Tips for Surviving Ravenloft for Players

I've been asked more than one time to give people advice on how to survive in Ravenloft, since I run a difficult, but not killer Ravenloft campaign. Part of it is my habit for trying to keep one step ahead of everything, and I can't teach you to think quickly under pressure, but I do have advice otherwise.

• Coordinate your party efforts. In everything from character creation to combat, to shopping. A coordinated party presents a united front that has many talents, harder to take down, harder to rip apart.

• Never go anywhere by yourself when there is (possible) danger around. A single PC has a word for it....Victim. By yourself, you can not draw upon the strengths of another PC. Even two of you is still pretty risky, so your best bet is to go everywhere by threes. Don't go to the bathroom in two or threes though, if you do not separate every once in awhile, the DM [i]will[/i] separate you, usually at a bloody cost.

• Be careful when buying gear. It may sound stupid, but a 6' long cold iron bar is not only good for checking the path and the corridor, but can whip some serious ass. Always pack extra boots and foot wrappings, glass and steel vials, a velvet lined box to put potions in. Just holding on to any monetary loot will not do you any good.

• Think on your feet, don't get into a mental rut. If you get into a mental rut, the bad guys can use it against you. If you make camp roughly 2 hours before sunset, the enemies will just figure out where you can get do, watch the camp sites, and ambush you while you set up, slaughtering you before you really know what is going on. If you think that each time you face monster X, technique Q will kill it, when you run into monster X-a then technique Q will get Ass B handed to PC A.

• If you are getting hammered on, don't be a fool, run for it! Who the hell wants to replay Custer's Last Stand or the Alamo. Unless you're keeping a host of zombies from eating a village of Dutch orphans cared for by French nuns, RUN FOR IT!

• Be nice and courteous to everyone!!! Villagers talk, and news gets around, and there are some very skilled bounty hunters out there. Courtesy can be just as legendary as fighting prowess. Lancelot is known for his chivalry and towering nobility in addition to his formidable battle skills.

• Keep careful notes, sometimes things you may have forgotten about will come back to bite you in the ass. More than once, my players have had the shit kicked out of them by something out of the past, a little remembered detail that came back to haunt them. In my campaign, domains do not just crumble, but default and shift to the next most evil creature. When the Zombie Master was killed at the end of Night of the Walking Dead, the PC's did not properly dispose of the Zombie Master's body, and the next day, the PC's saw that a strange, leprous looking plant had grown over the spot where the body had been. The PC's blew it off, and less than a year later, a Yellow Musk Creeper had taken over most of the village and the majority of the Graveyard, a sentient creeper with Hungry Dead Zombies to boot. Ouch.

• It's never over until the books are packed up. Never think the battle is over, all of the bad guys are dead, or you are completely safe. Too many times I've ambushed the PC's when they thought the adventure was over and they were relaxing in the inn. (See the PC Follies page about the mummy in the Inn) Your PC can let his guard his down, but do not let your guard down.

• Never try to whup the ass off of a darklord. He is infinitely more powerful, longer lived, and has better resources than you. The land itself strengthens his hand, while sucking away at yours. Just try to be respectful to the Darklords, even while working against them, and maybe they will be lenient on you.

• If something seems too good to be true, it is. That powerful magic blade will be cursed, the armor will be missing pieces, and the powerful spell book will be missing a few critical pages, or require blood sacrifices to complete the spells, and in general, but be more of a nuisance than a help.

• Never assume you know everything. I've been blindsided as a DM and a player both.

• Just because you killed the bad guy doesn't mean he's gone, and sometimes all you've managed to do is make things worse. The party killed Javelle, and she came back as a Class V specter. The party hunted down her body, resurrected her, and ran like hell. She was easier to deal with as a mortal.

• Cache equipment. Not too much stuff, we're just talking some gold, non-magical equipment (enough to reoutfit your group) and possibly a journal or two, with maybe copies of available spellbooks. This can save your ass if worse comes to worse and you lost all of your equipment.

• Try to be proactive instead of reactive. If you know that your foe is going to murder the withered old widow down the street, don't sit in her room and wait for her, sleeping during the day, the foe(s) will adapt to that. Stake out the old woman's house, perhaps casting mystical protections on her, search out anything suspicious, and look to approaches and avenues of escape from the widows house. This way you are taking action, not reacting.

• Make a decision on what type of party you want to have and how they will be seen. There are several types of parties: Investigators, monster bashers, monster hunters, questers, and a combination of the former. Each group has different strengths and weaknesses. There is also differences in the way a party travels. Some groups dress flashy and let everyone know that they are around, while others take pains to move between towns and cities with little trace, not making a scene in a town unless there is a need for their services. Depending on your campaign type, you need to decide how to move. As you might be able to tell from my notes, many of my players like to dress inconspicuously and move around carefully.

• Prepare for any kind of weather. Parties have frozen to death because they got rid of their cold weather gear in Har-Akir and then froze to death in Lamordia. This is especially important when exploring the Isles of Terror. Preparing for the weather will not eliminate it's threat, but it sure does increase chances for survival.

• Last but not least, those Bracers of AC: 4 that the mage and the thief don't want, have your fighter wear. I know, they will not work inside your armor, but it will work if you're ambushed while bathing or sleeping. Anything helps in those situations....

That's about it. There's a ton more, but I kind of encourage other to use their brains for something besides stuffing to keep their ears from colliding.