Thinking about starting Curse of Strahd for my group of 5th level characters.

[Arkhios]

I ended the first arc of my current campaign with the rise of a dead god(dess) of death who had some unfinished business with the Raven Queen who had taken over the older goddess' rule of Death after her fall. This, I thought, would be a perfect opportunity for my players to be sent into Shadowfell (Raven Queen's realm in the mountains of Letherna and the Castle Ravenloft are both located in Shadofell) as a side-effect of the aftermath of the two deities' conflict.

Obviously this brings up several questions.

One that I can think of now is: what can/should I reasonably skip (if anything), or should I just run the adventure from the start and up to the point when they should be at 5th level and just not give them XP from the time before that, and continue as I see fit from there? That creates another question: How should I alter the adventure parts normally intended for characters below 5th level?

The party, as of now, consists of the following members:

Tiefling Warlock (Patron was GOO and Pact was Tome, but I gave the player option to change it if Xanathar's Guide had something more interesting for him).
Gnome Artificer (Gunsmith); Nothing special I can think of. The player decided to retire this character as it made more sense for it to pursue a different path.
Half-orc Fighter (Cavalier); Notable: Protection Style
V.Human Rogue (Assassin); Notable: Shortbow, Sharpshooter, Skulker - although the player is on "tentative" whether she'll continue playing at all.
+ 2 players whose characters died last time and haven't decided what their new characters will be.

[intregus]

If you're actually keeping track of xp I'd just run it from start to finish. It's s super fun, dark campaign. They'll probably go through that lower stuff like death house faster but that's not a bad thing

[Arkhios]

Well, that's the thing. I had them keep track of their XP prior to the latest session, but since it was my birthday and I counted on being given "bribes" I decided they'd all just get a level if they survived the session.

by the end of it, I had no idea whether I would continue this campaign afterwards or not, but judging from how much the players enjoyed their characters, I decided to let them vote: either start a new campaign with new characters and another system (starfinder; unlikely, but chose to give the option as some had voiced their wishes towards it earlier) or continue with their current characters. The answer was almost unanimously "continue". Thus I felt that while I might not have enough juice to create continuum on my own, I could try and run an actual pre-written adventure for them, and in my mind Curse of Strahd makes the most sense fot the continuity's sake.

I could just go by the milestones but I guess I could let them keep track of their XP from now on, everyone starting from the 5th level, sharp. It's just that I don't know if they will outpace the whole adventure if XP is kept track about the whole time.

[intregus]

They won't outpace the adventure. They'll be ok

[pdegan2814]

Curse Of Strahd is no picnic in those early levels, them being ahead of the curve won't bore them :)

[agnos]

Go for it, CoS is a load of fun.

[Arkhios]

They won't outpace the adventure. They'll be ok


Curse Of Strahd is no picnic in those early levels, them being ahead of the curve won't bore them :)

Well that's a relief then. :)

I've yet to read the adventure thoroughly but I hear the introductory part for 1st through 3rd level characters could be skipped without issues regarding the rest of the adventure. Is this true and do you think I should skip it or just do it anyway? :)

[Lombra]

Well that's a relief then. :)

I've yet to read the adventure thoroughly but I hear the introductory part for 1st through 3rd level characters could be skipped without issues regarding the rest of the adventure. Is this true and do you think I should skip it or just do it anyway? :)

Death house is designed to kill kickstart the characters to level 3 and give them some goodies, so skipping it to start at level 5 won't be a big deal, they may find it easy in the beginning but the adventure will catch up quickly.

[Arkhios]

Death house is designed to kill kickstart the characters to level 3 and give them some goodies, so skipping it to start at level 5 won't be a big deal, they may find it easy in the beginning but the adventure will catch up quickly.

Haha, alright then. Funny thing is, Death House reminds me of one part of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path from Paizo. Which, on the other hand, probably was inspired by original Curse of Strahd (if it had a Death House encounter as well; I don't know).

[tieren]

I started my CoS group at level 3 and just skipped death house altogether. the first part of the adventure is more learning exposition than a whole lot of adventuring (depending on how you run it I guess).

If it seems to easy for them at first have Strahd show up (its designed for him to appear periodically and terrorize the party). He'll quickly show them they have a long way to go before they pose a significant threat to him and hopefully they'll be a little less cocky.

The game is designed more milestone leveling, maybe skip the first two so the players don't outlevel the adventure and you'll be fine.

[Arkhios]

Alright. I've wrapped up a small introductory "speech" into their next adventure. If you want, check out the spoiler below for more details (unless you play in my table, SHOO!)

Handouts to be given to certain members of the party:

To those who fought the Nameless One and survived:
Your last memories are clear and you remember the fall of the Reverend, and the reawakening of the Goddess, Uria - as well as the horrific events afterwards. The sight of Shenlong in the grasp of the creature’s tentacles, being chopped to gruesome halves by its claw, is imprinted in the back of your eyes and is the last thing you recall before the darkness took you all.

To those who were elsewhere at the time, or died in "the other place":
You remember being cornered in a tavern, fighting for your lives against skeletons and zombies, back to back with people you haven’t met before - but that hardly mattered since you all had the same goal, same determination: to survive no matter what. You remember how the air suddenly became harder and harder to breathe. The last memories you have were of the dreadful thought that you were losing consciousness while still surrounded by the dead. And then the darkness took you all.

New beginnings:
"You awake in what appears to be a small cave. Candles at a small shrine in the back of the cave shed dim light into the darkness. Oddly enough, you feel warm and fully rested, ready to face whatever the world has in store for you this time, though unaware of your whereabouts and without knowledge of how much time has passed since you fell asleep.

Your eyes slowly attune to the dim light surrounding you and see shadowy shapes of what you realise to be your companions lying around, slowly waking up same as you are.

Though you soon realize that not all your equipment are here, your most prized possessions are scattered on the ground within an arm's reach. You hear a gentle caw from the direction of the shrine, and as you raise your eyes, you see a black raven with shiny beads decorating its thin legs, beckoning you to approach.
The raven appears to be sitting over an unlocked chest, in which you find potions and a few scrolls. The raven pecks at a greedy approach, and you get a sensation that it wants to distribute the contents to you as it sees fit."


In short, the situation is that they are still within the region where they were the last time, but have been saved by an unknown force. Once they leave the cave, a small band of (insert monsters here) will ambush them and chase them into a forest engulfed in fog. When they exit the fog after what seems to have been hours they find themselves in completely unfamiliar place (in the outskirts of Barovia).