Playing Curse of Strahd with only 3 characters

[Jakinbandw]

So one of my players offered to run curse of strand for our core group. This leaves us with only 3 players. One is a redemption Paladin, and the other is a blood hunter.

I have 2.5 ideas for a character

My main idea is going peace cleric 1 and then bard after that going bard. I'm leaning toward eloquence, but I'm not sure if lore would be better. We as a party do want to focus on diplomacy and non-combat problem solving, so always rolling a 20 or better on persuasion would seem pretty helpful.

(This is the reason for peace cleric. Being able to give an ally 2d4+1d6 to a skill check should open up a lot of options)

The downside is that my stat spread would leave me with 0 con and 0 Dex so I'd be squishy. We're hoping that interception fighting style on the Paladin would help. And then later they have options to just negate damage in would take.

My other idea is to play a twilight cleric and grab canaries to be able to stand on the front line with the other PCs. The temp hp would allow us to survive much longer, but we'd lose out on a decent chunk of Versatility.

Any thoughts on what would work better?

[Eldariel]

Well, with 3 players, having 0 durability could be kind of a problem. OTOH Lore would really augment your extremely wanting spellcasting (spellcasting is pretty darn good). I'd lean towards #1 if there's some way you can fix your defenses; you'd be proficient in heavy armor so going a dwarven race or a high speed race wielding a shield would give you competitive AC and durability...are you SURE you can't afford Con? As a spellcaster, you already want it for Concentration saves, let alone HP. You could also take Inspiring Leader for some extra THP: while your plan of talking things out is of course good (do make sure to pick up Enhance Ability and Guidance!), you always need to be prepared for things turning dire too and that party isn't shutting enemies down with CC so some durability is probably well-advised.

But yeah, this party lacks all real spellcasting so an omnicaster is what the group really wants: Jorasco Halfling Wizard, Lore Bard, many Druids can all fill in pretty well. Cleric list is left a bit wanting but Cleric with Mark spells and some multiclassing could work too. Eloquence Bard is good but I think you are in dire enough need of support spells that you need to go Lore to get those Magical Secrets ASAP. Advantage, expertise and bonuses are generally enough to get good numbers on Cha checks.

[Jakinbandw]

Well, with 3 players, having 0 durability could be kind of a problem. OTOH Lore would really augment your extremely wanting spellcasting (spellcasting is pretty darn good). I'd lean towards #1 if there's some way you can fix your defenses; you'd be proficient in heavy armor so going a dwarven race or a high speed race wielding a shield would give you competitive AC and durability...are you SURE you can't afford Con? As a spellcaster, you already want it for Concentration saves, let alone HP. You could also take Inspiring Leader for some extra THP: while your plan of talking things out is of course good (do make sure to pick up Enhance Ability and Guidance!), you always need to be prepared for things turning dire too and that party isn't shutting enemies down with CC so some durability is probably well-advised.

But yeah, this party lacks all real spellcasting so an omnicaster is what the group really wants: Jorasco Halfling Wizard, Lore Bard, many Druids can all fill in pretty well. Cleric list is left a bit wanting but Cleric with Mark spells and some multiclassing could work too. Eloquence Bard is good but I think you are in dire enough need of support spells that you need to go Lore to get those Magical Secrets ASAP. Advantage, expertise and bonuses are generally enough to get good numbers on Cha checks.

I am going V human to grab Inspiring leader at level 1. My spread is [8 str, 10 Dex, 10 con, 12 int, 16 wis, 16 cha]. This is because I'll be the only one with a wis over 8 in the party, and I prefer well rounded characters. I also don't want to play a stupid character if possible.

For additional support the gm let us have a holy order group patron, so we can also get cleric spells up to level 5 cast for us in towns. If I could get the gm also to allow ravnica backgrounds would that help with our lack of broad spellcasting enough that I could get away with eloquence?

[Man_Over_Game]

I am going V human to grab Inspiring leader at level 1. My spread is [8 str, 10 Dex, 10 con, 12 int, 16 wis, 16 cha]. This is because I'll be the only one with a wis over 8 in the party, and I prefer well rounded characters. I also don't want to play a stupid character if possible.

For additional support the gm let us have a holy order group patron, so we can also get cleric spells up to level 5 cast for us in towns. If I could get the gm also to allow ravnica backgrounds would that help with our lack of broad spellcasting enough that I could get away with eloquence?

Eloquence is fine, but it runs into the same issue that you're going to have with Peace Cleric: They're optimized for large parties.

With something like Lore Bard's Reaction-based Shield effect, you could be nullifying huge percentages of the enemy's capabilities, since enemy numbers are likely going to scale down with the number of players. So instead of deflecting 1/5 of the enemy's attacks, you're blocking 1/3. With Jack of All Trades, you can probably afford to bump up your other stats for being a well-rounded skill user for the party.

[chiefwaha]

I would consider dropping the cleric part of your plan entirely, but if you have to have it, you're not really relying on your wisdom for much, I'd drop your wisdom down to 14 and bump Con and/or Dex to 14. Since you're stuck with medium armor and shield, I'd consider CON to help with HP and concentration checks, since you're probably going to get hit relatively often anyway.

[da newt]

Sidekick?
(Tasha's pg 142)

[Thunderous Mojo]

My other idea is to play a twilight cleric and grab canaries to be able to stand on the front line with the other PCs. The temp hp would allow us to survive much longer, but we'd lose out on a decent chunk of Versatility.

Any thoughts on what would work better?

5e Barovia, seems a pretty twisted place, right out the old book, so negotiation has it's limits..especially with Strahd.

I would recommend going down the Twilight Cleric Route.
Barovia is dark, gloomy...often dimly illuminated.
Negating Vampire charm alone is worth it.

The new,(TCoE introduced), Harness Divine Power in conjunction with the Aid spell is a nigh bespoke-made option for the Three Person group. 🃏

TCoE allowed the Aura of Life spell to be added to the Cleric spell list.
I can personally attest to the efficacy of combing an usage of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind with a cast of Aura of Life; I can only imagine what a sprinkling of Twilight Sanctuary would add to that mix.

Vampires Beware!

I think having both a Cleric and a Paladin for a CoS excursion greatly increases your chance of success. I'm not familiar with the Blood Hunter but I assume it is equal in strength to a Monster Hunter style Ranger.

Cleric, Paladin, Ranger...seems a rather good three person party for Ravenloft.

[Jakinbandw]

Eloquence is fine, but it runs into the same issue that you're going to have with Peace Cleric: They're optimized for large parties.

With something like Lore Bard's Reaction-based Shield effect, you could be nullifying huge percentages of the enemy's capabilities, since enemy numbers are likely going to scale down with the number of players. So instead of deflecting 1/5 of the enemy's attacks, you're blocking 1/3. With Jack of All Trades, you can probably afford to bump up your other stats for being a well-rounded skill user for the party.

I will admit, the ability to make foes fail attack rolls is pretty cool. I'm curious how it stacks up against the ability to give them a penalty on all save or suck spells? Is it better to prevent a few hits a day, or lock down a foe a few times a day? This is an honest question, I don't know the answer.

I'm pretty sure all bards get Jack of All Trades. If you're talking about the 3 bonus proficiency I can kinda see your point. But starting at cleric 1/bard 2 we have all our bases covered as far as skills go. At best this would let me pick up some knowledges as a backup to the blood hunter how has 16 int and proficiency in all the knowledges already.


I would consider dropping the cleric part of your plan entirely, but if you have to have it, you're not really relying on your wisdom for much, I'd drop your wisdom down to 14 and bump Con and/or Dex to 14. Since you're stuck with medium armor and shield, I'd consider CON to help with HP and concentration checks, since you're probably going to get hit relatively often anyway.

I'm worried about this. Noone else in the party has a wisdom above 8, and as I understand it, perception and insight are pretty important skills. I could shift my point of int to con, and I might have to, but for 1hp a level it doesn't feel like much help. Especially when there is a redemption paliden in the group that will be using both the interception fighting style and Aura of the Guardian to help reduce any damage I would take. In this case, a better AC might be more useful.

I'll think on it.


5e Barovia, seems a pretty twisted place, right out the old book, so negotiation has it's limits..especially with Strahd.

I would recommend going down the Twilight Cleric Route.
Barovia is dark, gloomy...often dimly illuminated.
Negating Vampire charm alone is worth it.

The new,(TCoE introduced), Harness Divine Power in conjunction with the Aid spell is a nigh bespoke-made option for the Three Person group. 🃏

TCoE allowed the Aura of Life spell to be added to the Cleric spell list.
I can personally attest to the efficacy of combing an usage of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind with a cast of Aura of Life; I can only imagine what a sprinkling of Twilight Sanctuary would add to that mix.

Vampires Beware!

I think having both a Cleric and a Paladin for a CoS excursion greatly increases your chance of success. I'm not familiar with the Blood Hunter but I assume it is equal in strength to a Monster Hunter style Ranger.

Cleric, Paladin, Ranger...seems a rather good three person party for Ravenloft.
The few reasons I have against going pure cleric are mostly that doing so would leave the party without a lot of utility spells. Things like Identify don't sound impressive, but are really important to have.

[DwarfFighter]

So one of my players offered to run curse of strand for our core group. This leaves us with only 3 players.

Peace cleric option sounds like the one you want. Go for it.

Three players sounds a bit thin. You should consider bringing in a fourth character and have one of the players play him in addition to his own.

This I have tried and it works: My Wizard decided to hire a bodyguard, so the GM rolled up a bog-standard fighter with extremely limited ambition ("I just want to be a Fighter, man!") and interests ("I do a lot of basket-weaving!") and a subservient personality ("Sure, I can do that, boss!"). So this is a character that works with the party, helps out as best he can, but doesn't need to draw attention away from the "real" characters. The GM doesn't need to run him, so there isn't a lot of work. Of course, in my case the GM reserved the right to step in if the bodyguard started acting against his established character, or meta-gaming was an issue.

-DF

[Man_Over_Game]

I will admit, the ability to make foes fail attack rolls is pretty cool. I'm curious how it stacks up against the ability to give them a penalty on all save or suck spells?

The Lore Bard's feature is one of the few that will never go to waste.

Consider the Save-or-Suck penalty you get. Let's say that, by default, you have a 50% chance to land a spell against a target. Your feature increases that to 75%. However, there is still a 50% chance you'd succeed regardless of whether you'd use your Bardic feature, and there's still a 25% chance that you'd failure regardless of whether you'd use your Bardic feature.

Overall, there's a good chance that you don't actually benefit from hexing the target.

Now take into consideration the Lore Bard's version of things. Since it's the last calculation on the stack, you know exactly how much AC you'd need to deflect the attack, you could make some quick calculations and guess whether or not it's worth the risk, and guarantee value from its use. It also uses your Reaction, which a Bard otherwise isn't going to be using often. It also doesn't require any kind of additional costs, like a spell slot or an Action.

Lastly, it's not like Bards have all that many decent single-target affliction spells in the first place. Generally speaking, your best save spells are things like Hypnotic Pattern for a long while, and the best spell I could envision using the Eloquence bard's hex on the regular is something circumstantial like Heat Metal.

Eloquence is basically a support bard for casters; it doesn't really do much if you're the only caster.

[RogueJK]

Of the two, Twilight Cleric would be the better option, provided you can rearrange your stat spread and change your race. You'd need a 16 in WIS and the other 16 in CON, along with going Dwarf instead of VHuman to be able to wear Heavy Armor without penalty. That change solves both the low HP and low AC issues.


I would not do a Cleric 1/Bard X in a 3 person party. And I'm saying that having thoroughly enjoyed playing a Cleric 1/Bard X to good effect in an earlier campaign (albeit in a larger party). They're a great option for a 5th or 6th character, but a pretty poor option for a 3rd character.

The issue is combat. And CoS is fairly combat heavy. A Bard with a Cleric dip is a fantastic support character, with basically everything they're doing making the rest of the party better. The thing is, they're almost entirely a support character. Most of the time, they won't actually be significantly contributing to combat damage themselves. Buffs, status effects, debuffs, and battlefield control are great options, and can play a meaningful part in combat, but at the end of the day your party will have to be able to take enemies out by removing HP.

So you'd end up with just 2 characters who are having to shoulder the majority of the "whittle down enemy HP" load, while also having to shoulder the vast majority of "absorb incoming damage" load. Granted, those two are being made better by the Bard, but that support boost it won't quite make up for the Cleric/Bard's minimal direct damage contribution and overt squishiness.


If you're looking for other class options, consider Druid. A Shepherd Druid would potentially be a good choice for this small party, to bulk out the party with buffed summons. You'd still be a squishy caster, but at least you'd have extra meat shields to hide behind. Or, even better, a Moon Druid doesn't care that their human form is ridiculously squishy, since they're going to be Wild Shaped in nearly every significant combat and taking on the STR/DEX/CON and AC/HP of their beast form. A Moon Druid could keep the existing 8/10/10/12/16/16 spread and not even blink an eye 99% of the time. It's likely your best (only?) option at playing a survivable character with those stats as-is.

Battle Smith Artificer could also be a good option, if you can rearrange stat values. It lets you be INT SAD, and gets you somewhat of a 4th party member in the form of your Steel Defender. But like the Twilight Cleric, you'd want to be a Dwarf to be able to wear Heavy Armor without penalty, and move your 16s into INT and CON. You'd still have to rely on cantrips, but just for the first 2 levels, since you can use INT for weapon attacks starting at Level 3.

[Mastikator]

I haven't played Curse of Strahd but I've heard it's a tough one that can cause a lot of TTK, so I'd ask the DM if you could run gestalt PCs to even the odds.

[Ettina]

The few reasons I have against going pure cleric are mostly that doing so would leave the party without a lot of utility spells. Things like Identify don't sound impressive, but are really important to have.

Knowledge cleric gets identify. They're pretty good utility clerics in other ways, too.

[RogueJK]

Or, any Cleric (or any other character) can have utility rituals like Identify through the Ritual Caster Wizard feat.


Another option for a "cleric" with these utility rituals is a Celestial Tome Warlock. They get access to all of the most iconic healer/status removal spells, plus they have a BA healing option for in-combat yo-yos that's better than Healing Word, and can get all Ritual spells (from any class) through the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation. And beyond healing and utility, they can also still contribute noticeably to the party's damage output through Eldritch Blast and its various boosts, choice damage spells like Flaming Sphere, Shatter, Synaptic Static, and Wall of Fire, plus melee options like Shillelagh and GFB/BB with Armor of Agathys.

This Celestial Tomelock would still be covering a lot of the same bases as your Cleric/Bard idea: CHA-based spell casting, utility spells, healing, diplomacy skills, etc., while also being significantly less squishy and better at both single target and AoE damage in combat.

See the Celestial Generalist build here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds It'd require moving around your stat spread, though... You'd need to start as a VHuman with 16 CHA, 15 CON, and 13 DEX, and take the Moderately Armored feat (with +1 DEX for 14 total) at 1st.

Or you could do something like a Life or Twilight Cleric 1/Celestial Tomelock X, going Hill Dwarf race, starting with a 16 CHA, 15 WIS, and 14 CON, and wearing Heavy Armor (with no penalty). That'd also get you the higher WIS that you were wanting, while still avoiding squishiness, but it comes at the cost of slightly delaying your Warlock progression.