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Dirt_Kami
2010-03-19, 12:22 AM
Any old timers ever read Dragon Magazine #68? It had an article about gaming in the Ice Age. It had a few ideas for each of the races and a few rules about how much food you could gather in a day.

There was also the GURPS Ice Age book which I also liked.

Anyway, does anyone know of a more recent 3.5 Ice Age?

And while I wait for the replies to come flooding in...

I think I would start the campaign in a mountain valley with everyone playing a human hunter.

Hunter
Hit Die d12.

Class Skills Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str).

Skill Ranks Per Level 6 + Int modifier.

Hunter
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+1|+2|+2|+2|Fast Movement, Favored Enemy
2nd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Hunter, Uncanny Dodge
3rd|+3|+3|+3|+3|Spear +1
4th|+4|+4|+4|+4|Trophy
5th|+5|+4|+4|+4|Improved Uncanny Dodge, 2nd Favored Enemy
6th|+6/+1|+5|+5|+5|Hunter
7th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+5|Damage Reduction 2/-, Spear +2
8th|+8/+3|+6|+6|+6|Trackless Step
9th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+6|Spear +3
10th|+10/+5|+7|+7|+7|Hunter, 3rd Favored Enemy
11th|+11/+6/+1|+7|+7|+7|Quarry
12th|+12/+7/+2|+8|+8|+8|Spear +4
13th|+13/+8/+3|+8|+8|+8|Damage Reduction 3/-
14th|+14/+9/+4|+9|+9|+9|Hunter
15th|+15/+10/+5|+9|+9|+9|Spear +5, 4th Favored Enemy
16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|+10|+10|+10|Damage Reduction 4/-
17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Scent
18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|+11|+11|+11|Hunter, Spear +6
19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|+11|+11|+11|Damage Reduction 5/-
20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|+12|+12|+12|5th Favored Enemy, Master Hunter[/table]

Class Features
The following are class features of the hunter.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A hunter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with no armor or shields.

Fast Movement (Ex) A hunter’s land speed is faster than the norm for his race by +10 feet. This benefit applies only when he is wearing no armor, and not carrying a heavy load. This bonus stacks with any other bonuses to the hunter's land speed.

Hunter (Ex)
At 2nd level a hunter's expertise manifests in the form of bonus feats at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. He can choose from these feats even if he does not have the normal prerequisites. Choose from the following list whenever he gains a hunter feat: Far Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Weapon Focus (spear). At 6th level, he adds Vital Strike and Weapon Specialization (spear). to the list. At 10th level, he adds Pinpoint Targeting and Shot on the Run to the list.

The benefits of the hunter feats apply only when he wears no armor. He loses all benefits of his hunter feats when wearing armor.

Spear (Ex) At 3rd level, a hunters favorite weapon becomes even more dangerous and he gains the listed bonus to hit and damage.

Trophy (Ex) At 4th level, whenever a hunter kills a favored enemy or group of the same type of favored enemy on his own he can make a necklace of their claws, ears or teeth. The CR of the hunt must be equal to or greater than his level.

The trophy gives the hunter a damage reduction and bonus to AC equal to his Favored Enemy bonus vs that type of favored enemy while wearing it.

This ritual lasts until the hunters level is higher than the CR of the trophy, then it must be done again. The DR gained stacks with that gained at 7th level.

Damage Reduction (Ex) At 7th level, a hunter gains damage reduction.

Trackless Step (Ex) Starting at 8th level, a hunter leaves no trail and cannot be tracked. He may choose to leave a trail if so desired.

Scent (Ex) At 17th level, a hunter gains the scent ability and can detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.

{table=head]d%|Encounter|Avg. CR
1–6|1 snow leopard|2
7–14|2d6 bharal sheep|3
15–22|1 daeodon|4
23–30|1 irish elk|4
31–36|1d4 giant eagles|5
37–42|2d6 muskoxen|6
43–44|1 white dragon (young)|6
45–48|1 dire bear|7
49–52|2d6 dire goats|7
53–58|1d6 dire vultures|7
59–64|2d4 goliath rangers|7
65–66|1d6 woolly rhinoceros|8
67–68|1 dire tiger|8
69–72|1d4 wyverns|8
73–78|3d4 yak folk|8
79–80|1 frost giant|9
81–82|1 roc|9
83–86|1 fire giant|10
87–88|1d4 woolly mammoths|10
89–90|1 red dragon (young)|10
91–92|1d4 frost giants|11
93–96|1 air elemental (elder)|11
97–98|3d4 winter wolves|11
99–100|1d4 fire giants|12[/table]

Other random thoughts for places outside the valley for high level cavemen.

Surprise, Kuo Toa, Yuan-Ti, and Lizardfolk are the rulers of the warmer parts of the continent, and humans are the favorite food.

Arctic Dwarves get a +4 racial bonus on Fortitude saves made to resist the effects of cold weather or exposure in addition to regular Pathfinder dwarf traits.

The Totem Lands
A vast primeval forest where a tribe of wood elves through rituals to elder gods became werewolves.

A more advanced tribe of humans
Death Moon Barbarians - These reclusive mountain dwelling humans are ruled by Druids who train dire bears as war beasts and awaken trees to guard the forests from intruders.

The men average 5', light brown skin, blue or green colored eyes, wavy black hair, muscular builds and the men grow heavy beards. Housing is thatched huts heated by an open fire, clothing is made from weaving strips of the inner bark of trees and winter outer wear from animal furs, druids and chieftains wear bear headed cloaks. Villages of 50 to 150 people are built high in forested mountain valleys along rivers and a few tribes live on the coast.

At age 12 girls have tattoos started on their lips, hands and arms and by age 15 the tattoos are complete and women are considered old enough for marriage. The tribes find outsider males with tattoos to be very amusing. Foxes, ravens and dolphins are considered bad luck to kill and are often given offerings of food at small shrines at the edges of villages.

They hunt small game and dire boars using dogs and poison tipped spears and arrows, they also hunt hibernating dire bears. If any cubs are found they are taken to the village and kept until spring and a druid performs the rite of renewal which ends with the release of all but one of the cubs several days journey away from the village (the remaining cub is trained as a war beast). Fish and wild plants gathered in the spring and summer round out their diet, coastal tribes also hunt seals and whales.

Second in status to the druids are the sorcerer swordsmiths who do not roam from village to village and as chieftains they are the go betweens for the druids to the villagers. Death Moon Druids are always neutral or neutral evil and the most powerful chieftains are multi-class druid/sorcerer Mystic Theurges.

Strangers are treated with caution and not allowed to stay overnight for a fair number of fox yokai tricksters and crow headed tengu live in the area as well. Anyone other than a druid killing a bear or wearing a bearskin is a capital offense, with the criminal being fed to the village warbear at the next full moon.

Their hereditary enemies to the east in the plains below are the Wolf Totem tribesmen who follow the migrating mammoth and elk herds, to the west the Broken Fang gnoll tribe. Those enemies who make it into the forested valleys encounter ancient awakened trees allied with the druids.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-03-19, 04:42 PM
I guess you could convert Frostburn from D&D3.5, or convert these (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20030323a) three (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20030223a) articles (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/fw/fw20030124a) from the 3.0 archive at Wizards...

Aside from that, consider this: most things that live in the real world Arctic or lived in our ice age are adapted to cope with the cold. Magical predators that use cold-based attacks are only going to have full effect on humans, or other technologically adapted species. They're not likely to have evolved naturally in such an environment. Their attacks are only really useful against creature that are having a hard time dealing with the environment already.

You can make such cold-using monster things the spirits of the hostile cold world if you like, of course - but that (in my opinion) should mean that they'll be spooky, mystical monsters that look unreal and fantastic, not meaty beasts that are pseudo-realistic.

Ashtagon
2010-03-19, 04:51 PM
It seems like a combo of the existing rules for stone age weapons in the DMG and cold in Frostburn will do 99% of what you are looking for. I'm not entirely sure new base classes are needed. New prestige classes, sure. And new options for existing base classes, sure, but all the "modern" base class archetypes between them already cover the basic archetypes. Most of the features of your hunter could be make into variant class features for ranger and barbarian, and possibly others - similar to how Frostburn and various other source-books offer variant class features.

sigurd
2010-03-19, 05:59 PM
A company called Monkeygod had a very good book called "Frost and Fur" Which had a really good look at arctic conditions, Norse, Eskimo, Slavic, and Ice Age culture. It was D20 and about 250 pages.

You might still be able to get it on RPGNow.


I really liked it.


Sigurd

Dirt_Kami
2010-03-20, 05:36 AM
Very helpful replies, thanks a lot!
I can't believe I forgot about Frostburn, its sitting on the shelf next to me and I did not know about Frost and Fur, thanks again.

The Hunter was my attempt at making the variant Barbarian from D20 SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#barbarian) into a Pathfinder class. I might try making some variant class features instead.