Have I just set myself up for misery? (Curse of Strahd)

[ToastyTobasco]

So, my group has been running Curse of Strahd for a few months now. I am playing a Conquest Paladin. I knew we would need tanking and healing so I went with this class and the fear lockdown could help people stay alive. Conquest was a very exciting pick that has a ton of flavor and awesome abilities.

However, damn near every single creature we have come up to is immune to fear. Wolf pack apparently controlled by Strahd (Hair's breadth from a TPK thanks to their immunity.), undead, more undead, constructs and the one time we fought humans, I get hit by lightning and knocked out. It did at least work on about 5 of the 59+ freaking twig blights at the Winery.

The roleplay has really taken off in the party and we are having a blast but I feel like if I cant even use my class features I feel useless. Smites only go so far. We are currently level 6 and if I cant fear anything, 7 is just a dead level as well as anything else involving fear for this campaign. It also calls into question my choice of Shield Master at 4 for more lockdown when Aura of Conquest happens.

[tieren]

I think you'll be fine, there are a variety of creatures it will work on, and as you get more mixed groups the fear can separate into the immune and not immune.

[Petrocorus]

Have you tried to talk to your DM about this?

[Ganymede]

Even a paladin without a subclass is a match for most classes out there. In any case, with the level range of Curse of Strahd, you'd just lose out on a handful of psychic damage (and that's assuming you never get to use your fear related abilities, which you will).

Keep on kicking butt and enjoying the roleplay. You'll have opportunities to shine.

[Unoriginal]

So, my group has been running Curse of Strahd for a few months now. I am playing a Conquest Paladin. I knew we would need tanking and healing so I went with this class and the fear lockdown could help people stay alive. Conquest was a very exciting pick that has a ton of flavor and awesome abilities.

However, damn near every single creature we have come up to is immune to fear. Wolf pack apparently controlled by Strahd (Hair's breadth from a TPK thanks to their immunity.), undead, more undead, constructs and the one time we fought humans, I get hit by lightning and knocked out. It did at least work on about 5 of the 59+ freaking twig blights at the Winery.

The roleplay has really taken off in the party and we are having a blast but I feel like if I cant even use my class features I feel useless. Smites only go so far. We are currently level 6 and if I cant fear anything, 7 is just a dead level as well as anything else involving fear for this campaign. It also calls into question my choice of Shield Master at 4 for more lockdown when Aura of Conquest happens.

Undead aren't inherently immune to the Frightened condition, or to fear in general.

See: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/78479/can-undead-be-frightened

For a list of the Undead which are.


It seems like your DM ****ed up and either assumed Undead were immune without reading the rules or decided to nerf you without telling you.

Even VAMPIRES aren't immune to the Frightened condition, so I don't see why some random mooks would be.

[Nhorianscum]

So, my group has been running Curse of Strahd for a few months now. I am playing a Conquest Paladin. I knew we would need tanking and healing so I went with this class and the fear lockdown could help people stay alive. Conquest was a very exciting pick that has a ton of flavor and awesome abilities.

However, damn near every single creature we have come up to is immune to fear. Wolf pack apparently controlled by Strahd (Hair's breadth from a TPK thanks to their immunity.), undead, more undead, constructs and the one time we fought humans, I get hit by lightning and knocked out. It did at least work on about 5 of the 59+ freaking twig blights at the Winery.

The roleplay has really taken off in the party and we are having a blast but I feel like if I cant even use my class features I feel useless. Smites only go so far. We are currently level 6 and if I cant fear anything, 7 is just a dead level as well as anything else involving fear for this campaign. It also calls into question my choice of Shield Master at 4 for more lockdown when Aura of Conquest happens.

Shield master is just a great feat in general so no worries there.

In non-fear situations CQadins still have guided strike, AoA, and Spiritual weapon along with the standard paladin kit of spells to really stomp things. Your aura will completely shut off some fights no worries. In the meantime enjoy the RP and have fun with the not-fear kit.

[Dungeon-noob]

So, i just checked the books, and RAW dire wolves aren't immune to fear, Strahd minion or no. Neither are Vampires, zombies or Strahd zombies. I haven't found any NPCs in the module that are either Neither is Strahd himself, for that matter. So you are allowed to ask your DM why he's changing the stats like this, and if he's aware he's heavily nerfing you specificly over the rest of the group. You're right to be annoyed at this, it seems kind of petty to take away the mechanic a specific player's subclass revolves around, especially since it's against RAW, core and module.

[sophontteks]

Lol I was pretty confused reading this. "Wolves are immune to fear, oh crap!"

Yeah, they aren't. Nor are undead for that matter.

If you want to address this without a fight, talk to the DM in private. He's probably thinking back in the 3.5 days when undead had a specific spells to charm and fear them. In 5e they did the obvious, they just made regular charm and fear work on them.

If he doesn't budge request to change your archtype, since you werent aware of this houserule.

This change is not good for the game and hopefully he changes it. I couldn't imagine playing CoS with my bard if undead and wolves were houseruled as immune to fear and charm. My character would be useless.

[Ganymede]

Lol I was pretty confused reading this. "Wolves are immune to fear, oh crap!"

Yeah, they aren't.

...houserule.

This change is not good for the game and hopefully he changes it.


So, i just checked the books, and RAW dire wolves aren't immune to fear, Strahd minion or no.

...it seems kind of petty to take away the mechanic a specific player's subclass revolves around, especially since it's against RAW, core and module.

Curse of Strahd specifically notes that creatures under his dominion are immune to charm and fear.

"The dire wolves of Barovia are cruel, overgrown wolves and Strahd's loyal servants. They can't be charmed or frightened."

"{Mundane wolves} heed the will of Strahd and can't be charmed or frightened."

It is also worth noting that the various swarms of bats, rats, and bugs the players encounter are also immune fear as per the Monster Manual.

[sophontteks]

Welp, good to know when we face the wolves:smalleek:

Undead still aren't immune.

[ToastyTobasco]

Shield master is just a great feat in general so no worries there.

In non-fear situations CQadins still have guided strike, AoA, and Spiritual weapon along with the standard paladin kit of spells to really stomp things. Your aura will completely shut off some fights no worries. In the meantime enjoy the RP and have fun with the not-fear kit.

Oh, I completely forgot about guided strike.


Curse of Strahd specifically notes that creatures under his dominion are immune to charm and fear.

"The dire wolves of Barovia are cruel, overgrown wolves and Strahd's loyal servants. They can't be charmed or frightened."

"{Mundane wolves} heed the will of Strahd and can't be charmed or frightened."

It is also worth noting that the various swarms of bats, rats, and bugs the players encounter are also immune fear as per the Monster Manual.

This is great to know. Also, I looked at a few different undead and it looks like we fought some revenants, which are immune to fear. Lucky me. I really think I am just unlucky rather than DM doing shifty **** as he runs the adventure very straight and openly critiques it as we go such as pointless rooms or noting where crucial details are just left out.

To be fair, we have taken an unorthodox path through CoS and we are typically underlevel for the areas we jump into so I lean towards the CC more to keep enemies at bay as I am the frontline. It is just infuriating knowing that there are a large variety of undead and no way to tell if they are immune outside of reading ahead and studying the Monster Manual.

Zombie? Fear. Mummy? No fear. Ghost? Wasting time. Spectre or Wraith? You're golden. (WHAT!?) . Seriously, dafuq is with this list?

It was just a frustrating night as it was the first we had played in 2 months, this happened, any knowledge rolls we do to uncover things roll stupidly low and I was sick of the chapel encounter by the time we finished. I was given the quest to "save" the knights and I wanted to try and not kill them and it just lead to an infuriating fight for me. Every spell or non-divine smite failed and then the revanants were tossing most of us around like potato sacks.

On a better note: The ranger and one revenant kept having a fist/grapple fight where no one was hitting so it was basically a slap-fight. Revenant draws his sword and then trips and loses it. What this encounter did show me was how crucial my radiant damage is as I am the sole provider of it without the Sunsword. Also noticed how quick you can run out of smites. Also rolled 3 nat 20's in a row. That one wasnt getting back up.

[Petrocorus]

I don't know if this is possible fluff-wise, but maybe you could ask your DM to rebuild your character as another kind of Paladin.

[Draken]

Changing to another type of paladin may be ideal since it appears that there are far too many fear immune enemies in that particular adventure.

That being, said, if you do stick with it, you can simply lean more onto Guided Strike, as it is just plain good itself. And the best spell Paladins cast is usually Smite regardless of slot.

Just avoid Crown if you do change Oaths, is my personal advice. It is neat early, but loses steam so fast.

[Dungeon-noob]

Curse of Strahd specifically notes that creatures under his dominion are immune to charm and fear.

"The dire wolves of Barovia are cruel, overgrown wolves and Strahd's loyal servants. They can't be charmed or frightened."

"{Mundane wolves} heed the will of Strahd and can't be charmed or frightened."

It is also worth noting that the various swarms of bats, rats, and bugs the players encounter are also immune fear as per the Monster Manual.
*furiously checks books* aaaahhh, under the random encounter table. That's where it was. I would like to point out it says nothing like that about the minions he brings with him, and since that would be kind of obviously important information to note there, i'm not so sure it applies to them as well. Would be reaaaallly weird formatting if it did. Overall, weird but it's in there.