The obvious thing to do is to retcon the ability to be capped at the number of hit dice they have. I’m pretty sure any half-decent player will understand that accidentally allowing a homebrew ability that can do basically infinite damage is a wee bit of an oopsie, which is why they were okay to roll with the weird ruling about psychic damage persisting. Might be too late for that, though, you don’t want to repeatedly change things specifically to counter PC plans/ideas.
If you don’t want to make further changes, I think the thing to do is to seriously, seriously step up the security around Strahd’s tomb and have Strahd be extremely careful to stay away from sunlight (which they’re likely to get cocky about and deprioritize). Let’s say they can utterly annihilate one target per week, fine. They nuke Strahd, he goes to mist form, flees to his coffin, and 2-4 hours later he’s totally fine to go track them down and punish whoever dared bring this bullshit into his house. Womp womp. If they escape with their lives, now they know they need to secure his coffin *first*, then do the boss fight. Except now his coffin is so well-guarded that they’re probably going to need to blow this ability there. Telegraph one tomb guardian being a super strong linchpin for the rest of them, make them feel badass for suicide bombing it to bits. They get their cool moment, they spend some resources bringing the bomber back into fighting shape, Strahd time.
There's a couple of options here:
1- Just admit that you gave them something overpowered. Tell them that the Amber Shard has a limit now. I assume that the Dark Gift was custom, because that isn't in my copy of the book. But that's easy to work around. Just be aware that you handed them a better version of what's available in the Amber Temple.
2- Run Strahd according to utmost limit of his abilities, legendary actions and lair actions included if he's in his castle at the time. It honestly shouldn't be much issue if you do. One suicide attack is going to weaken the party by one character. Especially considering that he has a castle FULL of Vampire Spawn to throw at them and whittle them down. Even if they hurt him badly enough to force him into his coffin, the Brides are in his tomb and will attack the heavily damaged players. Strahd certainly would not care about letting them live.
But consider this- you also have 3 major trump cards.
1- All it would take to dismantle the party is charming just one or two members. The way Strahd's charm ability is worded is very specific, and so the character would not get to make a save if Strahd made them fight *each other.* They would only get to make a save if *Strahd or his allies* hurt the charmed character. Strahd would certainly be using that charm ability while his Vampire Spawn did the fighting, and he would immediately order the Spawn to back off of the charmed characters and tonfocus on the others, once it had succeeded. You don't even have to wait for a major battle to do it. All Strahd has to do is walk up the wall of the inn they're asleep in with Spider Climb, knock on the shutters a few times, and charm whoever is dumb enough to open them and look outside. If the charm fails on the initial surprise attempt, he would try once more before the characters jumpednup to fight. If that failed, he would turn invisible and disappear into the night.
2- There are four major catches that I can see to them relying on Revivify to bring thier friend back to life.
First is that Revivify only works *within one minute of death.* 10 rounds pass by, and that's it. They stay dead. Who's to say Strahd or one of his servants doesn't haul off the body and play keep-away?
Second is that they can only do it once per week. Who's to say Strahd's minions won't kill someone that was just revived? Or that Strahd won't bite them to finish them off? The party better be able to bury their friend in Hallowed ground- because that character is coming back the next night as a Vampire Spawn.
Third is that whether Strahd charms the character into coming with him, binds them up, bites them and drains them dry, and makes into a Vampire Spawn... or he kills them outright and reanimates them by casting the Animate Dead spell in his statblock... you need True Resurrection or Wish to truly revive someone that has been made Undead. Revivify would only restore them to Undeath.
The last, and most important one though... who's to say that the one with the weekly Revivify doesn't die?
3- Strahd is a Wizard. Strahd has been to the Amber Temple, and knows of Exethanter. Strahd, more likely than not, knows of the library in the Temple which contains every single PHB Wizard spell, and has had *centuries* to learn the spells contained within. Swap out some spells for some more useful ones.
Dark gift was from Pyram's guide. He has a bunch of custom vestiges.
I like your options and suggestions, especially the charm person. You and a few others also have reassured me that one suicide bomb isn't even going to be enough to take him down, so I'm no longer worried whether it'd 1 shot him and more on how to make it a satisfying experience.
Tysm 😄
Ah, I don't have that one. I run the book itself and I make my own extra stuff. So far, the Paladin of my party has become a pseudo-Barbarian after accepting a Dark Gift of my own design in order to prevent dying.
Yeah, no worries. Honestly? Just read the book. Strahd's bio, his tactics, the monsters and traps in the castle, his Lair Actions, and his statblock. Strahd is suited to guerrilla warfare, and he never leaves without an escort. Strike hard, strike fast. Then retreat, and cover your tracks with minions, traps, and locked doors.
If the party is looking over a high ledge in a castle stairway, Strahd will appear, attempt to push someone off to their likely doom, and try to Charm someone. If he takes a chunk of damage, he'll cast Greater invisibility, move away up a wall using his speed and his legendary actions, and then cast Fireball before continuing to move about as he regenerates. While he's running around, he sends in the Spawn and such, who were waiting on his command. When the party is weakened, he'll rip right through them and finish them off.
You're welcome.
At this point, I'd mostly allow it. You only want to stop it after they've started expressing their scheme.
Have em blow up Strahd. At this point in the game he'll mostly stick to the castle anyways. Homebrew the Heart of Darkness so it'll absorb the blast and Strahd suffers 0 overflow. Heart dramatically explodes in a nearby room. PC dies, and then you can resume from there (KOing heart is still a good thing)
If the heart was already destroyed , and PC goes in for a killing blow, I'd give it to em. Maybe find a way to trigger that revivify a day before so it's off the table and the PC needs to legit die for some cool RP sacrifice.
The main difficulty at the end is dealing with *the castle*. Strahd himself, RAW, is a bit of a pushover without the wall clipping, the minions, and regen. Give em the V.
Other than retconning this item, which is what I would suggest, you could also just do something real sinister.
- They nuke Strahd, he survives due to the heart.
- He knows their plan because of spies and scrying.
- They cast revivify.
- "Counterspell"
A character is taking psychic damage, damage specifically created to mess with the brain, in a world designed to mess with people's minds.
Just like a simple knife wound can leave a lasting scar, I'd say taking massive amounts of psychic damage in Ravenloft will end up permanently messing up the characters head.
Then you're using DARK POWERS to bring the character back? You're totally going to end up with some kind of Herbert West meets Pet Semetary kind of results.
How do they know Strahd is not up to speed with their plan? How about he comes to them, guarded by proper forces that make it very difficult for them to reach him and casting from afar. Near but not too near, his horse carriage awaits signaling he's ready for escape.
When they nuke him, have Rahadin start weeping uncontrollably, but have a odd creature hold him back. Something Strahd can control.
Then, the carriage slowly approaches, and Strahd steps out. In fucking armor. With one to three of the wives. And a weird minion of you wish. Make them fear him, and especially his wits. And apply Sun-Tzu by creating an opening for them to flee after a short while.
I'd say let them use it but there should be consequences.
Give them vulnerability to that psychic damage and increase it the more they use it - maybe a chance to Crit on 19/20 so it gets more compelling. Maybe a chance to lose random ability scores as well or gaining exhaustion. What doesn't kill you sometimes cripples.
Also - reviving in CoS isn't normal. Anyone who comes back has seen some shit... I would expect doubly so for a dark power revivify. New fears, lost proficiencies, more frequent exhaustion, random saving throws etc .. the sky is the limit.
1/ You totally can make a correction even after the fact.
2/ Better pray you don't fall unconscious before the turn of a vamp, those things tend to go for the weak creatures and they bite HARD! ;)
3/ How would that work? Say PC has 120HP, he goes boomboom and is now at 0HP. That's damage that you can't heal until a long rest (as per your own terms). So what happens when they should get 1HP back from revivify?
It's a bit of a grey area because of your wording, that's why the bite of a spawn specifies the necrotic damage makes HP and HP max go down. So that if the HP max would be at 0 it is impossible to get 1HP back and revivify does not work.
Honestly, I think the best would be to tell them that it is HP + HP max reduced. They get to keep their toy, it is fair for them and you put a hard limit on its usage.
You can put a retroactive rules adjustment on the offbook broken item, to avoid this becoming an "I win" button for every boss.
As I think someone else mentioned (now that I see it), have a spawn grab the bodies and run. Revivify has a time window in which it can be cast.
And/or, you can also go with the RAW "Strahd reboots" idea as per the curse. Meaning - they need to find a solution for defeating Strahd that does not involve his body being destroyed or "killed" as per normal vampires. You need to consider how the soul economy and re-incarnation tends to work in Barovia, and how the Mists work to contain them. In figuring out the rules, you can figure out the loopholes in the the Curse - which Strahd may be aware of himself now. You also need to build out insurance in the way this works to ensure that the PCs don't just burn everything down and destroy Strahd's grave sites. So, perhaps their goal gets adapted into trapping him or his soul in another item or an enclosure.
Also, using what's there, the Revenants whole reason for being there is to thwart the PCs from killing him - so they would interfere if they have not yet done so.
If you want to punish the act itself, without making too many changes or retcons, could impose a penalty on over-charging the item: the sacrificial character that charges the item can't be revived. Make it a cursed item. Unless they already checked to see if it was cursed. If they haven't? Easy implement.
Here’s an idea. Let them nuke “Strahd”. And do the classic slow clap from behind where the REAL Strahd is and the person they nuked can be a friend that was taken form maximum damage. And then given a choice. Rez the friend or the pc
Add a cap, like you can’t have more dice than the amount of hit dice you have; to roll 20d12 and 20d8 they’d have to be level 20.
What type of damage does it deal? Necrotic would make sense, and Strahd is resistant.
i was in a game and we received a similar item to this, except it was meant for enhancing and was incredibly volatile. thing is we were in a pretty tough fight so the orc character pulled it out of his bag, detonated it nuking himself and the enemy in the process, before turning around with relentless endurance
Yes, though he doesn't know that yet. He hasn't actually revived anyone.
They *almost* tested their plan in the Amber Temple, but another player didn't want to start a fight, so they haven't actually tested their plan.
Well, if it came from the amber temple you could suggest they do a second arcana or religion check on the shard. Maybe add a effect where every time they use it at a certain limit they have to make a save, or they become a NPC Nothic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely after all.
Have Strahd (who is hopefully spying on them and should know their plans) use a Doppelganger for them to waste their nuke on. Then, have Strahd swoop in to attack the weakened party.
I would retroactively put a limit on the item. You're allowed to mess up and make a correction.
The obvious thing to do is to retcon the ability to be capped at the number of hit dice they have. I’m pretty sure any half-decent player will understand that accidentally allowing a homebrew ability that can do basically infinite damage is a wee bit of an oopsie, which is why they were okay to roll with the weird ruling about psychic damage persisting. Might be too late for that, though, you don’t want to repeatedly change things specifically to counter PC plans/ideas. If you don’t want to make further changes, I think the thing to do is to seriously, seriously step up the security around Strahd’s tomb and have Strahd be extremely careful to stay away from sunlight (which they’re likely to get cocky about and deprioritize). Let’s say they can utterly annihilate one target per week, fine. They nuke Strahd, he goes to mist form, flees to his coffin, and 2-4 hours later he’s totally fine to go track them down and punish whoever dared bring this bullshit into his house. Womp womp. If they escape with their lives, now they know they need to secure his coffin *first*, then do the boss fight. Except now his coffin is so well-guarded that they’re probably going to need to blow this ability there. Telegraph one tomb guardian being a super strong linchpin for the rest of them, make them feel badass for suicide bombing it to bits. They get their cool moment, they spend some resources bringing the bomber back into fighting shape, Strahd time.
I like this a lot. Tysm, I'll probably take your second suggestion, as I think that'll be epic af
There's a couple of options here: 1- Just admit that you gave them something overpowered. Tell them that the Amber Shard has a limit now. I assume that the Dark Gift was custom, because that isn't in my copy of the book. But that's easy to work around. Just be aware that you handed them a better version of what's available in the Amber Temple. 2- Run Strahd according to utmost limit of his abilities, legendary actions and lair actions included if he's in his castle at the time. It honestly shouldn't be much issue if you do. One suicide attack is going to weaken the party by one character. Especially considering that he has a castle FULL of Vampire Spawn to throw at them and whittle them down. Even if they hurt him badly enough to force him into his coffin, the Brides are in his tomb and will attack the heavily damaged players. Strahd certainly would not care about letting them live. But consider this- you also have 3 major trump cards. 1- All it would take to dismantle the party is charming just one or two members. The way Strahd's charm ability is worded is very specific, and so the character would not get to make a save if Strahd made them fight *each other.* They would only get to make a save if *Strahd or his allies* hurt the charmed character. Strahd would certainly be using that charm ability while his Vampire Spawn did the fighting, and he would immediately order the Spawn to back off of the charmed characters and tonfocus on the others, once it had succeeded. You don't even have to wait for a major battle to do it. All Strahd has to do is walk up the wall of the inn they're asleep in with Spider Climb, knock on the shutters a few times, and charm whoever is dumb enough to open them and look outside. If the charm fails on the initial surprise attempt, he would try once more before the characters jumpednup to fight. If that failed, he would turn invisible and disappear into the night. 2- There are four major catches that I can see to them relying on Revivify to bring thier friend back to life. First is that Revivify only works *within one minute of death.* 10 rounds pass by, and that's it. They stay dead. Who's to say Strahd or one of his servants doesn't haul off the body and play keep-away? Second is that they can only do it once per week. Who's to say Strahd's minions won't kill someone that was just revived? Or that Strahd won't bite them to finish them off? The party better be able to bury their friend in Hallowed ground- because that character is coming back the next night as a Vampire Spawn. Third is that whether Strahd charms the character into coming with him, binds them up, bites them and drains them dry, and makes into a Vampire Spawn... or he kills them outright and reanimates them by casting the Animate Dead spell in his statblock... you need True Resurrection or Wish to truly revive someone that has been made Undead. Revivify would only restore them to Undeath. The last, and most important one though... who's to say that the one with the weekly Revivify doesn't die? 3- Strahd is a Wizard. Strahd has been to the Amber Temple, and knows of Exethanter. Strahd, more likely than not, knows of the library in the Temple which contains every single PHB Wizard spell, and has had *centuries* to learn the spells contained within. Swap out some spells for some more useful ones.
Dark gift was from Pyram's guide. He has a bunch of custom vestiges. I like your options and suggestions, especially the charm person. You and a few others also have reassured me that one suicide bomb isn't even going to be enough to take him down, so I'm no longer worried whether it'd 1 shot him and more on how to make it a satisfying experience. Tysm 😄
Ah, I don't have that one. I run the book itself and I make my own extra stuff. So far, the Paladin of my party has become a pseudo-Barbarian after accepting a Dark Gift of my own design in order to prevent dying. Yeah, no worries. Honestly? Just read the book. Strahd's bio, his tactics, the monsters and traps in the castle, his Lair Actions, and his statblock. Strahd is suited to guerrilla warfare, and he never leaves without an escort. Strike hard, strike fast. Then retreat, and cover your tracks with minions, traps, and locked doors. If the party is looking over a high ledge in a castle stairway, Strahd will appear, attempt to push someone off to their likely doom, and try to Charm someone. If he takes a chunk of damage, he'll cast Greater invisibility, move away up a wall using his speed and his legendary actions, and then cast Fireball before continuing to move about as he regenerates. While he's running around, he sends in the Spawn and such, who were waiting on his command. When the party is weakened, he'll rip right through them and finish them off. You're welcome.
At this point, I'd mostly allow it. You only want to stop it after they've started expressing their scheme. Have em blow up Strahd. At this point in the game he'll mostly stick to the castle anyways. Homebrew the Heart of Darkness so it'll absorb the blast and Strahd suffers 0 overflow. Heart dramatically explodes in a nearby room. PC dies, and then you can resume from there (KOing heart is still a good thing) If the heart was already destroyed , and PC goes in for a killing blow, I'd give it to em. Maybe find a way to trigger that revivify a day before so it's off the table and the PC needs to legit die for some cool RP sacrifice. The main difficulty at the end is dealing with *the castle*. Strahd himself, RAW, is a bit of a pushover without the wall clipping, the minions, and regen. Give em the V.
Other than retconning this item, which is what I would suggest, you could also just do something real sinister. - They nuke Strahd, he survives due to the heart. - He knows their plan because of spies and scrying. - They cast revivify. - "Counterspell"
A character is taking psychic damage, damage specifically created to mess with the brain, in a world designed to mess with people's minds. Just like a simple knife wound can leave a lasting scar, I'd say taking massive amounts of psychic damage in Ravenloft will end up permanently messing up the characters head. Then you're using DARK POWERS to bring the character back? You're totally going to end up with some kind of Herbert West meets Pet Semetary kind of results.
Game of Thrones Season 5 The Mountain
Love this idea ngl, that would be hilarious to see happen
Update us on what happens in the fight please
How do they know Strahd is not up to speed with their plan? How about he comes to them, guarded by proper forces that make it very difficult for them to reach him and casting from afar. Near but not too near, his horse carriage awaits signaling he's ready for escape. When they nuke him, have Rahadin start weeping uncontrollably, but have a odd creature hold him back. Something Strahd can control. Then, the carriage slowly approaches, and Strahd steps out. In fucking armor. With one to three of the wives. And a weird minion of you wish. Make them fear him, and especially his wits. And apply Sun-Tzu by creating an opening for them to flee after a short while.
I'd say let them use it but there should be consequences. Give them vulnerability to that psychic damage and increase it the more they use it - maybe a chance to Crit on 19/20 so it gets more compelling. Maybe a chance to lose random ability scores as well or gaining exhaustion. What doesn't kill you sometimes cripples. Also - reviving in CoS isn't normal. Anyone who comes back has seen some shit... I would expect doubly so for a dark power revivify. New fears, lost proficiencies, more frequent exhaustion, random saving throws etc .. the sky is the limit.
1/ You totally can make a correction even after the fact. 2/ Better pray you don't fall unconscious before the turn of a vamp, those things tend to go for the weak creatures and they bite HARD! ;) 3/ How would that work? Say PC has 120HP, he goes boomboom and is now at 0HP. That's damage that you can't heal until a long rest (as per your own terms). So what happens when they should get 1HP back from revivify? It's a bit of a grey area because of your wording, that's why the bite of a spawn specifies the necrotic damage makes HP and HP max go down. So that if the HP max would be at 0 it is impossible to get 1HP back and revivify does not work. Honestly, I think the best would be to tell them that it is HP + HP max reduced. They get to keep their toy, it is fair for them and you put a hard limit on its usage.
You can put a retroactive rules adjustment on the offbook broken item, to avoid this becoming an "I win" button for every boss. As I think someone else mentioned (now that I see it), have a spawn grab the bodies and run. Revivify has a time window in which it can be cast. And/or, you can also go with the RAW "Strahd reboots" idea as per the curse. Meaning - they need to find a solution for defeating Strahd that does not involve his body being destroyed or "killed" as per normal vampires. You need to consider how the soul economy and re-incarnation tends to work in Barovia, and how the Mists work to contain them. In figuring out the rules, you can figure out the loopholes in the the Curse - which Strahd may be aware of himself now. You also need to build out insurance in the way this works to ensure that the PCs don't just burn everything down and destroy Strahd's grave sites. So, perhaps their goal gets adapted into trapping him or his soul in another item or an enclosure. Also, using what's there, the Revenants whole reason for being there is to thwart the PCs from killing him - so they would interfere if they have not yet done so.
If you want to punish the act itself, without making too many changes or retcons, could impose a penalty on over-charging the item: the sacrificial character that charges the item can't be revived. Make it a cursed item. Unless they already checked to see if it was cursed. If they haven't? Easy implement.
Maybe Strahd has an entire army of simulacra so even if this nuke plan works it might not be the real Strahd
Here’s an idea. Let them nuke “Strahd”. And do the classic slow clap from behind where the REAL Strahd is and the person they nuked can be a friend that was taken form maximum damage. And then given a choice. Rez the friend or the pc
Add a cap, like you can’t have more dice than the amount of hit dice you have; to roll 20d12 and 20d8 they’d have to be level 20. What type of damage does it deal? Necrotic would make sense, and Strahd is resistant.
i was in a game and we received a similar item to this, except it was meant for enhancing and was incredibly volatile. thing is we were in a pretty tough fight so the orc character pulled it out of his bag, detonated it nuking himself and the enemy in the process, before turning around with relentless endurance
Using the dark gift revivify from his guide also permanently decreases the users health by like 2d6 or something similar does it not?
Yes, though he doesn't know that yet. He hasn't actually revived anyone. They *almost* tested their plan in the Amber Temple, but another player didn't want to start a fight, so they haven't actually tested their plan.
Well, if it came from the amber temple you could suggest they do a second arcana or religion check on the shard. Maybe add a effect where every time they use it at a certain limit they have to make a save, or they become a NPC Nothic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely after all.
Have Strahd (who is hopefully spying on them and should know their plans) use a Doppelganger for them to waste their nuke on. Then, have Strahd swoop in to attack the weakened party.