D&D 5E Running Rime of the Frost Maiden

[Paul Farquhar]

although the duergar themselves as presented are pretty boring

Boringness is kind of their shtick. However, if you are playing them without an "always LE" flag you can throw up some ethical dilemmas, especially for dwarf PCs. "What if that guy I just killed was telling the truth about being screwed over by the surface dwarves?"

They are really squishy and easy to kill though, if I ran this adventure again I would make them much tougher.

 

[Retreater]

Our last campaign dealed a lot with duergar, so I'm fine with excising them from this one.
Even though my players were eager for a sandbox, they don't like the lack of structure. So lesson learned.

 

[MarkB]

Our last campaign dealed a lot with duergar, so I'm fine with excising them from this one.
Even though my players were eager for a sandbox, they don't like the lack of structure. So lesson learned.

I've just finished the Sunblight questline, culminating with the dragon attacks on Ten Towns, and it was suitably epic, though the final confrontation was a little bit of a let-down (the dragon, not being Legendary, didn't fare great against the party once they locked it down with some movement-inhibiting spells, and I rolled terribly on its saves).

But it would be very easy to excise those couple of chapters from the campaign, given the amount of material available in chapter 2. With my players, I didn't touch on any of the Reghed Tribe related encounters (not deliberately, just worked out that way) but it'd be relatively easy to string those together into a coherent plot thread, then work in the Lost Spire of Netheril to start building plot points towards chapter 5.

 

[pukunui]

• The adventure describes apocalyptic climate conditions that have been going on for two years and then proceeds to basically hand-wave them because, as written, said conditions are way too extreme to realistically deal with while still telling the stories the writers want to tell. (Friendly dwarven merchants want to hire you to get their stolen ingots back? No. By this point, friendly dwarven merchants have degenerated into cannibalism, died, or fled the region. Nobody cares about ingots during the apocalypse.)

As frustrating as this sort of stuff is, I'm fairly certain it's by design so that you can completely ignore the metaplot and just use the book as a setting guide for Icewind Dale. They do that a lot. You can ignore the death curse and use Tomb of Annihilation as a guide to Chult. You can ignore the giants and use Storm King's Thunder as a guide to the Savage Frontier. You can ignore the drow and demons and use Out of the Abyss as a guide to the Underdark. And so on.

Yes, it does mean that the metaplot tends to be thin and not all of the side quests or other bits and pieces play nicely with it, but it does make for added value in that it's easier to adapt those bits and pieces for a homebrew campaign or whatever.

 

[Reynard]

Boringness is kind of their shtick. However, if you are playing them without an "always LE" flag you can throw up some ethical dilemmas, especially for dwarf PCs. "What if that guy I just killed was telling the truth about being screwed over by the surface dwarves?"

They are really squishy and easy to kill though, if I ran this adventure again I would make them much tougher.

By "boring" I meant as mechanically interesting opponents, not as characters. I like having irredeemable stock enemies so I have no problem with them being just plain evil.

I mixed in a couple types, and I also have some monster action house rules I use to make sure creatures with cool abilities get to use them. Briefly, I give most enemies with spell like abilities a recharge 4+ "cast any spell as a bonus action" ability. I use variations for other abilities, or allow melee opponents to stack knocking prone or forced movement onto attacks.

 

[Retreater]

As frustrating as this sort of stuff is, I'm fairly certain it's by design so that you can completely ignore the metaplot and just use the book as a setting guide for Icewind Dale. They do that a lot. You can ignore the death curse and use Tomb of Annihilation as a guide to Chult. You can ignore the giants and use Storm King's Thunder as a guide to the Savage Frontier. You can ignore the drow and demons and use Out of the Abyss as a guide to the Underdark. And so on.

Yes, it does mean that the metaplot tends to be thin and not all of the side quests or other bits and pieces play nicely with it, but it does make for added value in that it's easier to adapt those bits and pieces for a homebrew campaign or whatever.

Right. My first run-through of ToA had the death curse. Second time around, I cut it, and I encourage everyone who runs it to do the same. (You can still have dead uprisings and other reasons to go on the adventure. Just nothing as world-shattering as the death curse.) Had I fully thought it through, I would've cut the endless winter from RotFM - though it has much more of an impact on the setting than the death curse in ToA.

But that being what it is, my group is about 4 levels into RotFM and I have to salvage what I can from this disaster of a campaign.

 

[pukunui]

Right. My first run-through of ToA had the death curse. Second time around, I cut it, and I encourage everyone who runs it to do the same.

Precisely, although for my second run-through, I am merely delaying the death curse so that the players can enjoy roaming around the jungle and visiting the various adventure locations before I introduce the curse and draw them towards Omu.

Had I fully thought it through, I would've cut the endless winter from RotFM - though it has much more of an impact on the setting than the death curse in ToA.

Should I ever get to run this adventure, I intend to drastically shorten the period of time since the start of Auril's endless winter. (Most likely it'll be some time in what should be the first summer after she started and people will finally be starting to think "Hey, wait, this isn't normal, we never got a spring, and it's supposed to be summer but the sun's still not coming up!")

 

[Burnside]

Should I ever get to run this adventure, I intend to drastically shorten the period of time since the start of Auril's endless winter. (Most likely it'll be some time in what should be the first summer after she started and people will finally be starting to think "Hey, wait, this isn't normal, we never got a spring, and it's supposed to be summer but the sun's still not coming up!")

This is exactly what I did. Winter has continued through mid-summer. But it hasn't been two years. So the situation is desperate but it's not the lifeless, frozen desert that it would have to be after two years of the conditions described.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've just finished the Sunblight questline, culminating with the dragon attacks on Ten Towns, and it was suitably epic, though the final confrontation was a little bit of a let-down (the dragon, not being Legendary, didn't fare great against the party once they locked it down with some movement-inhibiting spells, and I rolled terribly on its saves).

Absolutely. Once the players manage to catch up with it the dragon dies like a punk. If I run this adventure again I will drastically buff the dragon or make sure the party are no more than level 4 when they encounter it. There are a couple of other boss monsters who are very underpowered too: Gnoll Vampire, Xardorok Sunblight, Iriolarthas.

 

[MarkB]

So, my party are currently in Auril's abode, and are about to face the Trials of the Frostmaiden in order to recover the Codicil. That's where we left off last week, and this evening the Trials begin. So I need some advice - has anyone run this part yet?

Because, as written, they sound both very cool and extremely impractical. The way they begin - by teleporting everyone who's in the antechamber when the inner door is opened - is practically guaranteed to split the party, and that wouldn't be so bad, except that some of these trials go on for literally days. I could see one character being left behind in Auril's fortress while the others do their trial, with Auril due to get home in a few hours. Or one character teleported away to face a trial alone while the rest just hang around for the best part of a week.

My plan A was to make sure everyone keeps their position on the map updated (we're playing on Roll20) so I know who does and doesn't get taken, and then after the first trial they'll know how it works.

But I'm wondering if it's better to just have the trial teleport everyone in the main room when someone opens a door. That's going to be bad news for the awakened walrus who wasn't looking to take on any trials, but I don't think bringing him along will actually invalidate any of the trials.