Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ravenloftlover347 Jan 08, 2007 16:51:25	I know this is probablely a question that has been asked time and time again, but how come most versions of Strahd mention no Warrior, Fighter, or fighter-equivilant levels in his stats? Does that mean that when he made his pact, that those levels were sacrificed? This is always something that bugged me in his stats outside of the S&S RL Gazateer 1, where if I remember right, that gave him 4 levels of Fighter.
#2 The_Jester Jan 08, 2007 21:09:08	Originally, waaaay back in 1st Edition D&D, monsters never had character classes. Strahd was a first as he wasn't just a vampire, he was a vampire necromancer with wizard levels. This was huge so giving him two classes, to reflect his early martial background, would have been overkill. Dual classing was also extremely difficult in early systems and there would have been no easy way to implement it. In Third Edition multiclassing is far more easy so, in Gaz 1, they could more accuretly portray Strahd's background with a few early fighter levels before he began to learn magic. In EtCR and the prior Dragon Magazine featuring Strahd both strived to update Strahd directly from I6 and 1E and not recreating him from scratch. His class levels are a direct update with his feats reflecting the fact he has (apparently) been an evil, undead necromancer apparently since first level.
#3 iplaydnd35 Jan 21, 2007 12:45:29	I have often thought that a new 3rd or 3.5 ed. of The Count should have at least a few levels, 1 or 2, of fighter or warrior class to him. And why not give him a few levels of aristicrat or noblemen(is there such an NPC or prestige type class?) It might not be true to the original but then again, he has a lot of diffierent abilities then the original did as well becuase the way the classes have evolved.