D&D 5E Jasper After Play review of Icewind dale

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't really see any reason players would touch unnumbered buildings. For one, they look anonymous on the map. All the numbered buildings have a distinctive appearance. And then there is Augury, which can be cast as a ritual in 11 minutes and determine if a building is worth exploring or not. Not to mention all the hints and clues that are to be found around the city itself. I guess as DM I could rig things to encourage the players to waste time on unnumbered buildings, but I don't see any advantage to doing that. They would just get bored. And my players won't be interested in any loot or lore that doesn't directly pertain to reaching the Mythallar.

 

[jasper]

That is good. My players did want to explore the side quest of free looting. As long as the players are offered the chance. Tell me what happens at the end game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That is good. My players did want to explore the side quest of free looting. As long as the players are offered the chance. Tell me what happens at the end game.

I will. Probably about 4 weeks, they are just starting chapter 6 at the moment. Mostly worried about the demilich howl doing TPK. Which would be an anticlimactic end. Early on most of the party disastrously failed there saves against the White Lady and ended up aging decades. So I'm a bit twitchy about monsters with AoE save or die effects.

 

[MarkB]

The overland travel on dogsled is interesting but flawed. No guidance is given for how much a group of dogs can pull. In AL you can only hook up one dog per sled. The dog takes a short rest for every hour of travel. Which makes traveling by foot as fast as dog sled. No reason is given why you can’t use multiple dogs. (Which ticked off one gamer who was a fan of Iditarod dog race.) My group got around this by using an Owlbear to pull their sled.

This is a misinterpretation on multiple levels. A dogsled is pulled by a team of dogs, not just one (see the description of the abandoned dogsled in Mountain Climb). And their overland speed takes into account the hourly breaks. You still move twice as fast overall as when going on foot even after factoring in the rest breaks. This is reflected in the travel times given between towns.

Black Cabin. Possible TPK due to the magic item especially as no danger warning exists. Possible kill on some the trap like places.

What you don't mention is that this specific quest is built to compensate for that, and will allow a successful party to recover even from a TPK. It's actually more interesting if at least one person dies, which is why the traps are so lethal.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What you don't mention is that this specific quest is built to compensate for that, and will allow a successful party to recover even from a TPK. It's actually more interesting if at least one person dies, which is why the traps are so lethal.

Yeah, we had one character pick up the McGuffin and die, then be brought back by the others completing the quest. The damage numbers are set deliberately high to manipulate that outcome.

My party are actually riding around on axebeaks, because I decided that would be more fun than dogsleds (also because ESB). But I did a bit of research on RL dog sleds before running the adventure. They are a lot faster than described, and usually have somewhere between 5-13 dogs.

 

[jasper]

Mark B the Dog Sled is of one dog one sled was AL directions on either facebook or discord.
The Black Cabin trap really really ticked off two of my players. Yes there is a way back but if you are in B4 and the star is pick up is and automatic 90/45 screw by box text damage.
My review takes in account the feedback my players give me.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

With the Black Cabin, fortunately the character who was zapped was attuned to the psi crystal, so I allowed them to use that to communicate with other party members. Otherwise it could have been a pain, since we where playing online.