Starting Curse of Strahd with PCs at Level 5 (instead of Level 3) - What to Do/Change & Other Tips

Curse of Strahd is meant to start with the PCs (player characters) at Level 3 (or at Level 1 if you do the optional CoS starter adventure - Death House - which ends with the PCs reaching Level 3). However, some DMs may be starting CoS with their PCs already at a higher level, e.g. if they did another campaign first - such as Lost Mine of Phandelver or Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - and you're continuing with the same characters. This video gives advice on what to change and what to watch out for if your PCs start CoS at a higher level than intended (don't worry, you shouldn't have to change TOO much, although it can depend on numerous factors, which I talk about in the video), plus it gives advice on what you can do instead as well as what NOT to do.
00:00 Intro
02:10 What to Change
06:46 Other Factors
09:27 Level Guide From CoS
10:44 What to Do Instead
13:08 What NOT to Do
14:38 Outro
Music credits: "Long Note Four" and "SCP-x2x (Unseen Presence)" 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 muscly man icon was from Pixabay, via their Pixabay Content License. The banner/thumbnail was created in Canva and uses one of their elements (the question marks icon).

[@avengingblowfish9653]

Old Bonegrinder is supposed to be a non-combat encounter and should be unwinnable if players "fight" it because the hags can always just escape into the Ethereal plane if the players prove to be a serious threat. It's the DM's prerogative to ignore their Etherealness ability and treat it like a straightforward combat encounter, but I find it more interesting for the Hags to be a challenge that cannot be beaten in a straight up fight... some possible interesting scenarios that could arise:
1. Players are haunted by the night hags after offending them which gives them a deeper motivation to recover the bones of St. Andral since a reconsecrated church also keeps the night hags out.
2. Players have to agree to a hag deal to stop the hauntings which can create a real moral dilemma for them.
3. Players can work with Van Richten or Ezmerelda to set a trap for the Hags using a Glyph of Warding armed with a Magic Circle spell that prevents them from escaping.
Many more possibilities...

[@themadmage924]

Any advice on music use for specific areas around Barovia? Struggling to piece a soundtrack together :p

[@DMoftheMists]

Hi Sam. I have just the thing! Here's a list I put together of what Tabletop Audio songs suit different CoS locations/chapters: www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/ni1tbp/tabletop_audio_music_choices_for_cos/ - I actually plan to do a video version of that post (which may be updated with new songs, as that post is a couple of years old now and TTA have put out a lot more music since then), so be sure to keep an eye out for that. Cheers!