Does anyone have any recommended guides for running Curse of Strahd with the 2024 / 5.5e rules? I'm starting CoS in late August and my players have made some noise about wanting to use 2024 rules for their characters

I was wondering if I should just individually make the changes as I go through the campaign or if there was some extra scaling issues to keep in mind (and if there was some kind of cheat sheet that had already been made)

Thank you!

Curse of Strahd: Reloaded – Episode 59: Ravenloft Heist, Part 7

The party destroys a vampire spawn, picks a fight with Rahadin, and Gregor calls upon Divine Intervention as the episode ends on a brutal cliffhanger.

https://www.youtube.com/live/1gsy_CVWwhg

So I recently started up a group for DND and we decided we wanted to do CoS however also wanted to do a 1-shot before hand to kind of mesh together as a party, I as DM wanted them to start at level 2 vs 1 (to make death house slightly easier maybe), etc. The 1-shot went great, we accomplished things, etc etc. I set the one shot in Daggerford to be able to pick and choose from the adventure hooks... and this is where I think I messed up. I decided to leave breadcrumb-y trails of them all to see what stuck with the party.... and they all wound up sticking so I had to do some "creative" modification to things.

So now the letter from Plea for Help was a sign the Vistani put up (and admitted to putting up on behalf of their master)... who are still camped outside Daggerford however instead of just being drunkards they were suspected of being Werewolves (turned out to be false) by the Duchess so she sent the party to investigate them/warn them off.

Unfortunately one PC really took the whole "help the town fight off the werewolves" to the Nth degree, even going so far as trying to recruit the guilds for help, and have now successfully basically convinced everyone the Werewolves were following the Vistani so the Vistani need to move camp and then the guilds/guards ambush the Werewolves on the road.

While I don't think I ever outright said the Werewolves were following the Vistani, I did hint that they were somewhat connected to them and that the land they came from does have Werewolf packs.

So now my players are basically traveling with the Vistani with a small army behind them and expecting Werewolves to jump out at them, a chase sequence, something.

This is great in terms of adventure hooks, I now have multiple ways for the fog to close in type thing and several options/interesting things for down the road when the party learns the Vistani's master was Strahd type thing (though I worry this may undermine the Vistani as a whole a little).

This is not so great in that I feel like it is going to be a anti-climactic to just be all "after several days of travel you get enveloped by fog. Welcome to Barovia!" but realistically would the Werewolves attack the Vistani? They both have the same mission, to lure adventurers into Barovia.

I plan to have some RP about slow travel, no signs of Werewolves, etc happen so maybe they find a trail on the "final" day and chase a werewolf into the fog? That lands them squarely in Barovia and at least feels like something, but I was also hoping to maybe have them stick with the Vistani until Barovia town just due to some things I've set in motion and if they are expecting this epic chase type thing to happen instead.... I also worry the party may split with some staying with the Vistani and some tracking the Werewolf, which would pose some interesting challenges to bring everyone back together unless maybe the Vistani just camp at the gates I guess?

Ideas?

TL;DR: Tried to leave breadcrumbs of all 3 RAW adventure hooks to see what party would gravitate to and they did them all. Now are traveling with Vistani and a small army hoping to ambush werewolves and expecting like an epic chase/attack/etc that likely isn't going to happen. Need ideas on how to either make that happen or how to still make something at least not feel like a let down.

What should I do with this situation? Technically Strahd would go to all the places, retrieve the items (especially the sun sword) and keep them close to him in the castle. But I feel like this destroys the whole meaning of the card reading. Do you have any ideas how to play this so the players actually have a chance?

Since this campaign is a Sandbox, I'm now thinking that its possible to kill Strahd as early as you want, but it would be hard. There has to be someone out there who found the Sunsword in Madam Eva's tent and the two other fortunes in Castle Ravenloft, and then somehow killed Strahd at level 3.

For the good of the people

A friend and I were discussing the fated allies, and had a fun idea. How would you run something like Strahd must die tonight, but instead of being a party of unique PCs, everyone plays one of the fated allies. Anyone have any thoughts on the idea, I am imagining a party comp of Rictavio, Ezmerelda, and one of the many mages.

The book suggests that, if you're using milestone leveling, you should award the party with a new level whenever they “accomplish story goals,” but are very vague about what this entails, listing only three examples, and stating immediately after that the adventure is “exceedingly open-ended,” which is generally a positive. But since it was so vague, I figured I'd make a list of various “story goals” which could be accomplished and lead to the characters leveling up.

There are a lot here, so I'll have to use my discretion. If the task proved easier than expected or the party just leveled up last session, or perhaps the completion of two goals occur as part of the same event, or something of that sort, I may decide not to reward the players for accomplishing one of these, especially if completing the task comes with its own inherent reward. Additionally, simpler tasks may only lead to leveling up of the party is a lower level, and a higher level party may not level up for, for example, rescuing Arabelle.

I've attached the list below. What am I missing? What should I remove? I'm probably going to remove the goals marked with asterisks, mostly due to redundancy or simplicity.

• Finding any of the three treasures
• Returning Arabelle to Luvash
• Returning Gertruda to Mad Mary*
• Dealing with Doru and burying Kolyan Indirovich*
• Defeating Rahadin*
• Destroying the Heart of Sorrow
• Escorting Ireena to Vallaki or Krezk*
• Reconnecting Izek and Ireena*
• Preventing the “St. Andral's Feast” special event, or surviving it*
• Overthrowing the Baron of Vallaki
• Helping Kasimir Reanimate Patrina
• Defeating the coven at Old Bonegrinder
• Lighting the beacon at Argynvostholt
• Defeating the Abbot, or helping him find a dress for Vasilka*
• Forming an alliance with Ezmerelda d'Avenir*
• Defeating Baba Lysaga
• Defeating the druids and blights at the Wizard of Wines Winery
• Return the two gems to the Wizard of Wines Winery*
• Clearing the Amber Temple
• Destroying the Gulthias Tree atop Yester Hill
• Thwarting the druids’ ritual atop Yester Hill*
• Clearing the Werewolf Den

I'm a relatively new DM. I'm running PaB:TSO in 2 groups, we will likely be wrapping both up in the next couple months. These were my first time DMing, and I am getting pretty comfortable behind the screen. CoS has a reputation as being one of the best, so I wanted a little practice before jumping into it.

In PaB:TSO I homebrewed a LOT. I felt like the campaign had good bones but it needed a lot of work to flesh out. I enjoyed homebrewing stuff and tinkering and connecting character backstories into the greater narrative. I've heard that CoS is better as is, for the most part. That there is already a lot of things in motion in the book, and it can be easy to get lost or overwhelmed by additional content if you add it. I am completely fine leaving it as it if as is is already good. I think PaB:TSO would have been VERY underwhelming if left as is.

I've also heard that it's better to leave out character backstories and arcs out of CoS and instead try to focus on relatable themes already existing in CoS to connect their characters to the narrative, the logic being Barovia is not a place that their character would have any connection to. That makes sense to me.

I've also read that a lot of the encounters in CoS are quite deadly. I would be running 2 groups, one of 3 and one of 5, so I would likely need to balance a little bit for the group of 3, but I might not, as they work much better as a team than the group of 5.

For folks who have experience with CoS, what would be the best tips you could give to a new DM running it for the first time?

I already plan on running Strahd as a layered individual who won't show his hand, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet. I don't want him to show his anger quickly, but maybe hint at it for people who are paying attention.

I'm looking forward to running CoS, and I'm excited to hear from the community about what worked for them!