Whizzmaster

Were the Knights responsible for defending the city from other forces, such as the Ottomans, or bandits? Did they act as a guard force? Accounts of the siege in 1402 mention that Timur's forces slaughtered the Christian population; was that population already present, or were the Hospitallers responsible for converting the locals during their stay?

This is a second posting of this question, as the first time I posted this last year I didn't receive an answer!

EDIT: Even if you have just a little information on this that might not be enough for a full answer, please, send me a private message with that information! I'm scrounging footnotes of sources trying to find out more about the Hospit

Obedience, poverty, and celibacy are the three vows I see most often as the ones necessary to join a Christian religious military order. Knights in these orders were usually also considered to be monks. However, I became interested when I read that the Hospitaller Knights were incentivized to stay and fight during a siege in 1402 (the siege of Smyrna) by having their pay increased to 100 florins per year - a rather large sum for the time. But why would knights who took a vow of poverty be interested in or motivated by money? Doesn't offering the knights a higher pay contradict the vow of poverty they took? Or were their vows seen as secondary to their military purpose?

Were the Knights responsible for defending the city from other forces, such as the Ottomans, or bandits? Did they act as a guard force? Accounts of the siege in 1402 mention that Timur's forces slaughtered the Christian population; was that population already present, or were the Hospitallers responsible for converting the locals during their stay?

Hi all, first time CoS DM here.

My players are nearly finished running through Death House. These characters are coming from a playthrough of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (I’m running encounters slightly stronger than as written to account for the level difference), and therefore already have some power and, most importantly, magic items at their disposal.

My current plan is for Strahd to invite them to dinner after they complete the Death House. In Strahd’s stat block, he has the ability to charm people, forcing a WIS save and, on failure, causing the charmed person to follow his instructions, so long as they are not clearly harmful to the individual.

Strahd, noticing the items the players

Hi y'all,

I'm planning on running Curse of Strahd for a group of players that are just about to finish Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Since Dragon Heist takes you up to level 5, they would be starting CoS at a much higher level than is expected. Are there any guides out there for running the module starting at a level higher than 1? Tips for raising the difficulty of starting areas such as the Death House to pose a challenge for these characters? Advice on any other necessary tweaks?

Any input would be much appreciated (even if it's just directing me to other resources that address this). Thanks!

Hey all. Cyberpunk was written a while ago - 30 years now, in fact! And while the almighty Eddie was never intended to match up exactly with any modern currency of the time, its inequivalence with any real currency, compounded with the way the economy has changed since good ol' Mike wrote the rules, makes it hard for me to assess how to price out different items not provided by the core rulebook.

What's a good rule of thumb for some sort of exchange rate between Cyberpunk and modern day currency? Is it even possible? What do you use as a baseline when giving prices for loot and gear that doesn't have a price by default?