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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6544718" data-attributes="member: 2067">For me, the first major decision would be how big a deal do I want cold weather stuff to be?Do I want it to be background stuff that changes appearance but little else? Do I want it to be an occasional risk for the careless or unlucky? Do I want it to be something the party spends some time on each session? Do I want it to be a constant threat of death? Or a special kind of encounter? If it is to be the focus of 20 levels of gameplay, I'd say that it should be mostly a background event - people know how to get from place to place in cold weather, and the PC's can benefit from that (typically, I imagine, cold weather gear). I'd have extreme cold, snowstorms, etc. as significant weather events, and those I'd treat something like traps (setback, dangerous, or deadly in risk), probably. Like, being exposed to a snowstorm when you travel over land deals setback trap damage if folks fail a DC 14 Constitution save or something. Party members might make a skill check to help prevent the party from having to make that check, much like how Perception can prevent people from stumbling into a trap (Survival and Nature would be the go-to skills here). Poor weather won't be any more common here than it would be in any other campaign though - cold snaps like thunderstorms, blizzards like tornadoes, etc. I'd probably read up on <a href="http://www.dndclassics.com/product/1449/Frostburn-35?term=frost&it=1" target="_blank">Frostburn</a> a bit to get things like terrain ideas and monster ideas and the like. As for damage types, I might rule that it's easier to use cold magic. Maybe cold damage is automatically empowered up here (especially during weather events), allowing you to re-roll 1's and 2's when you deal it. That would make it attractive if you didn't have a reason NOT to use it, and against most humanoids and beasts and whatnot, there'd be no real strong reason not to use it. Fire might suffer from the inverse - you have to re-roll whenever you roll max damage on a die. Again, gives you a reason NOT to use it, but it won't curb the double damage very much, so it's still worth using it when you can exploit it. Rather than cold resistance, I think I'd let the monster equivalent of "winter gear" percolate out - heavy pelts, warm fur, layers of fat, etc, make you resistant to the temperature, but not necessarily to damage. I'd probably stick with a "magic items aren't really available for purchase" mantra. So those boots will be really useful...if you find them in the hoard...but who know what you'll find, and you can't presume that you'll get it, or that cities will have it. As a campaign setting, rather than just a one-off "adventures in the great wastes!" kind of quest, I'd probably treat the cold just as the natives would - just a thing you need to take into account when you're traveling. You bring oil for fire, you bring warm clothes and blankets, you avoid thin ice...people walk to and fro every day without dying suddenly of exposure, hunters and farmers do it without batting an eye, it shouldn't be a big deal for the PC's to avoid the basic level of cold that is ubiquitous if they're natives as well.</blockquote>

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