I DM for a small group of friends and recently one of them brought up that he saw the Curse of Strahd revamped and really wanted to get it for us to play. The others in the group seemed really down with it but they all wanted to be a vampire or werewolf or even some other type of creature of the night. I don't know a lot about the module yet and I was wondering if having them be a vampire/werewolf would take away a lot from the module or make it impossibly hard for them?
You could probably come up with something in a pinch but the module is designed with the opposite in mind and you might need to rewrite it and the motivations of all the NPCs to accommodate a party of vampires/werewolves.
The primary antagonist of the entire Curse of Strahd is Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire, if not the first and original vampire. Strahd controls all of the undead in his domain, all the vampires/werewolves/zombies and other undead are his servants. In fact, the entire demiplane of dread which Strahd inhabits is at least partially a product of Strahd's mind enabled by the dark powers whom he serves.
There are various vampires and vampire spawn who play a role in the module as enemies.
There is a tribe of werewolves that forces human children to fight to the death so that the last standing can be bitten and converted to a werewolf.
The entire world is full of evil creatures doing evil things. The original intent of the module is for the players to find themselves stranded in Barovia. The only hope and possible escape they have is to defeat Strahd. There are a variety of artifacts and magical items in Barovia to assist with this task. Items that turn vampires, a sunsword that emits sunlight, holy symbols usable only by good aligned creatures. Without these, a normal party has little chance of defeating Strahd.
The entire module is built around this narrative of the party of characters gaining power/strength and magic items to ultimately succeed in defeating Strahd and freeing the Barovians from his reign of terror and despair, if only for a short while, and allowing the characters to escape.
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It would be possible to completely rewrite the adventure to have the party be a group of monstrous creatures trying to overthrow Strahd and take his place as rulers of the demiplane. However, vampires and werewolves require magic damage (werewolves are immune to mundane damage), so very few of the existing encounters would be even remotely challenging as written for a party of monstrous adventurers. In addition, I'm not sure what motivation would fit the players - why are they in Barovia? Do they want to be trapped for eternity the way Strahd is? Why would they even want to rule a demiplane when they can exist elsewhere? (Unless they were forced here by hunters trying to destroy them?). Why would they not form an alliance with Strahd to eliminate the hunters rather than trying to defeat Strahd and replace him?
Anyway, there is also the potential for characters to be turned into vampires or werewolves within the module - however, since these creatures of the dark are all subservient to Strahd, you would need to change things up somehow to get it to work.
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TL;DR Running vampire/werewolf characters isn't impossible but would likely require almost a complete re-write of CoS to make it work. (at least in my opinion).
It would definitely throw a wrench into the mix, due to the benefits of being a vampire or werewolf. One way it would be interesting is if the entire party was vampires they would have a difficult time making use of radiant weapons against Strahd.
Other things you might suggest to your party if you aren't sure about letting them be monstrous:
1) Use the Dhampir UA lineage (this will be official in the new book in May and corrections can be made later)
2) Consider allowing the Blood Hunter class from D&D beyond. I have always been curious how this would mesh with CoS.
3) If they want to play a quasi-evil character from Barovia, consider making a human variant that fits the Vistani people (perhaps able to cast Hex or something similar due to their ability to curse others).
Also, because CoS has both vampires and werewolves in it, you could simply tell your party that they cannot START as one of those things, but that they could become one as the story plays out
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Personally, since it doesn't sound like anybody in the group has played through Curse of Strahd yet, I would recommend having them play the adventure as normal characters as a first time run through. This first run would give the players and DM a chance to explore the various places as well as learn a lot of the history behind the places and the people from there. After they finish this first campaign, either win or lose, then they can replay as vampires, werewolves, and whatnot.
Second set of characters can be leftover minions after the first group of adventurers made their way through Barovia. Or they could be completing tasks during the same timeframe that the adventurers are completing their missions. Or, if the original adventuring party fails to defeat Strahd, then these vampire and werewolf characters might be the same people, who are now cursed by undeath or lycanthrope within Barovia...
But that's just my own thoughts having run a few CoS campaigns already. I'm not sure I would want to rewrite so much on my very first playthrough.
I DM for a small group of friends and recently one of them brought up that he saw the Curse of Strahd revamped and really wanted to get it for us to play. The others in the group seemed really down with it but they all wanted to be a vampire or werewolf or even some other type of creature of the night. I don't know a lot about the module yet and I was wondering if having them be a vampire/werewolf would take away a lot from the module or make it impossibly hard for them?
Why would vampires minions be trying to over throw their Liege Lord? If they want to do this, don't buy the book. Create a Vampire Lord. Create a couple of different size and leveled PC partiers and go adventure hunting. AkA Reverse Dungeon where the party are the monsters. Having either of the two options would put the book on very easy setting.
2) Consider allowing the Blood Hunter class from D&D beyond. I have always been curious how this would mesh with CoS.
It's awesome. I currently have a level 5 Blood hunter / 1 Articifer. I went var human and Order of the Ghostslayer. The lvl 1 feat I took was Crossbow expert and then sharpshooter at lvl 4. The damage output using a hand crossbow against undead is amazing - 3d6+4 from the rite, and then 10 from sharpshooter. plus 2 or 3 attacks per round if I use my bonus action. It's insanely good.
As a vampire? No, those are way too powerful. Even spawn have a regeneration which would make regular combat (until you get Sunblade/Holy Symbol and have to be careful) painfully easy. As a werewolf? Eh, I'd work with your DM on that. Werewolves don't have to ally with Strahd just because they are werewolves. The ones in Barovia do because he is so overwhelmingly powerful that they have to submit. However, being a werewolf doesn't just make you somewhat stronger than a regular human. It also warps your mind to the point that you have a psychological need to prey upon sentient humans, not even for hunger, but out of a feral rage. Even in Eberron, which goes out of its way to subvert the usual alignment tropes, being turned into a lycanthrope is NOT something that you want to happen to you if you want to live among normal people.
When I played Curse of Strahd with my group, my Dwarf Oath of Ancients Paladin got turned into a werewolf and it was EPIC. Granted not everyone in the group was a vampire or werewolf so that would probably be a very different experience. On our first session the group just got to Borovia and is completely confused etc.. we're investigating a church looking for a priest, my paladin is watching for danger at the door. I got completely blindsided by a wolf and dragged a few feet away. Honestly didn't think much of it, till a later session when my DM told me privately. We started dropping hints and then even later while we were camping for the night I turned and attacked my party. I didn't kill or turn anyone because I rolled terribly and didnt use the stat block really correctly, but it was still an awesome moment and it provided a really interesting dynamic for the rest of the campaign.
Now the DM who ran that campaign had run CoS a few times before, was very very good at setting the correct mood, and at least half of our group died over the course of the campaign. So for a first time that might be a hard balance to strike. I don't think allowing PCs to be or be turned into Vampires or Werewolves is game breaking or anything, however, its definitely more work on the DMs part and could be hard to manage.
There is ample opportunity to turn players into werewolves and "vampires" in the module, but the theme and tone of the module as written really doesn't lend itself well to having players start as those things, and if that is your players interest, you're going to have to do a LOT of work to rewrite things to make sense.
By the end of my Curse of Strahd campaign, Two players were lycanthropes and a major NPC had been turned into a Vampire Spawn.
The module is really built around Gothic Horror, which is hard to accomplish when your players get to play the very beasties that they should be running from.
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I DM for a small group of friends and recently one of them brought up that he saw the Curse of Strahd revamped and really wanted to get it for us to play. The others in the group seemed really down with it but they all wanted to be a vampire or werewolf or even some other type of creature of the night. I don't know a lot about the module yet and I was wondering if having them be a vampire/werewolf would take away a lot from the module or make it impossibly hard for them?
You could probably come up with something in a pinch but the module is designed with the opposite in mind and you might need to rewrite it and the motivations of all the NPCs to accommodate a party of vampires/werewolves.
The primary antagonist of the entire Curse of Strahd is Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire, if not the first and original vampire. Strahd controls all of the undead in his domain, all the vampires/werewolves/zombies and other undead are his servants. In fact, the entire demiplane of dread which Strahd inhabits is at least partially a product of Strahd's mind enabled by the dark powers whom he serves.
There are various vampires and vampire spawn who play a role in the module as enemies.
There is a tribe of werewolves that forces human children to fight to the death so that the last standing can be bitten and converted to a werewolf.
The entire world is full of evil creatures doing evil things. The original intent of the module is for the players to find themselves stranded in Barovia. The only hope and possible escape they have is to defeat Strahd. There are a variety of artifacts and magical items in Barovia to assist with this task. Items that turn vampires, a sunsword that emits sunlight, holy symbols usable only by good aligned creatures. Without these, a normal party has little chance of defeating Strahd.
The entire module is built around this narrative of the party of characters gaining power/strength and magic items to ultimately succeed in defeating Strahd and freeing the Barovians from his reign of terror and despair, if only for a short while, and allowing the characters to escape.
---
It would be possible to completely rewrite the adventure to have the party be a group of monstrous creatures trying to overthrow Strahd and take his place as rulers of the demiplane. However, vampires and werewolves require magic damage (werewolves are immune to mundane damage), so very few of the existing encounters would be even remotely challenging as written for a party of monstrous adventurers. In addition, I'm not sure what motivation would fit the players - why are they in Barovia? Do they want to be trapped for eternity the way Strahd is? Why would they even want to rule a demiplane when they can exist elsewhere? (Unless they were forced here by hunters trying to destroy them?). Why would they not form an alliance with Strahd to eliminate the hunters rather than trying to defeat Strahd and replace him?
Anyway, there is also the potential for characters to be turned into vampires or werewolves within the module - however, since these creatures of the dark are all subservient to Strahd, you would need to change things up somehow to get it to work.
--
TL;DR Running vampire/werewolf characters isn't impossible but would likely require almost a complete re-write of CoS to make it work. (at least in my opinion).
You could check out the UA for lineages, or wait until May when an official version comes out.
It would definitely throw a wrench into the mix, due to the benefits of being a vampire or werewolf. One way it would be interesting is if the entire party was vampires they would have a difficult time making use of radiant weapons against Strahd.
Other things you might suggest to your party if you aren't sure about letting them be monstrous:
1) Use the Dhampir UA lineage (this will be official in the new book in May and corrections can be made later)
2) Consider allowing the Blood Hunter class from D&D beyond. I have always been curious how this would mesh with CoS.
3) If they want to play a quasi-evil character from Barovia, consider making a human variant that fits the Vistani people (perhaps able to cast Hex or something similar due to their ability to curse others).
Also, because CoS has both vampires and werewolves in it, you could simply tell your party that they cannot START as one of those things, but that they could become one as the story plays out
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Personally, since it doesn't sound like anybody in the group has played through Curse of Strahd yet, I would recommend having them play the adventure as normal characters as a first time run through. This first run would give the players and DM a chance to explore the various places as well as learn a lot of the history behind the places and the people from there. After they finish this first campaign, either win or lose, then they can replay as vampires, werewolves, and whatnot.
Second set of characters can be leftover minions after the first group of adventurers made their way through Barovia. Or they could be completing tasks during the same timeframe that the adventurers are completing their missions. Or, if the original adventuring party fails to defeat Strahd, then these vampire and werewolf characters might be the same people, who are now cursed by undeath or lycanthrope within Barovia...
But that's just my own thoughts having run a few CoS campaigns already. I'm not sure I would want to rewrite so much on my very first playthrough.
Why would vampires minions be trying to over throw their Liege Lord? If they want to do this, don't buy the book. Create a Vampire Lord. Create a couple of different size and leveled PC partiers and go adventure hunting. AkA Reverse Dungeon where the party are the monsters. Having either of the two options would put the book on very easy setting.
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It's awesome. I currently have a level 5 Blood hunter / 1 Articifer. I went var human and Order of the Ghostslayer. The lvl 1 feat I took was Crossbow expert and then sharpshooter at lvl 4. The damage output using a hand crossbow against undead is amazing - 3d6+4 from the rite, and then 10 from sharpshooter. plus 2 or 3 attacks per round if I use my bonus action. It's insanely good.
As a vampire? No, those are way too powerful. Even spawn have a regeneration which would make regular combat (until you get Sunblade/Holy Symbol and have to be careful) painfully easy. As a werewolf? Eh, I'd work with your DM on that. Werewolves don't have to ally with Strahd just because they are werewolves. The ones in Barovia do because he is so overwhelmingly powerful that they have to submit. However, being a werewolf doesn't just make you somewhat stronger than a regular human. It also warps your mind to the point that you have a psychological need to prey upon sentient humans, not even for hunger, but out of a feral rage. Even in Eberron, which goes out of its way to subvert the usual alignment tropes, being turned into a lycanthrope is NOT something that you want to happen to you if you want to live among normal people.
When I played Curse of Strahd with my group, my Dwarf Oath of Ancients Paladin got turned into a werewolf and it was EPIC. Granted not everyone in the group was a vampire or werewolf so that would probably be a very different experience. On our first session the group just got to Borovia and is completely confused etc.. we're investigating a church looking for a priest, my paladin is watching for danger at the door. I got completely blindsided by a wolf and dragged a few feet away. Honestly didn't think much of it, till a later session when my DM told me privately. We started dropping hints and then even later while we were camping for the night I turned and attacked my party. I didn't kill or turn anyone because I rolled terribly and didnt use the stat block really correctly, but it was still an awesome moment and it provided a really interesting dynamic for the rest of the campaign.
Now the DM who ran that campaign had run CoS a few times before, was very very good at setting the correct mood, and at least half of our group died over the course of the campaign. So for a first time that might be a hard balance to strike. I don't think allowing PCs to be or be turned into Vampires or Werewolves is game breaking or anything, however, its definitely more work on the DMs part and could be hard to manage.
There is ample opportunity to turn players into werewolves and "vampires" in the module, but the theme and tone of the module as written really doesn't lend itself well to having players start as those things, and if that is your players interest, you're going to have to do a LOT of work to rewrite things to make sense.
By the end of my Curse of Strahd campaign, Two players were lycanthropes and a major NPC had been turned into a Vampire Spawn.
The module is really built around Gothic Horror, which is hard to accomplish when your players get to play the very beasties that they should be running from.