So dming a curse of stradh campaign and my players adopted a cat in like the second or third sessions and have been obsessed with it, I’ve used it as a hook for a some sub plots and had to give it a whole backstory and character voice because they prioritized learning speak with animals asap.
Im debating having Stradh kill the cat either in just an act of cruelty or as collateral damage, is that too old hat to give the players are reason personally hate the BBEG or just a classic for a reason?
It would depend on your party, mine didn’t initially have any boundaries when i pitched CoS but they ended up with the monkey from a certain NPC, and suddenly animal cruelty was off the table. So your players may take it personally. I instead killed of NPCs and played it that there actions went against Strahd’s rules
well i guess it's totally in Strahd style to kill the companion just to make party fell bad. Having fun with guests until they lord soth type of guests is one of few things he left in his life
Though kill animal companion only if - 1. you established animal cruelty at session zero. 2. you absolutely sure all party members would be ok with it rather than hurt, if you say player is just obsessed than very likely killing cat without his permission and ooc discussion in pm would likely just be treated like "DM suddenly killed my cat, why he hate me?"
A corollary, I couldn't get players in one game to show much concern for a pair of NPC houndmasters. But once the dogs themselves were threatened? Oh boy! :)
But that certainly doesn't answer your question.
I'd say it really depends on your players. Most players would probably be at least somewhat upset/annoyed by killing off the animal they had befriended. Some could be extremely upset. So yeah, back to your knowledge of your players...
Do, it, kill the cat. but give them a scroll of revivify a session or 2 prior. It puts it in the players hands as to how much they care for the companion whilst making them hate Stradh. But then personally I would say he's off limits after that, they clearly want him there.
Stradh obviously needs to disappear pretty quickly to allow them to use the scroll though. This happened to me in a previous campaign off the back of Mines of Phandelver, the players adopted Droop the Goblin (a minor NPC who was held slave to some hobgoblins). They naturally found a scroll of revivify, and a few sessions later I killed off Droop because having him tag along was so annoying to DM, but I didn't realise how much the players were attached to him, and they used the scroll at level 3 to bring him back
That is an extremely bad idea that will just train your players to never get attached to any NPC in your games.
Story wise, Strahd has absolutely no motivation to kill the cat. Strahd is trolling the characters trying to determine if any of them are suitable to be his replacement. At most he would pick one and offer them a choice where one of the options is they kill it, in an attempt to gauge their ability to make the hard decisions. Maybe he'd kidnap the cat and offer it to the party in exchange for Ireena.
The party doesn't need to hate Strahd. The story is centered around them getting to know Strahd and what led to Strahd being cursed. Whether they love him or hate him, they either defeat him or they're stuck in Barovia forever. Even after death. If Strahd turns Ireena then he will send his army through the mist to conquer the party's homeworld.
So dming a curse of stradh campaign and my players adopted a cat in like the second or third sessions and have been obsessed with it, I’ve used it as a hook for a some sub plots and had to give it a whole backstory and character voice because they prioritized learning speak with animals asap.
Im debating having Stradh kill the cat either in just an act of cruelty or as collateral damage, is that too old hat to give the players are reason personally hate the BBEG or just a classic for a reason?
It would depend on your party, mine didn’t initially have any boundaries when i pitched CoS but they ended up with the monkey from a certain NPC, and suddenly animal cruelty was off the table. So your players may take it personally. I instead killed of NPCs and played it that there actions went against Strahd’s rules
Honestly, the cat probably works for Strahd.
well i guess it's totally in Strahd style to kill the companion just to make party fell bad. Having fun with guests until they lord soth type of guests is one of few things he left in his life
Though kill animal companion only if - 1. you established animal cruelty at session zero. 2. you absolutely sure all party members would be ok with it rather than hurt, if you say player is just obsessed than very likely killing cat without his permission and ooc discussion in pm would likely just be treated like "DM suddenly killed my cat, why he hate me?"
A corollary, I couldn't get players in one game to show much concern for a pair of NPC houndmasters. But once the dogs themselves were threatened? Oh boy! :)
But that certainly doesn't answer your question.
I'd say it really depends on your players. Most players would probably be at least somewhat upset/annoyed by killing off the animal they had befriended. Some could be extremely upset. So yeah, back to your knowledge of your players...
Do, it, kill the cat. but give them a scroll of revivify a session or 2 prior. It puts it in the players hands as to how much they care for the companion whilst making them hate Stradh. But then personally I would say he's off limits after that, they clearly want him there.
Stradh obviously needs to disappear pretty quickly to allow them to use the scroll though. This happened to me in a previous campaign off the back of Mines of Phandelver, the players adopted Droop the Goblin (a minor NPC who was held slave to some hobgoblins). They naturally found a scroll of revivify, and a few sessions later I killed off Droop because having him tag along was so annoying to DM, but I didn't realise how much the players were attached to him, and they used the scroll at level 3 to bring him back
That is an extremely bad idea that will just train your players to never get attached to any NPC in your games.
Story wise, Strahd has absolutely no motivation to kill the cat. Strahd is trolling the characters trying to determine if any of them are suitable to be his replacement. At most he would pick one and offer them a choice where one of the options is they kill it, in an attempt to gauge their ability to make the hard decisions. Maybe he'd kidnap the cat and offer it to the party in exchange for Ireena.
The party doesn't need to hate Strahd. The story is centered around them getting to know Strahd and what led to Strahd being cursed. Whether they love him or hate him, they either defeat him or they're stuck in Barovia forever. Even after death. If Strahd turns Ireena then he will send his army through the mist to conquer the party's homeworld.
You can, but it's like the John Wick movies.
The directors were interviewed after the second movie released and were asked about whether they were ever thinking of killing Wick's second dog.
They said, "No you only ever get to kill one dog."