My Top 7 Curse of Strahd Homebrew Changes: Non-RAW Tweaks & Additions I Made to my CoS Campaign
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- Despite running Curse of Strahd as RAW (rules as written) and vanilla as possible, meaning that I played it true-to-the-book, I still added a few homebrew elements to it, based on stuff I'd seen on CoS Facebook groups and the CoS subreddit, and from mod guides such as CoS Reloaded / DragnaCarta and Lunch Break Heroes.
In this video, I talk about my seven favourite homebrew additions/changes, such as the changes I made to the Mad Mage encounter and Strahd's consorts. I also include a few brief honorable mentions near the end, and as a bonus, I talk about one thing I really wanted to include in my CoS game but ultimately had to cut due to time constraints.
00:00 Intro
00:23 My experience as a DM (and with homebrew)
01:56 1. Return to the Village of Barovia
03:58 2. Victor surviving the coup
05:53 3. The Trial of Rictavio
08:38 4. Lady Wachter's devil guards
10:18 5. Mad Mage changes
13:14 6. A pet undead silver guard drake
16:00 7. Changes to Strahd's consorts
17:48 Honorable mentions
19:40 Bonus: Something I had planned (but had to cut)
20:29 Outro
The Barovian house map I used doesn't seem to be available online anymore (boooo), so no link for that - sorry! There's plenty of good ones out there these days, though.
The Trial of Rictavio Reddit post (#3): / the_trial_of_rictavio_...
The "M** M***" Reddit post and the Candlekeep Mysteries one-shot Reddit post (both #5): / how_we_ran_the_m_m_enc... & / how_i_incorporated_a_c...
Real Housewives of Ravenloft on DMsGuild (#7): www.dmsguild.com/product/3028...
Music credits: "Shores of Avalon", "SCP-x3x (I am Not OK)", "Long Note Three" and "Long Note Four" by Kevin MacLeod (a.k.a. Incompetech); licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
All images, logos, etc. are the copyright of their respective creators, the vast majority of which will be from Wizards of the Coast, as per their Fan Content Policy. The illustrations of the four consorts shown during #7 come from Real Housewives of Ravenloft, which is copyright First Ones Entertainment. 
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Giving the Brides some class abilities is definitely something I will try
Yeah, it definitely helps to make them a bit more interesting - especially if the players have already fought other vampire spawn at that point (the ones in the coffin shop, the ones in the Amber Temple, etc.).
OMG! I saw a post long ago in Reddit that explained something similar with Victor so it was you lol , I love the idea of the teleporting Wizard, I was going to add it to my Barovia games but my groups were very pro Vargas so I never had the chance
Hehe! It might've been me - I've mentioned it a few times, on the subreddit and a CoS DMs Facebook group - but I want to stress that I'm not the originator of the idea, so it could've been someone else... maybe even the person who originally came up with it. 🤩
Ahh that's a shame, about not being able to do it because they were pro-Vargas. I was about to say "pro-Vargas" is a phrase you don't see very often (I'd wager that 9 out of 10 parties side with the Wachters), but thinking about it, when I played CoS (before DMing it for myself), I'm sure we were pro-Vargas too... Or perhaps pro-no-one, as I think we kept away from the politics and left them all to it... 😅😬
I’m so excited to add the undead guard drake pet!! The sun sword is there in my game.
Silvia was (and still is) the GOAT. 😊🐲
That's a cool place for the sunsword! Is it in Vladimir's possession or elsewhere?
My last homebrew I did the following.
1. Started the party naked in Deathhouse and they had to scavenge for gear.
2. Didnt do the 3rd fortune teller because i wanted to keep it open.
3. At first crossroad to Castle Ravenloft, i had a carriage with nightmares ready to transport them to the castle. If they touch the carriage, they get stuck and the nightmare makes a mad dash for the castle.
4. Strahd, posing as Count Vasli is secretly the partys patron when they get to Valaki.
5. The NPCs in Valaki approach the characters.
6. Added the seeds as a personal goal of Strahd who plans to currupt them and take absolute control of the domain. He already has the 3rd seed.
7. Added more to the druids wanting the seeds.
8. On return to Valaki, had strahd hold seige to Valaki and the church, killing everyone.
9. Had a carriage chase where werewolves chased the party while they were racing to the castle.
10. No long rest allowed in the castle.
11. The priest in Barovia is the party ally and he commited suicide when his son died, so they had to figure out how to resurrect him.
12. All 3 witches polymorph into giant monstrosities with T-Rex stats.
13. Added flashback scenes throughout the adventure that is triggered by an artifact i gave them. The party is able to actively take part in Strahd history, such as the battle for Barovia as a lieutenant, sergios wedding as a guard to Strahds niece. A guard on the ramparts as Strahd murders Leo Dilisnyas guards, that attempted the coup.
14. Added a subplot with Leo Dilisnya being turned into a vampire and buried allive by strahd at the monastery. He wants to replace Strahd as dark lord when the party digs him up.
15. At the end, i had a massive fight in the village of Barovia with all the big bosses left in the game they didnt kill. This was stupid, but fun. I also wanted to prove a point on why i didnt allow long rest in the castle.
It was my 4th time running the adventure and i went wild. It barely barely resembled the original plot.
Wow! 🤯 Those are some interesting changes! 😃 Which would you say was your favourite? And what was the players' favourite (if you know)?
@@DMoftheMists I personally liked the Naked Death House. I started it by having the party investigate an animal attack in a nearby village, north of Waterdeep. Turned out to be the werewolves that appear later in the module that are kidnapping children to repopulate Barovia. I did this to tie up a loose plot thread later in the game and give the party more incentive than just escaping. The werewolves also had an amulet that permitted escape to the prime material plane, but only if Strahd allows it. This gave the players a clear goal from the start. Save the children and convince or kill Strahd to let them escape. The first time they rest for the night, I had the mist transport them to Death house without their gear. For me, this really set the tone of the adventure and put a lot of dread into the game, right from the beginning. Was awesome watching them scavenge for gear. It encouraged exploration and It also means the players pay close attention to room descriptions. All the stuff a DM loves.
My players favorite part was clearly the carriage chase from Vallaki to Castle Ravenloft. I did this by setting 5 markers along the path that required the driver to pass Ability score checks, like fallen logs, potholes, barriers, flame arrows, etc. The werewolves started 1 block away. If they failed a check, 2 werewolves catch the carriage and the rest of the party had to defend it. Was super exciting and they loved it. They ended up with a critical failure, which crashed the carriage, so they had to run that last bit on foot to the castle turn off.
My biggest disappointment was the dead priest as an ally. I thought that would work out better. I was hoping for a Weekend at Bernie's, but it just didn't have the emotional effect I was aiming for.
"200 sessions, 4 years." Not that experienced though, guys! haha
Haha yeah, sorry... 😅 I meant more in terms in breadth of experience/campaigns. Sure, I've done one looong campaign, but not done much beyond that. Or maybe I'm just modest, hehe.
@@DMoftheMists It's part of what makes your content so engaging. You're very down to earth and relatable even though you have such a vast wealth of experience to draw from. Don't change!
Thank you! 😍