I am going to play Curse of Strahd for the first time ever and I am hoping to get some ideas and examples of the best character to play! What's everyone's recommendations? Also what am I in for without being too spoilery!!
Thanks!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
Just make a character! If you want to play something synergistic with the themes, Curse of Strahd really plays into gothic and gloom very well. You might also want to have a character particularly resilient to the darkness, keeping it at bay. Really, any character you're happy with will be a good character.
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Honestly any race and class is viable in Curse of Strahd. That being said there is a disproportionately large number of undead compared to alot of campaigns so...
The campaign leans a bit on your party having a Cleric. Your party will also do well to have a Rogue, and a Monster Hunter Ranger or a Paladin are great additions too. But any class can be useful, so do play what you want.
Many region-specific background features are made difficult to use by the nature of the campaign, so try to pick generally-useful ones or talk with your DM about fluffy abilities. But Strahd is all about the flavour and atmosphere of the campaign, so work harder on nailing your RP feel than your mechanical benefits. Go for edgy, gothic horror appeal; or alternatively, a naive optimist who is set up for a rude awakening. Think about horror cliche characters to a point.
If I were a DM running Strahd, I would explicitly ask my players to use human as race, for two reasons: nearly everyone you'll meet is human (other races get handwaved somewhat, but it helps immersion if everyone is human); and they lack darkvision, so you don't ruin the atmosphere by being able to see without candlelight (etc.). If you want to maximize fun and don't mind getting spooked in dark rooms, go with human.
So DM is restricting the races to human/variant human. I always play a cleric but I kind of wanted to shake it up and not be the healer but I don't know my new play group that well so it's like beating on them being a good cleric. We're all supposed to be good/neutral and lawful characters too. Any suggestions with new content too? Maybe I'll play a death or grave doman cleric! Anyone know of a good build on those?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
Death cleric is basically the evil assassin-y, necrotic-element using, occasionally raise-dead types. If you're going with the old style of strictly human and around LG type? I doubt you'd even be allowed to play it. Even if you could? Undead and expecting to use necrotic damage really isn't a great mix. For subclasses, it depends on what kind of focus you want. I generally prefer Light, Life, Knowledge or War (crusader's mantle is nice for group radiant damage), depending if you want to focus on being a blasty, a healy, a diviner, or buffing specialist. Grave cleric is situational, even for a campaign filled with undead. Eyes of the Grave could work, or could be constant misses, depending on how the game runs, and Path to the Grave really relies on setting up with others in your group. Tempest and Forge are probably the best at dealing damage themselves, rather than buffing others, if you like that. I don't think that Nature, Arcana or Trickery are really going to help here.
There's not a lot of build options here. You're going to want the Sailor or Far Traveler background, to get access to Perception (or some other background and swap for it). After that, get some Insight. There was one or two references to the local god Morninglord, but I don't think that needing to make any Religion checks were ever a thing. Medicine / healer's kit can be handy for when you need to preserve spells. As for feats, keep an eye on War Caster and Resilient (Constitution), mostly for those pesky Concentration benefits.
The only other thing left is a pick of your spells. I personally just take the standards - Guidance, Sacred Flame and Light as cantrips, then make sure to have Healing Word, Bless and Guiding Bolt. Bless is your go-to for Concentration spells at early level.
Chill Touch can usually stand in for radiant damage against regenerating enemies, but is otherwise a poor choice against most undead.
Monster Slayer and Planar Warrior Rangers also have useful class features for dealing with undead and enemies with specific resistances.
But Curse of Strahd also involves plenty of exploration and and social interaction, so Bards, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Purple Dragon Knight Fighters, Samurai Fighters, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and anyone with the Prodigy feat can be huge assets outside of combat too.
Race-wise, aasimar, elves and gnomes have some pretty useful abilities against the kinds of monsters you'll be fighting.
None of this is really a necessity though, they're just nice to have.
I don't think non human races shake up Curse of Strahd too much. There is already a community of elves in Barovia, and the entire point of the campaign is that the party doesn't belong in this strange land.
Old school Davenport was designed human only. That is probably why the DM is restricting the races, though it makes far less sense with modern Shadowfell domain of Dread stuff.
They did a pretty good job in Curse of Strahd of having "something for everybody", so don't feel like you'll miss out if you pick something other than a cleric, paladin, or ranger. There are areas and items that may play out differently if you have, say, a barbarian or druid or bard in the party.
Old school Davenport was designed human only. That is probably why the DM is restricting the races, though it makes far less sense with modern Shadowfell domain of Dread stuff.
It makes even less sense when you consider what Strahd's motivations are.
Everyone in my CoS party has darkvision and it hasn't proven to be a huge asset. Visibility is the least of their problems, and they still want a light source so their NPC allies can see, and so they don't overlook enemies, traps, and secret doors.
Can't believe I didn't even notice autocorrect made Ravenloft into Davenport! That's kinda funny to me, imagining the dread castle Davenport! Filled with Davenport sofas and desks, and a college town. Truly a sight to fear!
Quick question. When people recommend ranger, do they mean revised or phb? I trying to decide between phb ranger (flavor) or rogue (feels more powerful at low levels).
Usually people on here will say "revised" when they mean something other than core book ranger. People have also recommended subclasses that aren't part of the revised ranger pdf, so that lends further credit to the PHB ranger.
Due to the relatively ever present fog causing line of sight limitations and/or night time play with darkvision or light range limitations a character built around long range effects can feel severely limited depending on how the play goes. You will often be fighting in small bubbles of visibility.
There is a lot of potential intrigue and diplomatic type things, but history, religion, navigation and such are significantly reduced due to the separation of this place into another plane. Such travel is normally rare at such a potentially low level and characters just dont have the resources or information to get any useful answers from their own background or skills. But skills that find information out of current interactions are very useful, investigation, charming, persuasion perception, etc.
Additionally, it can be played as a very magic restricted place in terms of availability of items and reaction to spellcasting. Making the ability to make weapons magical pretty important and at a lower level than what is normally routinely required/expected. And making obvious magic users a potential target of fear and distrust and persecution. The extremeness of reaction is obviously all about how your DM presents it. But it can easily become a constant "torches and pitchforks" mob situation for spellcasters.
Lastly due to the restricted nature of the location and resources, spells or abilities which allow for the creation or transformation of materials into other things can have a huge impact. Being able to fabricate or create things you just can't buy easily here can make or break things for a group.
If you're looking for really great immersion, I would recommend a Human Redemption Paladin with a Lawful Good alignment. The interaction and persona of the character will benefit the party greatly, be able to interact with NPC's in a multitude of ways, and will give you a tremendous amount of options when considering the tenants of your sworn oath.
Hey
I am going to play Curse of Strahd for the first time ever and I am hoping to get some ideas and examples of the best character to play! What's everyone's recommendations? Also what am I in for without being too spoilery!!
Thanks!
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
Just make a character! If you want to play something synergistic with the themes, Curse of Strahd really plays into gothic and gloom very well. You might also want to have a character particularly resilient to the darkness, keeping it at bay. Really, any character you're happy with will be a good character.
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Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Honestly any race and class is viable in Curse of Strahd. That being said there is a disproportionately large number of undead compared to alot of campaigns so...
Otherwise go wild!
The campaign leans a bit on your party having a Cleric. Your party will also do well to have a Rogue, and a Monster Hunter Ranger or a Paladin are great additions too. But any class can be useful, so do play what you want.
Many region-specific background features are made difficult to use by the nature of the campaign, so try to pick generally-useful ones or talk with your DM about fluffy abilities. But Strahd is all about the flavour and atmosphere of the campaign, so work harder on nailing your RP feel than your mechanical benefits. Go for edgy, gothic horror appeal; or alternatively, a naive optimist who is set up for a rude awakening. Think about horror cliche characters to a point.
If I were a DM running Strahd, I would explicitly ask my players to use human as race, for two reasons: nearly everyone you'll meet is human (other races get handwaved somewhat, but it helps immersion if everyone is human); and they lack darkvision, so you don't ruin the atmosphere by being able to see without candlelight (etc.). If you want to maximize fun and don't mind getting spooked in dark rooms, go with human.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Necromancer! *cough* Sorry, just had to
So DM is restricting the races to human/variant human. I always play a cleric but I kind of wanted to shake it up and not be the healer but I don't know my new play group that well so it's like beating on them being a good cleric. We're all supposed to be good/neutral and lawful characters too. Any suggestions with new content too? Maybe I'll play a death or grave doman cleric! Anyone know of a good build on those?
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
Death cleric is basically the evil assassin-y, necrotic-element using, occasionally raise-dead types. If you're going with the old style of strictly human and around LG type? I doubt you'd even be allowed to play it. Even if you could? Undead and expecting to use necrotic damage really isn't a great mix. For subclasses, it depends on what kind of focus you want. I generally prefer Light, Life, Knowledge or War (crusader's mantle is nice for group radiant damage), depending if you want to focus on being a blasty, a healy, a diviner, or buffing specialist. Grave cleric is situational, even for a campaign filled with undead. Eyes of the Grave could work, or could be constant misses, depending on how the game runs, and Path to the Grave really relies on setting up with others in your group. Tempest and Forge are probably the best at dealing damage themselves, rather than buffing others, if you like that. I don't think that Nature, Arcana or Trickery are really going to help here.
There's not a lot of build options here. You're going to want the Sailor or Far Traveler background, to get access to Perception (or some other background and swap for it). After that, get some Insight. There was one or two references to the local god Morninglord, but I don't think that needing to make any Religion checks were ever a thing. Medicine / healer's kit can be handy for when you need to preserve spells. As for feats, keep an eye on War Caster and Resilient (Constitution), mostly for those pesky Concentration benefits.
The only other thing left is a pick of your spells. I personally just take the standards - Guidance, Sacred Flame and Light as cantrips, then make sure to have Healing Word, Bless and Guiding Bolt. Bless is your go-to for Concentration spells at early level.
Combat-wise, having early, reliable access to radiant damage is useful in this adventure, so the following classes have a leg up:
Chill Touch can usually stand in for radiant damage against regenerating enemies, but is otherwise a poor choice against most undead.
Monster Slayer and Planar Warrior Rangers also have useful class features for dealing with undead and enemies with specific resistances.
But Curse of Strahd also involves plenty of exploration and and social interaction, so Bards, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Purple Dragon Knight Fighters, Samurai Fighters, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and anyone with the Prodigy feat can be huge assets outside of combat too.
Race-wise, aasimar, elves and gnomes have some pretty useful abilities against the kinds of monsters you'll be fighting.
None of this is really a necessity though, they're just nice to have.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I don't think non human races shake up Curse of Strahd too much. There is already a community of elves in Barovia, and the entire point of the campaign is that the party doesn't belong in this strange land.
Old school Davenport was designed human only. That is probably why the DM is restricting the races, though it makes far less sense with modern Shadowfell domain of Dread stuff.
They did a pretty good job in Curse of Strahd of having "something for everybody", so don't feel like you'll miss out if you pick something other than a cleric, paladin, or ranger. There are areas and items that may play out differently if you have, say, a barbarian or druid or bard in the party.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Can't believe I didn't even notice autocorrect made Ravenloft into Davenport! That's kinda funny to me, imagining the dread castle Davenport! Filled with Davenport sofas and desks, and a college town. Truly a sight to fear!
Quick question. When people recommend ranger, do they mean revised or phb? I trying to decide between phb ranger (flavor) or rogue (feels more powerful at low levels).
Usually people on here will say "revised" when they mean something other than core book ranger. People have also recommended subclasses that aren't part of the revised ranger pdf, so that lends further credit to the PHB ranger.
The best type of character to play in the module is... a compassionate one.
If you play a mercenary, uncaring, or just plain mean character then you aren't going to get as much out of the game.
Due to the relatively ever present fog causing line of sight limitations and/or night time play with darkvision or light range limitations a character built around long range effects can feel severely limited depending on how the play goes. You will often be fighting in small bubbles of visibility.
There is a lot of potential intrigue and diplomatic type things, but history, religion, navigation and such are significantly reduced due to the separation of this place into another plane. Such travel is normally rare at such a potentially low level and characters just dont have the resources or information to get any useful answers from their own background or skills. But skills that find information out of current interactions are very useful, investigation, charming, persuasion perception, etc.
Additionally, it can be played as a very magic restricted place in terms of availability of items and reaction to spellcasting. Making the ability to make weapons magical pretty important and at a lower level than what is normally routinely required/expected. And making obvious magic users a potential target of fear and distrust and persecution. The extremeness of reaction is obviously all about how your DM presents it. But it can easily become a constant "torches and pitchforks" mob situation for spellcasters.
Lastly due to the restricted nature of the location and resources, spells or abilities which allow for the creation or transformation of materials into other things can have a huge impact. Being able to fabricate or create things you just can't buy easily here can make or break things for a group.
If you're looking for really great immersion, I would recommend a Human Redemption Paladin with a Lawful Good alignment. The interaction and persona of the character will benefit the party greatly, be able to interact with NPC's in a multitude of ways, and will give you a tremendous amount of options when considering the tenants of your sworn oath.
I enjoyed Curse of Strahd playing a variant human Blood Hunter.
Choose the Ghost Hunter archetype if you want to live.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
What was your backstory with this?