Crothian
First Post
Permafrost
What happens in a world that is overrun with ice and snow? Permafrost is that answer. It is a new setting by Valent Games. It is a new setting that is in the midst of a terrible Ice Age. It is the perfect excuse to get a lot of work out of Frost and Fur and Frostburn.
Permafrost is a new PDF written by Colin Fredericks. The PDF does come in a print and on screen format. It has a nice soft snow like background that helps the book out a lot since there is no art in the forty three pages the book has. I do like that in the credit it says “Total Lack of Art: Colin’s bank account” so a little humor in admitting why he does not have art here. The background does help make up for the lack of art and the shortness of the PDF makes it so it is not so bad. The PDF does not have book marks and that is a worse sin for this book.
Permafrost is an idea that just is not taken to proper level. As a Setting this is a book of a solid idea and theme but it does not take the detail the setting enough to really make it easy to use. There are no maps and only three cities left. And they are really not given the level of details to make them useful. This is a jumping off point. There are some good ideas and ways to run a campaign in the setting. But a DM will need to do a little or a lot of work to really flesh out the cities, NPCs, and come up with full adventures. In addition to the lack of some details the author has a questions and answers section in which he states that he will probably not be writing any more for this setting. That is a pity because there is a lot of really good potential here. That is one reason I mention those two other cold related books. Such resources will be helpful if one wants to use Permafrost.
The majority of the book is spent on new classes. None of the classes from the Players Handbook are in this setting anymore. The circumstances of the Great Ice Age the setting is in have gotten rid of them all. Instead the book has ten new base classes. There are no prestige classes, no new feats or spells, or other mechanics in here. The writer choose base classes instead of prestige classes as he felt they were a better way to showcase the class abilities he came up with. In this case I think prestige classes might have been more useful since having just base classes really cuts the setting off from the wide variety of mechanical options the game presents.
The Core Seekers are like a subterranean ranger. They have a lot of good specialized abilities that really make them good underground. Elsewhere they will be a little more limited in what they can do. I do like they get trap finding as it really fits the idea of the class.
Crystalhome Adept are the new version of Monks. They are not as powerful as a normal monk and seem to be part security force.
Iceborn Raiders are like rogues that live in the frozen places and steal and do whatever it takes to survive. They get invisibility powers and some have some neat ideas dealing with tokens.
The Knights of the Snow are like a less restricted Paladin. They have made an alliance with a Fey god who helps them survive in the cold north and they basically help people out. They can carve weapons of ice and enhance weapons with ice.
Mad Hermit is a person who has snapped under the horrors of trying to survive when his family and the people he knew have not. It is the most creative class in the book.
Magma Mage is a fire bases caster. They are spontaneous casters. One odd thing the writer did is lower spell level slots go away. The writer felt it was too much book keeping for higher level casters to worry about all those spells. The known spells of the lower levels never goes away, the caster just has to spend a higher spell slot on them. I have never felt it was a problem with all the spells so this is one of the few design elements I disagree with.
The Naga Cultist are another underground group. The Naga went underground away from the cold and so did their people. That is what this represents.
Planar Initiates are psionics based class. They have no high level restrictions on using their lower level powers like the other casters do. They are looking for a solution to the cold on other planes of existence.
Reborn Archon is another creative class. This is like a cleric with really good healing abilities. They have no ability to turn undead. In fact, none of the classes has that. I like that the author choose to get rid of turning.
Servants of Death are casters that deal with necromancy and death. They are not good or evil.
The book has a template for making monsters cold in type and shows haw they have adapted and survive. The book also has a few pages of dealing with the cold and the weather. This is good and useful information. Lastly there are some basic adventure seeds. They are enough to get the DM’s mind going in what to do in Permafrost but I would have liked more with a little more detail.
Permafrost is a good book for someone wanted a start to a cold base campaign. The world is really not that defined so taking the ideas here and placing them in another cold based setting will be really easy. But unfortunately since this is a setting unto itself I just cannot recommend it. It has some good ideas but it just fails at what it is trying to do.
What happens in a world that is overrun with ice and snow? Permafrost is that answer. It is a new setting by Valent Games. It is a new setting that is in the midst of a terrible Ice Age. It is the perfect excuse to get a lot of work out of Frost and Fur and Frostburn.
Permafrost is a new PDF written by Colin Fredericks. The PDF does come in a print and on screen format. It has a nice soft snow like background that helps the book out a lot since there is no art in the forty three pages the book has. I do like that in the credit it says “Total Lack of Art: Colin’s bank account” so a little humor in admitting why he does not have art here. The background does help make up for the lack of art and the shortness of the PDF makes it so it is not so bad. The PDF does not have book marks and that is a worse sin for this book.
Permafrost is an idea that just is not taken to proper level. As a Setting this is a book of a solid idea and theme but it does not take the detail the setting enough to really make it easy to use. There are no maps and only three cities left. And they are really not given the level of details to make them useful. This is a jumping off point. There are some good ideas and ways to run a campaign in the setting. But a DM will need to do a little or a lot of work to really flesh out the cities, NPCs, and come up with full adventures. In addition to the lack of some details the author has a questions and answers section in which he states that he will probably not be writing any more for this setting. That is a pity because there is a lot of really good potential here. That is one reason I mention those two other cold related books. Such resources will be helpful if one wants to use Permafrost.
The majority of the book is spent on new classes. None of the classes from the Players Handbook are in this setting anymore. The circumstances of the Great Ice Age the setting is in have gotten rid of them all. Instead the book has ten new base classes. There are no prestige classes, no new feats or spells, or other mechanics in here. The writer choose base classes instead of prestige classes as he felt they were a better way to showcase the class abilities he came up with. In this case I think prestige classes might have been more useful since having just base classes really cuts the setting off from the wide variety of mechanical options the game presents.
The Core Seekers are like a subterranean ranger. They have a lot of good specialized abilities that really make them good underground. Elsewhere they will be a little more limited in what they can do. I do like they get trap finding as it really fits the idea of the class.
Crystalhome Adept are the new version of Monks. They are not as powerful as a normal monk and seem to be part security force.
Iceborn Raiders are like rogues that live in the frozen places and steal and do whatever it takes to survive. They get invisibility powers and some have some neat ideas dealing with tokens.
The Knights of the Snow are like a less restricted Paladin. They have made an alliance with a Fey god who helps them survive in the cold north and they basically help people out. They can carve weapons of ice and enhance weapons with ice.
Mad Hermit is a person who has snapped under the horrors of trying to survive when his family and the people he knew have not. It is the most creative class in the book.
Magma Mage is a fire bases caster. They are spontaneous casters. One odd thing the writer did is lower spell level slots go away. The writer felt it was too much book keeping for higher level casters to worry about all those spells. The known spells of the lower levels never goes away, the caster just has to spend a higher spell slot on them. I have never felt it was a problem with all the spells so this is one of the few design elements I disagree with.
The Naga Cultist are another underground group. The Naga went underground away from the cold and so did their people. That is what this represents.
Planar Initiates are psionics based class. They have no high level restrictions on using their lower level powers like the other casters do. They are looking for a solution to the cold on other planes of existence.
Reborn Archon is another creative class. This is like a cleric with really good healing abilities. They have no ability to turn undead. In fact, none of the classes has that. I like that the author choose to get rid of turning.
Servants of Death are casters that deal with necromancy and death. They are not good or evil.
The book has a template for making monsters cold in type and shows haw they have adapted and survive. The book also has a few pages of dealing with the cold and the weather. This is good and useful information. Lastly there are some basic adventure seeds. They are enough to get the DM’s mind going in what to do in Permafrost but I would have liked more with a little more detail.
Permafrost is a good book for someone wanted a start to a cold base campaign. The world is really not that defined so taking the ideas here and placing them in another cold based setting will be really easy. But unfortunately since this is a setting unto itself I just cannot recommend it. It has some good ideas but it just fails at what it is trying to do.
