Early look at the Frostmaiden book

[jaappleton]

https://www.ign.com/articles/dnd-frostmaiden-first-look-preview-pages

Discuss!

[Aett_Thorn]

In my opinion only:

Pluses - the different starting quests based on starting town is nice, making the adventure a bit more replayable. And the art looks great (if bleak, but that is what they were going for).

Negatives - As much as I appreciate the survival aspects that this is likely alluding to, but it continues to baffle me that in a world as high magic as the Forgotten Realms is, that fuel for fires is hard to come by. Seems like someone could make a pretty lucrative career by creating heat sources for locations like this.

[Unoriginal]

I like it quite a lot so far. I think they managed to capture the feeling they wanted pretty well, and the illustrations are great.


I'm quite curious about the quest for the Moose and the quest for the Mead, though. And I'll admit I'll be a tiny bit disappointed if they have a town called Bremen and there is no references to the Musicians.



Negatives - As much as I appreciate the survival aspects that this is likely alluding to, but it continues to baffle me that in a world as high magic as the Forgotten Realms is, that fuel for fires is hard to come by. Seems like someone could make a pretty lucrative career by creating heat sources for locations like this.

Forgotten Realms is not high magic for everyone, and crafting magic items isn't trivial. The poor are not likely to be able to afford the price of a magic heat source, even assuming someone has the right magic item formula to create such a source and the special quest you have to do for it isn't a limited supply.

[MrStabby]

Just skimmed the pictures... but I am excited. I feel I could really get into an adventure set there... the feeling of isolation in a frostbound landscape just appeals to me.

[jaappleton]

Perkins is the narrative lead, he also led Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation.

He seems to really like including ways to make sure the adventure doesn't play out exactly the same every time. He bakes options into the book.

The towns offering different starting quests seems to be another instance of that. Curious to see what else is in the book in a similar vein.

[Unoriginal]

Perkins is the narrative lead, he also led Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation.

He seems to really like including ways to make sure the adventure doesn't play out exactly the same every time. He bakes options into the book.

The towns offering different starting quests seems to be another instance of that. Curious to see what else is in the book in a similar vein.

It was said in an interview that the eponymous Frostmaiden will have several different statblocks.

[Evaar]

Well, right out the gate, I have some pacing concerns.

It's hard to know how long these town quests are.

If they're single encounter quests, like "kill the white moose" and you run a few skill checks to track down the white moose and then fight it, then it's going to have all the issues that a single combat adventuring day has.

I doubt you're intended to do multiple quests in a day unless the towns are a lot closer together than I thought, but if you are then I would expect it's going to feel extremely disjointed.

If there are multiple encounters per quest such that each quest represents a solid adventuring day or more, I'm concerned they're being too stingy on the advancement rate - according to the blurb you get to level 2 by doing one quest (sure), level 3 by doing another three quests (hrmmm), and level 4 by doing another five quests. Just... if we're 9 sessions in and only just now hitting level 4, I'm afraid I'm getting bored. But I suppose a DM can play it by ear and decide everyone's had enough of level 3, we can move forward.

I'm also concerned this is an awful long time to spend on what appear to be tutorial quests. But maybe they aren't that, and they meaningfully connect to the central plot of the adventure such that it won't feel like we have 9 chapters of introduction.

[jaappleton]

Well, right out the gate, I have some pacing concerns.

It's hard to know how long these town quests are.

If they're single encounter quests, like "kill the white moose" and you run a few skill checks to track down the white moose and then fight it, then it's going to have all the issues that a single combat adventuring day has.

I doubt you're intended to do multiple quests in a day unless the towns are a lot closer together than I thought, but if you are then I would expect it's going to feel extremely disjointed.

If there are multiple encounters per quest such that each quest represents a solid adventuring day or more, I'm concerned they're being too stingy on the advancement rate - according to the blurb you get to level 2 by doing one quest (sure), level 3 by doing another three quests (hrmmm), and level 4 by doing another five quests. Just... if we're 9 sessions in and only just now hitting level 4, I'm afraid I'm getting bored. But I suppose a DM can play it by ear and decide everyone's had enough of level 3, we can move forward.

I'm also concerned this is an awful long time to spend on what appear to be tutorial quests. But maybe they aren't that, and they meaningfully connect to the central plot of the adventure such that it won't feel like we have 9 chapters of introduction.

Perkins surmised that you should be out of the starting area after one or two sessions.

So... I imagine that's about level 3?

[Unoriginal]

The pages they're showing imply it's possible to do several (but apparently not all) of the Town quests before level 4, at least. And that there are more stuff to do than just the town quests.

[Monster Manuel]

WotC's published adventures are great, but what I find myself coming back to the most with the published adventures I own is the bonus, setting specific rules. I reference Tomb of Annihilation for the excellent bestiary, and I've re-used the rules for the voudoun-like trickster gods. I never got through all the adventures in Saltmarsh, but I refer to the boat rules all the time. I relish the day I get to break out the infernal war machines from Avernus out-of-context.

From what I'm seeing of Frostmaiden so far, I don't see a lot of re-usable crunch. The review here is gorgeous, but kind of reinforces this impression. Rules for cold climates, maybe? I've heard there are supposed to be a lot of monsters included, but would have liked to see a Table of Contents in the preview.

The story sounds like a lot of fun; I'm still conflicted as to whether this is a must-buy or not. It IS pretty.

[Unoriginal]

WotC's published adventures are great, but what I find myself coming back to the most with the published adventures I own is the bonus, setting specific rules. I reference Tomb of Annihilation for the excellent bestiary, and I've re-used the rules for the voudoun-like trickster gods. I never got through all the adventures in Saltmarsh, but I refer to the boat rules all the time. I relish the day I get to break out the infernal war machines from Avernus out-of-context.

From what I'm seeing of Frostmaiden so far, I don't see a lot of re-usable crunch. The review here is gorgeous, but kind of reinforces this impression. Rules for cold climates, maybe? I've heard there are supposed to be a lot of monsters included, but would have liked to see a Table of Contents in the preview.

The story sounds like a lot of fun; I'm still conflicted as to whether this is a must-buy or not. It IS pretty.

They said there will be rules for sports in it. Hopefully they're good.

[jaappleton]

They said there will be rules for sports in it. Hopefully they're good.

That’s also a super weird thing...

Perkins adventures often include a pressing concern. In ToA, it’s LITERALLY time sensitive and you can completely fail if you take too long.

But also.... Spend some time betting at dinosaur races...?

And now sports in Frostmaiden? I’m all for mini games but they seem to often go against the tone of the adventure.

[Zhorn]

And now sports in Frostmaiden? I’m all for mini games but they seem to often go against the tone of the adventure.
With the sandbox nature that is D&D, I like having these things in there, like with the dinosaur racing in ToA. You don't have the start the characters off on the time sensitive quests, or between quests have a breather for a few in-game-days where they've finished one time sensitive plot, and the next hasn't started just yet.

It's like the festival session, D&D's equivalent of the beach episode.

[Christew]

Perkins surmised that you should be out of the starting area after one or two sessions.

So... I imagine that's about level 3?
Character advancement says 2nd level after 1 quest, 3rd after 3, and 4th after 5. You can't advance beyond level 4 without moving to the next chapter.

Seems like there are two general quests in addition to the ten town based ones, so pick your favorite five (unless one of the two general is story mandatory).

[Unoriginal]

That’s also a super weird thing...

Perkins adventures often include a pressing concern. In ToA, it’s LITERALLY time sensitive and you can completely fail if you take too long.

But also.... Spend some time betting at dinosaur races...?

And now sports in Frostmaiden? I’m all for mini games but they seem to often go against the tone of the adventure.

Well I for one look forward to the chance of having the BBEG and the PCs having some kind of ball-based game for the final battle.

In fact once RotF is published, I propose to get as many published modules' BBEGs as possible, put them in a team, and challenge anyone who wants to take them on on the field with a team of PCs.

[Protolisk]

Well I for one look forward to the chance of having the BBEG and the PCs having some kind of ball-based game for the final battle.

I'm getting "Link playing tennis with Ganondorf" boss battles here.

I am all for the variant starts. Makes it feel less railroady and replayable.