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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jenck" data-source="post: 7522102" data-attributes="member: 6776455">I'm DM of a party that is heading to fight an Adult White Dragon next session and I think I shot myself in the foot... The dragon lives in a set of ice and stone caverns it created in a glacier on the side of a mountain. I've been developing this lair for a couple weeks, adding icy slopes and slippery areas in the twisting caverns. Additionally, a pack of Winter Wolves has taken up residence in the outermost areas of the caverns, and the dragon is loosely allied with them, using them for scouting and herding mammoths or giant elk. In turn he lets them take their own kills from the herds when he has had his fill. The dragon rarely uses the entrance by the Winter Wolves anymore, preferring a new entrance/exit he burrowed out in the top of the main chamber deep in the mountain.Here's the foot-shooting part: Many days ago in-game (but months ago in real life, which is why I forgot), when the party was in a large town in the area, the party hired a couple of guides to help them find a dwarven stronghold. The guides helped the party get equipped for the journey to the stronghold and strongly recommended to the party that they all buy cold weather gear and crampons for their feet for the anticipated ice and rock climbing in the frozen mountains. They all took this advice and now all have cold weather gear and crampons.I just now realized this and put it together that the hazards I've been developing in the dragon lair/caverns will be trivial since the party has gear to negate much of the hazards: crampons to avoid falling on sloped ice, cold weather gear to not be affected by the freezing fog and precipitation the dragon makes near his lair. Of course, I was the one who (through an NPC) recommended the gear. I don't think any players would have thought of it if I hadn't had the guides suggest it. I'm not sorry I did it; at the time, it felt right.But I still want the dragon's lair to feel dangerous beyond the fact that there's a dragon in it. I've been designing challenges like freezing sleet and slick, icy slopes as they explore the caverns, but with crampons and cold gear they won't be challenged. But I also don't want to somehow remove the benefit of the gear. It has come in handy a couple times in their trek, and I don't want to suddenly have it less (or in-) effective.Does anyone have any advice for what I should do? <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Let them succeed with relative ease due to the equipment?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Create different hazards that they can't get past with the gear? (Falling ice shards? a freezing pool of water? Ice pits?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have the cold be magical and therefore affect them more than normal outdoor cold? (So the gear still has a benefit but it's reduced in the dragon's lair.)</li> </ul>I want to be fair to the players and help create a space for, not spoil, their fun.</blockquote>

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