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Project_Mayhem
2010-05-06, 07:53 AM
I'm running the 3.5 module 'Expedition to Castle Ravenloft' in a few weeks. Reading through it, I discovered it's probably the most buggy product I've ever read. Has anyone run it before? Was there ever an errata published, official or not? How the boop does it end?

Thank you in advance

AslanCross
2010-05-06, 08:03 AM
The lack of an ending is one problem I encountered while I was planning it out for my next campaign. It's up to the DM to figure out the ending, unfortunately.

hamlet
2010-05-06, 08:12 AM
The "lack of ending" is an artifact of the original module from the 1e days. As absurdly plotted and overbearing as it was to the gamers of the times, it still was very much a location based adventure and the short of it is that the module is ended when the players and the DM determine that it is done.

The revised 2e and the 3.x versions both had sections about what the plot of the module really was about, but it was still largely up to the DM to determine how they would work out in the end.

Warpwolf16
2010-05-06, 10:47 AM
As i have told many who have crossed into the mist and lived, there is no true end to Ravenloft and its Darklords. I've read all the novels based around Castle Ravenloft, and the history of Strahd. It will never end, he always come back. He will always search for Tatyana and will always lose her. Always reaching for the forbidden fruit.

And as stated before, its up to the DM to make it end.

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-06, 12:21 PM
Blast. Up to me then. I guess I'll have Strahd's influence essentially end with his death, but leave stuff the PCs don't specifically resolve unresolved. Even if they do everything and survive, the village is still mostly decimated.

Ooh - I might have the castle start to break up and collapse with the backlash of Strahd's death.

AslanCross
2010-05-06, 05:00 PM
I wanted to play up the madness aspect. In my outline, Strahd is both a monster and a victim. The PCs have to deal with something else.

arguskos
2010-05-06, 05:07 PM
I wanted to play up the madness aspect. In my outline, Strahd is both a monster and a victim. The PCs have to deal with something else.
This is something I love about the character of Strahd: he IS a victim, both of himself and of powers beyond his control or understanding. Ravenloft is as much a psychological exploration of one man's descent into lunacy and repeated salvation/damnation as it is a horror setting that exemplifies how low people will sink for the things they want.

It's masterfully performed, and a challenge to bring across as a DM. The DM that can make you truly feel haunted and alone in Ravenloft is the DM who is a master of the art form.

Thurbane
2010-05-06, 06:04 PM
I'm in the process of DMing this at the moment (6th session coming up this Monday).

Things I have found problematic so far:

***Possible spoilers***


The Church encounter is absurdly deadly for a party of the appropriate level. Danovich has a scroll of Circle of Death, which can decimate the party. On top of this is the fact it's not even a Cleric spell, so he shouldn't be able to use it without UMD. I subbed it out for a scroll of Mass Inflict Wounds of equivalent spell level.
A lot of key characters and locations have very little in the way of background or explanatory info. For example, you encounter Sir Urik as a mean of introducing a new PrC in the book. You come accross him on the road, battling some undead. No reason whatsoever is given for him being there, nor any overall goal for him. Be prepared to adlib, or plan something out in advance. He could have hooked up with the party as an NPC, but I already had a large party, so I didn't want that to happen.
Maybe it's because my party is 6 players strong, but aside from some really overpowered encounters, they are steamrollering a lot of them. The mad Dwarf Ranger (his name escapes me for now) for example is woefully underpowered to face the party at any level, with only his wolf for backup.


...I'll post up a few more things when I'm back at my books, but, having said that, overall I think it is a very good adventure. Basically, all prepublished adventures I've come accross have their share of bugs, and EtCR is no exception.

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-06, 06:17 PM
The madness subplot is interesting, but I think I'm going to focus on the one where Strahd plans to turn the PC's into Vampires.

Hopefully, I can lure them into the castle once, and then scare them out, before they trek round Barovia weakening him.

Another_Poet
2010-05-06, 09:48 PM
I'm replying without reading most of the thread because I'm currently playing it!

I've played through the beginning twice. The church encounter was scary both times but diidn't claim a single PC in either case. If your PCs know to play cautious, they have a good chance.

The module doesn't seem buggy. The fights and loot all seem great and overall rather balanced. In the current campaign we started with 5th level Pathfinder characters and are having no problems. In the previous campaign we used 6th level 3.5 characters and, again, no problems.

The flavour text is awesome. Better than any other module I've played.

The one thing I will say is that the current DM has a lot of problems finding information and keeping all the details straight. I would definitely read through the book in depth and have a good working knowledge of where to find everything before starting the game. Know the backstory, the secrets, the sidequests, etc before you have to present them to PCs.

One of the most fun modules I've played. Hope you enjoy it!!

Thurbane
2010-05-06, 10:09 PM
The one thing I will say is that the current DM has a lot of problems finding information and keeping all the details straight. I would definitely read through the book in depth and have a good working knowledge of where to find everything before starting the game. Know the backstory, the secrets, the sidequests, etc before you have to present them to PCs.
I'll definitely second that!

I have tried to be prepared, but when my players ask me a question that's a bit of a curveball, the module sometimes has the relevant info buried in a section that you wouldn't expect.

...and as I said above, in some areas, background info can be a bit thin, so be prepared to flesh some things out.

QuantumSteve
2010-05-06, 11:36 PM
I, for one, didn't care for this particular remake. My group loved the 2E Ravenloft setting, but this just wasn't scary. Any sense of horror or suspense goes out the window in the first 15 minutes with a 2-hour zombie hack-fest. It wasn't until they got to Strahd's Castle that things really got interesting.
Maybe it's just me, but the paranoia and isolation and the "everything hates you" feeling of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting is diminished when you can wipe the floor with 80% of it.

In reply to the OP, in the 1st Ed version, there is an optional ending to the module:

The ghost of Sergi (Strahd) appears and calls to Ireena addressing her as Tatyana. Ireena suddenly recalls that, in a past life, she was Tatyana. She takes Sergi's hand and they float off into the sunset, the curse on Barovia is lifted, and everyone Lives Happily Ever After.

Kind of kitschy for my tastes, and doesn't mesh at all with the Campaign Setting, although, the canon ending to that module is a TPK. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: It seems the OP didn't actually mention the lack of ending at all. That was the second post. Oh well, it's all still relevant.

AslanCross
2010-05-07, 12:18 AM
I, for one, didn't care for this particular remake. My group loved the 2E Ravenloft setting, but this just wasn't scary. Any sense of horror or suspense goes out the window in the first 15 minutes with a 2-hour zombie hack-fest. It wasn't until they got to Strahd's Castle that things really got interesting.
Maybe it's just me, but the paranoia and isolation and the "everything hates you" feeling of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting is diminished when you can wipe the floor with 80% of it.

In reply to the OP, in the 1st Ed version, there is an optional ending to the module:

The ghost of Sergi (Strahd) appears and calls to Ireena addressing her as Tatyana. Ireena suddenly recalls that, in a past life, she was Tatyana. She takes Sergi's hand and they float off into the sunset, the curse on Barovia is lifted, and everyone Lives Happily Ever After.

Kind of kitschy for my tastes, and doesn't mesh at all with the Campaign Setting, although, the canon ending to that module is a TPK. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: It seems the OP didn't actually mention the lack of ending at all. That was the second post. Oh well, it's all still relevant.

He did, by asking "how the boop does it end?" :smallbiggrin:
I agree that the remake's really not creepy at all---I planned a lot of changes to raise the freak level by a factor of 2 and then some.

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-07, 06:13 AM
The module doesn't seem buggy. The fights and loot all seem great and overall rather balanced. In the current campaign we started with 5th level Pathfinder characters and are having no problems. In the previous campaign we used 6th level 3.5 characters and, again, no problems.


Yeah, you won't notice it as a player though - the problems are with stat blocks and such.

hamlet
2010-05-07, 06:43 AM
In reply to the OP, in the 1st Ed version, there is an optional ending to the module:

The ghost of Sergi (Strahd) appears and calls to Ireena addressing her as Tatyana. Ireena suddenly recalls that, in a past life, she was Tatyana. She takes Sergi's hand and they float off into the sunset, the curse on Barovia is lifted, and everyone Lives Happily Ever After.

Kind of kitschy for my tastes, and doesn't mesh at all with the Campaign Setting, although, the canon ending to that module is a TPK. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: It seems the OP didn't actually mention the lack of ending at all. That was the second post. Oh well, it's all still relevant.

The Old School does not speak of this ending but to mock it.

You are incorrect. The module has no pre-written ending.:smallwink:

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-07, 06:54 AM
Yeah, I'm not using that rubbish. Happy endings? In my horror? bah.

Kish
2010-05-07, 07:32 AM
The ghost of Sergi (Strahd) appears and calls to Ireena addressing her as Tatyana. Ireena suddenly recalls that, in a past life, she was Tatyana. She takes Sergi's hand and they float off into the sunset, the curse on Barovia is lifted, and everyone Lives Happily Ever After.

Erm. Sergei was most certainly not Strahd. He was the brother Strahd murdered because he (Strahd) wanted Sergei's fiancee, Tatyana.

Zen Master
2010-05-07, 07:48 AM
Erm. Sergei was most certainly not Strahd. He was the brother Strahd murdered because he (Strahd) wanted Sergei's fiancee, Tatyana.

True. Sergei and Strahd von Zarowich. As I recall, priest and (ex)paladin, respectively.

I played the 1ed version, with the tacky happy ending, and liked it. It was ... maybe the second adventure I ever played.

Much later, I played through the Grand Conjunction - and these three adventures are so far above anything else I've ever seen published as to render all other pre-written adventures unpalatable to me.

To me, they portray Strahd far better - fully exposing how badly tortured he is, how he struggles with himself, his demons, his past and actions, and the Dark Powers.

I even like how Azalin is portrayed initially, though he loses flavor over time.

CapnVan
2010-05-08, 06:28 AM
*snip*
Kind of kitschy for my tastes, and doesn't mesh at all with the Campaign Setting, although, the canon ending to that module is a TPK. :smallbiggrin:

*snip*

Well, since the Ravenloft Campaign Setting wasn't even a gleam in, well, anyone's eye at the time of publication of I6, it's hard to complain too much about its failure to mesh with it.

I6 came out in '83. The Campaign Setting wasn't published 'til '90.

EccentricOwl
2010-05-17, 12:59 AM
It made me so happy to see someone running this preposterously enjoyable published adventure! =D

Uh... so, advice, right? First, make sure the players can't escape. Use the mists rules. You would be surprised how damaging outside help is.

Second... I have a transcription of the old ending.

Do you really want it? The moment you see it, it'll be stuck in your mind forever. It's not very good, but it feels 'canonical'. It's much more fun to make your own.

And I also have all sorts of tips, but, well, I am sure the other people will cover much of what you need to know.

Oh, by the way, my players had no idea what was going on between Strahd and his love interest. Make sure to play it up.

Thurbane
2010-05-17, 02:11 AM
Oh, by the way, my players had no idea what was going on between Strahd and his love interest. Make sure to play it up.
Just make sure you don't show them this picture. It gives a "subtle" hint about Ireena:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/rl_gallery/100542.jpg
...as does the text on the back cover of the module. :smallannoyed: