Snow, Ice, and Mountains

[Samloyal23]

So I am building a prestige class and do not want to re-invent the wheel as it were. What kind of rules are there for moving on snow and ice? The class I am trying to build will be a mountain and forest protector used to surviving in winter and using skis, skates, and snow shoes. Any suggestions are welcome...

 

[Mark CMG]

Start with a Druid / Ranger / Barbarian mix? Or make the Prestige Class prerequisites need to come from two or three of those classes?

 

[Celebrim]

The class I am trying to build will be a mountain and forest protector used to surviving in winter and using skis, skates, and snow shoes. Any suggestions are welcome...

Frostburn has very brief mention of such equipment but nothing substantial or which lends itself to modification since none of it is scaled by any ability.

In general the environmental books had no play testing to speak of and the rules within should be used sparingly if at all. The rules compendium at the end of the 3.5 life cycle is a better place to look, as they tended to clean up environmental effects.

As for the concept, I'm skeptical that you can make "specializes in movement in snowy environments" into anything particularly useful. I don't like prestige classes to begin with, but one that seems primarily focused on skill monkey stuff and which is ultimately an inherently more narrow version of what would itself be a marginal concept - great at moving in wildernesses of all sorts - seems unlikely to be balanced with the rest of 3.5 brokenness.

Basically, you are making a Ranger with a favored terrain. I'd look at the path finder rules.

 

[Samloyal23]

Well, I am trying to create a class based on folklore about magic dwarves that skiid with their oversized feet and warned people about avalanches, helped lost hikers, found lost sheep, that sort of thing. They lived in the mountains and dense forests. So I thought, they are based on mistaken accounts of dwarven scouts. It fits my setting to have an elite winter/mountain guard class...

 

[Celebrim]

Well, I am trying to create a class based on folklore about magic dwarves that skiid with their oversized feet and warned people about avalanches, helped lost hikers, found lost sheep, that sort of thing. They lived in the mountains and dense forests. So I thought, they are based on mistaken accounts of dwarven scouts. It fits my setting to have an elite winter/mountain guard class...

Sure, I get all that. But the thing is, warning people about avalanches, helping lost hikers, finding lost sheep, using snow shoes, skiing down mountains, and that sort of thing is things that real people can do. So what you are talking about is mostly stuff a competent 3rd level character can do, and certainly a 6th level character can perform heroically.

For a prestige class to be really meaningful, you have to be talking about things that super-heroes can do. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything this concept can do that isn't just a specialized Ranger.

 

[was]

There's a 3.5 book that's good for this called Frostburn.

 

[Samloyal23]

There's a 3.5 book that's good for this called Frostburn.

Yeah, I need that and Stormwrack...

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, I need that and Stormwrack...

Don't expect too much. The environmental books in theory addressed a huge hole in the rules, and were cool looking but in practice I didn't find much of anything of value in them. Play testing was probably non-existent. The environmental rules themselves are too fiddly to use in play - IIRC the desert one implies 6 survival checks every 10 minutes of game time at different DC's with different consequences. All the books are in my opinion hampered by the fact that instead of being about hot environments, or cold environments, or wet environments, they spend a large amount of their time on Dreadful magical environments that are too tailored to a trope campaign - in Frostburn its a world where the snow is made of magical acid that burns you as well as freezes you. Additionally, all address something DM focused - wilderness adventuring - but are bloated with a lot of ill-considered untested player material, particularly in the area of Prestige Classes, on the theory that this sells them to a wider audience.

The amount Frostburn has on using skis, snow shoes, and skates could literally fill a single paragraph.

As far as making a PrC out of the concept of 'alpine superhero', I think you'll need to basically strip 10 levels of pathfinder ranger down to the essentials that pertain to the concept (say levels 7-16) focusing on the terrain specialization, and then add in some extraordinary supernatural abilities that are flavored as the result of the characters extreme familiarity with the environment - advantages when fighting at different elevations (except against individuals with the same class), cold resistance that increases with class level, once per day remote sensing when in alpine areas, once per day merge with ice, once per day weather control in alpine areas, once per day cause an avalanche with a successful attack on the terrain, once per day summon an ice paraelemental when in an icy or snow covered area, etc.

 

[gamerprinter]

If I were building some kind of arctic weather PrC, I might include movement advantages as a single class feature - one of five to 10 other things that fit the schtick, and only a minor one. This PrC would have to do something else, that is more mechanically advantageous than reduced travel restrictions over snow and ice. Since I don't known your campaign, players, setting, etc. I have no guess as to what those other abilities would be.

 

[Samloyal23]

The 3.5 SRD does not have any definitive rules on movement over snow or ice that I can see. Skiing and skating should be skills and using snow shoes should provide better movement over snowy terrain. I am going to give my class bonuses for spotting avalanches, seeing in bad weather, and surviving at high altitude. Hmm...