Rime of the Frostmaiden Class Choosing

[FluffyBeholder]

Me and a couple friends are going to jump into Rime of the Frostmaiden and was wondering if anyone had any class suggestions, we already have a:
-Wizard
-Sorcerer
-Paladin
-Monk
-Eldricht Knight
If anyone has any suggestions let me know!

[Abracadangit]

You guys are magey as heck! Look out, badguys.

A Rogue is never a bad idea for all their roguish utility (lockpicking and trap-disarming and such), but for Rime, I'd think a naturey class (like Druid or Ranger) might be useful, since you're gonna be in a lot of wild terrain, and they have abilities/features that bank off of that.

[Amnestic]

"Whatever you think would be fun" is the most obvious answer, but to pin it down to things that might be useful:

Scout Rogue - Goes forever without worrying about rests, free Nature+Survival proficiency+expertise to help explore the frozen tundra of icewind dale, thieves tool skillmonkey.
Bard - Partial face if the paladin doesn't feel like it, skills, bardic inspiration, support spells. Pick your poison of subclasses, but I'd go for either Spirits or Lore.
Celestial Warlock - Ranged blaster with some healing to help supplement the group. Chainpact gives you an invisible scouting familiar to keep the group well informed of what they're up against.

[nickl_2000]

I'm in agreement that you need a Druid. Not only do they provide naturey stuff and food, but you also get Healing out of it (which you don't have).

I personally would go Stars or Wildfire, but that is mostly because those are the two I'm most interested in.


Nature Cleric would also fit into that party pretty well.

[J-H]

That's a big party.
Apparently, as-written, ROTFM is pretty light on magic items, so I would go with a class that doesn't get a lot of it's kick from "Look at the cool loot I found." Druid would be a good choice, as would cleric. So would Artificer.

[Ralanr]

I played through a bit of Rime (DM sort of vanished after a while, shame). And throughout our travels I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is like, one of the few campaigns where base Ranger's terrain movement bonuses are actually useful."

So yeah, base ranger is my vote. But that's a hard sell because it's base ranger and Tasha's offers a lot more.

[loki_ragnarock]

IIRC, there's alot of visibility issues in that module related to darkness. Or sleeting, or snow, or something. I don't know. It's been a while since I glanced at it and I didn't ever do more than glance at it.

So with the half formed memories floating in my brain jelly, I'd recommend:

Gloomstalker Ranger:

Enjoy never getting lost and advantage on tons of checks with invisibility in the darkness. The first two are sort of important in that adventure, again IIRC. The third is a boon.

I'm sure someone more in the know could tell you what favored enemy would be best for the module.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Genie Warlock.

The ability to reliably and safely short rest while your friends deal with exhaustion checks is nice. The ability to carry a mountain of supplies with you (why camp out when you can Glamp out?!)

Create food at 5th is also amazing. Given the environment the ability to set up shop and feed ~50 people a day for the cost of salt and pepper is no joke. Choos the Marid for resistance to cold at 6th or just take Prestidigitation to make magic long underwear so you’re never too cold.

[Man_Over_Game]

Genie Warlock.

The ability to reliably and safely short rest while your friends deal with exhaustion checks is nice. The ability to carry a mountain of supplies with you (why camp out when you can Glamp out?!)

Create food at 5th is also amazing. Given the environment the ability to set up shop and feed ~50 people a day for the cost of salt and pepper is no joke. Choos the Marid for resistance to cold at 6th or just take Prestidigitation to make magic long underwear so you’re never too cold.

On that note, a Dream Druid would work well, given their rest protection feature. Their healing might seem boring, but it both means you're not spending slots or a spell on Healing Word while still being able to cast a leveled spell in the same turn. In essence, healing will never slow you down (while it does with other casters).

[Merudo]

Me and a couple friends are going to jump into Rime of the Frostmaiden and was wondering if anyone had any class suggestions, we already have a:
-Wizard
-Sorcerer
-Paladin
-Monk
-Eldricht Knight
If anyone has any suggestions let me know!

Either Druid or Ranger (especially Gloomstalker). Both with help with survival in Icewind Dale, and have spells with relatively little overlap with other classes in your party. They also are both a Wisdom-based class, which only the Monk (sort of) is.

Gloomstalker is especially busted, since there is little to no light in most locations a lot of creatures will rely on Darkvision to see the party. With Umbral Sight you will be invisible to the vast majority of creatures you encounter, so long as your party doesn't screw it up with a torch or something.

I wouldn't commend Bard, Warlock, or Rogue.

- Bard & Warlock are charisma classes but the party already have Sorcerer & Paladin, and their spells overlap with the Sorcerer, Wizard, & Eldritch Knight.
- Rogue is essentially a lesser Ranger in 5e, go Gloomstalker instead.

On that note, a Dream Druid would work well, given their rest protection feature.

Ask the Wizard if they plan on picking up Tiny Hut. If they do, the rest protection feature won't be useful much except as an exploit to boost your perception checks.

[jojosskul]

I've been DMing Rime, we're almost finished (last session probably this week actually.) And based on that party comp and how this campaign has been going... someone who can cast revivify at 5th level.

There have been 7 character deaths out of the 7 person party. Oddly three original party members are still alive, one person had one PC die, and three others had two PCs die each. This is me running things mostly as written in the book.

So, yeah. I think Druid since they have revivify access now that people have previously stated is a good call.

[nickl_2000]

I've been DMing Rime, we're almost finished (last session probably this week actually.) And based on that party comp and how this campaign has been going... someone who can cast revivify at 5th level.

There have been 7 character deaths out of the 7 person party. Oddly three original party members are still alive, one person had one PC die, and three others had two PCs die each. This is me running things mostly as written in the book.

So, yeah. I think Druid since they have revivify access now that people have previously stated is a good call.

What is your death rate in other campaigns? Do you usually have deaths?

[Ralanr]

I've been DMing Rime, we're almost finished (last session probably this week actually.) And based on that party comp and how this campaign has been going... someone who can cast revivify at 5th level.

There have been 7 character deaths out of the 7 person party. Oddly three original party members are still alive, one person had one PC die, and three others had two PCs die each. This is me running things mostly as written in the book.

So, yeah. I think Druid since they have revivify access now that people have previously stated is a good call.

Spoiler: I also played a bit of Rime but the DM vanished after a bit.

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Did any of these deaths happen during the berserker caves by chance? That encounter is pretty much impossible without dispel magic or stone shape from my experience. My DM decided to reward us by throwing the berserkers into the icefire.

[Kurt Kurageous]

There are a lot of animals awakened and otherwise to work with. I had great success in a party of three as a nature cleric outlander dwarf. The game has a lot of scenes where talking to the animals exposes the easy button, and animal friendship doubly so.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ask the Wizard if they plan on picking up Tiny Hut. If they do, the rest protection feature won't be useful much except as an exploit to boost your perception checks.

The Dream Druid feature also hides your party while resting, so it essentially removes any risk of ambushes. In fact, the opposite may be true: Being able to sneak up on a group of enemies who are looking for you.

I'm not sure how often that kind of stuff happens in this campaign, I thought it was a worthwhile note. Dream Druids have the unique ability to rest in the middle of enemy territory, and that's pretty rare.

[Unoriginal]

The Dream Druid feature also hides your party while resting, so it essentially removes any risk of ambushes. In fact, the opposite may be true: Being able to sneak up on a group of enemies who are looking for you.

I'm not sure how often that kind of stuff happens in this campaign, I thought it was a worthwhile note. Dream Druids have the unique ability to rest in the middle of enemy territory, and that's pretty rare.

Being a Dream Druid and Tom Bombadiling this campaign could be fun.

Not sure it fits what OP wants, though.

[jojosskul]

What is your death rate in other campaigns? Do you usually have deaths?

I do usually have deaths, but not nearly as many. I think last time I ran a full campaign there were maybe two deaths that stuck. That was going through Ghosts of Saltmarsh. There would likely have been MORE deaths, but I added in an NPC who could do the shopping for magic item downtime activity for the party and threw in one or two options for revivify if they were smart about it. (Had a magic tattoo artist with finite amount of supplies, party was smart enough to grab two revivify tattoos from them before they ran out.)

Spoiler: I also played a bit of Rime but the DM vanished after a bit.

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Did any of these deaths happen during the berserker caves by chance? That encounter is pretty much impossible without dispel magic or stone shape from my experience. My DM decided to reward us by throwing the berserkers into the icefire.

To answer your question:

Spoiler: Lots of bad things

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Two of the death actually involved the berserkers.
One in the random encounter you can get, then a second when said random encounter instantly teleported the party away from their dead fellow party member to the cave. One of the party members had repelling blast, and another had good athletics, so eventually they managed to push all of the barbarians OUT of the cave.
The second death actually happened when the hunting party came back. That triple multiattack is ROUGH, especially since I played them as being murder happy due to the nature of their corruption. If they were the person who put you down, they made sure you stayed down with no regard for their own safety. ESPECIALLY inside the cave.

[jaappleton]

Artificer would be great from the perspective of someone who can hand out magic items. Frostmaiden is quite stingy in this regard.

However, and please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on this: I don't recall many instances where you need them. It's not like Avernus where you're quite hamstrung without them, I don't think. But I may be incorrect.

Aside from that? For my money, the most versatile caster in 5E is the Circle of Stars Druid. You can't go wrong with that pick. Other really solid picks would be Lore Bard and Light Domain Cleric.

If you're feeling more stabby stabby than casty casty, you could go Ranger, but I'd recommend this only if Tasha's is allowed. I'd go Swarmkeeper, personally. There's some which are better for damage per round, but it's very versatile and can always be put to use in combat. Move yourself, move the enemy away from an ally, or extra damage. Nice bonus spell list, too. And the whole Ranger thing will be great in a barren ice covered wasteland.

[jojosskul]

However, and please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on this: I don't recall many instances where you need them. It's not like Avernus where you're quite hamstrung without them, I don't think. But I may be incorrect.

Regarding that:

Spoiler: End Game RotFM Spoilers

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Martials will need a magic weapon if they want to have any chance of affecting the (not Auril) endgame boss. And as far as I can tell, I think there was one magic weapon you MIGHT find?

Other than that though no, I don't think any of the magic items the party found were ever truly needed. Some definitely helped along the way. And I guess if you wanted to fix the spoiler issue I stated above you without adding in any items you could always:

Spoiler: Potential source

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Use weapons looted from chardalyn berserkers and hope the party pass all their saves. Hoping for that IS how one of my party members died when the Paladin got corrupted during their long rest, woke up, and... well... lets just say things got dramatic.

[KnotaGuru]

I’m playing through RotFM right now. I second going ranger. Ours recently died and traveling without him is terrible.

[FluffyBeholder]

Hey just thought I’d let everyone know I decided on a Circle of Dreams Druid!

[jaappleton]

Hey just thought I’d let everyone know I decided on a Circle of Dreams Druid!

Solid choice.

Extra healing always helps, and that level six feature is sure to come in handy in the harsh wilderness.