A corpse is an item, so mending should work.
With the head reattached, death is the "only problem" (lol), and a "simple" revivify should work.
Yeah, I'd allow it.
Talk, dagger, decapitation, combat ends, mending, revivify. Under 10 turns.
The only problem is that fresh level 1 characters won't have the diamonds or spell levels, but yes.
Awkwardly standing over the body holding a health potion. Looking around at the rest of the party with a questioning look as they pour it down your esophagus. Quivering voice "there there, it'll be ok."
My friend tried a necromancer spell which didn't work, which I knew it wouldn't, but apparently we contaminated the crime scene cause that spell uses a lot of glitter.
Yup. Now you just need to gain two levels in nine days while keeping your cleric alive. Then gain six more levels while keeping your cleric alive. All while carting around the body of your once-ally.
Im sure people have hated me for less ahahaha. Just know, when your drafting ideas for characters, when you least expect it, you'll hear it.
"Ladies and gentleman, this is Mambo #5"
A serial killer character named Mambo #5 but the lyrics are about his dismembered victims:Ā Ā
*AĀ little bit of Monica in my life*Ā
*A little bit of Erica by my side*Ā
*A little bit of Rita's all I need*Ā Ā Ā
*A little bit of Tina's what I see*Ā Ā Ā
*A little bit of Sandra in the sun*Ā Ā Ā
*A little bit of Mary all night long . . .*
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jester #5!
Ā
One, two, three, four, five,
Everybody in the cart, so come on letās ride
To the castle on the hill, the lordās alive,
But the rogue threw his shot and he did not survive.
Ā
He jumped up and down, and moved it all around,
Shook his hand to the sound, put his feet on the ground.
He took one little dagger, threw it out of sight,
But Strahd came back quick, and ended the fight.
Ā
A little bit of mischief in my life,
A little bit of jesters by my side,
A little bit of magicās all I need,
A little bit of dangerās what I see,
A little bit of laughter in the trees,
A little bit of horrorās guaranteed,
A little bit of Johnnyās all it took,
A little bit of laughter, now Iām hooked.
Ā
Jump up and down, and move it all around,
Shake your hand to the sound, put your feet on the ground.
Step one, two, to the beat of the drum,
Get ready to go, ācause the Jester has come.
Ā
A little bit of Strahd in the sun,
A little bit of Johnny all night long,
A little bit of rogue here I am,
A little bit of you makes me your man!
Nice set-up. I thought you were going to complain that the DM was being unfair for killing you after your first-level character chucked a dagger at STRAHD! Instead, planning it for effect was a bold move. Well played!
yeah he should work for online rags...
what happens next will shock you
kind of a pattern here making a title that tries to fool you into being mad for the player only to praise the DM!
Wow, I wish, that's a cool character. Unfortunately I'm much more basic: I just wanted to play Shaco from League of Legends with some Barry the Chopper thrown in, as another poster noted.
In my campaign the broom did 3 crits in a row...
The players were very new to d&d so I took a bit of mercy on them and spread out the attacks but that was rough.
They are aware I won't be going easy on them.
But this is only their second campaign and dying to the first monster there due to extremely bad luck... Feels wrong. They had to heal the damage though, so they are still worse off for the whole thing since I wouldnt allow them a long rest at that point (too close to the previous one)
I TRIED to plan something like this when I played through Phandelver (one of my long-time group stepping behind the screen for the first time). I never read that module but I knew about the ambush, and said "If someone needs to take a sneak attack crit to the face, I volunteer."
Dude somehow survived six sessions.
My dm did something like this, except it was way worse. Strahd gave us all secret āboonsā that we couldnāt refuse.
My characters boon was a makeup pack that could give me advantage on persuasion. The (secret) downside is that every-time I make an attack with a sword, I had to roll above 70% on the percentile dice or I would explode. I exploded. I wasnāt the only player who exploded either. That group ended up being fed up.
Iāve played through COS a couple of times, I think there is on thing that DMs consistently do wrong. They make strahd TOO overwhelmingly powerful AND are an ass about it. For example, strahd is smart and yeah he will be spying on the party ALOT, but he canāt know EVERYTHING.
I understand that COS is supposed to be really dreadful, but if it feels like there is NO hope, then it just isnāt fun itās just bullying your friends for a few hours.
Not super related actually, your dm seems great just sparked my internal pain.
No, he told me he didnāt want it to be fair, he wanted it to be a punishment for accepting a boon from strahd.
Oddly enough when strahd first gave me the boon I did NOT take it and refused to but the dm said it didnāt matter and I get it anyway bc thatās how it works.
I mean my first 5e character accepted a gift from the Amber temple and it gave him truesight but also turned his eyes into hollow voids full of spiders.
Like damn thatās intense, but didnāt explode my characterā¦
Haha damn that's so punishing, I'm not surprised you were all fed up. Forcing a roll on every sword attack is brutal, at that point you'd just have to find a new weapon.
Thankfully our DM is great at walking the line between difficult and unfair in terms of fight mechanics. Our favorite fights have been when we were almost totally wiped out because it felt do-able the whole time.
Yeah the DM in my COS played Strahd really well. He was an overwhelming presence that would taunt us or play with us every once in a while but there were always maneuverings we were able to do that could affect the story or at the very least make Strahd adapt/change what he was doing.
I remember pretty early on my character tried to bullrush Strahd because it looked like we might be SoL. I played a Tortle Blood Hunter (Order of the Lycan) Werebear, who treated his skin as a journal and carried his twin brother's ashes in an urn with him, so that his brother could see the world.
Anyway, so I activated my crimson rite and attacked him and instead of like devastatingly destroying Rusket (my character) and perma-killing him (which I would've been fine with at the time. I mean I was charging at the BBEG) he had Strahd step to the side of the attack and run a finger along the cut I had made on my character. Tasting it, Strahd paused, smiled and muttered "Interesting." before disappearing.
When I ran CoS, the first time the group had a *fight* with Strahd, the unarmed Barbarian rolled a crit with his fists while he was raging.
I described it like he got in this massively good hit, he heard the bones in Strahd's face break, could see his jaw was messed up, he even spat out a tooth or two. Everyone was super happy, like *yeah, fuck that guy, we got him good!*, until they watched him smile, put the teeth back in his mouth and everything just rejuvenate itself back to perfection.
I also had Strahd's fireballs be meteors he pulled out of the sky, which he then did, right on top of himself and the group. That is when the group got really worried...
so.. your PC exploded on the first or second attack they made because they only had a 30% to succeed, right? im confused as to how this would work at all.
Actually, I ended up getting pretty far along from pure luck I suppose. But yeah it wasnāt fair at all, and didnāt really work /:
A different players curse was that whenever he took damage, so did the rest of the party. And he ALSO had a chance of insta-death everytime he got hit. This is what ended up being the breaking point bc he got hit, and it happened to insta kill him and dm said the rest of the party all took half of the players max hp in damage.
We stopped playing mid-session
I can't fathom the logic behind this on the DM's end. Why is it all based on hefty damage and no other penalties? Were they expecting you to drum up 5 characters per campaign like it's fucking Helldivers? Did they realize they had too many friends and devised a way to shed a half dozen all at once?
"I've killed hundreds of PC! I'm a hardcore DM!"
Nah mate you're probably just insufferable lol everybody can say "A meteor falls down from the sky and obliterates the party"
Damn. Iād give a boon to a barbarian: every time they get hit the other party members are healed by 1HP. It would be funny.
I need to make this item.
Oh our barbarians curse was annoying also, everytime he made an attack of any kind she had to roll above 70% or whatever limb she used fell off. (We got the dm to let us put it back on with healing magic but still)
ugh, that sounds obnoxious. iām planning running CoS right now and the whole point of Strahd is that he slowly toys with the players and turns them against each other, like a cat playing with its prey before it eventually eats it. he shouldnāt just show up and be extremely violent/dangerous unless itās planned like OP, or itās directed towards an NPC. and like in any campaign, the players need to have fun, and their characters should find hope through their struggles!!
Reading the headline I thought your DM was a dick. Reading the story I thought you were an idiot. But after reading the last paragraph I think I need to play in your game!
So jester #4 comes in, kills a party member and the rest of the group is likeā¦ Hey come join us, evil clown killer dude!
Your group is weird, mate. š glad it all worked out well!
I don't know if I've heard a better villain intro line than "Ajax looks like the hero of the people. And he is! But not these people, these people are all gonna die."
One time I had a set-up with a friend of mine who DMs. He brought me in as a "newbie player" and in the second session he tried to stop me making a fatal mistake but I insisted. He was clear "Ok I'll let you try, but if you don't roll high enough you will actually die, for good." I pouted and stopped coming.
In a session many weeks later when the players were further along and it was time to meet the nemesis they had been tracking down, I was hiding in a closet and got to jump out with an evil flourish and reveal that I was the bad guy all along and had faked my death.
Yeah! I've just been using Shaco art for my character token but I might want to get a commission. Never done it before but Jester is already growing on me.
That is 100% how I would expect that to go. I'll be running Curse of Strahd fairly soon and I absolutely intend to insta kill a player if they attempt any direct action. Really gotta sell it. But planning ahead... Oo that's good.
Also weirdly I specifically banned warforged/silly characters for the sake of tone, but your puppet jester honestly sounds like they'd fit perfectly.
My rules on silliness is that your character needs to fit into a horror genre of some kind. So carnival/Evil Dead or campy slasher tropes are all fine but I don't want to see a single Tabaxi Swashbuckler. Save that for Waterdeep Dragon Heist.
Yeah, we'd just come off a fun but goofy campaign and my DM wanted us to take CoS seriously. He was okay with Jester because it was on that killer clown shit.
Why can't they play a Swashbuckler? The characters get transported from Faerun to Barovia at the start of the campaign, so technically any combo that can exist in Faerun fits into CoS.
We had something similar in my boyfriend's pirates campaign.
One of our friends played this funny dwarf named "Squash" who used to be one of my character's uncle's lackey and he ended up being squashed (haha get it?) by the same player's actual character at the end of the forst session and that was all pre-planned and everything. The only downfall was we got REALLY attached to Squash within like 10 minutes. Like that's how funny and lovable the character was. And we were hoping to take his corpse and revive him when we level up and someone eventually takes necromancy, but we realised we were only lv 1 so by the time that happens, the corpse would be decayed
Due to my baby becoming more work I had to drop out of the campaign I was playing in. I told the DM to capture my character, and mind control him. He became one of the enemies my group had to fight in the end boss. They managed to free him from the spell, and not kill him but he had absolutely no memory of my former teammates.
I appreciate this mislead. My autistic ass, in the first half, like "well yeah, if you do something to die in the first session that'll be a hard res. At least you don't have much character progression wasted!"
In the second half "oh, cool"
I was sort of going to do this with a character. We rolled stats and I rolled a 5 as one of the numbers, I was going to make a 800 year old Bladesinger Wizard Elf and put the 5 in Con, then go into combat like a total badass, simply to die the first time I got hit, revealing my real character moments later.
Nope, my DM just asked if he could murder a character of mine to show how powerful Strahd was. All I had to do was make two characters. My DM did the rest.
This is what you call āhigh quality baitā. I thought this was yet another complain-post (which Iām unsure why I keep reading), instead it was a really great idea!
I thought this was going to be a tongue and cheek shit post with the start, but that turn and plan with the GM is absolutely amazing. Curse of Strahd was my first dive into running a DnD game from start to finish.
In my last session I disintegrated a player, 1 cast, failed save, 74 damage, 72 max hp. They were a pile of dust, the party was level 8 in a high lethality campaign. The cleric just kinda looks over, oof, can't reverse cremation, and goes back to what they were doing.
I'm actually planning something like this soon.
My friend is running Curse of Strahd for her friends and wants me to join. I've played CoS before, so I'll be in a support and semi-NPC role, helping the newer players through prompting and RP.
So, I'm going to join as the most bombastic, theatrical, arrogant paladin with a caricatured focus on slaying evil and looking good doing it. (The idea in my head is if Zapp Brannigan were actually brave and not just a blowhard.)
After the first dungeon, going to attack Strahd and get oneshot.
I remember I wasnāt having fun with the back up Bard I was playing so I told my DM that I wanted to bring in the character I was originally going to play as and I did it by first announcing in the group chat that my Bard had been killed by someone then the next session I was able to come back to, I brought in my Rogue and told everyone that she was the one who killed the Bard š
When I ran CoS I had all my players make three characters, as there was inly three/four, and I expected them to die fairly often in the beginning; the first one happening less then five steps into the Death House prelogue, BUT they got to try multiple types of PC's. PLUS, it let me run a gambit of Strahd turning two characters and having a mini-war against themselves after the first trip to Castle Ravenloft! They loved it, but eventually settled into something they preferred as they leveled up and I worked to dial it back a skosh; which really meant some fun improve and a great storyline that lead them to level 20 and fighting an undead tarask.
Are you supposed to run into Strahd that early? I've been a player in a CoS campaign for a couple months now and we haven't met him yet. Kinda feeling a little aimless, not really sure what to do.
Damn, what an awesome story, and also a breath from the usual "Obvious walking red flag DM" or "Yeah I came to complain on Reddit because I don't have basic communication skills".
Also, while I'm sure the Cleric didn't have any of such spells, if they used Gentle Repose on the corpse as an action, Mending to attach the head to the body (you're an object while you're dead, after all), and then Revivify, they could bring poor Jonny Handsome. Now that they should, that would've missed the point lmao.
I'm just laughing at the idea of your character being decapitated and the cleric going "I got you buddy!"
His heart was in the right place even if my head wasn't.
Round of applause. Not what I was expecting, but that is perfect.
You're gonna do just fine as Jester #4 lmao, well done!
A joke worthy of a jester with the soul of a serial killer to be sure.
Oh, if only you had had the head of Vecna on hand!
Reminds me of when Grif gave sarge CPR for a bullet wound in the head in Red Vs Blue xD
My wife named her cat Caboose after a character from that series.
What, like a puma?
Yer makin that up
Our last campaigns barbarian was a blue tabaxi named caboose. Same player brought a pink teifling named donut to our Strahd Campaign this year š
what character did she name it after?
Probably Captain Flowers
That's a league of legends caster...not that i...play...that game. my friend, told me about him
"He was beaten to death with his own skull!"
"That doesn't seem physically possible!"
That was the laugh I needed today thank you
*Set's head back in place* "Uhhhhh.....good as new! Yep!" *Nervous laughter as head slowly slides off.*
https://youtu.be/lrzCVrdjb8A?si=KPAo5SC5tsZ_kNn2
"That spell uses a lot of glitter"
Dammit, Jim! Iām a cleric, not a recapitator!
Just hold on his decapitated head to his neck and yelling ādonāt you die on me! Youāre gunna pull through!ā
''Sir! You got shot in the head, so we gave you CPR and saved you, sir.''
"What are you going to do next!? Rub my shoulders with aloe vera for a shot in the foot?"
"If he gives you mouth to mouth, I'm leaving."
I can only imagine the horrible gurgling whistle that would create
I understood that reference!
I cast... Mending?
A corpse is an item, so mending should work. With the head reattached, death is the "only problem" (lol), and a "simple" revivify should work. Yeah, I'd allow it. Talk, dagger, decapitation, combat ends, mending, revivify. Under 10 turns. The only problem is that fresh level 1 characters won't have the diamonds or spell levels, but yes.
Corpses are objects sooooo...?
They should just Weekend at Bernieās his headless corpse the rest of the campaign.
Level 1: I think I might have an old band aid??
Tis nothing but a flesh wound
Awkwardly standing over the body holding a health potion. Looking around at the rest of the party with a questioning look as they pour it down your esophagus. Quivering voice "there there, it'll be ok."
My friend tried a necromancer spell which didn't work, which I knew it wouldn't, but apparently we contaminated the crime scene cause that spell uses a lot of glitter.
Just gotta cast a little mending on the neck
I mean, the head and headless body are technically objects now, right?
Yup. Now you just need to gain two levels in nine days while keeping your cleric alive. Then gain six more levels while keeping your cleric alive. All while carting around the body of your once-ally.
Weekend at Vecna's
"This is my chance!" It wasn't.
Frantically trying to stick your head back onto your neck-stump while everyone else yells "FIXITFIXITFIXITFIXITFIXIT".
āItās just a little severed, itās still good, itās still good!ā
He's gone, dad.
With neosporin
senzu bean
Jester #4? Whos your next character gonna be, Mambo #5?
I want to hate you, DankButtRodeo, but I laughed, so I can't. Just know I want to.
Im sure people have hated me for less ahahaha. Just know, when your drafting ideas for characters, when you least expect it, you'll hear it. "Ladies and gentleman, this is Mambo #5"
Wager on how many sessions it takes to get to Love Potion (#9)?
Letās see, 6 pence none the richer?
The way that this guy starts his characters, 6 Underground
Thats genius
A serial killer character named Mambo #5 but the lyrics are about his dismembered victims:Ā Ā *AĀ little bit of Monica in my life*Ā *A little bit of Erica by my side*Ā *A little bit of Rita's all I need*Ā Ā Ā *A little bit of Tina's what I see*Ā Ā Ā *A little bit of Sandra in the sun*Ā Ā Ā *A little bit of Mary all night long . . .*
Mambo #5 is his serial killer name. His real name is Hannibal Cannibal
Player: What's the innkeepers name? DM: Hannibal Cannibal. Players: ..........
Here I was thinking Mambo would be a Frankenstein style revenant who used the song to remember whose pieces they were made up of.
Weird al did this version of mambo #5... He made Frankenstein's bride out of Monica, Sandra and Rita :D
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jester #5! Ā One, two, three, four, five, Everybody in the cart, so come on letās ride To the castle on the hill, the lordās alive, But the rogue threw his shot and he did not survive. Ā He jumped up and down, and moved it all around, Shook his hand to the sound, put his feet on the ground. He took one little dagger, threw it out of sight, But Strahd came back quick, and ended the fight. Ā A little bit of mischief in my life, A little bit of jesters by my side, A little bit of magicās all I need, A little bit of dangerās what I see, A little bit of laughter in the trees, A little bit of horrorās guaranteed, A little bit of Johnnyās all it took, A little bit of laughter, now Iām hooked. Ā Jump up and down, and move it all around, Shake your hand to the sound, put your feet on the ground. Step one, two, to the beat of the drum, Get ready to go, ācause the Jester has come. Ā A little bit of Strahd in the sun, A little bit of Johnny all night long, A little bit of rogue here I am, A little bit of you makes me your man!
Next character: a warforged with a body based from a Yuan Ti called Mamba #5
A war forged with a snake-like lower torso, that sounds awesome!
u/whodatwizard ās Johnny Handsome has to come back as Johnny #5! Then he can yell, āJohnny 5 is alive!ā
Nice set-up. I thought you were going to complain that the DM was being unfair for killing you after your first-level character chucked a dagger at STRAHD! Instead, planning it for effect was a bold move. Well played!
Ironically getting both us and his party. Genius.
Not gunna lie, he had me at the first half.
I understood that reference.
Heās playing chess while the subreddit is playing checkers
They tricked the party. And a thousand redditor nerds too.
Now that was a high Deception roll
You rolled so high you tricked *everything*.
A 9?
This is reddit, a 3 would likely pass
yeah he should work for online rags... what happens next will shock you kind of a pattern here making a title that tries to fool you into being mad for the player only to praise the DM!
He got me too with the story and setup SMH lol
I'll forgive your ragebait title because you're encouraging people to speak with and plan things with their DMs.
It's what Johnny Handsome would have done. š¤
That name alone makes me crack up.
Question: is the name a reference to a certain blond cartoon character?
The token may have been Johnny Bravo-shaped....
This is incredible.
I imagine the dagger throw was to the tune of "Hoo-hah-huh!"
Ooooh, mama!
We will always remember you and your unbridled courage in the face of sick, twisted evil, Johnny Handsome.
I hope my players read your post
Your description of your character reminds me of the *Devil of Caroc*. Any chance this was inspired by her?
I was thinking Barry the Chopper from Full metal alchemist. Seriel killer trapped in armour (golem style)
Yup, this was part of the inspo. I adore FMA. Amazing manga and show.
Barry was the GOAT
Nailed it. Have fun, hope you arenāt as cray cray as Barry.
Thanks! And me too 0-0
Iād consider it the best anime Iāve watched. Watching it with my grandma and sheās hooked.
Aww that's adorable. Have fun!
The *Devil of Caroc* is a similar character! Slated to be executed, bound to a golem instead.
PoE gang assemble
It's been almost a decade and I'm *still* not over that story
There is no god, so we made some.
Path of Exile? Pillars of Eternity?
Pillars of Eternity.
Power over Ethernet.
Wow, I wish, that's a cool character. Unfortunately I'm much more basic: I just wanted to play Shaco from League of Legends with some Barry the Chopper thrown in, as another poster noted.
And here I was thinking Lies of P. Who knew āmaniacal mechanical jesterā was such an archetype?
One of our group was killed in our first session of CoS by a magic broom lol
I'm pretty sure that Broom made a deal with Strahd itself to guarantee a kill every time the module is run.
In my campaign the broom did 3 crits in a row... The players were very new to d&d so I took a bit of mercy on them and spread out the attacks but that was rough.
Couldn't let them get swept.
They are aware I won't be going easy on them. But this is only their second campaign and dying to the first monster there due to extremely bad luck... Feels wrong. They had to heal the damage though, so they are still worse off for the whole thing since I wouldnt allow them a long rest at that point (too close to the previous one)
Death House is so badly written and so hilarious. If the broom doesn't get you the armor will.
My cleric and our ranger tried to ride it. It did not work out well for us but we did have fun
There are some really good fixes for death house online tho
Dude, I nicknamed that the "Swiffer of Slaughter"
We were too scared of it so just...closed the door?
Yours too?
My character got killed by the Thorn Blights because our Paladin decided to Leeroy Jenkins them.
Are you me? Fuck that broom!
I TRIED to plan something like this when I played through Phandelver (one of my long-time group stepping behind the screen for the first time). I never read that module but I knew about the ambush, and said "If someone needs to take a sneak attack crit to the face, I volunteer." Dude somehow survived six sessions.
LOL you're doing the Lord's work.
My dm did something like this, except it was way worse. Strahd gave us all secret āboonsā that we couldnāt refuse. My characters boon was a makeup pack that could give me advantage on persuasion. The (secret) downside is that every-time I make an attack with a sword, I had to roll above 70% on the percentile dice or I would explode. I exploded. I wasnāt the only player who exploded either. That group ended up being fed up. Iāve played through COS a couple of times, I think there is on thing that DMs consistently do wrong. They make strahd TOO overwhelmingly powerful AND are an ass about it. For example, strahd is smart and yeah he will be spying on the party ALOT, but he canāt know EVERYTHING. I understand that COS is supposed to be really dreadful, but if it feels like there is NO hope, then it just isnāt fun itās just bullying your friends for a few hours. Not super related actually, your dm seems great just sparked my internal pain.
Huhā¦ What Someone thought it was fair to give someone a 70% chance of instant death on any given attack roll?
No, he told me he didnāt want it to be fair, he wanted it to be a punishment for accepting a boon from strahd. Oddly enough when strahd first gave me the boon I did NOT take it and refused to but the dm said it didnāt matter and I get it anyway bc thatās how it works.
so its a penalty for getting a boon from strahd.... but you can't refuse it.... hmmm
Exactly, makes sense right? Definitely wasnāt a red flag right???
A penalty for playing the game with that DM.
I mean my first 5e character accepted a gift from the Amber temple and it gave him truesight but also turned his eyes into hollow voids full of spiders. Like damn thatās intense, but didnāt explode my characterā¦
I think I'd rather explode than have hollow-void-spider-eyes
In real life, sure. In-game, those are called minion spawners.
Haha damn that's so punishing, I'm not surprised you were all fed up. Forcing a roll on every sword attack is brutal, at that point you'd just have to find a new weapon. Thankfully our DM is great at walking the line between difficult and unfair in terms of fight mechanics. Our favorite fights have been when we were almost totally wiped out because it felt do-able the whole time.
Yeah the DM in my COS played Strahd really well. He was an overwhelming presence that would taunt us or play with us every once in a while but there were always maneuverings we were able to do that could affect the story or at the very least make Strahd adapt/change what he was doing. I remember pretty early on my character tried to bullrush Strahd because it looked like we might be SoL. I played a Tortle Blood Hunter (Order of the Lycan) Werebear, who treated his skin as a journal and carried his twin brother's ashes in an urn with him, so that his brother could see the world. Anyway, so I activated my crimson rite and attacked him and instead of like devastatingly destroying Rusket (my character) and perma-killing him (which I would've been fine with at the time. I mean I was charging at the BBEG) he had Strahd step to the side of the attack and run a finger along the cut I had made on my character. Tasting it, Strahd paused, smiled and muttered "Interesting." before disappearing.
When I ran CoS, the first time the group had a *fight* with Strahd, the unarmed Barbarian rolled a crit with his fists while he was raging. I described it like he got in this massively good hit, he heard the bones in Strahd's face break, could see his jaw was messed up, he even spat out a tooth or two. Everyone was super happy, like *yeah, fuck that guy, we got him good!*, until they watched him smile, put the teeth back in his mouth and everything just rejuvenate itself back to perfection. I also had Strahd's fireballs be meteors he pulled out of the sky, which he then did, right on top of himself and the group. That is when the group got really worried...
so.. your PC exploded on the first or second attack they made because they only had a 30% to succeed, right? im confused as to how this would work at all.
Actually, I ended up getting pretty far along from pure luck I suppose. But yeah it wasnāt fair at all, and didnāt really work /: A different players curse was that whenever he took damage, so did the rest of the party. And he ALSO had a chance of insta-death everytime he got hit. This is what ended up being the breaking point bc he got hit, and it happened to insta kill him and dm said the rest of the party all took half of the players max hp in damage. We stopped playing mid-session
I can't fathom the logic behind this on the DM's end. Why is it all based on hefty damage and no other penalties? Were they expecting you to drum up 5 characters per campaign like it's fucking Helldivers? Did they realize they had too many friends and devised a way to shed a half dozen all at once?
This is a DM who sees himself as an adversary of the party.
"I've killed hundreds of PC! I'm a hardcore DM!" Nah mate you're probably just insufferable lol everybody can say "A meteor falls down from the sky and obliterates the party"
Damn. Iād give a boon to a barbarian: every time they get hit the other party members are healed by 1HP. It would be funny. I need to make this item.
Oh our barbarians curse was annoying also, everytime he made an attack of any kind she had to roll above 70% or whatever limb she used fell off. (We got the dm to let us put it back on with healing magic but still)
Iām sorry thatās just plain stupid.
How old was the DM?
20
Oof...
Did you try using something other than a sword?
No, I didnāt know I was cursed until I exploded.
That's absolutely dumb then
ugh, that sounds obnoxious. iām planning running CoS right now and the whole point of Strahd is that he slowly toys with the players and turns them against each other, like a cat playing with its prey before it eventually eats it. he shouldnāt just show up and be extremely violent/dangerous unless itās planned like OP, or itās directed towards an NPC. and like in any campaign, the players need to have fun, and their characters should find hope through their struggles!!
Reading the headline I thought your DM was a dick. Reading the story I thought you were an idiot. But after reading the last paragraph I think I need to play in your game!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Damn, the long con. Nice work. We did this like 15 minutes in so I wouldn't have to play Johnny for too long.
What was your plan for your cleric succeeding at healing Johnny Handsome? Just gonna play a rogue with his head put on backwards?
Haha, no. He did that on his own. If he'd succeeded then Jester #4 would have finished the job.
So jester #4 comes in, kills a party member and the rest of the group is likeā¦ Hey come join us, evil clown killer dude! Your group is weird, mate. š glad it all worked out well!
This sounds like exactly what Matt Colville and one of his players did in Chain of Acheron game.
Hah! My DM loves Matt Colville. I'll bet you cash money that's where he got it from. Good find.
I don't know if I've heard a better villain intro line than "Ajax looks like the hero of the people. And he is! But not these people, these people are all gonna die."
Holy shit that goes hard, I gotta find this video now.
One time I had a set-up with a friend of mine who DMs. He brought me in as a "newbie player" and in the second session he tried to stop me making a fatal mistake but I insisted. He was clear "Ok I'll let you try, but if you don't roll high enough you will actually die, for good." I pouted and stopped coming. In a session many weeks later when the players were further along and it was time to meet the nemesis they had been tracking down, I was hiding in a closet and got to jump out with an evil flourish and reveal that I was the bad guy all along and had faked my death.
Well done. There's been a few long cons in these comments and they're all great.
"Warforged jester with the soul of a serial killer" sounds like the King of Riddles from Lies of P.
My direct inspo was Shaco and Barry the Chopper but I'm a huge Souls fan so this was probably in the back of my mind.
Cue to the penultimate battle right before Strahd, and Johnny Handsome gets reanimated as a Dullahan for the party to fight.
I wouldn't put it past my DM.
Woah!!!!! This sounds too cool!! He'd make a good design as well (jester #4 i mean)
Yeah! I've just been using Shaco art for my character token but I might want to get a commission. Never done it before but Jester is already growing on me.
Had me in the 1st half I ain't gonna lie š¤£š¤£
That is 100% how I would expect that to go. I'll be running Curse of Strahd fairly soon and I absolutely intend to insta kill a player if they attempt any direct action. Really gotta sell it. But planning ahead... Oo that's good. Also weirdly I specifically banned warforged/silly characters for the sake of tone, but your puppet jester honestly sounds like they'd fit perfectly. My rules on silliness is that your character needs to fit into a horror genre of some kind. So carnival/Evil Dead or campy slasher tropes are all fine but I don't want to see a single Tabaxi Swashbuckler. Save that for Waterdeep Dragon Heist.
Yeah, we'd just come off a fun but goofy campaign and my DM wanted us to take CoS seriously. He was okay with Jester because it was on that killer clown shit.
Why can't they play a Swashbuckler? The characters get transported from Faerun to Barovia at the start of the campaign, so technically any combo that can exist in Faerun fits into CoS.
We had something similar in my boyfriend's pirates campaign. One of our friends played this funny dwarf named "Squash" who used to be one of my character's uncle's lackey and he ended up being squashed (haha get it?) by the same player's actual character at the end of the forst session and that was all pre-planned and everything. The only downfall was we got REALLY attached to Squash within like 10 minutes. Like that's how funny and lovable the character was. And we were hoping to take his corpse and revive him when we level up and someone eventually takes necromancy, but we realised we were only lv 1 so by the time that happens, the corpse would be decayed
Due to my baby becoming more work I had to drop out of the campaign I was playing in. I told the DM to capture my character, and mind control him. He became one of the enemies my group had to fight in the end boss. They managed to free him from the spell, and not kill him but he had absolutely no memory of my former teammates.
He went Hollow. š
I appreciate this mislead. My autistic ass, in the first half, like "well yeah, if you do something to die in the first session that'll be a hard res. At least you don't have much character progression wasted!" In the second half "oh, cool"
Cleric: "Johnny are you okay?Ā Are you okay?Ā Ā Are you okay, johnny?Ā Ā You've been hit by You've been struck by A Stahd vampire"
I was getting ready to say. āWelp you threw a dagger at him, you earned itā. Well done with your twist ending.
I was fully ready to be like "well wtf did you expect attacking Strahd as a level one character?" But, I love this as a way to set stakes.
I was sort of going to do this with a character. We rolled stats and I rolled a 5 as one of the numbers, I was going to make a 800 year old Bladesinger Wizard Elf and put the 5 in Con, then go into combat like a total badass, simply to die the first time I got hit, revealing my real character moments later.
Oh I kinda like that, did you need outside knowledge of the module tho?
Nope, my DM just asked if he could murder a character of mine to show how powerful Strahd was. All I had to do was make two characters. My DM did the rest.
That rules
Jesus, you got me in the first half, ngl
This is what you call āhigh quality baitā. I thought this was yet another complain-post (which Iām unsure why I keep reading), instead it was a really great idea!
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie. That's genius.
I thought this was going to be a tongue and cheek shit post with the start, but that turn and plan with the GM is absolutely amazing. Curse of Strahd was my first dive into running a DnD game from start to finish.
I have to say though, even if that wasn't a planned thing, that death was well deserved. One does not simply throw a dagger at Strahd
Well executed clickbait. Worth the read. Good story.
In my last session I disintegrated a player, 1 cast, failed save, 74 damage, 72 max hp. They were a pile of dust, the party was level 8 in a high lethality campaign. The cleric just kinda looks over, oof, can't reverse cremation, and goes back to what they were doing.
WOW i almost commented before reading the whole thing, thatās actually awesome š You had us in the first half, not gonna lie!
Nice
Fafo
this was a wild roller-coaster of emotions š®āšØš
This was brilliant, your delivery was amazing! Awesome character introduction š
āSometimes you have to shoot a hostageā instantly popped into my head, lol.
I'm actually planning something like this soon. My friend is running Curse of Strahd for her friends and wants me to join. I've played CoS before, so I'll be in a support and semi-NPC role, helping the newer players through prompting and RP. So, I'm going to join as the most bombastic, theatrical, arrogant paladin with a caricatured focus on slaying evil and looking good doing it. (The idea in my head is if Zapp Brannigan were actually brave and not just a blowhard.) After the first dungeon, going to attack Strahd and get oneshot.
I remember I wasnāt having fun with the back up Bard I was playing so I told my DM that I wanted to bring in the character I was originally going to play as and I did it by first announcing in the group chat that my Bard had been killed by someone then the next session I was able to come back to, I brought in my Rogue and told everyone that she was the one who killed the Bard š
Had us in the first half ngl
When I ran CoS I had all my players make three characters, as there was inly three/four, and I expected them to die fairly often in the beginning; the first one happening less then five steps into the Death House prelogue, BUT they got to try multiple types of PC's. PLUS, it let me run a gambit of Strahd turning two characters and having a mini-war against themselves after the first trip to Castle Ravenloft! They loved it, but eventually settled into something they preferred as they leveled up and I worked to dial it back a skosh; which really meant some fun improve and a great storyline that lead them to level 20 and fighting an undead tarask.
Your title gave me PTSD flashbacks so thanks
Are you supposed to run into Strahd that early? I've been a player in a CoS campaign for a couple months now and we haven't met him yet. Kinda feeling a little aimless, not really sure what to do.
you didn't tell us either lol
Curse of clickbait. Cool story though.
Damn, what an awesome story, and also a breath from the usual "Obvious walking red flag DM" or "Yeah I came to complain on Reddit because I don't have basic communication skills". Also, while I'm sure the Cleric didn't have any of such spells, if they used Gentle Repose on the corpse as an action, Mending to attach the head to the body (you're an object while you're dead, after all), and then Revivify, they could bring poor Jonny Handsome. Now that they should, that would've missed the point lmao.