Yester Hill

Yester hill is a small fun encounter. Make sure to read about the Spear of Kavan if your group has a Barbarian or Druid. Magic weapons are really essential for the PCs to succeed in Barovia, and this is a way to give them one.

The Top of the Hill

At the top of the hill is a really deadly encounter depending on how you run it. 6 Druids and 6 Berserkers will wreck any group of PCs at the level they will be at when they go to Yester Hill, but only if they are all together. If you want the PCs to have a chance of survival, spread the enemies out. The area of Yester Hill is deceptively massive because of the scale of the map. Let them use it to their advantage. In both groups I had Strahd zip around on his nightmare and that was what the druids took as the sign to start the ritual. In the book it says Strahd tries to keep people from interfering with the ritual. If you do this, he will kill the PCs easily. I just had him show up, the druids start the ritual, Strahd leaves, and then the PCs decide what to do. One group tried to stop them and kill the druids. This ended up being the most epic fight we have had in a long time, but it was close to a TPK. The other group waited for the ritual to finish, hid, and killed Wintersplinter on the road. Both were pretty great encounters, and I think it's a fun little mini-boss fight.

The Gulthias Tree

This encounter is going to be a pretty easy fight by this time. Your group will have some good AOE abilities which wreck multiple low HP monsters like the blights. However, in the rare group that doesn't have those, or if they rushed over here after the previous encounter, they might be in for a tough fight. There are enough blights that they could give even higher level PCs issues if they don't have a way to damage multiple enemies at once. This encounter is important as well since again it gives the PCs another magic weapon (this time it's a good one rather than a shitty spear), and it acts as a great set piece since it explains the origin of these evil druids.

The Return to Wizard of Wines

After your PCs return victorious, give them a chance to do something good and be successful. I had Davian be very grateful and offer to send wine to wherever they needed to curry favor. Additionally, I had Davian ask that the PCs tell his son that it was time to bury the hatchet and try to mend the rifts in the Martikov family. This was a good way to get the PCs to go back to Vallaki and see what changes have taken place after they left. The Vallaki they left is likely to be a very different town than the one they return to. This wine can also get them into Krezk, which is a good place to send them afterwards. Usually a threat on Ireena will guide the PCs to Krezk. If Izek hasn't been dealt with, use him to push them to Krezk. If Strahds minions destroyed the Church of St. Andral, use that event to push them. This part of the module gets really fuzzy and difficult to give good advice. All of the groups I have run have gone pretty far off on their own path by this point, so don't be afraid to tailor this part to them.