Curse of Strahd: The Full Barovian Nightmare

Creating your character

- We will start at 3rd level. Characters will have starting equipment and 50gp extra to spend in character creation. - Point buy for ability scores - No Unearthed Arcana or Homebrew classes/races, though I may allow some of Matt Mercer's stuff. Please double check with me. - Anything from other official DnD supplements is allowed. Eberron, Ravnica, etc. inlcuded. We will discuss and finalise characters and backstories during a session 0. Curse of Strahd has a setting that is quite disconnected from the rest of the forgotten realms, however, there are a few threads we can connect to if you prefer that for your characters. I will focus on the 2024 ruleset, however I understand that specifically the race and some sublcass options are a bit limited, so I'm happy to review and adjust them for use in 5e 2024.

Preparing for the session

We will be using Foundryvtt, you do not need to make an account. A Discord account is necessary.

What Kazimir brings to the table

There will be an almost equal mix of combat, delving/exploring and roleplay. My GMing style for this campaign: There will be lots of voices and accents, and I intend to have my camera on personally, as it assists me in showing character mannerisms. But looking at my video or using your own camera isnt necessary, I don't tend to give away any important visual info that way. I do not generally use soundboards, though I may try it out a couple of times especially since this will be a horror-eque campaign and a little spookiness would add to it. I absolutely use ambient, combat, tavern musics and much more. Background music is a big part of the vibe for me, so it tends to play often. CoS is a hard adventure, you will have to "lose", losing does not always mean dying, but instead choosing to run away or giving something up or even bartering for your life. I will not go easy on the combat encounters, however I will not have death as the only consequence. I know my DnD rules well and know why they exist, but Rule of Cool is important. If you can swindle me well enough, I will allow a lot of things. But my Rule of Cool is more of an Exception of Cool. Lastly, there will be a lot of mystery. Hints of what is going on, clues to the truth about Barovia, and much more. I definitely recommend taking notes.

Homebrew rules

House Rules: - Drinking potions is a bonus action. - During character creation, you may reduce any ability score by 2 in order to add 1 to another. - If you were to die instantly from an attack, your character may choose to take a permanent injury to go unconscious and roll death saves as usual. (Injury is rolled randomly). But this can only be done twice, the third time is death. - If it makes sense to change your race and backgrounds' skill and attribute bonuses to other options, then go for it. Same goes for spellcasting attributes for innate spells. - Non-spellcasters can cast using scrolls, and you can cast scrolls even if it's not on your spell list. But its going to be a +2 to the roll's difficulty, and you must use the spell list's attribute. - Regardless of Alignment, items or effects that activate under condition of a specific alignment (e.g. A flame that burns you only if you're Evil), will activate based on your character's recent intentions and actions. So if you're Neutral Good, but have been doing insane murder hobo shit, you will be regarded as Chaotic Evil. - Any Divine-adjacent subclasses count as cleric for purposes of item attunement. E.g. Divine Soul Sorcerer. --- CoS specific rules that could warrant discussion: - Barovian Darkness: Darkvision is unable to easily see through darkness in Barovia. Therefore those with the Darkvision ability may activate it as a free action, once activated, Darkvision functions as usual for 10 minutes. You can activate Darkvision a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all uses on a long rest. - Bigger Barovia: The valley will be much bigger than the map shows. Including populations and towns. Distances are 8x longer. Meaning most trips will require one or two nights of camping in the forest.

How Kazimir creates a safe table

We will discuss lines and veils in a session 0. This setting can be intense, if you are squeamish around what CoS includes, I do not recommend playing in my specific campaign. If aftercare/check in is something that appeals to the group, I am happy to include it at the end of sessions. But please check content warnings and make sure that you are okay with them. If there is one thing that is a dealbreaker, im happy to review it and see if i can change that specific warning. (e.g. For arachnophobia, I can swap out spiders for eldritch horrors or slimes.) I also slot in a 5-10min break here or there. Usually just one per session. But we can do two if needed.