Tips and Tricks for Rime of the Frostmaiden?

[TheCleverGuy]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for any advice or tips for running the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign. I've run a few other campaigns before, but this'll be my first time running at an actual physical table rather than a VTT, so any general advice in that regard is welcome as well.

I'll have one brand new player, and four more with various experience levels. They've started talking about characters already, and it sounds like we're going to have a barbarian, paladin, wizard, rogue, and bard. I'm thinking I'll start them out in Bryn Shander and do the town quest first, where they go out to recover the dwarves' lost iron shipment. After that I'll set them on the murder mystery quest to get them to start traveling between the Ten-Towns and picking up more quests as they go. That's about as far as I've got planned out though.

Anything I should look out for, add in, or cut out of the module as written?

Thanks!

[ad_hoc]

A strong theme for the adventure is survival in the stark wasteland of the tundra.

But with long rests as they are that is hard to be realized. Overland encounters to and from adventure sites are assumed to be part of the adventuring day budget.

I recommend only allowing long rests when in a friendly settlement. When they get to Netheril you could allow them to stay at an inn there overseen by the Magen for a rest.

I told the players to make characters who have not lived in Icewind Dale but have a reason to go there and possibly a connection to it. Then I started the game with them being the sole survivors of an expedition to Ten Towns. The caravan was expecting to arrive in summer and were not prepared for Auril's wrath on the way and the impending doom and despair that awaited them in Ten Towns.

I used the Chwingas as starting quest rather than the murder mystery so not much I can tell you there. I also started at level 3. I used milestones of 3 quests to level 4 and then 3 more to level 5. So they will have completed 6 out of 11 quests by the time they get to level 5. I told the players about this so they could ignore quests if they didn't appeal to them.

We are 1 session into the Tier 2 quests in my game.

I changed some things for the adventure.

The towns aren't sacrificing things to Auril yet but they will be soon. The kicking off point will be the town with the election. If it goes a bad way they will start sacrificing people.

I explained the survival of Ten Towns as having thermal vents and the flora and fauna outside of ten towns by their magical nature and the help of druids. Things are getting worse though.

Dzaan's execution was by exposure. They splashed him with buckets of water rather than immolating him. Seems to me they would try to appease Auril rather than scorn her with a fiery death.

Don't be afraid to embrace the silly elements of the adventure. Play up the horror and the silly elements will be a good reprieve from and contrast to it.

I didn't use the secrets. I found them to be too clunky and feel like they could do more harm than good.

I'm introducing the wizards earlier than as written to build up an ongoing intrigue and relationship as they are important final antagonists.

[ad_hoc]

Oh, I've also altered the rules for surviving extreme temperatures and have included severe cold as random encounters.

When faced with severe cold PCs must make Con saves. Failing a save results in a level of exhaustion. DC and how often to save up to the DM. Cold resistance gives advantage to this save, not immunity from it.

An example: deep chill for 1d4 hours. Save of DC 10, 12, 14, 16 for each hour.

A PC may expend 2 hit dice to remove a level of exhaustion during a short rest.

[TheCleverGuy]

Thanks for your help. I like the idea of making long rests harder to come by out in the wild, at least at low levels. Once the Wizard learns Tiny Hut, it'll probably be less of an issue.

I really like the secrets and want to use them, but I'm sort of wishing I'd handed out secrets before people started really planning out their characters. I think it might end up being harder to cram secrets onto an existing character, as opposed to building a character around a secret. I plan on encouraging them to tweak or adjust whatever they end up with to suit their characters rather than just playing them exactly as written.

[ad_hoc]

Thanks for your help. I like the idea of making long rests harder to come by out in the wild, at least at low levels. Once the Wizard learns Tiny Hut, it'll probably be less of an issue.

No, that isn't the point of that at all.

If the party can long rest whenever they want then all of the wilderness encounters become meaningless. The actual adventure sites become very easy because the wilderness encounters are part of the adventuring day budget.

It's also a thematic issue as one of the core themes is survival in the harsh wilderness.