I'm preparing to run Strahd Must Die Tonight; a little late. More of a Nighmare Before Xmas instead of Halloween, but cest la vie. The players have never played in Ravenloft before. Being a timed dungeon run adventure, I'm looking for advice from those who have DM'd Ravenloft as to whether I should make the castle map (but not room contents or encounters) open knowledge to help speed up the game.
Posting some lessons learned from this for anyone thinking about running this themselves.
Ran the game for 4 experienced D&D players, but none had ever played in the Ravenloft setting.
Rules and techniques which worked well:
Started everyone at level 7 (split the difference between a medium and hard game, due to the experience of the players)
Decided not to allow players to take a Sun Blade, which is a Rare magic item, as funding the Sunsword is part of the experience.
Utilized theatre of the mind for many smaller fights, and didn’t worry about dungeon tiles or drawing out the room on a map grid. In playing D&D with the larger group, I’ve observed a lot of game time is often spent attempting to determine the optimal model placement and AOE areas. In a timed format such as this game, that just wouldn’t work.
Because of the time constraints I also greatly limited my room descriptions. It made the game feel more like an arcade game than an RPG, and I think at the cost of some of the “character” and mood of Ravenloft. Another instance of trying to balance for the time constraints and I may have gone too far to the side of being concise.
I let the players skim the big foldout Ravenloft map, but didn’t let them see it the entire time. I wanted them to have a general sense of where the major locations were, but not specifics. In any case, the castle is big enough that they never even explored large sections.
The game format felt open enough to allow for different types of PC classes and party compositions. In this case, the players went with a battle master fighter, moon druid, storm sorcerer, and grave cleric.
I never felt like the PC’s lives were threatened until the final battle with Strahd. I allowed for two short rests, though in retrospect, I’m not sure if I should’ve. If running again, I might tune up the earlier encounters a bit, but it’s also tough balance. The more often combats occur, or more difficult a fight is, the more the players will want to use a battle grid and minis to optimize their moves, and so, the more time taken.
There were problems with the final battle, namely Greater Invisibility on Strahd. The players had found the Sunsword and the Icon of Ravenloft, and so had enough Daylight effects to really put the hurt on everyone’s favorite vampire. Greater Invisibility combined with fireball provided the best counter to that, but that spell can make for a very non-interactive combat encounter if the players aren’t prepared for it (they weren’t). The final combat occurred down in the crypts, and I did allow perception tests to guess his general area when he cast a spell, with an opposed stealth check from Strahd. In one instance, a player did well and I rolled poorly enough to guess within a few blocks. The player opted to use a spell slot to target a single square and guessed correctly (I was tracking Strahd’s hidden movement on my own sheet of graph paper). Strahd ended up losing concentration on his spell and the fight quickly turned against him (no more 4th level spell slots to recast). Because the PC’s didn’t take “See Invisibility” the first 1/2 of the final combat was them healing each other and trying to stay out of fireball formation with Strahd doing all the rolls. The battle was close, and the PC’s only barely pulled it out, but having 1/2 the fight be non-interactive wasn’t the most fun. It’s something I’ll need to consider not just for future Strahd games, but for all future boss fights. Perhaps giving other defensive buffs instead of Greater Invisibility.
Overall, the players did have fun and I could see us running this again.
I'm preparing to run Strahd Must Die Tonight; a little late. More of a Nighmare Before Xmas instead of Halloween, but cest la vie. The players have never played in Ravenloft before. Being a timed dungeon run adventure, I'm looking for advice from those who have DM'd Ravenloft as to whether I should make the castle map (but not room contents or encounters) open knowledge to help speed up the game.
For reference, here's James' post:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/359-strahd-must-die-tonight-how-to-play-ravenloft-in-a
Posting some lessons learned from this for anyone thinking about running this themselves.
Ran the game for 4 experienced D&D players, but none had ever played in the Ravenloft setting.
Rules and techniques which worked well:
Started everyone at level 7 (split the difference between a medium and hard game, due to the experience of the players)
Decided not to allow players to take a Sun Blade, which is a Rare magic item, as funding the Sunsword is part of the experience.
Utilized theatre of the mind for many smaller fights, and didn’t worry about dungeon tiles or drawing out the room on a map grid. In playing D&D with the larger group, I’ve observed a lot of game time is often spent attempting to determine the optimal model placement and AOE areas. In a timed format such as this game, that just wouldn’t work.
Because of the time constraints I also greatly limited my room descriptions. It made the game feel more like an arcade game than an RPG, and I think at the cost of some of the “character” and mood of Ravenloft. Another instance of trying to balance for the time constraints and I may have gone too far to the side of being concise.
I let the players skim the big foldout Ravenloft map, but didn’t let them see it the entire time. I wanted them to have a general sense of where the major locations were, but not specifics. In any case, the castle is big enough that they never even explored large sections.
The game format felt open enough to allow for different types of PC classes and party compositions. In this case, the players went with a battle master fighter, moon druid, storm sorcerer, and grave cleric.
I never felt like the PC’s lives were threatened until the final battle with Strahd. I allowed for two short rests, though in retrospect, I’m not sure if I should’ve. If running again, I might tune up the earlier encounters a bit, but it’s also tough balance. The more often combats occur, or more difficult a fight is, the more the players will want to use a battle grid and minis to optimize their moves, and so, the more time taken.
There were problems with the final battle, namely Greater Invisibility on Strahd. The players had found the Sunsword and the Icon of Ravenloft, and so had enough Daylight effects to really put the hurt on everyone’s favorite vampire. Greater Invisibility combined with fireball provided the best counter to that, but that spell can make for a very non-interactive combat encounter if the players aren’t prepared for it (they weren’t). The final combat occurred down in the crypts, and I did allow perception tests to guess his general area when he cast a spell, with an opposed stealth check from Strahd. In one instance, a player did well and I rolled poorly enough to guess within a few blocks. The player opted to use a spell slot to target a single square and guessed correctly (I was tracking Strahd’s hidden movement on my own sheet of graph paper). Strahd ended up losing concentration on his spell and the fight quickly turned against him (no more 4th level spell slots to recast). Because the PC’s didn’t take “See Invisibility” the first 1/2 of the final combat was them healing each other and trying to stay out of fireball formation with Strahd doing all the rolls. The battle was close, and the PC’s only barely pulled it out, but having 1/2 the fight be non-interactive wasn’t the most fun. It’s something I’ll need to consider not just for future Strahd games, but for all future boss fights. Perhaps giving other defensive buffs instead of Greater Invisibility.
Overall, the players did have fun and I could see us running this again.