u/simmer-mage

I'm running a 5.5 campaign that just hit level 5 and it's been going really well! But I have a question about the 5.5 Fighter since it's my first time running a game with one.

The fighter took the Dual Wielder Feat, and is using a short-sword + dagger. So far that's played out as using their main Attack to do Sword + Dagger, then their Bonus action to Attack with the Dagger, since it has the Light property.

Now with Level 5 the character has Extra Attack also. I think that, all together, that should bring their total number of attacks per turn up to 4? But I'm not sure. My reasoning goes that Two Light weapons without any feat would let them attack twice- once with their Normal Action, once with their Bonus action. Weapon Mastery (Nick) lets them move those two attacks into their main action and free up their Bonus Action. Dual Wielder Feat lets them then use that Bonus Action to attack again. Extra Attack then should just add one attack to their Main Action making the rhythm Action (Shortsword, Shortsword, Dagger) and Bonus Action (Dagger) but does that hold together, or is it a nerf?

I have some relatively new players that are struggling to remember concentration rules. In person my strategy would be to make card or something that the can flip when they use a concentration spell just to remind themselves, but we're on roll20 so it's a bit trickier.

I've been using the Tarroka deck as our inspiration tokens so that's out as an option. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives?

My Curse of Strahd campaign continues to go very well! My players are getting ready to wrap in Vallaki and move on (likely to Van Richten's tower) but first we've got the Feast of St Andral. Since the party discovered the vampire spawn nest in the coffin maker's shop and then asked Van Richten to hunt down the spawn for them.

I had planned for this possibility by prepping Lady Wachter + her cultists and skeletons to serve as the attackers. But I had another idea instead. Lady Wachter and her son's being turned in order to 'replace' the spawn that Van Richten has hunted down. The idea is to still reward them for finding the nest by reducing the number of spawn they have to fight by half but to preserve the danger and urgency of the encounter.

My problem is I'm not how to best convert their stat blocks. Should I just use the RAW vampire stat blocks, or try and translate the Abilities from their original blocks? Should Fiona keep her spellcasting or will that skew the encounter balance to much? For context I have three players and two are relatively new still (this is their first campaign and their still learning the ropes) but I want this to still be a grueling fight.

I'm also unsure if it's better to use the 5 or 5.5 spawn stat blocks. I used the 5.5 for Doru and he was an incredibly threatening encounter even though he wasn't trying to actively kill the party, just escape the basement, but idk of that would be overkill for the party where they stand now.

My party has been making trouble for the Baron Vargas in Vallaki, which has caught the attention of Lady Wachter- who is planning to overthrow him during the Festival of the Blazing Sun. She knows they have Ismark (the object of Strahd's current obsession) with them and wants to test out if they might be potential allies against the Baron.

What are some side quests/missions that she could offer the party to try and suss if they would be useful allies? I originally intended to have her ask them to investigate Rictavio- but they party's already uncovered his identity as Van Richten and he's dropped the disguise in general so that's no longer on the table.

I've been running Curse of Strahd for about eight sessions now and it's been going really well! My players are on route to Vallaki and as I'm prepping for it I'm thinking of making the following changes, because it's a little sprawling and unwieldy for my taste.

• First I'm thinking of making the Milivoj subplot more present. Since his vague 'younger siblings' are not named any where I can find, I was thinking I would combine them with Yeska. Instead of gold for food (since he and Yeska are both being fed by Father Petrovitch) Milivoj did it for money to pay off Morgantha- whom he is deeply in debt after she got him hooked on her Dreampies. Milivoj is worried Morgantha will take Yeska next time as 'collateral', which has made him desperate enough to defile the crypt. This also provides me a hook since one my players cheated Morgantha with a fake coin a few sessions ago and this means she can demand restitution in the form of collecting on Milivoj's debt for her.
• I'm also thinking of making the Feast of St Andral and the Blazing Sun Festival into basically the same event. Strahd has figured out the party is bringing Ismark (who is his fixation in my game rather then Ireena) to Vallaki following the vague rumors that the town will be safe- and he wants to make it crystal clear to both them and the townsfolk how entirely at his mercy and whims they are by razing the church and unleashing the spawn on the town at the height of their festival to show the townsfolk their efforts at 'cheer' never had any effect and that there is no where the party can take Ismark where he will be beyond Strahd's reach. I'm also thinking that Lady Fiona is in on the scheme and helping facilitate it- she hasn't directly interacted with Strahd but instead received her orders via an intermediary (either one of the Brides or Rahadin), and believes she will rule Vallaki after The Feast. Strahd doesn't care one way or the other, but if she survives and wants to call herself Baroness after he's finished his bloody work, that's fine by him.
• I'm also trying to figure out how to tie in stuff with Rictavio/Van Richten into main plot more. One of my players is connected to the Van Richten family (his now-deceased father was one Van Richten's monster hunting apprentices back in the day) and I want to play it 'jaded old timer has given up the fight and needs to be inspired to pick up the sword again'. I was thinking instead of him trying to sus out the Keepers of the Feather, he's instead taking refugee with them temporarily- their old allies and know who he is but are sworn to secrecy. They hate seeing such a legend reduced to such a state, and will encourage the party to try and get through to him. I'm also thinking of tying in Erasmus to this- making a presence haunting the Blue Water, trying to warn about the upcoming attack and encourage the party to help his father.
• Finally I'm thinking of either just cutting the Vistani plot line here or airlifting it out and into another part of the story- it doesn't add a huge amount to any of the main plot threads and I've already done a lot of stuff with the Vistani, since Madam Eva was the player's initial quest quiver and they came to Baraovia with her caravan.

What do you all think? And anyone got any more suggestions for running Vallaki?