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Curse of Strahd Reloaded Update: Arc P: Ravenloft Heist is now available

🕑 Added 2024-07-19 16:53:16 +0000 UTC

Comments

Ondřej Bacík

Ok, thanks a lot for reply!

DragnaCarta

In that case, I'd just pause and speak with them OOC. Let them know that, by doing the Heist, they're already crossing the Rubicon vis a vis Strahd. Reassure them that you wouldn't put a boss in front of them if they weren't capable of winning. But honestly, I'd be very surprised if it got to that point. I've never met or heard of a party that might do such a thing.

Ondřej Bacík

Maybe being afraid that fighting with Rahadin means TPK and Strahd might punish them, but let them live?

DragnaCarta

Happy to help! And that's basically a TPK, so I'd be very confused as to why the players might do that!

Ondřej Bacík

Hi Dragna, first of all, thank you for all the hard work you are doing. You’re helping me a lot to make our CoS campaign shine :-) One simple question - What happens, if (during the heist) players simply give up to Volenta or Rahadin (as he asks them to lower weapons etc.) and just go to the jail and wait for Strahd? Sorry, if I just skipped that part somewhere, but I found no mentions about this option and it would change a lot (not having the skull, not rescuing Emil etc.). Thanks!

DragnaCarta

Hrm; in that case, you might want to make Blinsky a bit of an artist, and have Izek collect artwork of Ireena instead of dolls. If Pidlwick II counts as a "doll/puppet," then you might want to try and figure something out there as well.

DND Ravenloftenjoyer

Hey Dragna, that is a really good idea. Thank you so much for this advice! Can you recommend some ideas for a player that might have a fear of dolls or puppets in this module? I don't know if this idea helps but what if there's a category oder page for common triggers in the module and how a dm can deal with it? Just a random thought there :) - Love from the mists, Ray

DragnaCarta

Hey Ray, and sorry for any difficulties! You'll mostly want to change the phase/giant spiders in Arc M - you can probably make them phase/giant serpents or something instead. You might also want to tweak the cocoon where the players find Pidlwick II in Arc P to a barred coffin or something. Hope this helps!

DND Ravenloftenjoyer

Hey Dragna, so I´m a DM with arachnophobia (Some images are a bit hard for me). Is still possible to continue with my players in Arc 1 C? How can I change it up? What could be some options? Love from the mists, Ray

DragnaCarta

Sounds like a reasonable change! Thanks for sharing the suggestion, and hope your players enjoy the siege :)

wolfgaidin

Hi Dragna! I am prepping the Siege from Part B and the assault on the Eastern Barricade (B5e) doesn't mention the 5' wide x 5' deep trench with stakes that is described when the PCs arrive at the village in B5a. It seems unlikely that the (6) zombies would be able to deal with this and would simply fall in, skewering themselves prior to getting to the barricade. I'm going to address this via making an actual horde of a few dozen zombies enter on the first round and there are enough of them that the front ranks voluntarily walk into the trench and fill it such that those behind (6 per the module) can cross easily, as well as those undead in following rounds.

Louis Maieru

No problem, thanks for the clarification :)

DragnaCarta

Absolutely! And he's supposed to retreat once he activates the Amulet of Ravenloft, actually. I've just pushed a hotfix update clarifying this in the Heist section. Sorry for any confusion!

Louis Maieru

Hey Dragna, thanks for the update! My players are planning the heist right now and are heading to Ravenloft in the next session. One Question, you might have answered already: Is Rahadin supposed to die?

Tarun Sargunar

That sounds like a great idea! I'm not sure If I could drop it into the campaign bc once they complete the dinner arc they won't have much time in-game to go to argynvostholt because of the heist. But since the Sunsword is super important, I think that might be enough to convince them to visit before the heist. Thank you so much!

DragnaCarta

Dang, that's unfortunate. My current plan to patch this in future updates is to have assorted NPCs (Fiona/Victor/Kasimir) tell them to go to Argynvostholt to learn more about the Sunsword reading (since the reading mentions/suggests the Amber Temple, and each of those NPCs can have heard/read that the Order once guarded the temple). Do you have enough time to drop that in now?

DragnaCarta

"Wachter" is actually the correct spelling! And no worries.

Pyrosophy

You also have "WaCHter" instead of "Watcher" in several places :) Sorry for the desarticulate reports. I'm translating and rearranging the notes to fit my own style so it'll be slow coming.

Tarun Sargunar

I don't think they have forgotten because the revenants have been reminding them everytime they pass one, and I also had Ezmeralda mention it to them as well. I haven't asked them why they haven't visited, but honestly it just doesn't seem to interest them. I think it's probably because to them, it doesn't seem to have any connection to everything else that's going on in Barovia, even though it's pretty relevant. At this point it's a bit too late for them to go to Argynvostholt before the Dinner, but I'm trying to get them to go after the heist, and them (hopefully) stealing the skull and returning it. Then again, they wouldn't really know what the skull actually does, so I just don't really know what to do with the arc.

DragnaCarta

Huh, that's weird. Have you asked them why they haven't visited it yet? It's possible they've just forgotten.

Tarun Sargunar

Hey Dragna, my players are about to head out for Dinner at Castle Ravenloft, but they haven't visited Argynvostholt, despite all the revenants mentioning it and encouraging them to go. To me, it seems like they're not too interested in going. Is that going to be a problem later on, and are there any other ways I can interest them in going? I just think it's a really cool arc, and I think they would enjoy it a lot.

DragnaCarta

Hey! Sorry for the delayed response - it looks like Arc M is up right now, but let me know if you're still having any difficulty accessing it.

DragnaCarta

Thanks for pointing that out! I'll take a look at it in the next update.

Pyrosophy

Hey Dragna, I just noticed that on Arc B. - 5f. Parriwimple's Profile has a duplicate entry just below (https://www.strahdreloaded.com/Act+I+-+Into+the+Mists/Arc+B+-+Welcome+to+Barovia) Did you mean to put Bildrath's ? Thanks for the amazing guide !

Jaden James

I noticed that Arc M is unavailable, will it be up again soon?

Mikkel Hartvig

Haha, that's great. I thought as much. Appreciate your work Dragna. My player are arriving in Vallaki in our next session. So I'm looking forward to seeing how they tackle it

DragnaCarta

Yup! She does a little revamping (pun intended).

Mikkel Hartvig

Is Volenta supposed to have two different stat blocks. One during st. andrals and one during the heist?

DragnaCarta

No need to apologize! And the failing-forward content is largely built into the guide already (e.g., the hags imprison the PCs in the windmill if they TPK; Izek throws the PCs out of Vallaki if they pick a fight with him early), though some fights don't have fail-forward states (e.g., Leo Dilisnya in The Lost Soul). In general, however, 95% of the fights are balanced (using CR2.0 and playtesting) such that there's little chance of a TPK occurring in the first place, so there should be little reason for worry.

Dev K

Sorry if this has already been answered but in the contract it says that PCs can fail forward in the event of a TPK. Is there any ideas for how to implement this? Stuff like dark powers, strahd bailing them out, etc?

DragnaCarta

♥

DragnaCarta

I just updated the Github over the weekend! Hopefully there shouldn't be any issues. Enjoy the new Arc B!

DragnaCarta

Thank you very much for the kind words and support! Hope you enjoy the rest of the materials on the Patreon, including the Discord community :)

Caleb Cleveland

Hot damn!

Jason Cavanaugh

Are you waiting for the weekend hotfix which you mentioned before updating the github? The re-work for Arc B came just in time for my group to be finishing up Durst Manor. I expect to sign up at the start of next month. Thank you.

Sagard du khoven

I'm from colombia, i'm running this campaign for a time with my players, it's a great content and help for my campaign, I become a gold member to thank you.

Courtney DC

Thanks so much!

DragnaCarta

Hoping to do it tomorrow once I've got an additional hotfix with a few more changes pushed out!

Boxfriend

Any idea when we might see the github repo updated with the changes?

DragnaCarta

Hey! You should probably stick with the old version of Arc B, which is in the Deprecated Materials section of the website. It shouldn't cause any issues later on if you do that.

Courtney DC

My players are most of the way through Arc B at the moment, so I’m excited to see the changes but a bit nervous to see how this will affect the next session lol

Orna Cosplay

Art takes time! A delay honestly only makes hype for me go up because it means whoever is working on the project cares about it enough to not just shove it out there and really give it time in the oven, thank you again!

DragnaCarta

Thank you! Very sorry for the delay, but I'm glad you like the finished product. Enjoy!

Orna Cosplay

Another Dragna classic, I’ve been wanting to run a guest for quite a while now for my players, but was holding out for this and I’m not disappointed

DragnaCarta

Thank you! And I'm hoping to do so in a hotfix over the weekend, so stay tuned!

David Iooss

Great stuff as always, I really appreciate all the effort you put into this. My players are having a great time! One request I do have is if you could add a bestiary to the appendix to make it easier to find all the custom stat blocks?