Help with CoS balance

[Musthelog]

Hello again playground!
Im going to be running CoS starting this week and i have just done the card reading to determine the locations of the items and the ally that my players will get. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!


Im happy with the locations of 2 of the items they need to find, but the sun sword is being held in one of the crypts in the castle. Their final showdown with Strahd is to take place in his crypt. Im worried that the rest of the module will be that little bit too hard without the sunsword. Should i change the location?
Secondly, the ally that i drew is the mad mage. Looking at his stat block im worrird that he is going to make the final fight rather anticlimactic. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome :D

[Sigreid]

Both should be fine, depending on the group. Mine managed to get it from the castle tower.

[Laserlight]

We just finished this week. Our paladin got the sword in Amber Temple but refused to use it until she actually fought Strahd. And when we got to the crypts, he was off to one side, ranting. We were able to complete a short rest before he came over and started gnawing on me.

[Madfellow]

Im happy with the locations of 2 of the items they need to find, but the sun sword is being held in one of the crypts in the castle. Their final showdown with Strahd is to take place in his crypt. Im worried that the rest of the module will be that little bit too hard without the sunsword. Should i change the location?
Secondly, the ally that i drew is the mad mage. Looking at his stat block im worrird that he is going to make the final fight rather anticlimactic. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome :D

I wouldn't worry about the sword. When I ran CoS, they found the sword fairly early on and it made things a bit too EASY for them. Keeping them without it for longer should keep the tension up.

As for the Mad Mage, if I recall correctly he's stated as an archmage, yes? You could downgrade him to a regular old mage to tone things down a bit while still keeping him useful.

Hope this helps. :smallsmile:

[Bel-Torac]

You can always have Ezmeralda do another card reading and change whatever you don't like.

[Musthelog]

Its not that i dont like where things are or who their ally is, i just wanted to know if anyone had any issues with something similar in any of their games.

[Cespenar]

In our campaign, I think we drew the mage as well, but he never assisted us with any fights, or so I recall. He just gave us some information about the places we were going to visit.

Also you might move the sword to a midgame location so that the group could actually make use of its awesomeness in some fights before the Strahd fight. I think our DM did something like that as well. I vaguely recall that we found the sword somewhere around the evil druids' place.

[Sigreid]

IMO the sword isn't any more dangerous than the holy symbol of ravenkind. That sucker straight up wrecks vampire encounters.

[djreynolds]

We had our bard using the sunsword, another player had another magic sword. Two other magic items were lost because those players left and the DM said "those weapons went with them."

For the final fight, IMO, it is clearly attrition and trying to keep players in the fight. For 10th level players, even with proficiency, Strahd's spell DC can be difficult to pass. It required a lot of team work on my clerics' end to keep concentration up on protection from good/evil on the bard and to pass my wisdom saves. The DM made me a target once he figured out my tactic.

The fight was tough, but very enjoyable. A very good challenge.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Once they have the sunsword, Strahd will work hard to separate them from it. It might become a mission for Lady Wacher's imp.

Nothing is permanent. Perhaps the sword is barter demanded by another NPC in exchange for something needed. The NPC feels that the heroes are just not "worthy" of wielding the sword of Sergei?

This goes ditto for all artifacts, and double for Tome of Strahd.