It's cold outside

[MurphysLoophole]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has played in/DMed an arctic campaign. I was planning on starting one and wasn't sure if any of the arctic rules(i.e. high altitude, frostbite, avalanches, etc.) aren't worth bothering with or if there were any other suggestions for running a campaign like this. I haven't had to deal with weather in other campaigns, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks(in advance) for your help!

[B1okHead]

If you can get your hands on a book called frostburn that sounds like exactly what you are looking for. It is basicly entirely about arctic stuff (frostbite, hypothermia, altitude sickness etc.)

[Fearan]

It's actually Frostburn, but I second B1okHead

[Kosjsjach]

Pretty sure he means Frostburn, but yeah, it'll have a lot of what you're looking for. I haven't played in one myself, so I can't personally vouch for its utility.

And bring on the ninjas!

[MurphysLoophole]

Thanks for the quick replies. I have Frostburn, I was looking more for comments on the utility of the ideas and rules found in it.

[Dralnu]

I ran a campaign that had the players move through a mountainous arctic land once. Used Frostburn heavily. Also used an area from the DMG2 called "the Ice Bridge" or something like that to set the stage for an awesome battle atop a slippery bridge of death. A wendigo was harassing them throughout the journey and turning entire settlements into its thralls, sending arctic barbarians to hunt the party down. "Safe" caves ended up being a lot larger than initially believed and housed fun stuff like displacer beasts (baldur's gate reference). Wurms. Obligatory white dragon fight. Good times.

[Tvtyrant]

I have run an Ice Age one before, and there are a few things needed to make it different then normal;

1. Snow covers rough terrain. You cannot really tell if terrain is easily traversal or not by sight (unless your really experienced with it) so whenever you build a battle map you should plot out which areas are hard to traverse and then have it trip up both the enemies and the PCs. Also knowledge(tundra) or a really high spot check would indicate which areas are rough terrain.

2. Snow reduces mobility by 10ft for mediums, 5ft for large, 15ft for small, and reduction for huge and up. Anything smaller then small is treated as being inside the snow banks and so they are always in rough terrain. (Unless they burrow)

3. In a snow storm visibility should be cut down (even darkvision doesn't help, because its things getting in the way of vision not lack of light). I did 30ft. visibility in a snow storm, and 60ft if its only snowing hard.

4. During the day a heavy coat and gloves would keep off cold damage; its at night that it gets cold enough that you need a fire.

5. High Mountains should use fatigued and exhausted rules for travel; treat normal movement the way you do run, but for minutes (or hours). So for every point of con you have you can move for that many minutes without stopping.

[B1okHead]

Wow I can't believe I wrote Frostbite, I always say that by mistake.