Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Frostburn - how are they in play?

[Particle_Man]

Has anyone used Stormwrack for a long-term nautical campaign?

Has anyone used Frostburn for a long-term cold environment campaign?

Has anyone used Sandstorm for a long-term hot desert environment campaign?

I am curious as to how it plays as a long-term environment with campaign effects (as opposed to just taking some races/feats/spells/prestige classes from it and forgetting about the environmental stuff).

Was it fun? Too much trouble? Too restrictive to stay in one type of environment?

[Achernar]

I have played in a long-term game that utilized Sandstorm for a mission in a desert province, and at least insofar as character options and equipment, it added nicely to the game. Certainly the latter made it possible to complete the mission where without it, glare and heatstroke would have brought things to a halt, and the addition of complex desert environments and hazards made the world and gameplay very interesting.

Beyond that relatively minor experience, I can only say these happen to be some of my favorite books for inspiration while world-building. I hope that helps somehow. What are you planning to do?

~Tom

[Particle_Man]

Not sure yet, but I would like to try a 1 - 20 campaign all using one of these three setting books very heavily (for the campaign part and for the player options part - possibly restricting them to the book in question and core, or the book in question and at least some thematically appropriate limited options), and I would be curious to see which of the three would be the best bet.

[Palanan]

I'm just starting a nautical campaign, and I looked at Stormwrack briefly when I first got the idea.

Then I went to my local library and grabbed every book on frigates, galleons and fighting sail that I could find. I'm interested in historical seafaring to begin with, so for me it's a thousand times more satisfying to do my own research, rather than relying on a book with virtually no grounding in the realities of wind and wave. (To say nothing of its bland, unimaginative, and wafer-thin selection of actual vessels.)

So for me, Stormwrack was a sad disappointment, but it depends on what kind of campaign you want to run. I want the ships in my campaign to be as vibrant, evocative, and responsive as the H.M.S. Surprise was for Jack Aubrey. For campaigns in which the ship is literally just a plot vehicle, a lot of background research might not be necessary.

[Nich_Critic]

I've tried to make stormwrack work, and I'm not very impressed by it. It seems to have both too much information and too little. There is lots of information on exotic environments (kelp beds thick enough to stand on!), but very important things like ship to ship combat feel very light. There's no depth to the ship to ship combat, and no way anyone other then the captain can meaningfully contribute until the ships close, or give up chase. Some of the neater ideas about fighting on a ship, like different movement speeds depending on which way the ship is listing, and water washing over the sides, slow down combat in practice. And yes, the ship selection is way too tiny. There are only a couple that have maps, even though there's stats for a couple of others. Not being versed in ancient boats, I didn't even know what most of the boats were supposed to look like until I looked them up, and then I still had to map them all.

[Particle_Man]

Sounds like 2 negative votes for Stormwrack, then.

How about Sandstorm or Frostburn?

[Sdonourg]

Well, I've had only good experiences with these books.
First, I ran an underwater campaign (twice, once a PbP, once not a PbP) - it was the most fun campaign I've ever ran.
Second, I ran a PbP arctic campaign. I have only good memories about this campaign, everything worked out perfectly.
At last, I ran a PbP desert campaign, using Sandstorm. It hasn't ended yet, but I can't say any negative things about it.

I like all three books a lot, especially Frostburn.

[Golden Ladybug]

I'm currently running a campaign using Frostburn...but I probably could have done so without touching the book. The biggest contribution has been the rules for Weather, as those are a big thing at the lower levels, but for the most part, I could've gone it alone.

The monsters have been a real delight though, especially the few Aberrations in there. They're very fun to use.

Soon enough, though, I'm going to have to move the campaign somewhere else, because even though I had a good stockpile of ideas for things they could do in the Frozen Wastes, they've gone through a lot of the fun things. Oh well.

[Particle_Man]

So it seems that Stormwrack can be redeemed if the campaign is underwater. That could be interesting. Sahaugin make good bad guys.

[gomipile]

Also, all three books offer nice spells and items(both magical and mundane) for use in their respective environments.

[Toliudar]

I love em all. I've used each book as the primary inspiration for a campaign. The environmental rules are meh (when I realized that my home city regularly reaches temperatures described in Frostburn as 'unearthly', and that an ice golem would die after from January in my back yard, it lost a little credibility), but the range of magics, gear and story ideas they generate are very helpful.

[tyckspoon]

I love em all. I've used each book as the primary inspiration for a campaign. The environmental rules are meh (when I realized that my home city regularly reaches temperatures described in Frostburn as 'unearthly'...

Really? Assuming both your location entry and Wikipedia are correct on this


The coldest temperature ever recorded at City Centre Airport was −40.6 °C (−41.1 °F) on January 26, 1972[55] - this was the only time since recordings began at the airport in 1953 that a temperature below −40 °C (−40 °F) has been recorded there. The coldest overall temperature ever recorded in Edmonton was −49.4 °C (−56.9 °F), on January 19 and 21, 1886.[56]

In 60 some years of modern records, the temperature did not reach 'unearthly' (defined by Frostburn as -50 Fahrenheit.) That does not sound like "regularly" to me.

(This has been your Someone Is Wrong On The Internet digression. Please return to your regularly scheduled discussions.)

[TurtleKing]

Understandably each one like all the books excluding the crunch are meant to inspire and guide. Not be restrictive as this how things are.

In the nautical campaign it was one of the main books but not all consuming. Such as fire spells underwater don't work unless get a certain feat not even including the other elements. In Lords of Madness can grab a feat called Aquatic Spellcasting and just be able to cast no questions asked.

As for items really like Stormwrack's alchemical section using the Weeping Flask and Auran Mask all times when stocking on alchemical items. With those two items can generate 24 oz of water per day, and breathe easy for a hour or ten minutes underwater. Those two surpass other methods by working longer or being at least four times cheaper.

[Toliudar]

Really? Assuming both your location entry and Wikipedia are correct on this


In 60 some years of modern records, the temperature did not reach 'unearthly' (defined by Frostburn as -50 Fahrenheit.) That does not sound like "regularly" to me.

(This has been your Someone Is Wrong On The Internet digression. Please return to your regularly scheduled discussions.)

Further along on the same page, Frostburn says that high winds drop the effective temperature category by one. Yes, Edmonton gets to -20F regularly.

[Dsurion]

I was disappointed with all three books because they seemed to have suffered from the same thing most of 3.5 does, in my opinion, which is that too much of the book was devoted to bloating (bad) feats, bad/boring prestige classes, and spells.

They're not bad if those are the things you were looking for, but I was looking forward to seeing some new information or perspective in the given environments, to which each book devoted what, ten or so pages?

[Agent 451]

Toliudar, don't forget about this, (http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2009/12/13/12141366.html) I sure haven't.

[Andorax]

I've gotten a lot of both inspiration and rules usage out of all three. To date, I've never used one of them long-term as the campaign focus, but I've set arcs in all three to good effect.

I've been going back over Frostburn lately, as I'm currently running Rise of the Runelords, and issues of both altitude and cold are coming up in the near future (already delved into it a bit with Hook Mountain, right now they're just outside of the Jorgenfist).

[Sdonourg]

Further along on the same page, Frostburn says that high winds drop the effective temperature category by one. Yes, Edmonton gets to -20F regularly.

Temperature in my city drops to "unearthly" level in winter even without any wind :smalleek:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Does your campaign world include deserts, oceans, and tundra? Then why settle for one when you can incorporate ALL THREE!

Actually, I've done this before with my campaign. Does the party want to go sail the seas to find out what is disrupting the merchant-marine? Time to pull out Stormwrack. Does your party want to explore the mysteries of the deep desert and unearth relics from a bygone era in the ruins of the wastes? Time to pull out Sandstorm. Is the party concerned with the amassing frost giants who are driving the dwarves out of their caves and halting production of forged goods? Time to pull out Frostburn.

The thing about these books is that they're a great resource for certain environments your players may decide to go through.

[shimmercat]

I was a player in a level 5-25 nautical game that lasted over 2 years and used Stormwrack extensively. And I would say that it is great for some things and terrible for others. Keeping in mind that mileage may vary, this was my experience (with the DM's input):

The Bad: the narrative ship combat is basically useless. It's really awkward and just not terribly fun. We ditched it quickly and just had the party fly/waterwalk over to the other ship and kick ass that way.

The Good: The spells overall. The equipment, both magic and mundane. Acidic/Corrosive weapons are smart. The vessels are good assuming you don't want to do a lot of your own research (they definitely give enough to work with in a game, although I did wish for more variety and more detail). The monsters. The overall flavor of the book. The skills (Profession: Sailor is a fun skill to get to play with). Info on things like how spells work underwater.

The "Mileage may vary:" The races. We personally liked Hadozees and Darfellans (Monkey-men! Orca-folk!) and hated the Aventi and Mer-elves (just uninteresting). The feats... I think in 20 levels of a 5-PC party, only two feats got used by any of the PC (Clever Wrestling and Ship's Mage).

The Needed Tweaks: For some reason, only one spell in the whole book is given to clerics. Why shouldn't a nautical cleric be able to cast Swim and Sink and Detect Ship? This is obviously up to the DM, but we house-ruled which classes get a lot of the spells.

We didn't use any of the pre-written adventure stuff, so I can't say anything about that.

One of the best things about that game was the crew we picked up to run our caravel over the course of the game. It was great fun having a flotilla of NPCs that we cared about and had different relationships with, always with us. That poor crew got put through hell. XD

While we own Sandstorm and Frostburn, we've never played in an environment that would rely on them heavily and we really haven't touched them much, so I can't give an opinion on them.

[ShriekingDrake]

We've used them all with more or less success. They've been great flavor for the worlds we campaign in. The spells are just fantastic, especially frostburn's, though occasionally a little too powerful.

I only wish they'd published an equivalent book for the forest/jungle.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ShriekingDrake
I only wish they'd published an equivalent book for the forest/jungle.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

[shadow_archmagi]

I find that mechnically, a great deal of the content in those books is really bad.

Let's look at Stormwrack:


Underwater Archery: Pay a feat tax to be able to use a sub-par combat style in this setting at all.

Blackwater Invocation: Spend a turn attempt to deal 1d6 nonlethal in an area of water centered on you, fort negates. When would this ever be useful?

Breathing Link: If you can breathe underwater, so can one friend! I can't see how spending a feat to replicate a fairly low level spell in an extremely limited context would ever be worth it. There's so few scenarios where this would be a useful feat.

Expert Swimmer: Swim... slightly... faster. What?

Flying Fish Leap: Jump out of the water. Yep.

Landwalker: If you're an aquatic elf, you can spend a whole *day* on land!

Old Salt: +1 to Use Rope, Balance, and Profession (Sailor.)

Sailor's Balance: +5 to balance on a boat. Wheeee.