If Barovian Buffoons means anything to you please ignore this post.

So the group I'm DMing CoS for currently is level 7, and have acquired the tome of strahd. They made a game plane that follows : Return to the village of Barovia, slay Father Donovich's vampire spawn son to recruit him as their ally to fight Strahd.

I want this to be a tactically challenging fight for this group. I had some ideas of making the church basement a mini lair for the son. Something that summons Shadow minions or another feature like that.

They have been getting antsy to fight Strahd and think they can take him as they are, luckily logic won and they decided they want to use Donavich's son as a trial run.

Any input or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!