One of the challenges in any Organised Play system is to see how series of adventures work after the rules change…

In 2018, the D&D Adventurers League moved from awarding Experience Points (XP) to awarding Advancement Checkpoints. For older adventures, each hour played gives 1 ACP (to the maximum playing time).

The Curse of Strahd season is particularly challenging to run, because all the adventures are part of one big story, and due to the characters being trapped in Barovia, they are unable to play regular D&D Adventurers League scenarios in the meantime!

So, are there enough advancement checkpoints for a character to play through all the adventures in order?

As it turns out, there are! If you start with a brand new character, the following progression is used:

Tier 1 Adventures (levels 1-4)

• DDAL04-01 Suits of the Mist: 5 ACP -> Level 2 (+1)
• DDAL04-02 The Beast: 2 ACP -> Level 2 (+3)
• DDAL04-03 The Executioner: 2 ACP -> Level 3 (+1)
• DDAL04-04 The Marionette: 4 ACP -> Level 4 (+1)
• DDAL04-05 The Seer: 2 ACP -> Level 4 (+3)
• DDAL04-06 The Ghost: 4 ACP -> Level 5 (+3)

Note that at this point in the original run, The Ghost gave a large bonus in XP to ensure characters could continue onto the Tier 2 adventures. Those aren’t needed in this play-through, as you reach Tier 2 anyway. Which is just as well, as there’s no equivalent bonus when running under the new rules. However, if you’ve got players missing sessions and not getting enough advancement checkpoints to even reach Level 4 – where they could use the catching up downtime activity – then they won’t be able to continue in the campaign.

Tier 2 Adventures (levels 5-10)

• DDAL04-07 The Innocent: 4 ACP -> Level 5 (+3)
• DDAL04-08 The Broken One: 2 ACP -> Level 6 (+1)
• DDAL04-09 The Tempter: 2 ACP -> Level 6 (+3)
• DDAL04-10 The Artifact: 4 ACP -> Level 6 (+7)
• DDAL04-11 The Donjon: 4 ACP -> Level 7 (+3)
• DDAL04-12 The Raven: 2 ACP -> Level 7 (+5)
• DDAL04-13 The Horseman: 2 ACP -> Level 7 (+7)
• DDAL04-14 The Dark Lord: 4 ACP -> Level 8 (+3)

And that’s the entire run! Player characters come out of The Dark Lord as level 8 characters, get back to Faerun, and can live the rest of their lives without worrying about the darkness they’ve left behind.

Or can they?

You can find reviews of all these adventures in the Curse of Strahd category. The adventures are all available to purchase on the DMs Guild!