HOW TO PLAY CURSE OF STRAHD (Part 1: Strahd Von Zarovich)

so you're gonna play cursive straud huh you're gonna step into the misty lands of peruvian attempt to stop an evil vampire dark powers from getting laid you're gonna be tormented by this creepy vampire while also visiting all the locations of burrow via like a damn tourist oh look perhaps you stumbled into this forgotten Demi plain or you were born into it either the case barovia has lots of adventures to be had in it here's how to play curse of strong sober Oh vias got this big hole map and you're gonna have characters playing in it they're gonna be going place to place taking notes discovering locations and wouldn't it be fun to have an interactive map for them where all those notes would be organized like a wiki page then check out world anvil their tool is built from the ground up to help DMS and players have a smoother and fun time playing RPGs whether they are pre-written or not it's even better for games that are not pre-written because you can world build everything into your world and you can build your worlds or run your campaigns and hey they just updated their word editor to make everything easier to preview and see so when you present it to your players it looks exactly how you want it to go check out the sponsor for this video world anvil there's a link in the description and the comments [Music] welcome to burrow via this magical place of fog and darkness has been home to Count's trod vanzara vich his backstory is pretty extensive but in otherwise interesting and important story to the adventure as a whole in fact one of the magic items the party can get in this game is his backstory we're gonna go through this as fast as possible these vampire but before he was a vampire he was a man in case you didn't know any of that Stroud was born a cold stoic and nearly psychopathic man the highlight of his life was when he defeated the enemies of his dead father in a valley strive was so enamored by the valleys beauty and countless dead people he said yeah I'm gonna live here but with no people to vanquish or puppies to torture he realized he wasn't in the golden years anymore so he decided to become a mortal and made a Blood Pact with the shadow fell yeah Oh case fraud that's a great idea so revenue via his mother poured all of her love into sare gaze strods little brother who wasn't a distraught psychopath one day Straub got lonely so he says so she does and then dies on the way to the castle gee I wonder who did that but now he's got a beautiful valley a castle ritual that is yet to take form and a little brother who is now an orphan and lives with this creepy older brother one day sprout was getting lonely again so he fell in love with a peasant woman named Tatiana and by fell in love I mean he had a hole in his life that he wanted to fill up because he didn't know what kind of person he was and became creepley obsessed with her beauty and became an hour slash nice guy and through gifts and money at her in hopes that she would love him turns out struck cold-hearted weirdo who starred by war and other things and Tatiana instead falls in love with Sergei so straat does some self-reflection tries to understand why Tatiana would choose Sergei and he decides it's all Sarah gays fault so we murder Sergei oh oh okay good job stride then he chases Tatiana out to the gardens and gasps Ravenloft and she eats herself off the balcony to escape creepy murder blood face as strut stares in horror of watching Tatiana commit suicide his guards decide you know what this is kind of the worst person ever we should do something about that and so they do they firing squad star broad and in front of God but that don't work the dark powers kept their word and straat gets his immortality oh also now he's a vampire so he murders his guards and now he's got no one left and the spirits of his ancestors go so they lock off bro view from the rest of the world and it becomes known Demi playing worst radwells for eternity yay this is where your players are going a Strad is the most important part of this adventure playing him is pivotal to the game you see Stroud isn't it any game possible he periodically shows up through the game tormenting your players so here's a few things you should know when playing him straat has goals if there is anything he cares about it's Irina colleano why whose are Irina colada you asked I don't know she's just some lady in Borough via when people died their souls don't even get to leave instead they just do two new babies that are born and they have a likeness to the previous person who had died so if too many babies are born and not enough people have died people with no souls show up and they're just meaningless husks there's a really good introduction to this event in Kretz I highly recommend running it for your players to really set in how awful everything is so Irina is a random lady who was born with Tatiana soul so she kind of looks and acts like her a little bit but doesn't really have any of her memories so strong of course freaks out and realizes wait a second she doesn't love me she committed suicide when I tried to get her to love me oh just charm and kidnap her he's crazy and would rather turn his lover into a vampire spawn and obey his orders than actually love him because he's a terrible person the book also states that another one of strods goals is killing Rudolf van rycke tin who was a self-proclaimed a vampire hunter I don't understand this one their backstories don't align or coincide or there's nothing terrible that straw did to make rudolph hate him or rudolph did something to make straw hate him and the only real reason stroud is any reason to kill Rudolph is to make everyone in bravia feel hopeless because there is no one to stop him now whoo-hoo strods second goal should be make sure everyone in Borough via is hopeless and number three of strands goals is to find someone else to rule borough via he's tired and doesn't want to do it anymore [Music] any things might remove the curse he typically looks at party members that could fit the bill specifically any adventurer who is like him creepy jealous cold malicious he'll try to communicate with this person but it'll kind of lead to nothing Strada no matter what we'll always realize that he's number one and no one could ever rule borough via it's more of a way that you can gets fraud do communicate with the adventurers and have little roleplay bits but with those goals in mind you should have a good idea on how to role placed rod you're a stoic cold misguided crazy old fool who was so drunk on power that he wants to play with the things that are going to kill him first don't bring in strata every three seconds into the game I'd say bring him in every five to eight sessions if you play that often he should definitely show up before they go to the castle but only to complete his goals and if the adventure specifies he's not just gonna show up and say hey what's up I'm strong man and then leave also remember strata as a wizard being immortal as he is he's probably got access to nearly all the spells in existence so remember scrying an alter self and modify memory those that Strad camp can definitely cast those alright we got to talk about one more thing to really understand the vampire himself let's take a look at his stat block oh god it's terrible curse of straw projects your characters will end a game at around level 10 meaning their final confrontation with Strada will be at level 10 from my experience running this game his stat blocks ahahaha shitty damage easy saves and terrible spells but what if I told you that you're playing him all wrong I'm gonna show you how you can make him a bit more of a challenge this guy has stood up to so many beings over the years I feel he should be a bit more powerful I'm not saying his numbers should be bumped up though you could do that but in general you want a strategy when you placed rod the players should beat him with wits not with brute force maybe some brute force first of all his weaknesses however these weaknesses don't really apply forbiddance he can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants the opening quote too strong is that he is the land and rules over borough via it is his residence strods should be able to enter any occupants that is built in burrow via yes I know this contradicts my story from years ago but I've grown and I'm a smart Boeing now harmed by running water he takes 20 years of damage if he ends his turn in running water the players could use this one fortunately there's very little running water in cursive straud the only one is the waterfall at river of lists you see it says running water throwing a bucket of water him taking a bath shower or even the rain is not running water in order for Strad to start melting his skin off it needs to be a sink a river or a waterfall to hurt him yes it's very specific I know I don't understand it either but if the rain hurts trod then he should have been dead already stick to the heart if a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into his heart while he's incapacitated in his coffin he is paralyzed until the stake is removed why is this a weakness I would also be paralyzed if a stick was rubbed through my sternum this one stick still needs some form of weakness and I guess the power of Christ compels you was still valid here in D&D Linda oh whatever sunlight hypersensitivity while in sunlight straw takes twenty radiant damage at the start of his turn and he has disadvantage on the tech roles and ability checks guess what there's no sunlight in burrow via there are namely four ways to get this one on Strada the spells dawn in sunburst and the two magic items the Sun blade and the holy symbol of Raven kind fortunately enough force trod Sun blade is an 18th level spell and no characters should be near that level at the end of this adventure however dawn could be used against him by a ninth or tenth level cleric and could actually get some sunlight on him for this one work the sunlight needs to be hitting Strada at the start of his turn so if the cleric can't dawn Straub pays his legendary action move and just step out of it so that the dawn isn't on him anymore so yeah it kind of sucks two magic items the party can find are the only other ways that they could get sunlight on him Strada should try his best to make sure that they don't acquire these items it's like his one weakness basically however if they happen to open up with their big old praise the Sun power strata is an extra trick up his sleeve the heart of sorrow this is literally a big-ass heart in Kassel Ravenloft that acts as temporary hit points of Strada I literally use this in our Ken arcade game to show that the icon of Ravenloft apparently did nothing to him and made the players feel hopeless and sad yay cursive strut straw dwell in Castle Raven laughs can also just clip through walls shut doors and lock them and summon shadows inspectors Stroud should also always have some form of posse with him winning combat whether it be vampires wolves or whatever turn economy use the turn economy if you take straw on just his stat block and have him fight the players one before he's gonna get [ __ ] be smart with this guy and make him a challenge for your players he's not to be trifled with but you shouldn't make him impossible if you make him impossible the game's gonna be no fun and the dice and there's no point in that one so yeah have fun I guess and that's the introduction in everything you need to know about straat vanzara vich part 2 is going to be up really soon and I really hate to split this up into multiple videos I want to take time and care to make sure that these videos are accurate and they're fun to watch and I'm not rushing to get this out to you it should be up really soon and thanks for watching

Channel: XP to Level 3

Views: 379,927

Keywords: dnd, d&d, dungeons and dragons, how to, tutorial, funny, monk, fighter, 5e, player, book, dm, dungeon master, roll, ranger, rogue, paladin, cleric, barbarian, bard, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, artificer, mystic, skits, idea, character, stats, build, new, tips, gm, strahd, chris, perkins

Id: F1m3EHGmPhU

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020