So I'm about to start running a Curse of Strahd campaign with 6 players. I've just gotten the last of their character sheets and every single one of them, except for one person, chose the Fighter class. The other person... chose Barbarian. (I know they're not trolling me, since most of them don't know each other.) This leaves their party with no healers/support, and this module has very limited supplies, often at extreme prices.
How do I approach this? Do I talk to the group and ask if one of them would want play as a magic user? Do I just offer more health potions in loot drops?
Tl;dr my party is a bunch of fighters, how can I keep them from dying immediately???
Tell them that they are mostly fighters then ask if they if they want to change class or characters in general. If not give them more chances to gain health potions and magic items. If they agree then discuss what they are all going to play as spellcasters you don't want three warlocks and three fighters. Make a Session 0 that's how it will start for them.
Six fighters aren’t going to die immediately in COS. That’s a big slab of action economy. And as long as they remember their Second Wind and you make sure they can get a long rest now and then, this setup might be really good for you. The party’s going to put out a very predictable amount of damage per round, which can help you tailor the combat to keep it exciting.
I think a party of fighters can be perfectly viable. Now, I don't know CoS that well so maybe some tweaking r.e the availability of potions early on might be in order.
However, fighters are pretty hearty. Higher AC, more HP, Second Wind, and good damage should offset some of the necessity for healing. With everyone able to dedicate themselves to straight damage dealing, you might see monsters going down faster before any party members go down, or if someone does go down, their fellow fighters should be in a decent position to protect them. The Healer feat would be a good thing any characters can tack onto their build to have some healing as it becomes needed in the later tiers of play. That all should get them through the early levels anyways, and then it should be up to them to use the resources they find to best survive.
Out of fairness to the players though, I would definitely still tell them that it's an all-fighter party, in case that makes anyone wanna change class. I'd definitely still tell them that 5e is pretty forgiving as far as team composition goes, being a far cry from 4e where a Tank, Healer, Controller, and Striker were capital n Necessary if you were to play. That way, if they're really attached to their characters or decide they wanna try and do a mono-class challenge they can, or if they just wanna do normal DnD they can as well.
So yeah, all Fighters isn't necessarily a death sentence. Just all depends on what the players want to do.
There's no reason that they'll die, but it will be a fairly dreary campaign since they have few options. With no Cleric or Paladin they cannot use the Symbol of Ravenkind, and will have a really limited set of abilities to deal with problems in interesting ways. Moreover, they'll find that most of them rarely get to feel special, since everyone else can do what they do.
I'd tell them that there are five Fighters in the party, and ask them whether any of them would like to change class. You may well find that several of them are happy to switch to another class. Mention to them that in order to have moments where they get to shine, it will probably be more fun if there is a range of classes. I think you'll find your players are happy to reevaluate their choices.
Alternatively, ask them to rate how much they want to play a fighter over any other class, on a scale of 1 to 5. On a 4 or 5 they keep playing Fighter. On a 2 or 3, ask them to consider changing. On a 1, tell them that you'd appreciate it if they changed class. If everyone chooses 4 or 5, then let them run an all-fighter party. If you think they're finding it a bit grey and some of them want to change mid-campaign, ramp up the difficulty of encounters to a near impossible level and let 2-3 of them die off early.
I am not concerned that they are going to die right away. The thing that might be boring is that, if someone goes down, they are out of the fight waiting to everyone else to deal with the problem.
It's going to be hard, but the main problems they will have:
Shambling Mound - Someone is going to die, that's a fact. It generally happens, but they are probably filled with melees that are going to charge in and die.
Night Hags encounter - it's already tough, but not being able to heal and without any magical weapons their damage output is going to be awful.
Werewolves - If they find any before getting silvered weapons, they're doomed.
Vampire Spawns - Without magical weapons is a nightmare.
The Abbot - A Deva and a flesh golem, physical attackers nightmare.
Berez - Baba Lysaga is famous for its TPKs, if they are melee heavy, you can count on the TPKs.
It might be interesting to have a grit approach to CoS, but I would try to implement more magical/silvered weapons as rewards to help them and, probably, suggest them to pick up things like the Healer, Inspiring Leader, Cook feats and the Purple Knight subclass (The worst fighter subclass, but the only one that can heal people easily).
And I would ask them optimize.
But it is an interesting approach, would love to run a game like that.
It's also possible that one or more may choose to multiclass when they realize they don't have magic, or may take the Healer feat, or choose a race like aasimar that has inherent healing magic. With enough potions, rests and strategy, an all-martial party can make do.
Still, it doesn't hurt to let everyone know the party makeup and give them a chance to decide how they want to deal with it.
I think your biggest problem is going to be gear. There's not a lot of gear available in the valley, and fighters are quite a gear-dependant class.
Are the five players happy that their fighters will almost certainly never get heavy armour? Are all of the players happy that healing kits and healing potions (if available at all) are going to take all of their hard-earned money?
I played in the start of a CoS game with a heavily-martial party. After the first town, where there was one piece of armour available to purchase (a shield at an extortionate price of 100gp!), a couple of the players just turned into packrats. They looted, and wrote down, everything. Everything. Knives and forks and plates from kitchens. Soap and perfume and bed linen and clothes and lamp oil and brooms and buckets and picture frames. Everything.
I don't know if it is part of the module or not, but there was only one place in the entire valley to get healing potions. And she was creeeeeepy… No herbs grew anywhere in the valley, so we couldn't use the herbalism skill to make potions (though lots of poisonous plants grew, so a poisoners kit would probably have been a good choice :-).
After the loss of several characters, the party ended mostly non-gear-dependant characters. Several barbarians, a rogue, a monk, a necromancer wizard (yeah, I know!).
The main issue with all fighters is there is going to be the lack of magical damage and magical weapons. A lack of healing can be handled by a cautious party but magical damage is required for some monsters. For example there is only 1 [magcitem]sun sword[/magicitem] and they are all going to want it.There are other magical weapons around but they are less certain to find. So I would mainly worry about infighting over loot.
It is not fundamentally a big issue if the players need to be more cautious, run more and work harder to get what they need just warn them of that. If their smart and you extend the factions in barovia to things they could reasonably do then they'll be fine.
If you want to add t the area with more content there are the adventures league modules and they will have more magic weapons, traders and alike for players to engage with but there are also a wide variety of in module options to help them if they seek them out. For example:
Madame Eva's Vistani
Allied but not subservient to strahd they have fortune tellers which can give hints, craftsmen and the ability to leave the mists to engage in trade and alike. There is always a risk that any vistani could be working for strahd so they should not be trusted but their services are invaluable in barovia.
Offer fortune telling services for information gathering. They can cast spells like divination or legend lore if players pay a fee and bring necessary items
For a fee they can seek out and purchase something on your behalf ( you can use xanathars rules but add a complication of strahd finding out)
Keepers of the feather
A secretive group working against strahd, they consist of occultists and wereravens. They are suspicious and pessimistic about outsiders and so only offer help to those who have proven themselves.
Offer occultist services including seances with spells like speak with dead, identify and legend lore if you want add complications like strahd locating them when they use it or a spiritual creature in the mists that attacks when they reach into it
Information services the ravens have spies every where and can give information about the goings on, possibly places other adventurers met their end and alike
The bone grinder witches
The hags of the bone grinder serve the arch fey Ceithlenn not strahd. They have been spying on strahd and building their own power in the region. If you can see past their horrific deeds they are immensely powerful spell casters with connections and spys across barovia.
offer any magical service but always with a price beyond gold. They may want players to collect a child they are owed or make the players pay with a curse
The dusk elves
The last remnants of a dieing race they seek revenge against strahd and the return of Petrova. Elves are ageless and potentially have many skilled craftsmen as well as hidden lore, however help is at the whims of their leader Kasimir Velikov
offer non magical crafting services but the players will need to provide materials and tools as well as help Kasimir.
Other factions include:
ezmerelda and van richten ( information and minor magical services)
the abbot of st markovia ( magical services)
the towns of borovia, vallaki and krezk ( non magical services)
the amber temple ( magical services)
Just come up with rational costs which may include conflict with strahd, having to complete certain quests, curses or extra money.
The only thing that would stop the players, from for example making arrows from the gulthias tree are the npcs there and you as a dm.
Thank you all for your replies! There's a lot of good information here, I'll be sure to keep all of it in mind! I'm definitely going to have a session zero, so we'll see how things shake out after that. I appreciate the help! :)
Like Solar said, of the major magic items only one of them can be used by Fighters.
Do they know they are going into CoS? If they don't know, you could mention that there will potentially be a number of undead encounters and a Paladin or Cleric might be useful. This would make the class and items available to the party without giving away to plot.
That being said, you should not force anybody to change their character if they don't want to. The above posters related how a team of Fighters can still be effective.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I've never found a healer to be particularly useful in 5e. I mean, they're useful, but not significantly more useful than anything else. Healing in combat is almost always a waste as it usually doesn't mean the difference between someone going down or not while reducing the damage output to cast the spell. Healing outside of combat is usually better done with short rests unless you're short on time or the place isn't safe to take an hour to rest.
Also, you have a full party of people who mostly don't know each other, you're running an adventure that's potentially very dark and you aren't having a session zero?
I wouldn't worry about it. They have Second Wind, once per short rest, to recover hit points. And they'll start getting Action Surge at 2nd level, assuming nobody multiclasses. But that comes with its own problems. They won't start with the equipment those other classes normally have. If someone multiclasses into cleric or paladin, they won't have a holy symbol─unless they have one from their background; like Acolyte. That will limit their spellcasting potential.
That said, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is a holy symbol they can use. It can also be attuned to by the likes of Donavich and Sir Godfrey Gwilym, so depending on Strahd's enemy they won't be without it. This is because of a rule found in the Monster Manual.
A monster with the Spellcasting class feature has a spellcaster level and spell slots, which it uses to cast its spells of 1st level and higher (as explained in the Player’s Handbook). The spellcaster level is also used for any cantrips included in the feature.
The monster has a list of spells known or prepared from a particular class. The list might also include spells from a feature in that class, such as the Divine Domain feature of the cleric or the Druid Circle feature of the druid. The monster is considered a member of that class when attuning to or using a magic item that requires membership in the class or access to its spell list.
You can also extend that rule to player characters. For example, an Eldritch Knight could attune to magic items specific to a wizard because they learn and cast spells from the wizard spell list.
I think they'll be fine. Let them sort it all out amongst themselves.
Healing in combat is almost always a waste as it usually doesn't mean the difference between someone going down or not while reducing the damage output to cast the spell.
Healing someone who is at 0 hp, particularly if you can do it with a bonus action, is reliably worth it. Healing someone who isn't at 0 hp is rarely worth it. For out of combat healing, everyone having second wind will generally make it moot.
Rather than taking a sheet of the lists of characters, run an actual session Zero. Discuss the setting and the challenges the party will face. State the level you expect the campaign to go up to and end. Give them an idea they will be fighting quite a bit of undead. State you will not be adjusting the content to match the players choices but will be running the module as designed and they have to figure out how to beat it. Then let the players discuss what they want to play and do.
Play the module as its written and have fun. You might be surprised and the party completely wipes everything OR they get a TPK by level 2. Let the game play out.
I think you should have had the session 0 before the players created characters. If the players plan to be a party that knows each other before events lead them to Barovia then most of the characters (not players) would know that adventuring with a bunch of beefy bros/sisters might be fun but might not last long and be much higher risk.
Most characters (not players) would be smart enough to find a more balanced group of folks to go adventuring or even travel with.
The next issue is that unless you make some big changes to CoS, the party will be in trouble eventually.
First - there are very very few magic weapons in CoS as written and most of these are likely in the Castle where the characters should not go until the end game (getting out is deadly). One of Strahd's group of followers is a pack of werewolves. See the problem? No magic weapons and a group of enemies immune to s/b/p damage from non-magical and non-silvered weapons is a death sentence. The party can't succeed in that scenario.
Second, there are no goods for sale except for items the Vistani occasionally bring in and these are sold at massively inflated prices - the Vistani are also mostly allied with Strahd. There are also no healing potions available. There are two cleric NPCs that might be modified to provide some sort of support but the one in the village of Barovia is unhinged. As a result, upgrading weapons and armor for a party full of fighters is likely impossible unless substantial changes are made to the module.
CoS is generally structured with typically one big fight/day/location in many situations and those can be deadly. Inside, there is only occasionally time for a short rest. I'm not sure how the witch+hut would be anything but a TPK against a party like this one. With no or limited healing in the party, a character that goes down in combat will be rolling death saves and eventually characters will die. So, if the party goes with so many melee characters, they should plan to have backup characters already made.
Finally, the items that make it much easier to take down Strahd require a few specific classes and alignments to make the best use of them. (Having a good cleric in the party would be desirable for example).
----
All that said, it isn't impossible, but the DM would need to significantly modify the module to provide the equipment/magic items/healing potions etc that would be required to make the party effective.
Also, I'm a bit surprised that everyone would choose to be a fighter unless they are all new to the game. In which case a session 0 explaining CoS and the advantages of a balanced party is really essential.
On the other hand, if these are somewhat experienced players, you may be in a situation where a number plan to play wizards - taking two levels of fighter for action surge then taking levels of wizard or other casting class (sorcerer also works) in order to nuke the encounters. Given the design of CoS which tends to be one big encounter/location or day - this could be a great strategy to minimize the threats once they reach character level 7. A party with a barbarian and a couple of fighter/wizard, a fighter/cleric and a fighter/sorcerer, maybe a fighter/rogue might cover all the bases - though I think a straight cleric would be a better choice for at least one character. However, I suspect that it is mostly new players.
First - there are very very few magic weapons in CoS as written and most of these are likely in the Castle where the characters should not go until the end game (getting out is deadly). One of Strahd's group of followers is a pack of werewolves. See the problem? No magic weapons and a group of enemies immune to s/b/p damage from non-magical and non-silvered weapons is a death sentence. The party can't succeed in that scenario.
If the werewolves really worry you then uuse the loup garou werewolf regeneration rules instead of the base werewolf immunity. Basically it means you can damage but not kill werewolves with out a silver weapon meaning they simply require team work and 1 silver weapon.
With strong parties I often give werewolves both the Regen and the immunity.
First - there are very very few magic weapons in CoS as written and most of these are likely in the Castle where the characters should not go until the end game (getting out is deadly). One of Strahd's group of followers is a pack of werewolves. See the problem? No magic weapons and a group of enemies immune to s/b/p damage from non-magical and non-silvered weapons is a death sentence. The party can't succeed in that scenario.
If the werewolves really worry you then uuse the loup garou werewolf regeneration rules instead of the base werewolf immunity. Basically it means you can damage but not kill werewolves with out a silver weapon meaning they simply require team work and 1 silver weapon.
With strong parties I often give werewolves both the Regen and the immunity.
On the other hand, that means that if someone goes EK or picks up a magic weapon, they still need a silver weapon to be able to stand a chance. Meanwhile, anyone with a torch has a theoretical chance against a regular werewolf. And that chance goes up significantly if they get bitten and contract lycanthropy, making them immune to the attacks of werewolves.
First - there are very very few magic weapons in CoS as written and most of these are likely in the Castle where the characters should not go until the end game (getting out is deadly). One of Strahd's group of followers is a pack of werewolves. See the problem? No magic weapons and a group of enemies immune to s/b/p damage from non-magical and non-silvered weapons is a death sentence. The party can't succeed in that scenario.
If the werewolves really worry you then uuse the loup garou werewolf regeneration rules instead of the base werewolf immunity. Basically it means you can damage but not kill werewolves with out a silver weapon meaning they simply require team work and 1 silver weapon.
With strong parties I often give werewolves both the Regen and the immunity.
On the other hand, that means that if someone goes EK or picks up a magic weapon, they still need a silver weapon to be able to stand a chance. Meanwhile, anyone with a torch has a theoretical chance against a regular werewolf. And that chance goes up significantly if they get bitten and contract lycanthropy, making them immune to the attacks of werewolves.
Of course, can't make it too easy for them. The cost of adjusting it to fit them better is a need for them to engage with the silver story element more. If you wanted to be nice you could also make it so the werewolf takes a while to get back up after being downed but that's about as nice as I'd make it personally.
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So I'm about to start running a Curse of Strahd campaign with 6 players. I've just gotten the last of their character sheets and every single one of them, except for one person, chose the Fighter class. The other person... chose Barbarian. (I know they're not trolling me, since most of them don't know each other.) This leaves their party with no healers/support, and this module has very limited supplies, often at extreme prices.
How do I approach this? Do I talk to the group and ask if one of them would want play as a magic user? Do I just offer more health potions in loot drops?
Tl;dr my party is a bunch of fighters, how can I keep them from dying immediately???
Tell them that they are mostly fighters then ask if they if they want to change class or characters in general. If not give them more chances to gain health potions and magic items. If they agree then discuss what they are all going to play as spellcasters you don't want three warlocks and three fighters. Make a Session 0 that's how it will start for them.
Six fighters aren’t going to die immediately in COS. That’s a big slab of action economy. And as long as they remember their Second Wind and you make sure they can get a long rest now and then, this setup might be really good for you. The party’s going to put out a very predictable amount of damage per round, which can help you tailor the combat to keep it exciting.
I think a party of fighters can be perfectly viable. Now, I don't know CoS that well so maybe some tweaking r.e the availability of potions early on might be in order.
However, fighters are pretty hearty. Higher AC, more HP, Second Wind, and good damage should offset some of the necessity for healing. With everyone able to dedicate themselves to straight damage dealing, you might see monsters going down faster before any party members go down, or if someone does go down, their fellow fighters should be in a decent position to protect them. The Healer feat would be a good thing any characters can tack onto their build to have some healing as it becomes needed in the later tiers of play. That all should get them through the early levels anyways, and then it should be up to them to use the resources they find to best survive.
Out of fairness to the players though, I would definitely still tell them that it's an all-fighter party, in case that makes anyone wanna change class. I'd definitely still tell them that 5e is pretty forgiving as far as team composition goes, being a far cry from 4e where a Tank, Healer, Controller, and Striker were capital n Necessary if you were to play. That way, if they're really attached to their characters or decide they wanna try and do a mono-class challenge they can, or if they just wanna do normal DnD they can as well.
So yeah, all Fighters isn't necessarily a death sentence. Just all depends on what the players want to do.
There's no reason that they'll die, but it will be a fairly dreary campaign since they have few options. With no Cleric or Paladin they cannot use the Symbol of Ravenkind, and will have a really limited set of abilities to deal with problems in interesting ways. Moreover, they'll find that most of them rarely get to feel special, since everyone else can do what they do.
I'd tell them that there are five Fighters in the party, and ask them whether any of them would like to change class. You may well find that several of them are happy to switch to another class. Mention to them that in order to have moments where they get to shine, it will probably be more fun if there is a range of classes. I think you'll find your players are happy to reevaluate their choices.
Alternatively, ask them to rate how much they want to play a fighter over any other class, on a scale of 1 to 5. On a 4 or 5 they keep playing Fighter. On a 2 or 3, ask them to consider changing. On a 1, tell them that you'd appreciate it if they changed class. If everyone chooses 4 or 5, then let them run an all-fighter party. If you think they're finding it a bit grey and some of them want to change mid-campaign, ramp up the difficulty of encounters to a near impossible level and let 2-3 of them die off early.
I am not concerned that they are going to die right away. The thing that might be boring is that, if someone goes down, they are out of the fight waiting to everyone else to deal with the problem.
It's going to be hard, but the main problems they will have:
It might be interesting to have a grit approach to CoS, but I would try to implement more magical/silvered weapons as rewards to help them and, probably, suggest them to pick up things like the Healer, Inspiring Leader, Cook feats and the Purple Knight subclass (The worst fighter subclass, but the only one that can heal people easily).
And I would ask them optimize.
But it is an interesting approach, would love to run a game like that.
It's also possible that one or more may choose to multiclass when they realize they don't have magic, or may take the Healer feat, or choose a race like aasimar that has inherent healing magic. With enough potions, rests and strategy, an all-martial party can make do.
Still, it doesn't hurt to let everyone know the party makeup and give them a chance to decide how they want to deal with it.
I think your biggest problem is going to be gear. There's not a lot of gear available in the valley, and fighters are quite a gear-dependant class.
Are the five players happy that their fighters will almost certainly never get heavy armour? Are all of the players happy that healing kits and healing potions (if available at all) are going to take all of their hard-earned money?
I played in the start of a CoS game with a heavily-martial party. After the first town, where there was one piece of armour available to purchase (a shield at an extortionate price of 100gp!), a couple of the players just turned into packrats. They looted, and wrote down, everything. Everything. Knives and forks and plates from kitchens. Soap and perfume and bed linen and clothes and lamp oil and brooms and buckets and picture frames. Everything.
I don't know if it is part of the module or not, but there was only one place in the entire valley to get healing potions. And she was creeeeeepy… No herbs grew anywhere in the valley, so we couldn't use the herbalism skill to make potions (though lots of poisonous plants grew, so a poisoners kit would probably have been a good choice :-).
After the loss of several characters, the party ended mostly non-gear-dependant characters. Several barbarians, a rogue, a monk, a necromancer wizard (yeah, I know!).
That was probably added. There isn't a reliable source for anything costing more than 25 gp.
The main issue with all fighters is there is going to be the lack of magical damage and magical weapons. A lack of healing can be handled by a cautious party but magical damage is required for some monsters. For example there is only 1 [magcitem]sun sword[/magicitem] and they are all going to want it.There are other magical weapons around but they are less certain to find. So I would mainly worry about infighting over loot.
It is not fundamentally a big issue if the players need to be more cautious, run more and work harder to get what they need just warn them of that. If their smart and you extend the factions in barovia to things they could reasonably do then they'll be fine.
If you want to add t the area with more content there are the adventures league modules and they will have more magic weapons, traders and alike for players to engage with but there are also a wide variety of in module options to help them if they seek them out. For example:
Madame Eva's Vistani
Allied but not subservient to strahd they have fortune tellers which can give hints, craftsmen and the ability to leave the mists to engage in trade and alike. There is always a risk that any vistani could be working for strahd so they should not be trusted but their services are invaluable in barovia.
Keepers of the feather
A secretive group working against strahd, they consist of occultists and wereravens. They are suspicious and pessimistic about outsiders and so only offer help to those who have proven themselves.
The bone grinder witches
The hags of the bone grinder serve the arch fey Ceithlenn not strahd. They have been spying on strahd and building their own power in the region. If you can see past their horrific deeds they are immensely powerful spell casters with connections and spys across barovia.
The dusk elves
The last remnants of a dieing race they seek revenge against strahd and the return of Petrova. Elves are ageless and potentially have many skilled craftsmen as well as hidden lore, however help is at the whims of their leader Kasimir Velikov
Other factions include:
Just come up with rational costs which may include conflict with strahd, having to complete certain quests, curses or extra money.
The only thing that would stop the players, from for example making arrows from the gulthias tree are the npcs there and you as a dm.
Thank you all for your replies! There's a lot of good information here, I'll be sure to keep all of it in mind! I'm definitely going to have a session zero, so we'll see how things shake out after that. I appreciate the help! :)
Like Solar said, of the major magic items only one of them can be used by Fighters.
Do they know they are going into CoS? If they don't know, you could mention that there will potentially be a number of undead encounters and a Paladin or Cleric might be useful. This would make the class and items available to the party without giving away to plot.
That being said, you should not force anybody to change their character if they don't want to. The above posters related how a team of Fighters can still be effective.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I've never found a healer to be particularly useful in 5e. I mean, they're useful, but not significantly more useful than anything else. Healing in combat is almost always a waste as it usually doesn't mean the difference between someone going down or not while reducing the damage output to cast the spell. Healing outside of combat is usually better done with short rests unless you're short on time or the place isn't safe to take an hour to rest.
Also, you have a full party of people who mostly don't know each other, you're running an adventure that's potentially very dark and you aren't having a session zero?
I wouldn't worry about it. They have Second Wind, once per short rest, to recover hit points. And they'll start getting Action Surge at 2nd level, assuming nobody multiclasses. But that comes with its own problems. They won't start with the equipment those other classes normally have. If someone multiclasses into cleric or paladin, they won't have a holy symbol─unless they have one from their background; like Acolyte. That will limit their spellcasting potential.
That said, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is a holy symbol they can use. It can also be attuned to by the likes of Donavich and Sir Godfrey Gwilym, so depending on Strahd's enemy they won't be without it. This is because of a rule found in the Monster Manual.
You can also extend that rule to player characters. For example, an Eldritch Knight could attune to magic items specific to a wizard because they learn and cast spells from the wizard spell list.
I think they'll be fine. Let them sort it all out amongst themselves.
Healing someone who is at 0 hp, particularly if you can do it with a bonus action, is reliably worth it. Healing someone who isn't at 0 hp is rarely worth it. For out of combat healing, everyone having second wind will generally make it moot.
Rather than taking a sheet of the lists of characters, run an actual session Zero. Discuss the setting and the challenges the party will face. State the level you expect the campaign to go up to and end. Give them an idea they will be fighting quite a bit of undead. State you will not be adjusting the content to match the players choices but will be running the module as designed and they have to figure out how to beat it. Then let the players discuss what they want to play and do.
Play the module as its written and have fun. You might be surprised and the party completely wipes everything OR they get a TPK by level 2. Let the game play out.
I think you should have had the session 0 before the players created characters. If the players plan to be a party that knows each other before events lead them to Barovia then most of the characters (not players) would know that adventuring with a bunch of beefy bros/sisters might be fun but might not last long and be much higher risk.
Most characters (not players) would be smart enough to find a more balanced group of folks to go adventuring or even travel with.
The next issue is that unless you make some big changes to CoS, the party will be in trouble eventually.
First - there are very very few magic weapons in CoS as written and most of these are likely in the Castle where the characters should not go until the end game (getting out is deadly). One of Strahd's group of followers is a pack of werewolves. See the problem? No magic weapons and a group of enemies immune to s/b/p damage from non-magical and non-silvered weapons is a death sentence. The party can't succeed in that scenario.
Second, there are no goods for sale except for items the Vistani occasionally bring in and these are sold at massively inflated prices - the Vistani are also mostly allied with Strahd. There are also no healing potions available. There are two cleric NPCs that might be modified to provide some sort of support but the one in the village of Barovia is unhinged. As a result, upgrading weapons and armor for a party full of fighters is likely impossible unless substantial changes are made to the module.
CoS is generally structured with typically one big fight/day/location in many situations and those can be deadly. Inside, there is only occasionally time for a short rest. I'm not sure how the witch+hut would be anything but a TPK against a party like this one. With no or limited healing in the party, a character that goes down in combat will be rolling death saves and eventually characters will die. So, if the party goes with so many melee characters, they should plan to have backup characters already made.
Finally, the items that make it much easier to take down Strahd require a few specific classes and alignments to make the best use of them. (Having a good cleric in the party would be desirable for example).
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All that said, it isn't impossible, but the DM would need to significantly modify the module to provide the equipment/magic items/healing potions etc that would be required to make the party effective.
Also, I'm a bit surprised that everyone would choose to be a fighter unless they are all new to the game. In which case a session 0 explaining CoS and the advantages of a balanced party is really essential.
On the other hand, if these are somewhat experienced players, you may be in a situation where a number plan to play wizards - taking two levels of fighter for action surge then taking levels of wizard or other casting class (sorcerer also works) in order to nuke the encounters. Given the design of CoS which tends to be one big encounter/location or day - this could be a great strategy to minimize the threats once they reach character level 7. A party with a barbarian and a couple of fighter/wizard, a fighter/cleric and a fighter/sorcerer, maybe a fighter/rogue might cover all the bases - though I think a straight cleric would be a better choice for at least one character. However, I suspect that it is mostly new players.
If the werewolves really worry you then uuse the loup garou werewolf regeneration rules instead of the base werewolf immunity. Basically it means you can damage but not kill werewolves with out a silver weapon meaning they simply require team work and 1 silver weapon.
With strong parties I often give werewolves both the Regen and the immunity.
On the other hand, that means that if someone goes EK or picks up a magic weapon, they still need a silver weapon to be able to stand a chance. Meanwhile, anyone with a torch has a theoretical chance against a regular werewolf. And that chance goes up significantly if they get bitten and contract lycanthropy, making them immune to the attacks of werewolves.
Of course, can't make it too easy for them. The cost of adjusting it to fit them better is a need for them to engage with the silver story element more. If you wanted to be nice you could also make it so the werewolf takes a while to get back up after being downed but that's about as nice as I'd make it personally.