If you can handle the extra weight, a spear and some darts are good idea too unless you can cast spells to attack at range. It’s a useful all-purpose tool, it works while fighting in underwater combat, and they’re an inexpensive backup weapon even when you’re not fighting disgruntled fish. If you learn nothing else from this page, remember this: always carry a dagger. Second, many attacks and spells may not be as effective underwater, so your favorite weapon may suddenly be ineffective. First: you’re probably holding your breath to avoid suffocation (see Environment, earlier in this guide).

Either way, you’re underwater and you’re fighting for your life.įighting underwater adds two new problems on top of the already life-or-death nature of combat. Or maybe you just picked a really bad time to take a bath. Maybe you’re in a rapidly flooding dungeon room. Maybe you were dragged off of a ship by an attacking kraken and dragged into underwater combat. Maybe you pursued an aquatic foe like a tribe of sahuagin back to their sunken home. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in the unfortunate position of engaging in underwater combat. Instead of dealing damage, the Vampire can grapple the target (escape DC 13).Not every fight will take place on dry land. The current version of Vampire Spawn reads:Ĭlaws: Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. (The 5th Edition SRD and the Vampire stat block within CoS differ only in some punctuation.) Instead of dealing damage, the vampire can grapple the target (escape DC 18). Unarmed Strike (Vampire Form Only): Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature.

However, I think it is safe to say that the 'instead of' indicates that Strahd's grapple should do necrotic damage, only, regardless of what his unarmed strike does.įor reference, the current version of the Vampire statblock reads: That this version matches yours, and is different from the earlier print version of CoS shown in Thomas Markov's answer, may mean that yours is actually the currently most correct version, but does little to clarify whether Strahd should be doing slashing or bludgeoning damage. This appears to me to follow the most recent revision of CoS, 6th Printing, published, available at. If the target is a creature, Strahd can grapple it (escape DC18) instead of dealing the bludgeoning damage. Hit: (1d8+4) slashing damage plus 14 (4d6) necrotic damage Melee Weapon Attack: +9, Reach 5 ft, one target Unarmed Strike (Vampire or Wolf Form Only) In the Roll20 electronic version of Curse of Strahd, Strahd's stat block has been updated at least twice, in patches 1.9 (June 2020) and 1.3. It seems likely that DndBeyond’s errata is a preview of what will eventually appear in the printed sourcebook. This errata from DnDBeyond coincides with this statement from WoTC that they intend to make some changes to Curse of Strahd.

In the stat block, change 'Unarmed Strike (Vampire Form Only)' to 'Unarmed Strike (Vampire or Wolf Form Only),' and in the unarmed strike, change 'bludgeoning' to 'slashing.' Also change 'Bite (Bat or Vampire Form Only)' to 'Bite.' The discrepancy between DnDBeyond and the printed sourcebook can be attributed to this errata posted by DnDBeyond on June 19, 2020: User David Coffron has reported that the first printing of Curse of Strahd is also consistent with the image of my recent printing shown above. If the target is a creature, Strahd can grapple it (escape DC 18) instead of dealing the slashing damage.īut, DnDBeyond also says “instead of dealing slashing damage”, so according to these two sources, Strahd’s grapple only deals necrotic damage. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 4) slashing damage plus 14 (4d6) necrotic damage. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. This is notably inconsistent with DnDBeyond which says that Strahd’s unarmed strike deals slashing. Therefore, Strahd’s grapple would still deal the 4d6 necrotic and not the bludgeoning. My printing of Curse of Strahd (purchased new this year) states that unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage:

Unarmed strike 5e underwater