Curse of Strahd DM problem

[Sir Nibbits]

I used to DM 3.5 a few years ago, I've recently gotten back into D&D with 5e and I'm running Curse of Strahd for a group of 5. Death house was quite terrifying (1 made it out alive in the end) and the other 4 brought in 4 new adventures to join the survivor for the next meeting (more were brought into Barovia by the Vistani). This past meeting a noticed a problem with our combat encounters though. 4/5 of them have healing magic, and whenever one of them drops, they almost always heal them before that characters next turn, possibly chaining 2-3 heals in a row if multiple people were down. Long story short, none of them is ever at risk of dying unless there is a TPK or I have monsters focus unconscious characters to kill them off, which makes an encounter seem more "cruel" than challenging. Or, of course, they run our of spells, which takes a really long time. The one "deadly" encounter they had with a wolf pack took two hours of dice rolling before they were even close to feeling at risk. They also have relatively low party damage and high ACs, which slow everything down even more. Barovia is supposed to be a dangerous demiplane, but I can't seem to find anything between a cakewalk and a wipeout. Does anybody have any thoughts as to how this could be handled?

[LuccMa]

First of all the only problem i see is that fights drag out too long. If you got a bunch of healing, holy warriors in barovia and they stomp ****... thats great! Let them succeed. If you want your fights to be quicker, you could give your npcs a boost to their dmg and punch down their hp to equal your partys low dmg / high healing factor out a bit.

The other thing: If you KNOW your party will stomp the next encounter und the encounter doesnt serve another purpose then being an encounter (because barovia, dangerous, bla bla) then just skip it. If you play with XP just give them the XP for sth else or ask your group "How did you dismantle this pack of wolves?" Players love to be epic and come up with really nice stuff if you give them a go at it :D

In my experience one really hard encounter where your players have to flee (make sure they know they can do that instead of tpk'ing) is enough for them to be anxious and careful.

[Malifice]

I used to DM 3.5 a few years ago, I've recently gotten back into D&D with 5e and I'm running Curse of Strahd for a group of 5. Death house was quite terrifying (1 made it out alive in the end) and the other 4 brought in 4 new adventures to join the survivor for the next meeting (more were brought into Barovia by the Vistani). This past meeting a noticed a problem with our combat encounters though. 4/5 of them have healing magic, and whenever one of them drops, they almost always heal them before that characters next turn, possibly chaining 2-3 heals in a row if multiple people were down. Long story short, none of them is ever at risk of dying unless there is a TPK or I have monsters focus unconscious characters to kill them off, which makes an encounter seem more "cruel" than challenging. Or, of course, they run our of spells, which takes a really long time. The one "deadly" encounter they had with a wolf pack took two hours of dice rolling before they were even close to feeling at risk. They also have relatively low party damage and high ACs, which slow everything down even more. Barovia is supposed to be a dangerous demiplane, but I can't seem to find anything between a cakewalk and a wipeout. Does anybody have any thoughts as to how this could be handled?

Run multiple ecounters per adventuring day.

Hit them over and over, rather than dialing up the difficulty.

[Moosoculars]

This is really a battle of resources your monsters vs the party's healing. Getting the number of encounter per day correct will be key. Too few and they will slowly but surely grind there way through.

[Emay Ecks]

Something my dm did that I really like is making it so you take 1 level of exhaustion whenever you fall unconscious (reach 0 hp). This makes waiting to heal until someone is unconscious much less optimized and appealing (especially if they go right back down the following round).

I think this might really help your players feel like combat is more intense or closer than it actually is, and it will have players burn through their spell slots much earlier to prevent characters from even coming close to 0.

[tieren]

Hit them with vampire spawn, the bite attack lowers max hp which will freak them out because healing won't fix it. They also regenerate which will show them the problems of having low damage output if they can't keep up with it.

Hit them with Strahd himself to break their spirit when they realize they can't seriously harm him and he can kill them without a thought. I had him give my party the option on their first encounter with him to kneel to him to stop the battle (your pride or your life), they all ended up bending the knee and it was very humbling for the group.

[Andy_Ess]

Backing up Tieren here. If you watch the Dice Camera Action videos you can watch Chris Perkins expertly string encounters in Barovia together so thst his players are desperate and relieved to finally get a long rest.

Keep the pressure on them. Steal their stuff so they have to pursue imstead of rest. Throw a big pack of Strahd Zombies at them with a Ghast (Advantage vs Turning) or two. Have Wintersplinter or Werewolves rampage through Vallaki or Kresk killing townsfolk. Make their low damage output a real liability.

In summary mix and match the following as necessary:
Use regenerating monsters.
Use overwhelming numbers.
Force them to not rest.
Target their allies.

[Sir Nibbits]

Thank you all of you for your suggestions! I think I might implement the exhaustion mechanic with short duration (maybe 1 min). I also might try to add more encounters in a given adventuring day, but the party tends to retreat and rest at the slightest sign of resource depletion. I don't want to use external means to force them to keep grinding through an area, because then it feels like I'm forcing them down a specific path without an option to retreat, which is the opposite of what I want to do in a sandbox campaign like this.

[Specter]

You shouldn't worry about them resting after battles. After all, how easy is it to find a place to rest? In the wild that's basically suicide, as the chance of beasts and undead ruining it is big. In the Castle? Forget it.

Bottom line, unless they're in a town, they should never feel comfortable.

[tieren]

I don't want to use external means to force them to keep grinding through an area, because then it feels like I'm forcing them down a specific path without an option to retreat, which is the opposite of what I want to do in a sandbox campaign like this.

Not sure where you are in the story, but for example, I had them try to take Ilyena (sp?) from Barovia to Vallaki and it was the day after their first encounter with Strahd and I made it pretty clear they did not want to get caught on the road with her at night, so the next day was a series of events that all had to culminate with them getting her to Vallaki before dark. (burying her father, dealing with the spawn at the church, encounter with the Vistani by the Tser pool, etc...)

They of course had options to retreat and try again the next day or something (or deal with a deadly nighttime encounter if they failed), but it did add an interesting element to time sensitivity.

[Sir Nibbits]

I just ran another meeting yesterday, taking all of this into account.




The other thing: If you KNOW your party will stomp the next encounter und the encounter doesnt serve another purpose then being an encounter (because barovia, dangerous, bla bla) then just skip it. If you play with XP just give them the XP for sth else or ask your group "How did you dismantle this pack of wolves?" Players love to be epic and come up with really nice stuff if you give them a go at it :D



I've been having trouble balancing the random encounters as they're either not worth the party's time or they grind on for multiple hours of meeting time and nobody is satisfied. The 5 person group that I'm running this for is also going for a paranoid and linear play through, they completely ignored the vampire spawn under the church and left right after the burgomaster's burial, the dream pastries even was ignored (they didn't talk or observe to the woman), they refused to investigate Mad Mary's house (or any other in Bariovia), and they didn't even consider investigating the windmill at all on their way to Vallaki. They did take Ireena and Ismark with them when they left Barovia, the only reason that they even went to the church was for the funeral. There really isn't a lot that I could do to challenge the party, any random encounters were easily dealt with and, based on travel speeds, they're never too far from a resting place for the night. I'm fairly new to DMing and I'm not sure how to handle this short of railroading them to difficult encounters or pre-planning lots of difficult travel encounters and risking players becoming bored with them.

[Malifice]

Thank you all of you for your suggestions! I think I might implement the exhaustion mechanic with short duration (maybe 1 min). I also might try to add more encounters in a given adventuring day, but the party tends to retreat and rest at the slightest sign of resource depletion. I don't want to use external means to force them to keep grinding through an area, because then it feels like I'm forcing them down a specific path without an option to retreat, which is the opposite of what I want to do in a sandbox campaign like this.

Don't let them rest. You're the DM. Put them on the clock (a doom clock of save the maiden/ slay the monster/ recover the macguffin by time X or else bad thing Y happens). Throw werewolves and vampires at them if they try. This is Barovia after all, and Strahd is watching.

If that doesn't work, here is an easy alternative; explain their long rest was broken by a sleepless night of horrible feverish dreams of loss, mourning and horror (Strahds magic or the demi plane itself messing with them). Use these dreams to foreshadow events and give glimpses of Strahds cursed backstory. Maybe have one of the PCs see thinga feom Strahds viewpoint when he wss alive. Or from his lovers viewpoint as she is monstered by him.

Mechanically, the rest only counts as a short rest. Once theyve spent hit dice, then inform them they hear the sound of wolves in the distance...

After around three such nights (and at least half a dozen encounters) once you're happy they're utterly depleted of resources and desperate, let their long rest be an actual long rest. They get a good night's sleep for a change. No dreams... but the horror repeats itself again the following night.

Tell them this is now the case until Strahd is slain and Barovia freed from his unholy influence. Have the discovery and acquisition of important items or achieving certain milestones perhaps make them immune from the curse for a while. This also serves to push them onwards and engage with the story and become personally invested (as well as being a reward).

It's your job as DM to police the adventuring day and ensure they are spreading those spells and other abilities over six or so encounters (with the occasional short rest). It's central to the games mechanical balance.

You haven't been doing it and your players are gaming the system. Stop them.

Plus it's nice and fluffy, let's you use foreshadowing and detail Barovia and Strahds story and tragic and horrific backstory and keeps the players scared and desperate all of which is appropriate for the survival horror nature of the adventure path.

[Byke]

I'm currently DMing CoS for my group and ran into a similar problem, you have some great responses so far.

One of the house rule we implemented (it's already been suggested and I second it - as I got tired of the yo-yo effect of player going from 0 - 8 hps) were exhaustion rules when a player hits 0 HPS. (take a full 24 hour rest to recover from it).

This has definitely changed the combat dynamics as the healers no longer wait until the the character is at 0 hps and then toss out a healing word. They now hold actions when the combat gets tense, instead of going all out.

I also also limit the number of long rest the players can get. There are only a few "safe" place to rest. I use the anemic random encounters to force them to continuously keep moving/break up their rest.

CoS is supposed to be a nasty time for the players...if they are having it to easy start throwing additional waves at them, burning up more and more of their resources, eventually the players will stop going all out on every encounter and start using their resources more strategically.

You also need to start building up more paranoia and distrust in your party. One of my player wanted to multi-class into a the Warlock class and made contact with some of the Dark Power in the Amber Temple (Tenebros) - I have provided him with certain insights through the adventure, which has caused the party to distrust him intently.

In another encounter one of the party member were separated from the rest of the party and encountered Stradh in his carriage. Stradh politely offered him a ride and dropped him off in view of the rest of the party.

"Nothing" else happened to the player, but despite his protestations, the party now refer to him as the "Minion of Stradh", which has actually pushed him into messaging me on how he can pay them back.

It's a horror campaign and the player will become there own worst enemies with little effort.

[tieren]

Also, embrace the sandbox nature of the world.

It took me a while to figure it out, the book seemed to give me all these neat pieces and not a lot of instruction on what to do with them. Then I figured out, that is kind of the point.

As the DM use the pieces in the book to tell YOUR story. I have a Kenku in my group and I put wereravens in the fog trying to warn them away by mimicing the word "CURSED". Then in the village of Barovia I had the villagers all fearful and distructful of wereravens (and by extension the Kenku) as they blamed them as "curse-bringers".

I made the first encounter with strahd right outside the burgomasters house while he was trying to convince Ireena to let him in. Ismark was with us and he kept trying to charm him to let him in, etc... so there was a little more to it than just hack and slash. I had the pastrie hag laughing at the party as she pushed her cart away after Strahd humiliated them.

There shouldn't be a super linear path for them to follow most of the time. If there appears to be you might be a little too literal with the material. Have Strahd show up and crush the path they are on (kidnap Ireena, steal the McGuffin, kill the person they were supposed to contact, whatever) and see how your party handles it.

[Temperjoke]

The 5 person group that I'm running this for is also going for a paranoid and linear play through, they completely ignored the vampire spawn under the church and left right after the burgomaster's burial, the dream pastries even was ignored (they didn't talk or observe to the woman), they refused to investigate Mad Mary's house (or any other in Bariovia), and they didn't even consider investigating the windmill at all on their way to Vallaki. They did take Ireena and Ismark with them when they left Barovia, the only reason that they even went to the church was for the funeral.

Okay, this is what stuck out to me. The fact that they're ignoring all this stuff is a huge part of what is making this hard for you, because these side adventures are a large part of what goes into CoS. What you might want to do is have townsfolk stop responding/cooperating with the players. After all, the townsfolk have all these worries that the players are ignoring, and just can't take a chance on strangers, especially strangers who aren't interested in helping them. I would also ramp up the encounters, after all, Strahd is probably getting bored with this group who aren't offering any sort of challenge. If Ireena is with them, I would have Strahd make a move to take her.

CoS is intended to be a sandbox, but that doesn't work if the players are scared to explore.

[rudy]

Having been involved on both sides of things here, I will point out the problem I have with the OP's post is the "supposed to" language.

If the players are having fun, then you are doing your job well. Full stop. If you add grindy encounters to wear down their resources because you are "supposed to", and then the players stop having fun, you have failed at your job.

Sure, CoS is traditionally very dangerous, but games are traditionally fun as well.

So, basically what I'm saying is recognize that the actual problem in what you described is the boredom and lack of satisfaction from long encounters, not the lack of players being near death all the time.