Note that as written, Esmerelda is a random encounter in the Castle. In particular, you might remove the "unimportant" characters and cut the deck down to just Darklord, Executioner, Innocent (Ireena, of course), and Mists, although this sticks the players with a 1/4 chance of ending up with no ally at all. You could consider modifying these options as well. You'll also want to make sure the Ally is one that can be encountered in the part of the adventure you're running. In this case, remove the 4 of Swords, the 6 of Stars, and the 1 and 4 of Coins.Īs the object of Strahd's desire, Ireena Kolyana (Remember, though - it could be really exciting and fun to discover one of the items immediately!) You might also feel like having to pick through the unimportant crypts is too much of a chore, and you'd prefer to have the Treasures hidden in more interesting places. For example, if you don't want the PCs to have access to a treasure before entering the castle, you could remove the 2 of Stars and the 7 of Coins. Here are the possible (accessible) locations for the Treasures of Barovia:Īmong this group you may wish to remove a few locations. Regardless, you'll need to do at least one fortune reading, but you'll need to make sure the three items and the PC's ally are in accessible places - in essence, you're going through the deck and removing cards with inaccessible results. You'll make one before the adventure and use it if the PCs don't get their fortunes told. If they don't, the tarot reading is still relevant.
Ideally, your PCs will make their way to Madam Eva at the Tser Pool Encampment. That means we only need concern ourselves with Chapters 1-4, along with the Introduction, Epilogue, and Appendices. With this change, we are left with areas A-K on the map accessible and all others unreachable. The second pair of "Gates of Barovia" (the leftmost area B on the map) makes a natural cut-off point for the mists, and we can let mist surround the roads as well, making travel into the woods or towards Mount Ghakis impossible. Since our goal is to bring the players to the castle as soon as possible, we can simply shrink the area bordered by the mists. The cursed land of Barovia is already bordered by deadly fog that makes escape impossible (p. Once you enter Barovia, your only escape is to kill Strahd.
#Running curse of strahd Pc#
In short, each PC ought to start with about 600 GP and maybe one uncommon magic item in addition to their normal starting equipment. If you're creating new level 9 or 10 characters for this adventure, you'll want to check out page 38 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, which suggests starting equipment for level 9 PCs. (Which level? It depends - how hard do you want the adventure to be?) Since the castle is geared for characters from level 9-10, we'll simply start our PCs at that level. In this article I'll be referencing the Curse of Strahd book, as well as map locations on page 35.Ĭurse of Strahd assumes that the characters will travel through the cursed land of Barovia for several levels, gaining experience and allies, before venturing into Castle Ravenloft itself. Depending on your group's play speed, this might take from six to twelve hours - perfect fodder for a long day or a few sessions of adventuring. In this article, I'll walk through the changes you'll need to make in order to run just the "classic" portion of the adventure. The good news is that all the elements you need to run Castle Ravenloft as a one-shot are contained within Curse of Strahd. However, the adventure also spans ten levels and likely months of play for a regular group.Īs a DM, you might wish to run just the original Ravenloft adventure, getting a taste of the unique horror of Barovia without dedicating an entire campaign to it. Instead, players must confront the depressed land of Barovia and a tragic yet irredeemably evil villain. It's completely different from the hack-and-slash heroic fantasy of Tyranny of Dragons or the madcap adventure of Out of the Abyss. Ravenloft introduced the iconic villain Strahd von Zarovich - a vampire lord with a tragic background - and his domain, the cursed castle of Ravenloft.Ĭurse of Strahd is a compelling adventure. In 1983, Tracy and Laura Hickman released Ravenloft for the first edition of "Advanced" D&D and the adventure became an instant classic.
Several of the Fifth Edition adventures released so far are based on adventures from earlier editions of D&D, and Curse of Strahdis no exception. Strahd is easily in the running for D&D's