I'm currently set to run a group of players through 'Curse of Strahd' after they finished the introduction with 'Death House.' Now, prior to 'Death House' (while I was getting myself together), the group was run through a small adventure to kinda kill time. For that, the player that was at the time DMing, provided all the players with a chance to get a special magical item and one player got a magical + 1 long sword (our Paladin). This was something I effectively inherited and against my own misgivings, I let the player keep it. In addition, when we made the DM switch, the DM turned player - good guy - made a case for himself to start with a silver rapier and 10 silvered arrows. I went along with this again.
Having now seen the party in action as they cleared 'Death House,' I feel I made a considerable mistake. By example, it's fairly pointed out that damage resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing that is overcome by Silver or Magical weapons, accounts for more of a monsters CR at the lower levels than it does at the higher levels. Simultaneously, CoS is pretty stingy with the magic weapons available, and finding even silver weapons is pretty rare. So this is what I've done.
I let both players in possession of the starting Silver Rapier and the +1 long sword know I am removing those items, at an exchange: I put forward a list of uncommon magic items (Keoghtom's Ointment, a Hewards Handy Haversack or Bag of Holding, a Lantern of Revealing, and a Robe of Useful Items) for the party to get at start. As well, the sole silver short sword found in 'Death House' can be "transmogrified" into a silver rapier or long sword instead of it's current form.
Now, I feel that overall I am being exceedingly generous. But I also feel very guilt for having said that the players can start with something that I am now taking away from them. I have every intention of *never* repeating this in future, and am only doing it now because I feel that to keep an extra silver weapon and a magical one will somewhat rob the players of the 'Curse of Strahd' experience. The game has not yet started with any of these changes, and so I'm looking to the community to offer what opinion and judgement of the actions I'm looking at taking here. I very much look forward to whatever responses are offered.
I would say as a newer DM myself, which is running a completely homebrew world. Sometimes its ok to let stuff get overpowered or even slightly powered. My level 8 pcs all have magical weapons in a campaign built around vampires and lycans. I just adjust the monsters with more HP and fun little changes. Sometimes letting people have something powerful lets the drama build when they get swarmed or overwhelmed. The goal, IMO, as a DM is to give the player many paths and to sometimes cause fear and tell the story you really want to tell. I would personally suggest never removing something as mundane as plus 1 weapons or silvered weapons after you granted them already. As a player that has been something that has made me want to leave campaigns. The job is to Adapt and tell the story and have fun! Remember you are not trying to win your just telling the fantastic story.
Even with magical weapons my party of 6 level 7s had a hard time fighting these big beauties.
You can always just boost the threats, it's not like PCs don't have methods of dealing with resistance to normal weapons by level 3 anyway. It's an issue in Death House because a ghost or spectre is a lot less scary with a magic weapon, but most of the mid level stuff in CoS doesn't care that much about resistance to normal weapons anyway.
I was thinking about doing something like just secretly adding hit points to the monsters with weapon DR as you suggested, but overall felt that would just sort of serve to possibly frustrate the players. At least this way, I'm keeping my honesty apparent. And I obviously explained why I was making the change as I was. Lastly, it should be noted that 'Curse of Strahd' is very much it's own thing, and the idea is absolutely that players have to contend with monsters which they have no way - at start - of penetrating that same DR.
You should always feel comfortable making changes to encounters (tweaking hp/damage etc).
I would have probably left the items. For the arrows, you could easily just say that mending them doesn't work in barovia so they become a limited resource. For the +1 sword, perhaps that intrigues the villain who know wants to challenge that character a bit more, or perhaps that sword has a chance to become one of the relics (no spoilers) in Barovia that the characters may need. It had been taken away and is more mundane outside of barovia, but in the right hands, in the right place....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Honesty in DMing is not necessarily necessary. Your job is to create a fun experience for a group of players. You have many tools at your disposal to do that with and one of them is adjusting challenges to remain appropriate for your specific group. It is my opinion, that adding HP or other behind the curtain changes are preferable to overt actions like removing equipment. The problem I would point out with any of this is really more with any players that are now under equipped. it is not fun to be showed up for a few levels by most of the group because you had the misfortune of not acquiring a reasonable weapon early on. I would suggest making sure everyone reaches a similar power level quickly, leave the items they have already obtained, and adjust challenges as needed.
This will also give them the impression that they have managed to gain a real advantage in a hard situation when the reality is your adjustments keep the game at a consistent balance.
LOL I feel like I have been running hard mode. My CoS group just hit level 7. It has only been in levels 6 and 7 that most of the group has acquired magical weapons of some sort.
I would let them have them. I had more than a few times I was running combat and was like 'uh, is this a little much? Am I going to TPK?" Let them feel heroic...then when they hit real challenges it will be kind of a shock to them.
The Fortunes of Ravenloft can make a rather large difference in difficulty, particularly the location of the Sun Sword. If you get the 4 of swords, it's both a super obscure hint, and also a location you aren't likely to visit until very late in the campaign even if you figure it out. On the other hand, pull the 7 of stars and you might have it by level 5.
I don’t know any CoS locations or storyline, but would it be possible to say those weapons were stolen by someone? This would require buy in from the players, as most would instinctively protest “I sleep with my sword in hand! My Passive Perception is too high! I took the Alert feat! No common thief could steal from me in my sleep!”” But I don’t think they’d mind this as a walkback of the ruling. it gives a story reason for the blades to be out of play, and gives them the chance to get them back soon-ish, while preserving the struggle of low-level play. Let the players keep the arrows as a limited resource, but the blades got lifted in their sleep. Now instead of a total loss to their characters, they have a personalized story arc, a possible new side quest and can hunt them down and get them back after a few levels of work without them. This presumes the Locate Object spell isn’t in play, or it’ll take some abjuration against divination spells.
Again, I don’t know anything about Strahd except “Strahd”, “Ravenloft”, “Barovia” and “Death House” so I don’t know who would be able to/want to steal their weapons, or where they could go to find them again. But if I were making this up from scratch, I’d say two brothers whose father was killed by a vampire saw the blades being carried by the party, recognized their only hope of revenge, and stole them while they slept, leaving a note, and maybe mundane items or money in their place. They then disappear for a few levels of play. (That part will need to be made clear. This is a narrative reason to remove the swords, not a story hook for their next quest.) Then one day, the party happens across two brothers holding an injured vampire at sword point (or one down, one barely hanging on about to be beaten by this vampire) and has a chance to intervene and get their weapons back.
I think the book mentions the party should encounter Strahd regularly as he "plays" with them and tests them.
During their first fight against him, let the one with the silvered weapon attack him, hit him and watch as Strahd pulls the silvered rapier out of his chest.
"Silvered, huh? How ordinary. Do you think I am one of those lesser beasts? How insulting. And disappointing." And with a quick flip of his wrist he snaps the silvered blade in two.
The weapon still exists, but they have to find a smith capable of repairing it. And Strahd just got a lot more impressive.
For the magic sword, Strahd could comment on it.
"A fine weapon for a Paladin. Forged in fire, bathed in blood. And always hungry." At the sound of the Dark Lord's voice you feel something stir inside the blade. As if a dormant beast awakened. And you feel a sensation of hunger rise inside you.
The sword is still magical, it's still +1 but it needs to end a life every time it is drawn or it will kill its bearer. For added flavor make the sword become stronger as the party progresses, or with the lifes it eats.
That means it is a fearsome weapon against living creatures like hags and werewolves, but is useless against undead unless the Paladin wants to die... or sacrifice one of his allies.
-> Strahd seems intimidating
-> the "problem" weapons are not a balance problem anymore
-> you have an awesome dark artifact and potential for the Paladin's character development (e.g. whole party surrounded by undead. The magic sword could kill the undead, but one living person has to die for it)
-> you have a new plot hook (Silversmith) to draw the party to a point of interest
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Background:
I'm currently set to run a group of players through 'Curse of Strahd' after they finished the introduction with 'Death House.' Now, prior to 'Death House' (while I was getting myself together), the group was run through a small adventure to kinda kill time. For that, the player that was at the time DMing, provided all the players with a chance to get a special magical item and one player got a magical + 1 long sword (our Paladin). This was something I effectively inherited and against my own misgivings, I let the player keep it. In addition, when we made the DM switch, the DM turned player - good guy - made a case for himself to start with a silver rapier and 10 silvered arrows. I went along with this again.
Having now seen the party in action as they cleared 'Death House,' I feel I made a considerable mistake. By example, it's fairly pointed out that damage resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing that is overcome by Silver or Magical weapons, accounts for more of a monsters CR at the lower levels than it does at the higher levels. Simultaneously, CoS is pretty stingy with the magic weapons available, and finding even silver weapons is pretty rare. So this is what I've done.
I let both players in possession of the starting Silver Rapier and the +1 long sword know I am removing those items, at an exchange: I put forward a list of uncommon magic items (Keoghtom's Ointment, a Hewards Handy Haversack or Bag of Holding, a Lantern of Revealing, and a Robe of Useful Items) for the party to get at start. As well, the sole silver short sword found in 'Death House' can be "transmogrified" into a silver rapier or long sword instead of it's current form.
Now, I feel that overall I am being exceedingly generous. But I also feel very guilt for having said that the players can start with something that I am now taking away from them. I have every intention of *never* repeating this in future, and am only doing it now because I feel that to keep an extra silver weapon and a magical one will somewhat rob the players of the 'Curse of Strahd' experience. The game has not yet started with any of these changes, and so I'm looking to the community to offer what opinion and judgement of the actions I'm looking at taking here. I very much look forward to whatever responses are offered.
I would say as a newer DM myself, which is running a completely homebrew world. Sometimes its ok to let stuff get overpowered or even slightly powered. My level 8 pcs all have magical weapons in a campaign built around vampires and lycans. I just adjust the monsters with more HP and fun little changes. Sometimes letting people have something powerful lets the drama build when they get swarmed or overwhelmed. The goal, IMO, as a DM is to give the player many paths and to sometimes cause fear and tell the story you really want to tell. I would personally suggest never removing something as mundane as plus 1 weapons or silvered weapons after you granted them already. As a player that has been something that has made me want to leave campaigns. The job is to Adapt and tell the story and have fun! Remember you are not trying to win your just telling the fantastic story.
Even with magical weapons my party of 6 level 7s had a hard time fighting these big beauties.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/689984-vampire-brute
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/707309-vampire-brute-alpha
You can always just boost the threats, it's not like PCs don't have methods of dealing with resistance to normal weapons by level 3 anyway. It's an issue in Death House because a ghost or spectre is a lot less scary with a magic weapon, but most of the mid level stuff in CoS doesn't care that much about resistance to normal weapons anyway.
I was thinking about doing something like just secretly adding hit points to the monsters with weapon DR as you suggested, but overall felt that would just sort of serve to possibly frustrate the players. At least this way, I'm keeping my honesty apparent. And I obviously explained why I was making the change as I was. Lastly, it should be noted that 'Curse of Strahd' is very much it's own thing, and the idea is absolutely that players have to contend with monsters which they have no way - at start - of penetrating that same DR.
You should always feel comfortable making changes to encounters (tweaking hp/damage etc).
I would have probably left the items. For the arrows, you could easily just say that mending them doesn't work in barovia so they become a limited resource. For the +1 sword, perhaps that intrigues the villain who know wants to challenge that character a bit more, or perhaps that sword has a chance to become one of the relics (no spoilers) in Barovia that the characters may need. It had been taken away and is more mundane outside of barovia, but in the right hands, in the right place....
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Honesty in DMing is not necessarily necessary. Your job is to create a fun experience for a group of players. You have many tools at your disposal to do that with and one of them is adjusting challenges to remain appropriate for your specific group. It is my opinion, that adding HP or other behind the curtain changes are preferable to overt actions like removing equipment. The problem I would point out with any of this is really more with any players that are now under equipped. it is not fun to be showed up for a few levels by most of the group because you had the misfortune of not acquiring a reasonable weapon early on. I would suggest making sure everyone reaches a similar power level quickly, leave the items they have already obtained, and adjust challenges as needed.
This will also give them the impression that they have managed to gain a real advantage in a hard situation when the reality is your adjustments keep the game at a consistent balance.
LOL I feel like I have been running hard mode. My CoS group just hit level 7. It has only been in levels 6 and 7 that most of the group has acquired magical weapons of some sort.
I would let them have them. I had more than a few times I was running combat and was like 'uh, is this a little much? Am I going to TPK?" Let them feel heroic...then when they hit real challenges it will be kind of a shock to them.
The Fortunes of Ravenloft can make a rather large difference in difficulty, particularly the location of the Sun Sword. If you get the 4 of swords, it's both a super obscure hint, and also a location you aren't likely to visit until very late in the campaign even if you figure it out. On the other hand, pull the 7 of stars and you might have it by level 5.
I don’t know any CoS locations or storyline, but would it be possible to say those weapons were stolen by someone? This would require buy in from the players, as most would instinctively protest “I sleep with my sword in hand! My Passive Perception is too high! I took the Alert feat! No common thief could steal from me in my sleep!”” But I don’t think they’d mind this as a walkback of the ruling. it gives a story reason for the blades to be out of play, and gives them the chance to get them back soon-ish, while preserving the struggle of low-level play. Let the players keep the arrows as a limited resource, but the blades got lifted in their sleep. Now instead of a total loss to their characters, they have a personalized story arc, a possible new side quest and can hunt them down and get them back after a few levels of work without them. This presumes the Locate Object spell isn’t in play, or it’ll take some abjuration against divination spells.
Again, I don’t know anything about Strahd except “Strahd”, “Ravenloft”, “Barovia” and “Death House” so I don’t know who would be able to/want to steal their weapons, or where they could go to find them again. But if I were making this up from scratch, I’d say two brothers whose father was killed by a vampire saw the blades being carried by the party, recognized their only hope of revenge, and stole them while they slept, leaving a note, and maybe mundane items or money in their place. They then disappear for a few levels of play. (That part will need to be made clear. This is a narrative reason to remove the swords, not a story hook for their next quest.) Then one day, the party happens across two brothers holding an injured vampire at sword point (or one down, one barely hanging on about to be beaten by this vampire) and has a chance to intervene and get their weapons back.
I think the book mentions the party should encounter Strahd regularly as he "plays" with them and tests them.
During their first fight against him, let the one with the silvered weapon attack him, hit him and watch as Strahd pulls the silvered rapier out of his chest.
"Silvered, huh? How ordinary. Do you think I am one of those lesser beasts? How insulting. And disappointing." And with a quick flip of his wrist he snaps the silvered blade in two.
The weapon still exists, but they have to find a smith capable of repairing it. And Strahd just got a lot more impressive.
For the magic sword, Strahd could comment on it.
"A fine weapon for a Paladin. Forged in fire, bathed in blood. And always hungry." At the sound of the Dark Lord's voice you feel something stir inside the blade. As if a dormant beast awakened. And you feel a sensation of hunger rise inside you.
The sword is still magical, it's still +1 but it needs to end a life every time it is drawn or it will kill its bearer. For added flavor make the sword become stronger as the party progresses, or with the lifes it eats.
That means it is a fearsome weapon against living creatures like hags and werewolves, but is useless against undead unless the Paladin wants to die... or sacrifice one of his allies.
-> Strahd seems intimidating
-> the "problem" weapons are not a balance problem anymore
-> you have an awesome dark artifact and potential for the Paladin's character development (e.g. whole party surrounded by undead. The magic sword could kill the undead, but one living person has to die for it)
-> you have a new plot hook (Silversmith) to draw the party to a point of interest