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Sunday, May 18, 2025

Strahd is Dead - results, and Next time (past level 10)


A LITTLE HISTORY: 

So we started this Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd campaign between Christmas 2024 and New Years 2025. On May 18, 2025, he was done! 

I never thought I would ever do a Ravenloft/vampire campaign. The look back in the day was just a little off for my DnD tastes, but watching the Nosferatu movie was compelling. We did it, and it was indeed fun. 

Changes: I used the 5e version as an outline, but trimmed it down a lot. And threw in more custom stuff. Dimitar the Wight was a fairly major character, he died in the castle near the end. The Undead Druid/Siabrae named Fellmorn was a cool guy and probably a more epic battle (the kid kinda mentioned). He ended up not being needed to show up to "help save the day" by retrieving a lost Sunsword. Well I kinda realized it's hard to throw the sunsword out the window if you are in the catacombs. Hah. 

The castle was 98% AD&D's I6 Ravenloft module, with just a couple of minor changes that 5e had that were good. 


    FIGHT RESULTS/ Some of the Lead Up:

    The Kid stomped Strahd in the Catacombs area. Was about a 5 hour fight. Fairly satisfying for us both I think.

    Lead up:

    • Map 11 - 
    • Double Iron Golem area... Strahd used Lair Action_Shut Doors to force one of the doors shut. Strahd might have even been there with greater Inviz to push the guy's foot out of the way. 
      • Kid was nervous (I described the golems as slowly grinding awake, some green gas almost leaking from mouth)... but he got out /figured out puzzle in like 2 rounds, no prob. 
    • Watery prison area was interesting. Kid had one guy fall in the slide trap, then decided everybody should stick together so they all piled in. This kept Strahd from coming to charm/nuke a solo guy.
    • I put the villagers who were banging down the front door (and then disappeared) into the southern half the prison-dungeon-watery area in Map 11. Was a good little RP (roleplay) moment, with them calling for help, and then a Strahd-Zombie accidentally teleport-trapping in with one of them. The kid came to the rescue JUST in time, was fun. 
      • Didn't do the standard werewolf in there, though almost did, but it just didn't work out. 
    • He used the Energy bow to traverse above the tport traps, nicely done.
      • Also used it to climb the slipper slide back up, so avoiding the double Iron Golem room (one visit was enough, though he wants to do a "What If" and fight them in a bigger room just for fun). 

    Fight:

    1. Kid got a fireball off to kill probably 200 bats on the ceiling right before/right as Strahd was attempting to send the bats in to attack. 
    2. Strahd got a couple of bites off.
    3. S got a fireball (reskinned as hellfire) off and hit the entire dern party.
    4. Strahd's Wall of Fog spell and ability to move away from Fighter's Sunsword anytime he wanted was crucial to staying alive and healing up a little bit (also completely broken if the DM wanted to TPK over a 20 hour fight or something insane, no thanks). He was down/dmgd 120-140 HP or so (aka, using the alt statblock with 166 HP, he was one or two big hits away from dead) (while in wolf form he took a beating) and hovered around 100 HP the entire fight, with that 20 HP heal each round hidden. 
    5. Strahd sneaked behind the poles in Sergei's area to cast a fireball/hell's fire then duck behind the walls to avoid the Sunsword's sun. Ouch, he totally hit all the characters, too. 
    6. Kid had cast Sickening Radiance (Strahd used Legend.Resist, man I would have been pissed as a solo Warlock player if that had happened to one of my 2 spell slots, Legendary Resist really bites).
      1. Strahd almost dragged the Druid into the sick.radiance successfully b/c he had a grapple, BUT, we learned the rules from Bilbron that you can drop concentration ANYTIME, as in ANYTIME. So he turned it off before Druid took dmg. 
    7. S was able to show up in man-bat form last week and man-wolf form yesterday at the start of the big fight. I was thinking he was just going to retreat completely and heal up to max before going into human form, but decided he'd only hit and run and heal a round or two here or there b/c...
      1. Fog cloud and legendary movement through lair action walls is crazy powerful. 
      2. It allowed for a nice "you almost nuked him in this wolfish form", he transformed into human form as he was beaten down. 
    8. Speaking of, the man-wolf version I think it was, also got stuck in Entangle and couldn't get out forever, failed STR check over and over and over.
      1. After turned into human form due to massive dmg (I think), Finally tried turning into Tiny bat... figured as a DM that he'd be airborne and tiny so the entangle would miss him. 
      2. Then a short while later, that's when human-version grappled the Druid through the fog, got a bite ... 
        1. Immediately after that, the Barb grappled Strahd back...
          1. Icewall pushed Strahd away from Druid, but still stuck by Barb
          2. Barb raging has ADV on STR checks, so Strahd was stuck forever again in grappled (I remember reading online this is THE ONLY way to really beat Strahd). He got surrounded and mauled. Wow. Dead, into mist-form 0HP. 
    9. So it had been a little bit later when Strahd had finally made a mistake and went for one more bite through fog cloud. There was a clear path made by the Elf's Gust of Wind scroll running west to east in front of Sergei's tomb room entrance, but fog existed south of there, which is where Strahd went, but sure enough that got him surrounded and beat down to a pulp b/c grappled by barb with his crazy speed from the bars area, and Strahd couldn't get free. 
    10. Crazy thing was, the Druid turned into an Air Elemental right before Strahd went into mist. This lead to some crazy counter-scenarios:
      1. As an Air creature, I figured he'd feel Strahd's mist form move through him in the obvious direction of the Strahd Coffin way to the west. 
        1. Note, Strahd as Mist was basically inviz in the 3 foot high normal fog in the room/catacombs as described by the books. 
      2. As a flying air creature, when he ran super duper fast (speed 90) over to Strahd's coffin, he skipped right over the teleport traps (I figured they are weight based also, so flying over them wouldn't trigger. I kinda forgot the traps at first anyway, so much was happening). 
        1. He destroyed the coffin b4 Strahd could arrive. 
    11. So when Strahd, in mist form 0 HP form, did arrive at the completely broken up coffin, I didn't want to drag it out like "wait an hour till he died". So for dramatic effect:
      1. He partially appeared in his vamp-human form on the ground where the coffin used to be. Obviously weak and incapacitated. 
      2. On the way there, I changed the Crypt 27 (or was it 28) that had an open door and spiders into the Full Blown Vamp Girl, full Vamp powers/HP. Kinda dangerous. The kid surrounded and mauled her before she could do anything (I probably should have done a surprise round on the elf passing by but did not). 
        1. Actually she did Charm the Fighter, to get him to turn off his sword. That was nice n powerful. 
      3. The elf shot a fire bolt... it hit and Split Strahd's body in half... he was still vaguely moving/alive, though basically paralyzed.
      4. The Druid Air Elemental got the kill blow, used Whirlwind attack for fun and obliterated Strahd's body into a million pieces/dust. =]  We both enjoyed this ending to the troublemaker Strahd. 
    12. RANDOM but MEMORABLE: vs the Vamp girl, kid used Markovia ThighBone and got a super Barbarian Crit, so instead of 3d6, he did 9d6, yes 9d6 damage on a single swing, OMG. He took her down from healthy to about 15 HP, and since that thighbone is a mace of disruption, she had to make a WIS save or be utterly destroyed. Oh yeah, she failed. Poof! 

    ===randomly just found this blog, looks solid "Strahd is Dead" ... I'll read it now that it is too late to get any tips for running it, hah: https://jpchapleau.blogspot.com/2020/06/strahd-is-dead-part-1.html


    ====NEXT TIME, Past Level 10====

     Campaigns past level 10

    • Pathfinder AP Giantslayer…. It goes to lvl 20.

    •  Adventurer’s League, season 7, like 7-90, 7-13, 7-14.  
    • (Dmsguild.com, Narrow results sidebar, pick D&D adventure s league. 

    • Dungeons of mad mage, start floor 10. * careful, mega dungeons take a ton of DM prep, gotta know whole dungeons. 

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