Why Darklords Have No Stats | Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft | D&D
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
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Dungeons & Dragons Expands Beyond the Gothic Horror in Curse of Strahdwith Van Richten’s Guide to RavenloftD&D Brings Multiple Horror Genres to (Un)Life Including Slasher Horror, Macabre Fairy Tale, and Zombie Apocalypse.
One of the most popular adventures published by D&D in the last few yearswas Curse of Strahd which begins when characters are pulled by creeping mists in to a land called Barovia. But Strahd’s domain is just one of the many Domains of Dread that make up the horror-themed setting of Ravenloft. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenlof trefreshes the setting by giving Dungeon Masters descriptions of more than 30 Domains of Dread beyond Barovia as well as the tools to create their own horrific stories, including details on each domain’s Darklord, a ready-to-play adventure, new monsters, lineages and sub-classes. Be afraid for Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft to pull D&D fans into the Mists on May 18. “I’m a huge fan of all things horror, so it was an absolute thrill to frame this book around bringing frightening elements like mummy lords, cosmic terrors, and urban legends to more D&D tables,” said Wes Schneider, senior game designer and lead designer of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. “Working with exciting new voices in horror and visual artists like D&D concept artist Shawn Wood was essential to make sure we’re updating the aesthetic for today’s fans while staying true to the roots of Ravenloft.”The correspondence of Rudolph Van Richten and other heroes of Ravenloft, like Ezmerelda d’Avenir and the Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins, introduce a new generation of monster hunters to the Lands of the Mists. Some of the Domains of Dread might feel eerily familiar to fans such as Lamordia, which explores the horror of experimentation on creating undead beings from deceased body parts by Dr. Viktra Mordenheim. Other horrors include the surreal, fairytale masquerades of Dementlieu; treachery in the war-torn rain forests of Kalakeri; and the endless zombie hordes of Falkovnia. Van Richten’s Guide includes rules and advice for DMs to create custom domains and Darklordsby portraying established horror tropes or whatever special new blend of terror they can imagine. Players can create more terrifying characters with Dark Gifts that provide roleplaying ties tothe Domains of Dread by bestowing benefits that may have a deadly cost. With Van Richten’s Guide, players can also roll upa dhampir who’s been created by a vampire, a hexblood descended from a hag, or a reborn who’s been brought back from the dead.Two new subclasses further flesh out the options with the College of Spirits for bards and the Undead pact for warlocks, as well as new backgrounds to explore and trinkets to collect. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft features a cover by Anna Podedworna available everywhere and an alternate cover by Scott M. Fischer only available through game stores.The mists beckon on May 18, 2021!
Having no stat block doesn't add more option because you could always reskin a monster if a monster is to high but now you dont have a new unique monsters only reskins
Make one.
💯
Again, why do I buy this book to do that instead of just picking up a PDF of the 2nd edition Ravenloft supplement
@@override367 go get that then and stop complaining.
@@crankysmurf its not really their job to handhold everything for you almost everything in the game gets home ruled in some way anyway, they have given you the setting and the characters if you can't do anything with that then maybe you should consider not being a DM cause it doesn't really sound like your kind of thing.
Soooo by that logic there should be no stats for ANY monster. If you cannot trust your players to not metagame, or your DM cannot figure out how to run a game at various levels, what is the point? This book has been all kinds of fail.
I agree.
If your DM can’t make up their own stats, why are they the DM?
@@Southgate1868 Why should they be forced to we brought the damn book give me it.
@@Southgate1868 I can make a monster. But when I buy a source book, I shouldn't have to.
I didn't want stat blocks but suggested abilities or regional effects, I don't get why they put those measly suggestions at all. It's ridiculous to say they don't want to gatekeep behind level but they suggest to use nobles and spies on one hand but also death knights and mummy lords on the other, it's counterintuitive to their intention and comes out as lack of effort in tackling figures as complicated as the dark lords, that's what looks like to me, at least.
It’s almost like they want us, the DMs, to come up with them on our own. So weird, for a creative storytelling game to make us come up with our own stuff.
Yeah but you'd think if you're paying for a D&D book, you'd get stats for the villains in that book.
@@Southgate1868 do you realize my point wasn't about the lack of unique stats but the lack of effort in providing an alternative to said stats, because they clearly tried to use those generic stats as an alternative instead of coming up with original ideas, and now they hide behind the statement that they don't want to gatekeep, even though the suggested stats create a level treshold by themselves, a wererat is a very different encounter compared to a vampire, and a death knight is a whole other story compared to a knight, that's what bugs me, this entire justification seems far fetched compared to what's inside the book.
I mean, sure its cool and all, but all of this is part of an expensive book, if the books answer to such issues is "make up an answer" whats the point to the book for a game?
Exactly.
Exactly
The point is that in base CoS, depending on party number and makeup, by 11th lvl a CR15 Strahd can feel like a pushover, instead of like the grand menace he's supposed to be. It seems that they didn't want that often noticed flaw to detract from the fun you can have with the other Darklords.
I run Ravenloft 4 months out of the year for a table of 5-6 highly experienced players, and even at lvl5, MM vampire spawn don't pack the punch you want in a horror game. Having the flexibility within the sourcebook to modify monsters and not have the rules lawyers pick you apart is great.
@@midworldcrafting4958 I also think there is value in being able to tailor the Dark Lord to your table or just yourself. Like, as an example, your personal interpretation of the Strahd characterization is that he should be a warlock. Then him having a bunch of wizard mechanics might rub you the wrong way. Or vice versa.
Conversely if you party has a whole lot of one kind of damage source or mechanic then maybe Strahd has practice a new spell to counter then in anticipation for their arrival. Or just won’t use a thing he normally can do. Like, if half the party isn’t humanoid and he had specifically hold person.
@@mlp_firewind8129 well if you don't like it the way it is you are gona be making a homebrew statblock to begin whith but at least you have a template and a lot of people are fine whith it the way it is so whats your point
Like I said on the dnd beyond video is that most of previous editions of Ravenloft, they made stats blocks for Darklords in a separate book or supplements, so there is no reasons why they can't do the same instead of using generic monster stats, or they could just make and release a stat block of a Darklord once a week or so on Unearthed Arcana or/and dnd beyond for now and maybe release a 2nd book later with more classic Ravenloft monsters that are missing, like the Dread Elementals.
He keep using first level as an example but who the psychopath have character be level 1 longer than a few game or sent them up in ravenloft when they are not ready. Sure round things down so you are not forced to run thing at such a high level but lowering the bar down that much kind of make it less well in the best way to say it less scary.
Exactly, a first level character should be destroyed going up against almost any dark lord. Also if I'm doing a 1 shot game, why start at level 1? A good chuck of classes don't get good until level 3 when the subclasses unlock.
Lower level = less PC power = lower survivability = more scary
The more abilities PCs have, greater the chance that they have the answer to solve a problem in their character sheets instead of they coming up with a creative solution on the spot, when have you seen level 10 wizards or paladins taking down a vampire in fantasy fiction?
I'm not saying that higher level adventures are bad per se, but higher level campaigns doesn't mean higher the danger, you get much more healing and even resurection abilities, and then you have spells and magic weapons and such. Take two scenarios for example: a low level party enters a room full of zombies and have to fight them off in an really gritty battle where they barely survive, and then you have a high level wizard in the same situation but instead they cast fireball and poof problem solved, which one is scarier than the other?
@@novaiscool1 yes most 5 adventure start at 3
Q: Why we didn’t stat the dark lords.
A: Because it was easier and cheaper not to.
Strahd having stats makes the game better. Publish a bunch of stats like everyone wants. Just because a Darklord has stats doesn't mean the party has to fight them. Or even be able to find them!
Strahd’s stats are literally just a spellcasting vampire from the monster manual with +4 intelligence.
Make up your own stats
@@neb985 it switches out more than a few spells and gives strahd lair actions.
Or you can adjust them to a party level, Wizards has become so lazy.
Also, it's not very hard to adjust stats up or down. Also, Darklords are functionally immortal in their domains. It's tailor-made to torture them for eternity, and introducing nevwr-ending cycles of torment to the players through the suffering of the Darklords is neat.
Why not just make one base dark lord statblock with features you can pick from a list depending on level. Could have been a really fun feature.
"Because we ran out of time!"
The real answer. We are cutting costs on quality designers
Laziness or lazyness is my answer
Translation: Stat blocks and the ability to scale them up and down in 5E is fundamentally broken.
Further translation: 5E is hot garbage.
@@mr.battle20 If you don’t like it why are you here?
This feels like a really poor excuse for a lack of content.
3rd edition had stats for the Dark Lords. They were in the Gazeteer series of books. The most powerful was Gwydion, the Sorcerer Fiend. He was the darklord of the Shadow Rift, and his curse was that he was stuck in an interdimensional tunnel between the Shadow plane and Ravenloft.
His CR was 40. Yeah. Think "Lovecraftian nightmare".
From the number of articles, UA-cam videos, and interviews that are addressing this issue *after* the book has been released, tells me they know they fell short of expectations.
Well i suppose this is a reason but strand has a stat block of CR 15 and the players literally can say "hey, look a spooky castle, lets go" and they can do that as soon as arrive at Barovia....so it is an excuse for me as you have guides from the monster manual to lower the CR of the Darklords if you wish,or if your leave it to the DM then give us more DM Resources,not small paragraphs on Player based Sourcebooks...Give us Monster Manuals or Lair Actions,Regional Effects,Lair Ideas or guidelines,Magical Effects,weather Effects,Planes,chase scene ideas,dungeon rooms ideas...something to work on it
Definitely adding Dark Sun features to Har’Akir.
Whelp... time to break out the Kobold Press books for something better than a basic Monster Manual foe for a Dark Lord. Pact Lich anyone? And your seriously telling me no one thought to do what they did with dragons and make multiple, incrementally bigger stat blocks? This book reeks of low effort and lack of care.
I have the book. It's pretty good! But yeah I'll be going to Kobold press for my dark lords
Boldest design choice: putting a shower curtain in the same room as your books.
@@DRKAugumon yeah it’s for the camera lighting. You can see the window reflected in the frames on the wall
Sometimes the shower curtain is your books if you're a certain congresswoman candidate.
@@youcantbeatk7006 Whoa MTG’s initials match the game, it must means something 😂
You didn't play with the darklords if you were a good DM, you kept the darklord of a domain mysterious and he/she would come to the front after a while. Folks in taverns and shops would whisper about this mysterious aloof and detached noble or ruler on occassion. The stat block was valuable however when the adventure or campaign was ready for active interaction with the darklord. It didn't need to be completely fleshed out but unique abilities in that translate to the domain would be enough. I'll continue with the Sword & Sorcery OGL books until WotC starts putting out some quality Ravenloft products. This was not it, it was a product devoid of dread.
No, this is lazy at best. They should have included multiple different CR of stats blocks like MANY other D&D products do.
I'd like just a regular stat block for the creature. I'd just adjust it in my own time.
In the meantime, forget the fact that every campaign ever has high level npcs who could smoke the party at any moment, but they are statted out. Elminster, a god level character, likes to hang around Faerun's version of the Shire, but I guess the players should avoid travelling there because "npc is higher level"
Asinine. Ridiculous. Lazy.
That's why I switched to pathfinder long ago, and have already converted the darklords from 3.5 into PE 1e. Wizards are only in it for the money. Hiring people to do the darklords cost too much money and that's why they didn't do it. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a shill. Pure and simple.
Sorry, I can't swallow that. Watching this video made me conclude you the designers have made a decision that should be the DM's. It's up to who's running the table to decide how they're going to run it. By giving us the stat blocks we can have the liberty to use them or not. Without them, we simply don't have that freedom: the designer team made a decision that belongs to the DM. I honestly hope the D&D team release stat blocks from the Darklords for the community.
Yeah where are all the monsters? I mean it's so light on monsters that I feel cheated
I assumed no stats mean players have no chance, it's the bad guy that can't be stopped but avoided, it's the bad guy that only shows his fangs when a player becomes disrespectful and needs to know he isn't at the top of the food chain, maybe I've just met too many cocky toxic players
Love that approach. I’ve always tinkered my Dark Lords all the way from 2nd Editition. But i always apply the Stradh treatment : the Dark Lord has been there for centuries. They’re not « final bosses » in a video game. They toy with PC’s. Then lose interest, etc. Until the party truly gets on their history and start foiling them. And even then the solution has to come from something else than a slugfest ; otherwise you’re losing all the Gothic Horror to simple high Fantasy.
Hey Todd, will you be doing any sort of speculative videos talking about what you think we might see if or when a Dragonlance setting source book is to be released for future 5e D&D material?
:clueless:
it feels like a really lame and lazy excuse tbh. One of the reasons I won't be buying this book :(
This video is an embarrassing excuse for WotC’s laziness. They could have given each Darklord a stat block and left it up to the DM to change it as they see fit.
I like the idea of using skills to solve the Domain. I mean sure you could use combat for a solution, but branching out makes for a fun adventure.
Anyone who hasn't drunk the coolaid can see WotC is getting lazy. But hey, when people don't realize the difference between quality and your daily serving of grool, why change your practices? Meanwhile, the rest of the community is steadily seeing how good the alternatives to D&D are. Enjoy the twilight of your creativity, Wizards.
I'm not sure they are lazy... but they are spread out. A victim of their own success, they are spread out on too many things right now. A sourcebook and an adventure book a year is fine, but they have so many other pies, including trying to make a movie now, and they are going to suffer.
I personally didn't understand why they need stats in the first place. The "Strahd at Level 13+ is no issue at all if run by the book" is just sad considering the implications of such an epic encounter. However, including some default stats and an image - especially for VTTs - would be appreciated for newer DMs. Most can still manage to tweak their stats when their given the hint but newer players, which are the majority right now afaik, are kind of lost here I fear.
Still a great book. Thank you for covering this, Todd.
Strahd is not tough if you just have a punchout thats why he can spellcast and phase through walls he shouldn't be getting into a brawl if he has to he should be running away and fighting in a way that is to his advantage not the players.
they do have stats, harkon Lukas is a loup garu the god brain is an elder brain, sthrad is either a vampire or sthrad, Ivana is a spy, Ivan is a noble, Isolde is an eladrin and nephene is a holy avenger. saidra is a wraith, vladeska is a knight, ankhtepot is a mummy lord, hazlik is an archmage, tsien is a mage, ramya is a death knight, viktra is a spy, wilfred is a ghost, Jacqueline is a wererat, mother lorinda is a green had and her daughter is whatever monster you need it to be and chakuna is a were tiger, you just need to modify those to be appropriate as a challenge for the party at this moment so they don't one shot them or get one shot by a cr 20 creature.
if all the darklords had unique statblocks that were cr 1/8 that would suck and I do agree with him that having the darklord at cr 20 does mean they feel to powerful for the party.
that being said they should have invested in a few sets of d10 tables for each darklord to give them sets of legendary actions and a slew of potential mythic traits applicable for any level.
@@Markcrazeer If I'm going to homebrew why did I pay $50 for the book?
@@override367 if your not hombrewing then your not playing pretty much every module and every book ends up getting house rules and homebrew chucked in to mix things up and fix issues with the system, the books give you a framework from which to work off they aren't a rigid structure to be adhered to at all costs.
@@override367 this is the third time I have tried to leave a response so now I'm just saying this, do you know what a lamordia is? do you know who victra mordenheim is? do you know her history with elise? do you even know what an elise is? would you have thought of a vengeful mayor brain in a jar? if you did not read this book? no?
well, this book just told you all of that so now you have the skeleton of an epic Frankenstein campaign all you have to homebrew is what happens
(witch you would have anyways once you dealt with wave echo cave after lost mines of phandelver so what was the point of getting the starter set?) and the stats of the dark lord. what are you complaining about? just adjust or make her stats. and once you and the party are done with her, there are like ten more fully fleshed-out sandboxes to play in and over 20 sandbox frames and instructions on how to make more. you would not have had any of that without that book. so give them the 50 dollars
or you could skip all of that and set your campaign in Harmonie with the dark lord king Reks Morelli. no one is stopping you. but now you have to figure out who reks is what his motivation is what he has done what life is like in Harmonie and everything this book did for you with lamordia, sounds fun but the help in how to do that would sure be useful, now where could you get that?
I like the free flow of no stats for the Lords. I do miss the no cool unique lair actions or abilities for the lords themselves. Some of these guys are such cool characters to not have some.
I can make them up myself but the people that do this for a living a much better at balance, wording, and ingenuity than me. Definitely something I will keep my eye on the DMs Guild for though.
Plus we're paying a premium for a product, they should be giving us more than we're getting. Heck most of the domains being 1 paragraph is worthless, as I could go online and just look for horror writing prompts to get the same effect. This book could have been so much greater, but they went easy on it and it feels cheapened by it.
I like that stats for the dark lords were left vague. I am one for altering stat blocks to adjust encounters up or down in scale to allow encounters to happen regardless of party level or even in spite of party level. The ability to have the party encounter a Dark Lord and have them be able to be defeated if that's what you want at the time is good for running a full campaign within the Domains of Dread imo.
Brilliant video and makes a lot of sense to not restrict Dark Lords with locked in statblocks and encourage more freedom of play.
Nah, this is stupid, I paid $50 for the supplement, they're too lazy to do what Pathfinder does and statblock out a monster for different tiers of play? Come on what are they afraid of running out of ink
@@override367 At least this could make for a good quest hook, "WOTC have ran out of ink and need the heroes help to add the missing statblocks!" 😂
@@davidlewis5312 My comment was more in regards to the take on not having statblocks, obviously they chose not to as they felt it wasn't necessary, due to them being lazy (unlikely) or due to them having deadlines to meet like any other business.
My perspective is simply that if there's no statblock there's no expectations in regards to abilities.
Obviously not everyone agrees with that and I get where they're coming from too.
I think the stats left vague is a good thing, if you look at Strahd's stats in CoS the it should inspire to make interesting traits each dark lord has and makes them flexible for campaigns
I love the mechanical mystery of them. They’re catalysts of dark creation and to codify them would remove so much of the narrative power they hold. “If it has a stat block, we can kill it” doesn’t need to exist here.
"What do you mean we 'can't kill God'?!"
@@galensturupcomeau1242 I feel this is kinda disingenuous when you consider we have stats for Auril and Tiamat, and the Stats for Arch Devils, Demon Princes, and Slaad Lords. Yes some Dark Lords are expressly meant to be solely Roleplay NPCs like the Dark Lords of Borca, but some are meant to be fought by the PC.
@@InquisitorThomas I hear you. There are enemies meant to be fought. I was making a joke.
@@InquisitorThomas exactly. Leave it to each table to decide. That’s the best kind of villain.
the dark lords aren't gods, and they can be killed. I'm not sure if you know this but they previously published a book called "Curse of Strahd" where you kill Strahd, one of the stronger Dark Lords.
If you're expecting me to homebrew it, why the ever living hell would I pay $50 for a book?
I think the one thing that they should have done, because I do agree with them not including them, but they should have included some ideas for regional effects or abilities to buff them with that you can rip from other stat blocks. Like an expansion of the horror monsters guide bit.
For example it's pretty easy to take the Vampire Warrior stat block and buff it to be a Kas the Bloody Handed stat block. Just buff up the AC with a shield, give them Intimidation and Athletics, give it more HP and 4 longword attacks, and then rip some of the parry, shield bash, frighten foe, and other abilities / legendary actions from any of the Warlord stat blocks.
Maybe give him some spellcasting relating to the time he spend trapped in the negative energy plane that evolved him in to something even more terrible than a standard vampire, or magic he learned from Vecna (Eldritch Knight), or just rip the Negative Energy Flood abilities from an Atropal or Mummy Lord, or have his hate give him the powers of a Death Knight or Oathbreaker Paladin, bound to an oath to one day Slay Vecna. I dunno if he was ever a spellcaster though and some might wanna keep him as just a melee guy, but at the very least maybe some negative energy effects like healing from Necrotic.
I recon if he did have spellcasting he'd only ever use it as a tool to blast foes and control the battlefield, and a tool he'd never allow to outshine his martial prowess.
No, it was WotC being lazy as hell.
Very smart!
I respectfully disagree.
LAZINESS. They aren’t gods.
I have only the 2nd ed Domains of Dread to go off, but all off the Dark Lords of Ravenloft are practically immortal.
Held captive in their lands as playthings for the dark powers.. do you think they would let some lowly warrior be able to take them down?
@@userb3nje909 they can die though they just reform afterwards. Also then why don't they have stats for skills wepons and spell/abilities helth is not the only thing on a stat block
Same old lazy WOTC...
A lot of people is complaining about Darklords not having stats. I can understand that, but for me is not that terrible. I miss more other stuff not being on the book, particularly Ravenloft cursed items such as Timepliece of Klorr. Anyway, I think the book is still a great source for Ravenloft. A fantastic toolbox for horror-oriented D&D game.
Strahd, and by proxy, all the Darklords, has tons of emotional, nostalgic, and expectational baggage welded to them. There is literally no way you can make mechanical stats for them and make it match all that baggage. And if you do manage to do it, it's just going to be questioned to death anyway. Just making him an Ancient Vampire that has a massive measure of "narrative" control over his Domain is MORE THAN ENOUGH. Renier has legions of devoted followers that are happy to chew you up at a moment's notice. But for now, she really enjoys your company. You can't stat that....
but you can give unique and terrifying powers to play with when she does decide to kill you. i propose some rollable tables of example legendary actions and example mythic traits.
I'm sorry *what*? This is Dungeons and Dragons not Dungeon World, at it's core it is a table top roleplaying combat ruleset
@@override367 And we used to measure experience by how much gold you could drag out of a dungeon.
'Original' vehemently does not mean 'better' or even 'good'.
That said, I'd guess another major reason for avoiding statting comes down to space in the book. But a certain base set of numbers to work with when the PCs inevitably try to punch out Fog Satan wouldn't go amiss.
Honestly, what DMs are bothering to use actual stats for a BBEG? I love improvving big boss fights completely.
Me too. No wonder my encounters go on for hours. The party put out enough firepower to devastate a town yet the BBEG still stand. That's why hes the BBEG after all!
Dms that like the stats, or prefer to utilise that type of structure or who like to base homebrew off of official material etc. If you enjoy and prefer homebrewing that’s absolutely fine it’s your prerogative but by not bothering to include stats wotc have narrowed the options available to a DM down.
There some interesting benefits like the DM have full control to design powers the dark lords have and cheating players can't go read the stats . ☕
DMs have that power anyway and cheating players are going to be a problem regardless of what options you take away from a DM.