Elminster fanboys lost their mind...

[alhoon]

If we go by Strahd CR 30 then yes, it's a match.

If we go by the stats we have for 3e, I.e. Strahd is about CR 20 (never mind the bizarre CR rules; Strahd is about less tough than a pit fiend or balor in 3e) or D&D next, then Strahd is just way less powerful than Elminister. Add in that Elminister is smarter and has fought more dangerous monsters in, and Strahd's "home" advantage is not enough.

Don't get me wrong, I like Strahd. But he's just a quite powerful vampire wizard, not a super-villain. There's a reason the adventures to kill Strahd are not 25-level adventures.

[Mistmaster]

Could
Ryan Naylor has statted Strahd as a Fighter 3/Wizard[Necromancer] 8/Eldritch Knight 9 with a CR of 30 and that's the version I prefer. Thrown in the golf bag full of magic items that stat block has and Strahd is nothing to sneeze at even for a champion of a god.

Ryan Naylor, in The children of the night Netbook, actually made Strahd a Wizard (Necromancer) 16, Fighter 4, ancient Vampire; CR 24;
I gave him 4 more levels as a necromancer, one level more as fighter.

[Five]

Strahd (3E) vs. Elminster (3E)?

Elminster, pipe still clenched in his teeth, hands-down.

1E/2E, Strahd wouldn't even get past Elminster's beard.

Of course, Strahd could weaken the old mage's magical reserve through his minions and whatnot (as a wizard himself he would be fully aware of the daily allowance/limitations of magical expenditure), thus eliminating the magic duel (class reduction from a DM perspective) and it would end up low level fighter/rogue versus low level fighter/vampire, which would lean the victory towards Strahd. But that assumes that Elminster doesn't have any contingencies himself.

That said, it ultimately would boil down to fanboy bias...as much as I'd like to read about Strahd's fangs and lips dripping with the old bastard's blood.

Myself, I'd pit Cadderly Bonaduce (3E - Cleric 20, Chosen of Deneir) against Strahd, and see what would come of that. I think it would be more of a battle than Strahd fanboys would originally perceive. Plus, it's more thematically-appropriate to RL.

[Resonant Curse]

I'd like to point out if you are for some reason giving Strahd his minions you should be giving Elminster the Harpers, several other Chosen of Mystra, and his oodles of random adventurers.

[alhoon]

Really... he doesn't need them. Strahd's minions are Strahd zombies, gargoyles, gargoyle-spider hybrids and wolves.
On the other hand, every chosen of Mystra is a-too-powerful-to-used NPC.

Ryan Naylor, in The children of the night Netbook, actually made Strahd a Wizard (Necromancer) 16, Fighter 4, ancient Vampire; CR 24;
I gave him 4 more levels as a necromancer, one level more as fighter.

Yes, but that operates under the false assumption that a lvl 20 character is CR 20 foe.
Go with a lvl20 fighter vs a 20th lvl party and you'll be surprised how much easier they defeat him compared to the average CR20 dragon...

And as of Strahd being CR 24: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm
Red Dragon Wyrms are at that difficulty. To say that Strahd is on par with a 610 hp, 42 AC, SR 30, equivalent caster level, 6 attacks (+48 or +43) creature is seriously overestimating Strahd.

[Five]

I'd like to point out if you are for some reason giving Strahd his minions you should be giving Elminster the Harpers, several other Chosen of Mystra, and his oodles of random adventurers.

Yeah, Elminster's contingencies...

[Resonant Curse]

I'd like to point out if you are for some reason giving Strahd his minions you should be giving Elminster the Harpers, several other Chosen of Mystra, and his oodles of random adventurers.

Yeah, Elminster's contingencies...

Thought you just mean his several actual contingency spells. :p

[Five]

I'd like to point out if you are for some reason giving Strahd his minions you should be giving Elminster the Harpers, several other Chosen of Mystra, and his oodles of random adventurers.

Yeah, Elminster's contingencies...

Thought you just mean his several actual contingency spells. :p

ha ha

No, I was just lining things up tit-for-tat.

Elminster on his own, Elminster through his playbook, Strahd wouldn't stand a chance in any case. Strahd's best hope would be guerrilla/unconventional warfare...which then becomes an Elminster versus Strahd plus. Not a one-on-one. So the argument then shifts to what does Strahd represent as an opponent to Elminster.

As a written opponent, Strahd the individual includes minions, underlings, spells, vampirism, environment/access to uncomprehendingly dark powers (that somebody else mentioned earlier managed to contain Vencna at one point in time!), etc, etc. Elminster, not necessarily so; he's an individual as opposed to "entity". Essentially, it's a matter of semantics. Which is the only bit of wriggle room that would allow us to even have this discussion. I think anyway.

We could all sit down and playbook a win for Strahd, sure. But we'd have to stack more than Strahd to have him best Elminster. And the Elminster crowd could sit down and script a win for Elminster by the same token (and with much less effort, let's be honest here).

It would certainly be interesting to roleplay the battle between communities. FoS (Strahd) versus ??Candlekeep?? (Elminster). A Wizards mod lays out the situational, and the fanboys play out the IC reactions. haha

Anyway, it's a fun think either way.

I still think Cadderly is weightclass for Strahd.

[alhoon]

Caderly single-handedly defeated the Ghost-King. A template-on-a-great-red-wyrm backed with an artifact... Admitedly, with his God's help.
But still, Caderly defeated an actual CR 30 creature.

And before anyone mentions it: Yes, I believe that Khelben, Halaster, Szass Tam, Manshoon and all insanely powerful NPCs that populate the realms can defeat Strahd. It's one of the reasons I prefer Ravenloft from FR: The world makes much more sense and is not at the mercy of dozen superheroes to balance out dozens of supervillains.

[Five]

Caderly single-handedly defeated the Ghost-King. A template-on-a-great-red-wyrm backed with an artifact... Admitedly, with his God's help.
But still, Caderly defeated an actual CR 30 creature.

If you retrofit stats onto literary components (I've always had issues with novel characters-turned-stats, but Salvatore's in particular), then yes. But as the Cleric Quintet was written in the 2E era, then CR 30 means nothing.

However (!), Cadderly was a level 20 cleric in 2E (FR's Heroes' Lorebook), and after a quick read of his entry:

Spells: As the Chosen of Deneir, Cadderly has no need to
pray for spells as most priests do. All he has to do is play the
song of Deneir in his mind (see Tome of Universal Harmony
under “Unique Abilities/Items” below), and the appropriate
priest spell will be available. Cadderly has major access to all
spheres; his lone limitation is that he can safely cast only 80
spell levels of magic in a day. If he casts a spell that causes him
to exceed that limit, the spell works as desired, but he must
make a system shock roll or become incapacitated by a blinding
headache. Even after he recovers from the headache, he remains
unable to acquire or cast any spell of greater than 4th
level for a number of weeks equal to the excess spell levels he
has used. While Cadderly is involved with the building of his
cathedral to Deneir (see “Motivations/Goals” below), he uses
no more than 75 spell levels each day.

..not to mention "Cadderly can destroy any form of undead by applying his holy symbol to the undead’s forehead", I have to admit that even he is a heavyweight compared to Strahd.

Even though the tactic of scrubbing Cadderly of his magic (through various encounters in and throughout Barovia/Castle Ravenloft) could give an edge to Strahd, I stand corrected.

And before anyone mentions it: Yes, I believe that Khelben, Halaster, Szass Tam, Manshoon and all insanely powerful NPCs that populate the realms can defeat Strahd. It's one of the reasons I prefer Ravenloft from FR: The world makes much more sense and is not at the mercy of dozen superheroes to balance out dozens of supervillains.

Agreed. It's one of the reasons why we left the Realms...20-odd years ago.

[Mistmaster]

Ryan Naylor, in The children of the night Netbook, actually made Strahd a Wizard (Necromancer) 16, Fighter 4, ancient Vampire; CR 24;
I gave him 4 more levels as a necromancer, one level more as fighter.

Yes, but that operates under the false assumption that a lvl 20 character is CR 20 foe.
Go with a lvl20 fighter vs a 20th lvl party and you'll be surprised how much easier they defeat him compared to the average CR20 dragon...

And as of Strahd being CR 24: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm
Red Dragon Wyrms are at that difficulty. To say that Strahd is on par with a 610 hp, 42 AC, SR 30, equivalent caster level, 6 attacks (+48 or +43) creature is seriously overestimating Strahd.

You need to take in account Pathfinder rules, where the difference beetwen CR and HD is never more than four, highter or lower.

[alhoon]

I thought we were talking 3e... I don't know how dragons are in PF or how accurate Strahd's conversion is, but I still doubt Strahd would be equivalent of a RGW (Red Great Wyrm).

[Mistmaster]

Strahd is probably more intelligent than your usual Red Dragon Wyrm.

[Resonant Curse]

I thought we were talking 3e... I don't know how dragons are in PF or how accurate Strahd's conversion is, but I still doubt Strahd would be equivalent of a RGW (Red Great Wyrm).

PF is essentially 3.5 with some tweaks, so if you know 3.0/3.5 it is roughly the same.

[alhoon]

Strahd is probably more intelligent than your usual Red Dragon Wyrm.

Well, the GRW has 26 intelligence and is 1200+ years old. Strahd isn't as old nor as intelligent.

PF is essentially 3.5 with some tweaks, so if you know 3.0/3.5 it is roughly the same.

It is, but they have changed dragons and classes. And Strahd's translation to PF has him bumped up in CR. While classes are more powerful in PF, I still doubt an accurate translation Strahd to PF could defeat a PF GRW (which Elminister can defeat).

However, since we don't have canon stats for Strahd in PF, I make comparisons based on 3e and 5e. In both, Strahd is weaker than a RW or GRW. Elminister is about as strong as a GRW in 3e (haven't seen him in 5e).