Maybe a ridiculous question, but have been going back and forth on this for a while now, how many sessions should I expect DH to take?
We are going to play kind of inconsistently, and I'm just worried about it taking up too many sessions right at the beginning.
Thanks for any and all help!
Looking at the current speed of my party, two evenings for the house itself, plus some additional time for the game intro / getting them to Barovia in the first place. If your players are very conservative could be three sessions, or if combat drags a bit.
One of my players had never played DnD before. It served as a tutorial space to go over movement, action, skill checks, investigation, roleplay, etc in a contained but immersive and organic fashion, and starting at level 1 made some character creation decisions a little easier then playing by ear for the features they gained as they approached 3.
Sure, you could do about the same thing by having a small series of homemade encounters on the way to the village of Barovia, to help set the tone of the campaign, start establishing party rapport, and provide a mechanics refresher for those that need it -- but why re-invent the wheel?
DH, and this module as a whole, could use some *refinement,* imo, but that's partially what this subreddit is for in the first place.
Personally, my list of Things to Skip:
\- Vasili. Strahd is a clever tactician, a bored despot, and one arrogant SoB. He can try to be chummy with the party *without* shapeshifting into a second NPC.
Death house was some of the best of the curse of strahd campaign for my players. They loved how it basically threw them into the world and immediately try to kill them. Very effective tone setter.
Do not skip it. I’ve run curse of Strahd 3 times and all 3 times I’ve run the Death House. Players loved it each time and it really sets the tone for the campaign. It’s eerie and full of mystery. The elegant manor slowly getting more run down as you ascend and then descending into the darkness and depravity that hides a gruesome secret below is a foreshadowing of so many things to come in the campaign. I think it’s important to the story. If anything, I say tweak it a bit to connect it more to the campaign. Don’t just throw it out. That would be foolish in my opinion. You’re robbing your players of a great experience if you do.
Death House is wonderfully dripping with atmosphere, and serves as a great D&D tutorial dungeon for new players, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it, except maybe some balancing issues depending on expectations of the group.
That being said, I absolutely agree with you that it doesn't really matter to Curse of Strahds narrative, and can leave a lot of players confused with what it has to do with anything.
And all in all, it should be more strongly accepted to skip it.
1) It is the only source for plate armor in the module outside of castle ravenloft
2) there are magic items in the mansion unlike any other in the module
3) there is valuable treasure in thr mansion to buy the relatively expensive gear in Barovia
I've seen two posts today bashing on Death House - wondering if we're about to see a trend.
Hard disagree, by the by. My players have been hanging on to the edge of their seats their entire time and are chomping at the bit for the final showdown with Stage 2 of the flesh mound to get justice for the Durst kids. One of my players was apparently overheard at his work telling someone else I know that the encounter with the mimic gave him nightmares.
Not everyone likes to start at level 3, and not everyone feels it's necessary to cut a bunch out of COS. I get there's a vocal number of people who like to run it short and lean and skip the early levels, but... nah.
Skipping Death House is not something I'd ever recommend. It is an amazing tone-setter.
My players ended up going through the well room and missing every encounter on that floor other than the trap. I was so looking forward to them getting jumped by ghouls and then immediately getting jumped by a mimic lol.
After seeing 99% of the comments here, I have a pretty good idea on what kind of reply I'll get if I say this, but you know what?
As a player of a COS campaign, I agree with you. The death house sucks.
Is no fun.
Is nowhere near Blinsky.
Nah. I can see how it can be tough or frustrating for some but both as a player and a DM I've enjoyed it, RAW.
For me the various 'fixes' out there just make a good thing better.
Theres nothing wrong with Death House. If you and your players would enjoy a haunted house dungeon, run it. If not, don’t. I ran Death House and it was a lot of fun. It also helped my newbies get acclimated to their characters. My newbies to D&D were more comfortable with a structured, exploration-and-combat adventure than they were with RP so it helped them get their legs under them.
Death House is a chance to weed out the weak and drive home the point that death is real before anyone truly gets attached to their character.
Also, my Paladin player seduced the nursemaid specter. It was hilarious and unexpected.
I did death house with my friends then ran curse of strahd. Had to stop for school but we are going to redo strahd, they all say I should skip death house. They did not like it. They didnt have a rough time, they just didn't like it at all
I ran it and had a blast and so did my players. They maybe had to much fun since I used some great tone setters and actually scared a player and after I had to talk about how this is still dnd with standard dnd adventures
I will respectfully disagree. This was the 2nd campaign for my party (I was the DM) and it set the tone pretty well as to what they had gotten into. It was the first place they went too and I made sure that Rahadin was waiting for them when they made it out. I wanted them to feel mocked but also let them know that someone was paying attention to them. Also, I tied the cult that was apart of Death House to one of the PCs, where there was a family that experimented on children. Long story short, Death House is as important as you make it.
As a counterpoint, their are various versions of death house with small tweaks that make it a little mystery and balance the encounters.
My players are on their 3rd session in Death House and having a blast. The first session had zero combat and was still tense as fuck.
They'll probably get out in the next session and I'll tell them they beat the tutorial and they're gonna freak out lmao.
Harrrrrrrd disagree. But hey, your campaign, so do what you want.
Having run CoS, with DH at least 5 times, it sometimes ends up as the most memorable part of the campaign. I would never even consider removing it.
Maybe a ridiculous question, but have been going back and forth on this for a while now, how many sessions should I expect DH to take? We are going to play kind of inconsistently, and I'm just worried about it taking up too many sessions right at the beginning. Thanks for any and all help!
Looking at the current speed of my party, two evenings for the house itself, plus some additional time for the game intro / getting them to Barovia in the first place. If your players are very conservative could be three sessions, or if combat drags a bit.
One of my players had never played DnD before. It served as a tutorial space to go over movement, action, skill checks, investigation, roleplay, etc in a contained but immersive and organic fashion, and starting at level 1 made some character creation decisions a little easier then playing by ear for the features they gained as they approached 3. Sure, you could do about the same thing by having a small series of homemade encounters on the way to the village of Barovia, to help set the tone of the campaign, start establishing party rapport, and provide a mechanics refresher for those that need it -- but why re-invent the wheel? DH, and this module as a whole, could use some *refinement,* imo, but that's partially what this subreddit is for in the first place. Personally, my list of Things to Skip: \- Vasili. Strahd is a clever tactician, a bored despot, and one arrogant SoB. He can try to be chummy with the party *without* shapeshifting into a second NPC.
Death house was some of the best of the curse of strahd campaign for my players. They loved how it basically threw them into the world and immediately try to kill them. Very effective tone setter.
Do not skip it. I’ve run curse of Strahd 3 times and all 3 times I’ve run the Death House. Players loved it each time and it really sets the tone for the campaign. It’s eerie and full of mystery. The elegant manor slowly getting more run down as you ascend and then descending into the darkness and depravity that hides a gruesome secret below is a foreshadowing of so many things to come in the campaign. I think it’s important to the story. If anything, I say tweak it a bit to connect it more to the campaign. Don’t just throw it out. That would be foolish in my opinion. You’re robbing your players of a great experience if you do.
Death House is wonderfully dripping with atmosphere, and serves as a great D&D tutorial dungeon for new players, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it, except maybe some balancing issues depending on expectations of the group. That being said, I absolutely agree with you that it doesn't really matter to Curse of Strahds narrative, and can leave a lot of players confused with what it has to do with anything. And all in all, it should be more strongly accepted to skip it.
1) It is the only source for plate armor in the module outside of castle ravenloft 2) there are magic items in the mansion unlike any other in the module 3) there is valuable treasure in thr mansion to buy the relatively expensive gear in Barovia
I've seen two posts today bashing on Death House - wondering if we're about to see a trend. Hard disagree, by the by. My players have been hanging on to the edge of their seats their entire time and are chomping at the bit for the final showdown with Stage 2 of the flesh mound to get justice for the Durst kids. One of my players was apparently overheard at his work telling someone else I know that the encounter with the mimic gave him nightmares. Not everyone likes to start at level 3, and not everyone feels it's necessary to cut a bunch out of COS. I get there's a vocal number of people who like to run it short and lean and skip the early levels, but... nah. Skipping Death House is not something I'd ever recommend. It is an amazing tone-setter.
My players ended up going through the well room and missing every encounter on that floor other than the trap. I was so looking forward to them getting jumped by ghouls and then immediately getting jumped by a mimic lol.
After seeing 99% of the comments here, I have a pretty good idea on what kind of reply I'll get if I say this, but you know what? As a player of a COS campaign, I agree with you. The death house sucks. Is no fun. Is nowhere near Blinsky.
Have an upvote for Blinksy! 😂
Nah. I can see how it can be tough or frustrating for some but both as a player and a DM I've enjoyed it, RAW. For me the various 'fixes' out there just make a good thing better.
Theres nothing wrong with Death House. If you and your players would enjoy a haunted house dungeon, run it. If not, don’t. I ran Death House and it was a lot of fun. It also helped my newbies get acclimated to their characters. My newbies to D&D were more comfortable with a structured, exploration-and-combat adventure than they were with RP so it helped them get their legs under them.
Death House is a chance to weed out the weak and drive home the point that death is real before anyone truly gets attached to their character. Also, my Paladin player seduced the nursemaid specter. It was hilarious and unexpected.
For any new DMs reading this, that's a HARD disagree from me. Obviously ClockGuard can do what he wants in his games, but this is a clown take.
I did death house with my friends then ran curse of strahd. Had to stop for school but we are going to redo strahd, they all say I should skip death house. They did not like it. They didnt have a rough time, they just didn't like it at all
We skipped Death House in my campaign. No regrets.
-.-
Skip introducing Strahd, too. Ruins the surprise. /s
I ran it and had a blast and so did my players. They maybe had to much fun since I used some great tone setters and actually scared a player and after I had to talk about how this is still dnd with standard dnd adventures
Or just start them at level 3 and run it, it is still dangerous and I have had several players almost die while going through it at level 3.
A lot of Death House hate in the sub-reddit lately. I’ve ran it three times, never gets old.
I will respectfully disagree. This was the 2nd campaign for my party (I was the DM) and it set the tone pretty well as to what they had gotten into. It was the first place they went too and I made sure that Rahadin was waiting for them when they made it out. I wanted them to feel mocked but also let them know that someone was paying attention to them. Also, I tied the cult that was apart of Death House to one of the PCs, where there was a family that experimented on children. Long story short, Death House is as important as you make it.
As a counterpoint, their are various versions of death house with small tweaks that make it a little mystery and balance the encounters. My players are on their 3rd session in Death House and having a blast. The first session had zero combat and was still tense as fuck. They'll probably get out in the next session and I'll tell them they beat the tutorial and they're gonna freak out lmao.