Best Character Builds For Curse Of Strahd?

It’s possible that the best class for your Dark Urge is also the best race for that class. A good Monk is a Wood Elf or Wood Half-Elf, for example, because their racial abilities boost Dexterity and Wisdom. For a Paladin, Strength and Charisma are key, so Zariel Tiefling, Half-Elf, or Human would all be good choices. A pure Wizard is all about Intelligence, with a secondary focus on survival, so High Elf (for the cantrip) or Shield Dwarf (for armor) would be excellent choices. Building a powerful character is easier when you start with the class fantasy for your Dark Urge and then choose a race to support its primary and secondary ability scores, and to give it some useful ribbons. This is a much more efficient way to build a character than starting with a race and then trying to fit a class to it.

If you want a proper wild-hearted wanderer, lean into the theme first and the math second — that’s where the fun lives. Start by picking a race that boosts Dexterity and Wisdom: wood elf and human variant are classic picks because they make the stealth-and-perception combo cleaner. For stats, dump *some* points into Constitution so you don’t fall over in combat, but prioritize Dexterity (attack, AC) and Wisdom (spellcasting and key skills). Take the Outlander background for the Wanderer feature, Survival proficiency, and some great role-play hooks — you literally know how to find food and direction in the wild. Mechanically, choose your fighting style early: Archery or Two-Weapon Fighting are the two big contenders. Archery gives you a reliable damage baseline that synergizes with Sharpshooter later; TWF turns you into a skirmisher if you prefer swords. At level 3 pick a ranger archetype that fits the vibe: Hunter for raw damage options, Beast Master if you want a loyal animal buddy (expect some tactical bookkeeping), or Gloom Stalker for terrifying ambush turns and strong first-round actions. Spell choices are underrated — put 'Hunter's Mark' on your shortlist for extra single-target damage, 'Cure Wounds' and 'Goodberry' for survival backup, and 'Pass without Trace' if your party does a lot of stealthy exploration. Playstyle and role-playing matter as much as numbers. Lean into tracking, survival, and terrain knowledge in and out of combat: call out likely animal tracks, set ambushes, and use favored terrain to create tactical advantages. For feats, Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are king if you’re an archer; Mobile or Sentinel are flavorful for a hit-and-run skirmisher. If you multiclass later, a dip into fighter gives a fighting style or action surge; rogue gives cunning action and burst damage. In short: build around Dex/Wis, choose a subclass that matches the kind of wilderness legend you want to be, and use spells and terrain to make every encounter feel like a hunt. I love how this archetype lets you tell stories with each successful survival roll.

It really depends on the rules of the world you’re writing in. In some novels, that blood can actually be the vector for the vampirism curse in your story. Their ‘healing’ from near death could be only the first step in their strange transformation to the undead. In others, that blood can be a paralytic or be extremely pleasurable. Most often, however, such ‘healing’ factors do have strings, and those are generally the point of the whole thing.

Taramon from The Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames is my pick for her fabulous journey from groupie to warrior-bard, plus her batle-axes. And Thuria from The Black Company? Short-lived, perhaps, but what an impact she made – a berserker of incredible ferocity and anger. Both women wield their axes with flair, and what really ties them together is their sheer defiance – they are NOT little sidekicks or love interests, no – they are forces of Nature. It’s been wonderful to watch how fantasy has developed beyond the simple warrior-trope, and these two ladies in particular illustrate that development.

This underdog class always catches my eye, and generally I end up siding with the Jew, for no better reason than he's the class that at first glance everyone writes off as a joke, but secretly is really cool. Winning a tough fight with his spinning dreidel of death as opposed to blasting everyone with fireballs is very rewarding. What's really cool about this is that you're playing the game in a way that it didn't expect you to. Discovering hidden depths in a game is fun in and of itself, and this class has tons of it. He may not win in the statistical models, but he wins for me in terms of fun. The best choice is often the one you least expected to choose.

Anomen’s romance is all about seeing worth in him despite his usual flaws. His entire self-esteem is rooted in becoming a knight and redeeming his family name. As he struggles along the way, you help him realize that he has worth even when he fails. When he finally succeeds, you help keep his ego in check. The Anomen romance explores ways to challenge toxic masculinity and deal with the incredible pressure that our culture puts on its males. Sure, Anomen is a jerk at times, but he’s also a product of a rather demanding and strict culture, and it’s up to you to help him find his way to either change or peace with himself.

Good luck. Finding an author who can write both characters well is relatively rare, so start by looking at the bookmarks of good authors for either character. Sometimes they’ve written a one-shot for the other character. I once read a fairly good short story in which Kiba and Kankuro were both sensei to a new generation of genin. They had different methods of teaching, and the story followed them as respect for each other’s professionalism turned into something more. It had nice moments of Kiba coming to an understanding of Kankuro’s puppet-perfectionism, but I forgot the author’s name.

For large clan raids and events where dozens of players are on screen (as in the screenshot above), all bets are off. For such occasions I have a separate ‘raid profile’ with everything on Low, except for the players’ names and health bars, in order to get as many frames as possible and as little to no visual distraction as possible. Later, after the event, I switch back to my regular profile which is meant for in-game action and exploration rather than mass combat events. For raid events dozens of players are usually on screen and information clarity is far more important than visual aesthetics. Such a setup is a travesty to look at but it renders well enough and runs smoothly at low settings.

The full noon curse is a real thing in folklore. It’s kind of the opposite of most horror tropes, which tend to play with the fear of the dark. But with the noon curse, the very light of day can be just as scary, if not more so. In some folklore, the noon curse can be a full and complete curse, cast at noon to affect the person under which it is cast, whether good or ill. In other cases, there are locations that are somehow ‘cursed’ to be deadly at midday. An abandoned well, for example, or a crossroads somewhere in the world. And then there’s this really weird and creepy legend from Haiti about ‘midday zombies’ – reanimated corpses that are brought back to life by dark magic, and are forced to walk the Earth during the day. All of these strange stories revolve around the concept of noon being outside of time in some way, and thus outside of normal boundaries and defense. It’s kind of spooky, and is definitely not something you’d typically associate with a bright and sunny day.

I'm a little torn about this. The new mechanical changes, and the hunger dice in particular, are fantastic. But the new lore just doesn’t quite feel the same as the old. I mean it’s been ‘streamlined’ I suppose, which is to say ‘sanitized’ and ‘made more cohesive’ (ie less weird). The Second Inquisition are a great, modern threat (they actually feel almost too good at their job, in a ‘could be a whole campaign on their own’ sort of way), but it’s all a bit too clean and tidy for my liking. The old WoD was a grungy, often inconsistent mess of ideas, and it was all the better for it. Everything felt true, all the time, and it was glorious in its anarchic chaos. V5 is a more designed game, certainly, and it’ll be great. But I’ll always have a soft spot for the old, jumbled mess of the original.