Your first Ravenloft Monster

Boris Drakov · Post by **Boris Drakov** » Fri May 09, 2008 12:02 am

No, they never got that far.

They never got past the death moose of Valachan.

Oh well, 13 years old. The peak of intellectual capacity, especially in teenage boys...

Brandi · Post by **Brandi** » Fri May 09, 2008 9:09 am

Walruses are actually pretty formidable beasties-- I'd run too.

Haven't run a campaign yet, but I'm thinking that Barton deForet (from The Forgotten Children) might be a good jumping-off encounter.

Archedius · Post by **Archedius** » Fri May 09, 2008 1:53 pm

idk- moose can survive being hit by cars ergo that's at least a CR 4 in my book. Moose are tough animals and most people with medieval tech would be hard pressed to take one out one on one IMO.

Unrelated- have you ever sat there looking at stuff figuring out the DC's and CR's of stuff you see in real life? ...I have.

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Fri May 09, 2008 2:21 pm

Well.... I'm still on my first campaign, but the first combat encounter I threw at the PCs was a lightning-wielding cultist of Anubis, who had a certain grievance about the PCs. WAY too high a CR for them....except they nearly killed her before she got away, which was profoundly odd.

First proper monster was a straight up ghost. Lots of cheesy theatrical lines, but the PCs enjoyed it. And it used Telekinesis to pick up a bunch of skeletons and throw them at the paladin, which was.... odd.

JinnTolser · Post by **JinnTolser** » Fri May 09, 2008 5:00 pm

The first time I ran RL was also the first time I ran D&D... and only the second D&D game I had been in. So everything was pretty new to me. I had this cool ranger I'd built as a nemesis to the party ranger, but he was too strong to throw at them early on, so I grabbed a few monsters out of the MM (I didn't have Denizens of Darkness yet).

So, as 4 of my 5 PCs (they hadn't met the druid yet) were walking through the forest, they got attacked by half a dozen stirges. Exciting, I know, but it was the first time I ever DMed and I was afraid of throwing something too powerful at them. They actually messed up the party fighter pretty bad, as he had some bad luck with his saves.

Lacking a better way to introduce him, I rolled a d6 to see how many rounds it would take the druid to just happen to stumble onto this fight. He came in just as the last stirge was fleeing the rest of the group, and cut it down out of midair, then started eating it!

I had a weird player.

lostboy · Post by **lostboy** » Sat May 10, 2008 6:39 am

Having been a DL fanatic before I discovered the black box, my first RL inspired adventure produced the disturbing possibiilty of vampire draconians (what was I thinking?)

eocine · Post by **eocine** » Sat May 10, 2008 11:46 am

Nothing fancy, a pack of wolves if I remember correctly. A simple way of introducing them to Vorostokov.

Hazgarn · Post by **Hazgarn** » Sat May 10, 2008 11:59 pm

I'm just now planning out my first campaign. Somewhat overambitious, and possibly a little cruel, I'm considering opening things up with Toben the Many...

Archedius · Post by **Archedius** » Sun May 11, 2008 1:35 am

I've never really liked using Toben- he seems like he needs to be in the chars face for him to come across as written and I personally found that to be less frightening than the more subtle Ratik Ubel.

Paladyn · Post by **Paladyn** » Sun May 11, 2008 3:02 pm

I always had weak spot for wolves, skeletons, zombies and ghouls. The maybe were not first ones used in RL (apart from zombies), bu showed up frequently. But still, my favorite monster is human.

A G Thing · Post by **A G Thing** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:47 pm

The PC's became trapped at a location by the mists and they tried wandering out into them and began getting attacked by Mist Horrors preventing their escape. One even lost his polearm as it was ripped from his grasp as he attempted to test the mists with it. Needless to say my PC's were not wanting to go out into any mist bank after that with out good cause...

Jakob · Post by **Jakob** » Tue May 13, 2008 2:44 pm

Hmmm... On top of my head...

A fihyr (MM2). Yes, a fihyr. At first level. I remember the half-vistani bard running screaming in a corner, the halfling rogue trying to hit it with a sling (no effect)... Ah... The memories.

They fled, then set fire to the house.

kottakinge · Post by **kottakinge** » Sun May 18, 2008 11:37 am

My first PC i throw to Ravenloft were 1st level adventurers from Waterdeep in Forgotten Realm.
They were caught by a legendary wave of mists that teleport people in a dark place every half century.
I use the mist arrive like a giant tsunami wave on the harbour and a lot of fishermen and the pc were caught in it.
When the mists dissipated they were in Bluetspur

They decided to walk from this twisted place with the others NPC, they fall in a hole in the earth and were attacked by mind flayers!
I let the PC flee as the monsters had enough brains to eat with the fishermen.
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Your first Ravenloft Monster