Strahd card finding tool

[MeliCat]

I wanted to find something simple to pug the new raid in describing where the cards are - so here is an easy method shown in the picture.

So here are columns labelled 1 - 8 (columns 1-4 are in the West, columns 5-8 are in the East) and rows labelled A - E (which are staggered, and column 2 and 7 are the only columns that will have 'E')

Strahd Card finding with doors by Melicat

So if a card was found just to the North of the shrine entrance that is 8B for example. I've marked the door locations for each of the crypts in green.

I've seen the effective use of Bigby's - just put them down and everyone can see them on the map. That's a really effective method too (see Omnipresence's world first EE run).

Got any other tips on how you communicate things in this raid? One of my guilds has taken to saying crazy words when people have the Strahd curse which is kinda fun

[MeliCat]

A bit of push back on this - get a good group on a low level and you can just click as you go so not needed. Curious what others are doing. Still having the occasional pug fail in this room.

Explicit labelling if it helps:

Stradh Card finding labelling


Teaching/running suggestions (based on my experience of normal runs and watching Omni's EE run).

1) After the first little battle, get everyone to run around the map making sure that everyone has the whole area exposed on their personal maps so they can see all of the crypts and understand the layout of the area
2) Make sure they understand the columns and row nomenclature. Some people get it quickly, some just don't get it.
3) Go do the stairs, then the mist fight and everyone except 2 people ddoor to shrine. 2 people stay at the top ready to talk to Esmerelda (if one is stradh cursed and dies the other can raise).
4) Scatter all the people who have shined around the Crypts room so that they all have an understanding to get the doors opened fast as possible as the highest priority and which ones they will target first.
5) Assign a scribe who can keep the order list updated with locations as they are found in party chat eg 'broken 2C / mari 1A / horse 8A / dark 7B / inno 7C'
6) Talk to Esmerelda (which will port anyone out of the room into the Crypts room but will leave everyone else in place who is already in the Crypts room).
7) People are to call out if they find a card what and where (using grid system or at least be able to tell where they are on the map and someone who understands the grid system can work it out for them).
8) If problems with trash kite to position below 5D for kills/heals/a tank. Else stay and die on card and jibbers just as needed. Etc - very group dependant and part of the fun.
9) YMMV with group. But at least if is a mess all the doors are open and you know where the cards are if you need to regroup via stones + ddoor.

Emphasis on speed - faster you do this, the less trash to deal with and as soon as all 5 are done you are in the clear to begin the next part. Labelling possibly only needed when/if things get messy.

Some math friendly people prefer like a Cartesian system (more than 1 has told me this). This is less math like and more just "if you were to write 1 to 8 across a page, count 1 to 8 across the whole room starting from the West" and "if you were to write A to E down a page with one letter per line, count down from the North to the South" - trying to get people to picture a page and how they would naturally write something if given a blank page.