I'm preparing to run Curse of Strahd and I'm realizing that Strahd is such a complex monster and has such a central role in this adventure that I want to run him as an NPC and use a D&D Beyond character sheet for him. This way I can keep track of his spell slots, prepare new spells as needed, add the Heart of Sorrow as a magic item that uses the temporary hit points feature, etc.

Has anyone already tried this? If so, can you share it with me?

Are all of Strahd's features available in the character sheet or would I have to homebrew it?

Almost none of his features are available on the character sheet Just his wizard stuff. Don't know if any of it has been homebrewed before. Do you have the source material in D&D beyond, or are you running it out of a physical copy? Because if you have CoS in D&D Beyond, you can just use his monster entry. It's not ideal, but at least it has everything you need.

Yeah,  have the content on D&D Beyond. Strahd’s stat block is more like what you would see for a PC sheet than a monster. He also has a pretty lame list of prepared spells considering he has access to the library in the Amber Temple plus the spell books of all the Wizard adventures he’s killed. He also has the heat of sorrows which gives him access to 50 temporary hit points.

So it seems like it would be much easier to manage him using the digital character sheet rather than the monster stat block.

I don’t have Strad unlocked, so I don’t know what his block looks like. But I can help you make the features if you can give me some details.

Thanks! I'll start working on it and let you know if I run into problems I need help with.

Happy to help

Hi! I was looking for a way to build Strahd for digital character sheet also! Did you ever figure this out 😊 I'm fixing to start running in toward the end of October and am struggling with the build 😂

I presume that you’re the DM. Am I correct? If so, why do you want Strahd as a PC sheet instead of either of his monster stat blocks: Strahd von Zarovich or Strahd, Master of Death House?

Yes. I'm DM! 

Mostly for simplicity in tracking spells and also I agree with him functioning more so like an NPC vs a monster. My bug brain will also better retain his abilities through the process of building the sheet like I do my PCs. I found a race in home brew to do for all his abilities and such vamp wose. It's more so the fighter/wizard build.

In this edition of D&D all NPCs are “monsters” by design. They may be called “monsters,” but that’s only because there are only two types of creatures essentially, PCs & everything else (aka: “Monsters”). Most DMs agree that it’s much simpler and easier during sessions to run NPCs (& other Monsters) from a streamlined stat block rather than having to flip back and forth around a PC’s sheet and sift through all the information that, while useful & occasionally necessary for players to have on hand for their PCs, is almost universally superfluous & unnecessary information for DMs in situ. I also like to spec out my NPCs using character sheets, but then whenever possible I take the time to convert & streamline them into stat blocks for ease of use during sessions. However, in this instance, that’s already been done. The only thing that is inconvenient about the digital statblock is that we can’t track spell slots. However, since they’re doing away with spell slots for monsters entirely in favor of uses/day, even that won’t be an issue for long.

The reason I am waxing on about the relative merits and flaws about stat blocks is because, quite frankly, building Strahd as a PC is not very straightforward, as you’ve discovered.

So, I did eventually figure this out. But sadly I deleted the character sheet after we finished. It was tricky though. And in the end, I don't know that it really helped. The thing that helped the most was just understanding that the spell list could be really fluid. He has access to every spell in the PHB and nothing but time on his hands. So there's absolutely no reason he couldn't change that list of prepared spells to match whatever situation he's going into. There's also no reason he couldn't have a basically endless supply of spell scrolls. The Amber Temple was full of them.

When preparing for the final battle with the characters, he would armor up using all the fancy stuff he has in his vault, prepare a combat heavy spell list, and bring a fistful of spell scrolls.

So I don't think there's much point in tracking spell slots for him. If the party has all three magic items from the card reading and they have even a basic sense of tactics, Strahd is going to go down much quicker than he will run out of spell slots. The main thing I learned in running this adventure three times was the advice the book gives that he will attack when the circumstances are most advantageous to him, and he will use the castle as a weapon.

So rather than spend a bunch of time building a character sheet, I would suggest studying the castle in great depth. One of the most potent combinations I read in a guide somewhere was to give him a spell scroll of true seeing, then when the characters are up at the top of the high tower he casts fog cloud and true seeing. They're blind and he can see them and he just starts pushing them off the tower. Or wait until they get into a room full of doors that all shut. Use the lair action to shut and lock all the doors, do the fog cloud and true seeing combination and let him walk through the walls, attack with advantage unseen and go back into the walls.

Anyway, that's my 2cents. After putting in a lot of time building a DDB character sheet for him, I realized my time was better spent just studying his tactics. Forget about spell slots and give him whatever spells you think would be interesting. Don't be afraid to give him a few 6th level spell scrolls and use the castle against them. He goes down faster than you think he will so you can afford to plus him up a bit and fight dirty.

This is honestly such a helpful response and I super appreciate it! Thank you ton. I'm for sure going to work this into my stuff now !