My revised cold-weather rules

[machineelf]

I could easily add a feat called "prepared for cold" or something that says, "wearing extreme cold-weather gear does not impose disadvantage on physical skill checks or attacks, and does not reduce walking speed, and constitution score increases by 1."

I will eventually play test it, and see if the disadvantage is too severe. If so, I might make it a -2 to physical skill checks and attacks. But overall, casters don't have to worry much about disadvantage to physical skills and attacks, and a lot of fighter types will have a fairly good con modifier, so they may just choose to wear cold-weather gear, but not the extreme cold-weather gear, and either be fine, or risk a small chance of getting some cold-weather exhaustion momentarily until they can warm up. Overall I think I like it, but again, I'll see how it works in actual game-play.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I could easily add a feat called "prepared for cold" or something that says, "wearing extreme cold-weather gear does not impose disadvantage on physical skill checks or attacks, and does not reduce walking speed, and constitution score increases by 1."

I will eventually play test it, and see if the disadvantage is too severe. If so, I might make it a -2 to physical skill checks and attacks. But overall, casters don't have to worry much about disadvantage to physical skills and attacks, and a lot of fighter types will have a fairly good con modifier, so they may just choose to wear cold-weather gear, but not the extreme cold-weather gear, and either be fine, or risk a small chance of getting some cold-weather exhaustion momentarily until they can warm up. Overall I think I like it, but again, I'll see how it works in actual game-play.

Sure - and good testing! I would assume the penalty attacks also applies to spell attacks? Also, would casting a spell in such gear be problematic. If this stuff is bulky/heavy enough to stop folks swinging clubs and blades, might it not impose a similar (if not they same) penalty as armour for an untrained user?

Thinking about it further, might it grant an AC bonus, akin to Hide Armour or the like?

 

[Oofta]

Sure - and good testing! I would assume the penalty attacks also applies to spell attacks? Also, would casting a spell in such gear be problematic. If this stuff is bulky/heavy enough to stop folks swinging clubs and blades, might it not impose a similar (if not they same) penalty as armour for an untrained user?

Thinking about it further, might it grant an AC bonus, akin to Hide Armour or the like?

Maybe you should have to do some kind of check to see if you can cast a spell with somatic components, or even verbal components (your face is going to be covered after all)? Failure means the spell doesn't work but it's spell slot is not lost.

You can remove some clothing temporarily but in extreme conditions frostbite can start affecting you in seconds.

Whatever you do you want there to be a cost, but the cost shouldn't be so high as to nerf a character which is a tough balance. The rules should add flavor to the world, a real penalty for being in extreme climates without being too annoying.

 

[SkidAce]

I like weather rules, and always found that spells like the 3.5 Endure Elements trivialized them.

Such a spell no longer exists in 5e, am I correct?

 

[Stalker0]

My only thought is that the saving throw every 2 hours works at the warmer ranges, but at -31 (-35 C) exposure damage should be much faster.

I would make the saves every 5 minutes at thst range, but also allow cold weather gear to stretch it back out to the 2 hkur range

 

[The Old Crow]

But overall, casters don't have to worry much about disadvantage to physical skills and attacks

I would think both somatic and material components would both pose a challenge. There should be a check for spellcasters. It shouldn't be more than the penalty fighting types will suffer from disadvantage. I guess the best thing to do is calculate how much more fighting types will miss, and make the DC to avoid spell failure produce a similar number of fizzles.

 

[machineelf]

I like weather rules, and always found that spells like the 3.5 Endure Elements trivialized them.

Such a spell no longer exists in 5e, am I correct?

I'm not sure, but I will tell you that my players discovered that the cantrip prestidigitation can warm clothes. So as they walked in cold weather, they wizard just constantly warmed clothes all the time. I think the way I handled that was to say the warmth wouldn't last long so the wizard could only warm one person's clothes at a time effectively, that it only gave a small bonus to cold weather resistance, and that the wizard would have to be focused on that all the time during travel, so she/he couldn't focus on any other travel-related task.

But those players, man, they will think of everything.

Edit: But in case you haven't looked at it, at the moment the only cold weather rules in 5th edition is that if you wear cold-weather gear (however you define that) the players are immune to cold weather. That's about it. It definitely seemed to be a part of 5th edition that they tacked on without a lot of thought and perhaps meant to get around to refining the rules, but never have so far. That's why I am interested in making solid, good rules in my own home campaign that strike a nice balance between meaningfulness without too much complexity.