are leaning towards barbarian and cleric to round us out. First session is scheduled for May 15th I will report back how it goes.
Special thanks to @Cobalt60 for lending access to cool stuff on D&D Beyond.
My latest CoS session was yesterday. We picked back up with the party trying to kill Duro in the undercroft of the church. I think the combat lasted maybe 3 rounds, max. Between shit rolls on my part for Duro, the party picking up that radiant damage prevented him from regenerating, and having a cleric and avenger paladin, they cut him down quick. I'm starting to think I need to up the difficulty of future fights. Death house was no issue for them and they handled the siege of the Burgomeister's manor pretty easily. My original plan for Bonegrinder was to have two of the hags there and then have the third show up about 10 rounds after combat begins, but now I'm rethinking that. I don't want to TPK, but I also don't want another fight that ends up being a push over for the party.
After they killed Duro, they untied Father Donavich and left him to grieve. When they reached town, they heard the church bell let out a single dong, and then silence. No one mentioned that they picked up on the implications, but the party is starting to get pretty beat down by the gloom and doom and hopelessness (based off the conversations in the thread, I should mention this is in character. The players are having a blast). They met up with Ireena, who had acquired a wagon and horses, and set off for Vallaki. They stopped at the Vistani encampment for the night, where they were treated like long-lost friends and given all the food and drink they could want. The party LOVE the vistani, especially after their first few days in Barovia. They received their fortune telling from Madame Eva and they each got a personalized telling except for the Tatyana reincarnation, the cleric. Instead, Madame Eva took his hands and told him the Dread Doom had its gaze upon him. This spooked the party but they all still believe Ireena is who Strahd is after. After that, they settled down for the night and began going over the fortune telling. Unfortunately, we ended up calling the session early as I started to get a killer migraine. Next session should be Bonegrinder and arriving in Vallaki.
You shouldn't approach the hag fight as something they can win, a vampire spawn is an utter chump compared to night hags. The party would have to land critical hits, basically every single one of them, to kill a night hag before it could shift to the ethereal plane to escape, and once the coven is together they can either just pop out and lightning bolt the party into oblivion or follow them in the ethereal plane and Nightmare Haunting them, everywhere except the two hallowed grounds in Barovia (one of which is unhallowed per a quest)
The hags sounds like a perfect opportunity to show the party where they currently are in the pecking order of Barovia
(assuming they're level 3 or 4, a level 5 party could realistically kill a single night hag in one round, but it would require INCREDIBLE luck)
If they aren't in a coven, the night hags should fuck with them and flee at the first sign of real danger to form up as a group of 3. If they want to fight a threat without the whole coven, using etherealness to escape, then pop up far away and fling magic missiles, and flee again before any melee can reach them is a solid option
The group of 3 of them should be a nigh-insurmountable challenge for a party of 6th or lower level, if they all cast lightning bolt your party will mostly be smoking boots with no body attached for sub 50 max hp characters, given the number of slots they have and how fast fights are, I wouldn't mince letting the party cast a spell either - counterspell counterspell counterspell. If they want to have more fun with it, they can all spam hold persons to paralyze the entire party by upcasting it and being choosy, then use point blank auto critical hit ray of sickness to do high poison damage
After a few lightning bolts don't neglect the utility of using a spell slot on Sleep. A party of 5 adventurers with 15 hitpoints left is still very dangerous, but a 5th level sleep will likely put them all out (except elves, but one elf against 3 hags is not a winning position, then the hags can drag them to confinement or do something grizzly like chop off their arms and legs
Oh! Thanks for the link! And yeah, I think they might be starting to get a little too confident so it's probably time to bring them down a peg or two.
There was an interesting idea I read on reddit I'm kinda toying. The way it would work would be, after the hags defeat the party, they tie them up upstairs with the kids. The hags would torture them, mock them, force feed them pies, etc (my druid player might end up having to quit the campaign due to scheduling conflicts, so the druid might end up getting baked into a pie too). The hags would eventually go downstairs to discuss what to do with the party when the party would hear a crash, a wet ripping noise, and screams. They then would hear a male voice stating he had tolerated the hags' actions in his realm as he cared little for the fate of peasant children. But that they would dare touch his Tatyana was unacceptable and command the hags to release Tatyana and her companions. Then the sound of wings fluttering and silence. Morganatha would then come up stairs and, in a rage, release the players and Ireena and scream at them to leave. On their way out, the players would walk by Bella's decapitated corpse and Offalia cradling her sister's head.
That's aroute I love, Strahd ended up being real mad at the hags for playing with his toys. After getting soundly thrashed by these overbearing, seemingly invincible creatures - they were positively quaking in fear at Strahd
having Strahd offer them the dinner invitation and an apology to Tatyana might be a nice move, if you plan on altering how the dinner goes (I didn't have Strahd do the spooky disappear, hit them with cold damage, attack them with wyrmlings thing - but I was having Strahd try to woo Tatyana/Ireena at the time. The party has only ever faced unpleasantness from him outside of view of her)
on the cradling her sister's head note: hags tend to *hate* each other, upon losing one of them, they would likely seek to rebuild the coven by finding a girl child and eating her, only to birth her again as a hagspawn, to continue the gross life cycle of the hag
Another thing to consider is that if you want the coven to be a fight the party eventually wins, without 3, they're very weak so it wouldn't be that enjoyable of a victory for a post amber temple party- might be a consideration if you want to have Strahd merely thrash or threaten rather than kill them
Oh good point. I would love for the hags to return or let the party have the opportunity, once they're more powerful, return to take care of the hags. Is there a set time for how long until a hag spawn "grows" into a fully grown hag?
The party, after they killed Duro, kept going on about how he was good practice for when they face Strahd. So, the combination of them getting trounced by the hags AND THEN Strahd dealing with the hags like a pesky fly should reinforce that Strahd is not a force to underestimate.
Oh good point. I would love for the hags to return or let the party have the opportunity, once they're more powerful, return to take care of the hags. Is there a set time for how long until a hag spawn "grows" into a fully grown hag?
The party, after they killed Duro, kept going on about how he was good practice for when they face Strahd. So, the combination of them getting trounced by the hags AND THEN Strahd dealing with the hags like a pesky fly should reinforce that Strahd is not a force to underestimate.
normally it takes years, but Barovia is a domain of dread, so you could have it be literally any length of time
it's super f'd up, hags eat a girl, re-birth her (ewww) as a hagspawn that looks identical, returns her to the family, lets them raise the hagspawn, and then usually she'll be prodded into killing and eating her parents or something else fucked up when reaching maturity then becoming a full hag
You COULD have Morgantha already planted hagspawns out there in the wild, after all hags can only tolerate each other for so long before seeking to replace one or both coven members, if you want to throw in a foreshadowy sidequest about a weird teenage girl in Vallaki who doesn't fit in or get along with anyone, and much later on when the party comes through town the girl's house is a smoking crater with the parents torn to pieces, all roads leading to the hags
I did this once and the party just could. not. accept. that the hag was no longer the child they met earlier in the campaign and it led to some delicious DMing
but since I'm a softy I let them actually successfully redeem the young hag, who reverted to her pre-hag appearance (and they expended a lot of effort, and had some great rolls so...), that's just me being unable to twist a knife after sticking it in a player's heart :biggrin:
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going to use that "innocent man" sidequest to give them the opportunity to place a bet on him (he's desperate for cash and is fairly fit, will tell the players he's sure of his chances and they are to place his and his husbands life savings on him) to give them a wee bit more padding so they can afford a guide of their choice and 2 canoes with some repellent and catchers to go along.
I'm not liking the look of the hex crawl, taking months to get from one side to another whilst hopping from 1 empty hex to another seems like it could wear a group out quickly. Will have to see how it pans out.
Man, that sounds rough. Here's to hoping this prickle gets confined only to D&D and won't spill further.
I mean, part of the shtick with ravenloft is that no matter what you do, it doesn't really make anything better, just different since the demi-plane is effectively working against you; even if you were to kill strahd it would just replace him with someone just as shitty but in a new sort of shitty.
Which isn't to say that you're wrong for not enjoying it just that if you've been gaming for 20 years you should have been aware of ravenloft's reputation.
Yes, but it absolutely sounds like the DM isn't sticking to the book
You are not supposed to just run Curse of Strahd as nothing but unrelenting grimdarkness
I had a session where the party had to watch a small boy be butchered before being force fed the pie made from him
the session after that was basically a beach episode, but in Barovia, in a dark lake filled with an Aboleth, and everyone had a lot of yucks
don't want to follow up that dark session where everyone feels kind of down after getting thrashed directly with the baron throwing kids in stocks, so I delayed a bunch of events in Vallaki
MOST of that comes from the players themselves though, they like to do silly shit
Yes. I am aware of Ravenloft's reputation. I was under the impression though that, this time (us being the big damn hero PC's and not those other chumps who make up the parade of the dead) we would make a difference.
Instead, our DM has decided that the setting is the star of the campaign and not the players. Which, fair enough I suppose, but its not something I was enjoying.
I did not think the conversation would escalate as quick as it did and here we are.
but you gotta throw in little wins in the interim. the landing page for my curse of strahd page for my vtt used to be full of living enemies (and there are more the players haven't faced yet, since im driving this car to level 14)
I have no illusions on my culpability here. I expected A when I got B. And I did not hide my unhappiness as well as I should have to maintain the groups dynamic. And when asked about my unhappiness I was pretty direct about it, more than once. This IRL strife is weighted heavily on me.
I just feel bad that it escalted this much. I didn't think the other half of the group would take it so personally. Alas.
Your mental and emotional health is more important, period.
It is better that you recognized this and ejected, than stuck it out.
If the other players and GM are truly your friends, they'll recognize and understand why you left the game. And if not? That's on them, not you.
If there's no celebration of beauty or other type of romanticist elements, it's not gothic. That sounds like emo horror.
Emo: "nothing we do matters"
Gothic: "then all that matters is what we do."
Based on that thought, I am vaguely thinking I might set up my Warlock's ending as taking control of the realm after Strahd is slain in order to allow the rest of the party (and the Warlock's sister) to escape. And of course, he starts his rule with the best of intentions to try and make the place livable, but he slowly becomes corrupted by the plane preying on his pride because surely he can't fall into the same trap as Strahd. Things must be getting better, and these complaining people are just trying to undermine his authority and ruin all the progress he's made!
The cleric PC in CoS campaign i ran did this and that's exactly correct as to the well intentioned but then...
Everyone makes mistakes.
Have you told them what you've written here?
You appear to sincerely be feeling guilty and bad about this, I think that expressing that to the group would patch over the IRL stuff.
Yes, but I'm not apologizing anymore. My feelings are just as valid as the next group members. My attempts at dialog were met with aggressive dismissal. We'll see what happens after a few days to cool down.
Thanks everyone for your support. Its appreciated.
like one my favorite moments from D&D is when my Aasimar wizard stood before a shocked crowd after we killed Izek and the Baron, and I activated my Aasimar racial and told everyone that it was going to be okay, there was an end to the darkness, and the townsfolk threw us a big party, DM describing them singing throughout the night
somehow I ended up fading to black with the Baron's son (I really wanted access to his spellbook, don't judge me). Vasilli Van Holtz provided much of the entertainment, and Ireena shared a few drinks with him. Danika Martikov cracked open the hidden reserve of red dragon crush and the ancestral flag of Vallaki was thrown up
it's such a simple little scene but it's one the most memorable ones I have from D&D because of how fucking dark the lead up was, and how stressful it was, the Baron was having Izek kill people for associating with us rather than having his men fight us directly, the Rogue stabbed the baron in the middle of town (a huge "oh shiiiit" because we had no idea if we could survive), I accidentally killed a guard, it was a cluster fuck that ended with a reasonably high body count - but the people had been freed from their oppressor and the town was now back under the rule of the kindly (so we thought at the time) Wachter family
Our party was High Elf Ranger (me, trying out Tasha's alternate Ranger, hoping to go Gloomstalker once I hit lvl 3), a Warforged Artificer (planning to go Armorer), a Human Dragonblood Sorcerer and a Human Tempest Cleric. So far we seem to be perfectly balanced for the content: at each restpoint we've used all or most of our resources, a few people went down, but we managed to prevent them from dying (we did get a very lucky roll on a Turn Undead against a group of Ghouls that allowed us to focus kill them one by one). But we're not through yet (one-shots never seem to finish up within one session). Lvl2 now, had planned to go archery, but two-weapon fighting is more fun right now.
Especially if you are starting at 1st level it's very easy for players.
You might want to send your brother in law this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mcolville/videos
Either pick vids that look useful or just scroll down to the start of the "Running the Game" series.
Know that characters at Level 1, pretty much across the board, are made of wet tissue paper. It is very easy for a new DM to overdo combat encounters and accidentally TPK the party.
Once y'all get to 3rd level, everyone starts coming into their classes proper and (mostly) won't get one-shot by a random sword swing.
As for your particular character? Whatever sounds fun, really. Maybe look at Tasha's Cauldron if you are feeling Ranger-y, but otherwise if you haven't played in ever/forever there's plenty of meat in the PHB to work with.
I think as long as the player knows their characters abilities, spells and skills very well then it doesn't make a difference to the DM which book its from. Especially at low level.
Actually that does ring a bell: anyone playing a spellcaster must have ready access to all information about their spells (including stuff like DCs, ranges, concentration, duration etc...) without needing to look it up in the book.
Same is true for all player stats and abilities but with spells it is especially important.
The one Caveat to the book thing is if you use those bookmark tabs that you can stick in the book. I'd allow those. Otherwise, write those spells down, copy them from online source or SOMETHING. I spell caster who doesn't know how their spells work is the biggest time suck in the entire game, next to bickering about rules.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Spell cards, Spell cards, Spell cards!
SPELL CARDS!
The players in my game would literally be unable to use their spells without them.
To be fair, my players are a touch clueless sometimes, and I basically had to plonk the parsed pile of cards in front of each caster and half caster to enable them as such.
Thats a wonderful feature.
But a rogue can be made really simple
1) Cunning action every round (unless you miss then you might twf)
2) Roll sneak attack if your DM tells you to
3) the first time you're hit with a bit hit you uncannily dodge.
My group used to use spell cards. Problem is that the more complex spells have stuff left off the card. That was a fun surprise.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
If you want to use dndbeyond.com - Have the DM make a campaign and then invite me and I can share all of the character creation options.
You can then print off the character sheets and play as though you copied them out of a book. (If you want to keep playing using dndbeyond to progress characters I would need to stay in the campaign so unlocked content persisted)
yes but in my experience monks are actually easier to play, you don't have to worry about positioning, or have the hide rules explained to you, or have surprise re-explained to you 300 times after you insist that assassinate works this time because literally every new player creates an assassin not knowing how surprise works (and frankly 2/3 of 5e DMs don't either)
The resource cost ends up being pretty easy to work out because its equal to your level and everything uses exactly 1 resource, (generally) your to hit doesn't change, your damage bonus doesn't change, you don't tend to have a contextual source of advantage, your damage abilities don't change if you have advantage or disadvantage, etc
like on paper I agree the monk is more complex than fighter, rogue, and barbarian, but in practice I always see new players handle the monk easier than anything except champion fighter because of its consistency (until level 5 when they can forget their monk save dc constantly)
The new separation of race and ability scores at creation (in the Tasha's book I think?) is really nice and you should do that. Consider buying the CMM as well (it's Pay What you Want) and building from there. https://gabejamesgames.itch.io/cmm
Definitely use the Ideals-Bonds-Flaws system and have the players either roll, pick, or come up with a new one that isn't on the list. It's a great way to bootstrap players into early fun RP ideas and gives the DM some easy hooks to engage them.
After they killed Duro, they untied Father Donavich and left him to grieve. When they reached town, they heard the church bell let out a single dong, and then silence. No one mentioned that they picked up on the implications, but the party is starting to get pretty beat down by the gloom and doom and hopelessness (based off the conversations in the thread, I should mention this is in character. The players are having a blast). They met up with Ireena, who had acquired a wagon and horses, and set off for Vallaki. They stopped at the Vistani encampment for the night, where they were treated like long-lost friends and given all the food and drink they could want. The party LOVE the vistani, especially after their first few days in Barovia. They received their fortune telling from Madame Eva and they each got a personalized telling except for the Tatyana reincarnation, the cleric. Instead, Madame Eva took his hands and told him the Dread Doom had its gaze upon him. This spooked the party but they all still believe Ireena is who Strahd is after. After that, they settled down for the night and began going over the fortune telling. Unfortunately, we ended up calling the session early as I started to get a killer migraine. Next session should be Bonegrinder and arriving in Vallaki.
First time since 2014 I'm actually looking forward to a D&D book
You shouldn't approach the hag fight as something they can win, a vampire spawn is an utter chump compared to night hags. The party would have to land critical hits, basically every single one of them, to kill a night hag before it could shift to the ethereal plane to escape, and once the coven is together they can either just pop out and lightning bolt the party into oblivion or follow them in the ethereal plane and Nightmare Haunting them, everywhere except the two hallowed grounds in Barovia (one of which is unhallowed per a quest)
The hags sounds like a perfect opportunity to show the party where they currently are in the pecking order of Barovia
(assuming they're level 3 or 4, a level 5 party could realistically kill a single night hag in one round, but it would require INCREDIBLE luck)
If they aren't in a coven, the night hags should fuck with them and flee at the first sign of real danger to form up as a group of 3. If they want to fight a threat without the whole coven, using etherealness to escape, then pop up far away and fling magic missiles, and flee again before any melee can reach them is a solid option
https://www.themonstersknow.com/hag-tactics/
good read
The group of 3 of them should be a nigh-insurmountable challenge for a party of 6th or lower level, if they all cast lightning bolt your party will mostly be smoking boots with no body attached for sub 50 max hp characters, given the number of slots they have and how fast fights are, I wouldn't mince letting the party cast a spell either - counterspell counterspell counterspell. If they want to have more fun with it, they can all spam hold persons to paralyze the entire party by upcasting it and being choosy, then use point blank auto critical hit ray of sickness to do high poison damage
After a few lightning bolts don't neglect the utility of using a spell slot on Sleep. A party of 5 adventurers with 15 hitpoints left is still very dangerous, but a 5th level sleep will likely put them all out (except elves, but one elf against 3 hags is not a winning position, then the hags can drag them to confinement or do something grizzly like chop off their arms and legs
Special thanks to @Cobalt60 for lending access to cool stuff on D&D Beyond.
Oh! Thanks for the link! And yeah, I think they might be starting to get a little too confident so it's probably time to bring them down a peg or two.
There was an interesting idea I read on reddit I'm kinda toying. The way it would work would be, after the hags defeat the party, they tie them up upstairs with the kids. The hags would torture them, mock them, force feed them pies, etc (my druid player might end up having to quit the campaign due to scheduling conflicts, so the druid might end up getting baked into a pie too). The hags would eventually go downstairs to discuss what to do with the party when the party would hear a crash, a wet ripping noise, and screams. They then would hear a male voice stating he had tolerated the hags' actions in his realm as he cared little for the fate of peasant children. But that they would dare touch his Tatyana was unacceptable and command the hags to release Tatyana and her companions. Then the sound of wings fluttering and silence. Morganatha would then come up stairs and, in a rage, release the players and Ireena and scream at them to leave. On their way out, the players would walk by Bella's decapitated corpse and Offalia cradling her sister's head.
having Strahd offer them the dinner invitation and an apology to Tatyana might be a nice move, if you plan on altering how the dinner goes (I didn't have Strahd do the spooky disappear, hit them with cold damage, attack them with wyrmlings thing - but I was having Strahd try to woo Tatyana/Ireena at the time. The party has only ever faced unpleasantness from him outside of view of her)
on the cradling her sister's head note: hags tend to *hate* each other, upon losing one of them, they would likely seek to rebuild the coven by finding a girl child and eating her, only to birth her again as a hagspawn, to continue the gross life cycle of the hag
Another thing to consider is that if you want the coven to be a fight the party eventually wins, without 3, they're very weak so it wouldn't be that enjoyable of a victory for a post amber temple party- might be a consideration if you want to have Strahd merely thrash or threaten rather than kill them
The party, after they killed Duro, kept going on about how he was good practice for when they face Strahd. So, the combination of them getting trounced by the hags AND THEN Strahd dealing with the hags like a pesky fly should reinforce that Strahd is not a force to underestimate.
normally it takes years, but Barovia is a domain of dread, so you could have it be literally any length of time
it's super f'd up, hags eat a girl, re-birth her (ewww) as a hagspawn that looks identical, returns her to the family, lets them raise the hagspawn, and then usually she'll be prodded into killing and eating her parents or something else fucked up when reaching maturity then becoming a full hag
You COULD have Morgantha already planted hagspawns out there in the wild, after all hags can only tolerate each other for so long before seeking to replace one or both coven members, if you want to throw in a foreshadowy sidequest about a weird teenage girl in Vallaki who doesn't fit in or get along with anyone, and much later on when the party comes through town the girl's house is a smoking crater with the parents torn to pieces, all roads leading to the hags
I did this once and the party just could. not. accept. that the hag was no longer the child they met earlier in the campaign and it led to some delicious DMing
but since I'm a softy I let them actually successfully redeem the young hag, who reverted to her pre-hag appearance (and they expended a lot of effort, and had some great rolls so...), that's just me being unable to twist a knife after sticking it in a player's heart :biggrin: