Arctic Wilderness SURVIVAL | Icewind Dale DM Guide

for the avelanche role - why not get the whole party make a check and take the highest role as the group's role?

I'd like to run this module but all these wilderness rules seem very annoying to my friends and we want to simplify things much much more and basically skim over the adventuring / wilderness stuff - how can we do that, BUT still have the environment play some role / disadvantage to the party?

Have to disagree about ice not being difficult terrain. I know first hand that it indeed slows one down tremendously.

The thing that I find strange is that while there is a rule for Extreme Cold, the party is given cold weather gear at the beginning of the campaign. I believe the book also states that this cold weather gear does not impact the PC's ability to wear their normal armor as well. So what's the point of even having the Extreme Cold check if the characters always succeed by default?

Small size Ranger with a dog companion so it would be ok to rule them only needing 1 dog to pull sounds amazing.

We need magical avalanche beacons!

Wow, thank you! This is brilliant!

I think i would like cold weather clothing to instead of just neging the cold check, maybe only making it be roled every 4-6 hours and decreasing the dc to 5-con. that way you still have the feeling of being worn down by the cold weather and that the cloths are helping, but not completely negating, this threat. so every day you roll twice. This also gives you incentive to find shelter in the blizzard.

You are ignoring the possibility that you have Con score of 5

I'm dming Rime in a club run out of a local store - I have trouble concentrating to read the book sometimes, plus I'm a new DM, so you're reading out these sections and additional commentary is so helpful

Just found you Bob! I got Icewind Dale for Christmas this year and it's nice to compare the ideas you have to what I have as a way to make this campaign really work. My girlfriend plays the ranger in my party and oh boy is that and important class to have.

I'm preparing my upcoming northern survival campaign so these videos are super useful!
I noticed the "Amarune's Almanac: Arctics of the Realms" in in the comments. Have you been a part of creating that document?

Funny fact. The effects of hypothermia tend to take about an hour to manifest. The first minute of cold water exposure's risk is based on keeping your breath under control and avoiding inhaling water. The next 10 minutes is your last moments of meaningful movement before muscles start to shut down. So theoretically, being immersed in water for 10 minutes for the average person, if they are out of the water and treated in time, is not going to cause hypothermia. It is a risk, for sure.. But not as common as some think for short periods of immersion in cold water!

"ice isn't THAT difficult to walk on."
As someone who comes from a frozen-shithole, I disagree, especially if it's bumpy/wavy(not having a flat surface means nothing to grip onto) or on a slope.
Maybe add different levels of slippery ice where you have to reduce your speed more to not fall prone and even some where crampons only give advantage on the check instead.
Trust me, wearing spikes doesn't save you from falling on your face every time, I know from experience.

That moment when you read all of the stuff in the module and go, “yea I’ll just rule it like actual Greenlandic winter” x)

If anyone wants a couple of things that are just wrong with the module: it gets quite bright at midday even in December as long as you’re not too far north of the Arctic circle, since the snow amplifies the light by a lot. I oftentimes get my sunglasses out in December… so yea.
The movement speeds are all wrong. The snowshoe movement is fairly accurate, but without snowshoes you will be moving at snails pace, unless, maybe, it’s been a long time since the last snowfall, and the top of the snow is iced over from wind. and travelling on a sled is much faster than they make it, and they also don’t need to rest every hour. You do however typically use 4-8 dogs for a sled, depending on the region…
And then there’s the blizzard thing… in midwinter, the weather tends to be very stable and calm, especially the further north you go. The northern Arctic is essentially a desert, with parts of Greenland getting the same precipitation as in the Sahara. Not gonna be a lot of blizzards, I promise. You do get whiteouts, but they’re not that common in the coldest parts of the year, and since it’s been really cold for two years straight I’d imagine even less so. What DOES happen however is katabatic winds from the icecap, though the severity of these are highly regional. In east Greenland wind speeds can reach those of class 4 or 5 hurricanes. Maybe just as scary is how warm they can be, raising the temperatures upwards of 20 degrees. A couple of years ago one such wind cause the removal of all the snow on an entire mountain, something that would have been catastrophic if there had been people nearby. And it leaves the snow surface totally iced over as the top layer recrystallises when the wind is gone. Really, really annoying to ski on, since, even with metal rims, you can’t find purchase in the snow, leaving you skidding across it rather uncontrolled, particularly downhill. Must be an easier surface for people travelling with snowshoes though x)

I am DMing for the first time with this book this weekend!!!

For the avalanche stuff, even 5% seems too high given how deadly an avalanche is. Idk about dnd, but irl you can't usually outrun an avalanche. You basically have to get above it or out of the way. I'd say a nat 1 produces a "very bad effect" on a table with six options. Roll 1d6 and if you get a 1, avalanche. 1/120 seems far more reasonable to me. Failure by 5 or more that isn't a nat 1 gets a slightly less awful table etc etc. I like tables, can't you tell?

Chose this as my first campaign to DM. Hope I can keep my DM entertained as he did for me these past few years.

Icewind Dale sounds like an ideal place to use Prestidigitation to keep your socks and underpants warm, and making warm drinks.

Hi Bob, I am a new DM playing with friends. I have a question: how do you remember all of this when playing/ how do you make these rules easy to access when required. Your visa are great thanks!

Pretty good series, but I liked this one because of the "Is this guy from California?" extreme weather house rules. As you can tell from the comments section, folks from Canada and the American Midwest eat that stuff up.

But like, this is a game, not a real life simulator, so your rules are fine .

Math correction: Advantage is +3.325, not +5.

Hi Bob, don’t you think the purpose of COLD weather falls utterly short with the clothing the party get? I didn’t see any purpose of survival in this campaign if they never going to fear the cold or at least ridiculously rarely. Thx for your opinion upfront

Any ice fishing I've done is with the smallest hole you can pull a fish through, can't imagine how a strong yank on the line would pull a big adventurer through a small hole - Santa Claus style.

Thank you so much for this. Having to search things on different books at the same time is a chore. I'm glad you're willing to do this work for the rest of ud

Excellent guide. Thank you

"Ice isnt hard to walk on" are you high or never seen snow and ice?? Its slippery as hell, thin or thick ice its impossible to walk on normally.

Outstanding Guide! Getting ready to run this Campaign and your videos are excellent

Bob, your math is a bit off. If there's a 25% chance of avalanche each hour, then traveling four hours doesn't guarantee an avalanche. The chance of at least one avalanche in four hours is ~70%. Still quite high, but not guaranteed.

Loved the vid - new sub!

Nicely done sir you have earned a like

Hi there. My name is Baard. I am having my first DM-session next week.
Just wanted you to know that I am relying on these videos.
This stuff is great! :D Lest I accidentally kill all my players :/

Awesome! Thank you so much!

just discovered your channel and this video was super instructive those ideas are great and adapt really well to my DM Style.

This video is relly well documented and well presented .

i subscribed

Regarding moving only 4 hours a day, you're forgetting that the aurora also provides dim illumination, and the aurora happens every day starting at midnight and lasting "several hours." How a DM chooses to interpret "several" is up to them, but I put it up to my party and they said several hours means 6, so they can actually have 6 hours of uninterrupted travel if they ignore the clocks, or 10 hours if they break it up and take their long rests in the afternoon.

this was amazing, just what i needed

👍

you the man

nice video bob. maybe you got hippothermia because your constitution score was 2. btw you are awesome

Just started running this campaign, session 0 in 2 weeks, so excited. Is this safe to show PCs? any spoilers?

Excellent content! Picked up the seemingly daunting book to plan the campaign. This really helps!

Cold Weather Clothing is another great example of just how lazy the writing is for this adventure. No penalty for being worn with armour? And yet Padded Armour gives you Disadvantage on Stealth checks.

I'm going to be running this is a couple months for some returning 4e veterans and this series is definitely going to help me run a published adventure

perfect time for a triton ranger!

I was going to post the whole cold shock response thing ,but I saw it was your post on reddit that got that reply, hah!
People check out that reddit thread linked by Bob in the first comment, there's an excellent reply about cold shock and how to handle frigid water, 100% worth it!

Wool continues to contain your body heat while wet....presumably cold weather clothing is wool.

Not sure if you've walked on an ice rink with boots... You go at normal speed, you're risking a concussion.

I use to start swimming in May when the ice was freshly off the lake, when I was a kid. We all did. I live in northern Ontario, we just didn't wait for summer.
Also check out polar bear swimming...

I'm not sayingWotC got it right..... I'm not saying you're wrong, there is just a bunch of perspectives to handling the cold.