Frostburn looking good

[Greg K]

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Greg...it's a WOTC book.

I figured that there probably would not be, but one can always hope. Oh well, another WOTC DND supplement that I most likely will not purchase.

 

[BSF]

It was odd -- it's my first freebie in almost a year. Frankly I wondered why they kept me on the list even that long!

Eric,
Any chance one of the authors requested you get a copy or sent you one?

It might be more an issue of somebody specific being nice rather than a general WotC distribution.

 

[green slime]

Well, you know, we here in Austria are south of the international date line, so we're one day (or, during daylight saving months. 23 hours) ahead of everyone else.

Not EVERYONE else.

There is that non-convict ex-colony on the land of the drizzling cloud.

And don't forget, that Kamchatka is GMT+13 hours, for some reason only the Soviets could explain. Which means that in any given day, there is 25 hours to the day....

 

[Samurai]

Is there anything for creating human cultures or tailoring classes to fit cultural archetypes from real world cold regions?

Yes and yes.

I can't compare it to Frost and Fur as I haven't seen that book, but Frostburn was a pleasent surprise. It starts with a discussion of icy environments and details on how to run everything from falling into an ice crevasse to hypothermia. There is a good selection of magical terrain as well, such as Rimefire and Snowflake Lichen.

Next it covers races and classes, including cold versions of all the typical ones, plus new races, feats, and prestige classes. I really liked the Cryokineticist (a cold version of the Pyrokineticist from Ex Psi Hbk), Frost Mage, the Primeval, and the Stormsinger. The Winterhaunt of Iborighu is a cool NPC prestige class.

Next are chapters on equipment (including vehicles to get over the ice, new exotic materials, etc), new spells and psionics, new magic items, and new monsters (The Entombed and the Spirit Animal template are especially cool). Then there are 2 detailed adventure sites, and the book ends with encounter tables for icy environments.

This last bit is my only major gripe with the book. I never use random encounter tables, I prefer planning out all encounters. It will still be a bit of use for selecting appropriate encounters for a party, but it goes on for 26 pages!!!. This is a big waste of space IMHO, and if the Encounter tables were reduced to, say 6 pages (more than enough IMO), it would have left 20 additional pages for more creatures, spells, etc. I still bought the book in spite of this waste because the rest was well done, but I hope such massive encounter tables are left out of future books in this series.

 

[the Jester]

I went to my FLGS yesterday to get the MM3, and while I was there I looked this over too. Holy crap! It looks much better than I expected. It's now on the list of things to buy, whereas before I was thinking it prolly wouldn't be.

 

[EricNoah]

Quick additional comments:

1) not only is there a psionic PrC but there are some additional psionic powers included. So it's also an expansion of the ExPsiHB.

2) I actually liked the encounter tables -- even if you're not into random generation they are set up to help you pick the right CR and number of creatures for a given EL. So they work very nicely as an encounter planner for different cold wilderness regions.

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

Thanks for the information on it. I'll have to take a closer look at it then I planned now that I hear it's got psionics in it. I'm still waiting to order it for work, it's not in any warehouses yet as of yesterday which is unfortunately usual.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Quick additional comments:

1) not only is there a psionic PrC but there are some additional psionic powers included. So it's also an expansion of the ExPsiHB.

This was one of the primary selling points for me. It's not much (a few new powers and a variant PrC), but it's enough to know that they're supporting psionics.

It is very, very nice. Granted, its utility is limited based on what your campaign is like, but nothing says that your character can't be from the cold regions of the world. Not all of the material is useless in warm regions, either; the Primeval, in particular, looks to be quite fun, and my Cuiracaenite priest would've killed for Storm Magic in our Birthright game.

As for information on creating cultures...rather than wasting 60+ pages on something that most players will never ever use, WotC seems to figure that's what your local library is for. If one's interested in such information, one can go find a nice book on the Inuit, Sherpa, or Vikings, and use the information there to figure out how those societies work(ed), and then do the work yourself.

Brad

 

[Kesh]

Is there anything for creating human cultures or tailoring classes to fit cultural archetypes from real world cold regions?

You really want Frost & Fur then. Norse, Inuit, Slavic and a generic 'Ice Age' Setting. Great equipment, great monsters... however, some of the spells are a bit wonky, and some of the feats are just plain broken. My only real complaint is that a lot of the useful stuff is left out of the OGL, and Monkey God Enterprises never posted errata to fix that. So, there's some cool stuff in the book that can't be re-used in open source books in the future.

Personally, I'm going to use both F&F and Frostburn for my homebrewed ice campaign, and for any Eberron games in the Frostfell or mountains of that setting.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

My only real complaint is that a lot of the useful stuff is left out of the OGL, and Monkey God Enterprises never posted errata to fix that.

I'm pretty sure that has been fixed in the errata. See page 2.