Arctic Wilderness SURVIVAL | Icewind Dale DM Guide 

👇 This DM Guide moved from Patreon to DMs Guild! ✨ Complete DM Guide PDF: www.dmsguild.com/product/421704?affiliate_id=1987166 ▶️ Icewind Dale DM Guide Videos: ru-vid.com/group/PL1lMCvJ_l52Wg1IRW__ES0osVXGHv3AgM 📜 Arctic of the Forgotten Realms: www.dmsguild.com/product/310184?affiliate_id=1987166

I can say as a fact, at -40 degrees, there is no such thing as thin ice unless it has warmer, moving water beneath it. And that doesn't happen often at that cold of temperatures

Hold on. "Ice isn't difficult to walk on?" Yes, it is. You absolutely have to move half speed to not fall on your ass.

Correction around 8:30 -- The probability of an avalanche happening is just the inverse probability of it not happening. So after 4 hours there's only a 68% chance of an avalanche. You'd have to travel 8 hours to get up to a 90% chance.

I randomly stumbled across your channel. It's nice when youtube recommends something nice for a change. Good stuff!

This is super helpful, thank you! I’m not running Icewind Dale but I am going to run a short arctic homebrew game. This is just what I needed.

Regarding moving only 4 hours a day, you're forgetting that the aurora also provides dim illumination, and the aurora happens every day starting at midnight and lasting "several hours." How a DM chooses to interpret "several" is up to them, but I put it up to my party and they said several hours means 6, so they can actually have 6 hours of uninterrupted travel if they ignore the clocks, or 10 hours if they break it up and take their long rests in the afternoon.

So pumped for Rime of the Frostmaiden! Arctic survival is one of those things that I think is easy to do poorly, and will make it easy to skip; which is a shame. The icy atmosphere is something I really like, so I think this series will be an invaluable resource for me to run it in a couple months. So, thanks!

This video was super helpful! Thank you Bob, I can't wait to see more of Icewind dale

I am DMing for the first time with this book this weekend!!!

I'm dming Rime in a club run out of a local store - I have trouble concentrating to read the book sometimes, plus I'm a new DM, so you're reading out these sections and additional commentary is so helpful

Chose this as my first campaign to DM. Hope I can keep my DM entertained as he did for me these past few years.

Thank you so much for this. Having to search things on different books at the same time is a chore. I'm glad you're willing to do this work for the rest of ud

Ah, I'm getting Don't Starve and The Long Dark flashbacks already!

Wow, thank you! This is brilliant!

this was amazing, just what i needed

3:05 so you bring up a good point. On CR (Yeah i know) Mighty Nein recently had hold their breath. Matt had determined by their con mod how long they could last in the non Breathable area. So i agree, Con mod should determine how long a player can survive (+1=1round or 1min)

I was going to post the whole cold shock response thing ,but I saw it was your post on reddit that got that reply, hah! People check out that reddit thread linked by Bob in the first comment, there's an excellent reply about cold shock and how to handle frigid water, 100% worth it!

Great video! If I'm honest I never really thought about how awesome an Artic campaign could be until I found this channel. You've completely inspired me to try and run one!

Avalanche: Druid wild shapes into a giant badger which can tunnel out of snow and can sniff around to find anyone still buried in the snow. Also have characters tied together and each person has a 30 to 50 foot length of rope tied to their body so if the are under the snow the rope may still be exposed on the surface. Makes finding them easier. When crossing thin ice remove pack and drag it by rope behind you. Walk with your 10 foot pole in both hands. If you fall through the ice the odds are the hole will be just about your size and the pole should stop you from falling under the ice and keep your head above water./

This was really helpful glad I watched it thank you.

Thank you very much! I have my session the friday, this arrived at perfect time

Small size Ranger with a dog companion so it would be ok to rule them only needing 1 dog to pull sounds amazing.

Outstanding Guide! Getting ready to run this Campaign and your videos are excellent

Awesome! Thank you so much!

Red dragonborn ranger with cold weather clothing would probably be good in this, good at survival in the area, can use firebreath to get out of being buried or to heat up

Excellent guide. Thank you

Excellent content! Picked up the seemingly daunting book to plan the campaign. This really helps!

I like the modification for getting caught in avalanches. Thanks!

Just found you Bob! I got Icewind Dale for Christmas this year and it's nice to compare the ideas you have to what I have as a way to make this campaign really work. My girlfriend plays the ranger in my party and oh boy is that and important class to have.

I'm going to be running this is a couple months for some returning 4e veterans and this series is definitely going to help me run a published adventure

Love this! I’m looking to pick up ice wind dale when I can afford it and I’m really looking forward to using your videos to help me run the icy, hostile atmosphere.

Great video! Honestly you keep getting better and better at this. Camera, audio, editing are on point now. Content is excellent as always. Your channel makes me glad RU-vid is free lol

Yay! Finally rangers get a chance to shine and prove their worth! #goRangers

just discovered your channel and this video was super instructive those ideas are great and adapt really well to my DM Style. This video is relly well documented and well presented . i subscribed

Nicely done sir you have earned a like

Geezer here... Having lived on the tundra.. North coast of Alaska.... I have some real life experience. Arctic adventure.. It's a game so ok.. There is magic so use it or stay some place warm... Game on.

I love it! Easy to understand and a clear voice for a german potato like me :D

The thing that I find strange is that while there is a rule for Extreme Cold, the party is given cold weather gear at the beginning of the campaign. I believe the book also states that this cold weather gear does not impact the PC's ability to wear their normal armor as well. So what's the point of even having the Extreme Cold check if the characters always succeed by default?

Some great pointers here, I really need to put all of these weather effects into one place because as you say, it is jumping around books to find them. I don't want to skimp on them, as they are absolutely part of the adventure. I am leaning towards encouraging my players in creation towards not skimping on CON in particular, but also STR.

you the man

Great video. But your party shouldn't be doing mountain travel at level 1. It's recommended in the adventure for them to be level 4 before heading out. So they're a little more rare

Love the video! I'll be a player in this campaign and try to avoid story spoilers. I'd love it if you put a warning in the video or the description about spoilers, and a time stamp to skip ahead to continue the rest of the video. (I know that there aren't spoilers in this video, this is about future upload).

perfect time for a triton ranger!

The problem with walking on ice is that there are a large variety in the amount of friction it has. Typically the most dangerous ice is formed in sudden temperature changes, as in the liquid water forms a more polished form of ice. Due to the temperatures of this region, this kind of 'polished ice' should be rare. I would reserve that for encounters where a mage starts throwing around firebolts or later, fireballs.

I think i would like cold weather clothing to instead of just neging the cold check, maybe only making it be roled every 4-6 hours and decreasing the dc to 5-con. that way you still have the feeling of being worn down by the cold weather and that the cloths are helping, but not completely negating, this threat. so every day you roll twice. This also gives you incentive to find shelter in the blizzard.

nice video bob. maybe you got hippothermia because your constitution score was 2. btw you are awesome

I'm preparing my upcoming northern survival campaign so these videos are super useful! I noticed the "Amarune's Almanac: Arctics of the Realms" in in the comments. Have you been a part of creating that document?

Any ice fishing I've done is with the smallest hole you can pull a fish through, can't imagine how a strong yank on the line would pull a big adventurer through a small hole - Santa Claus style.

I’m making a note for myself when I walk through these rules with my players. Skip 6:00 to 6:45

Hi there. My name is Baard. I am having my first DM-session next week. Just wanted you to know that I am relying on these videos. This stuff is great! :D Lest I accidentally kill all my players :/

Funny fact. The effects of hypothermia tend to take about an hour to manifest. The first minute of cold water exposure's risk is based on keeping your breath under control and avoiding inhaling water. The next 10 minutes is your last moments of meaningful movement before muscles start to shut down. So theoretically, being immersed in water for 10 minutes for the average person, if they are out of the water and treated in time, is not going to cause hypothermia. It is a risk, for sure.. But not as common as some think for short periods of immersion in cold water!

for the avelanche role - why not get the whole party make a check and take the highest role as the group's role?

Icewind Dale sounds like an ideal place to use Prestidigitation to keep your socks and underpants warm, and making warm drinks.

We need magical avalanche beacons!

That moment when you read all of the stuff in the module and go, “yea I’ll just rule it like actual Greenlandic winter” x) If anyone wants a couple of things that are just wrong with the module: it gets quite bright at midday even in December as long as you’re not too far north of the Arctic circle, since the snow amplifies the light by a lot. I oftentimes get my sunglasses out in December… so yea. The movement speeds are all wrong. The snowshoe movement is fairly accurate, but without snowshoes you will be moving at snails pace, unless, maybe, it’s been a long time since the last snowfall, and the top of the snow is iced over from wind. and travelling on a sled is much faster than they make it, and they also don’t need to rest every hour. You do however typically use 4-8 dogs for a sled, depending on the region… And then there’s the blizzard thing… in midwinter, the weather tends to be very stable and calm, especially the further north you go. The northern Arctic is essentially a desert, with parts of Greenland getting the same precipitation as in the Sahara. Not gonna be a lot of blizzards, I promise. You do get whiteouts, but they’re not that common in the coldest parts of the year, and since it’s been really cold for two years straight I’d imagine even less so. What DOES happen however is katabatic winds from the icecap, though the severity of these are highly regional. In east Greenland wind speeds can reach those of class 4 or 5 hurricanes. Maybe just as scary is how warm they can be, raising the temperatures upwards of 20 degrees. A couple of years ago one such wind cause the removal of all the snow on an entire mountain, something that would have been catastrophic if there had been people nearby. And it leaves the snow surface totally iced over as the top layer recrystallises when the wind is gone. Really, really annoying to ski on, since, even with metal rims, you can’t find purchase in the snow, leaving you skidding across it rather uncontrolled, particularly downhill. Must be an easier surface for people travelling with snowshoes though x)

I was thinking about taking the cold resist auto succeeds the Saving Throw rule out. The pc could keep it for damage resistance, but i feel the auto succeed would take the danger out of the harsh arctic setting. Also, with cold weather clothing, if it got damaged (torn, ripped, burned, etc) they could roll the check with advantage, or normal, depending on the severity of the damage to the clothing. If a character has the proper tools, they could repair the clothing. I want a sense of danger during the exploration outside of combat. What do you guys think?

Hi Bob, I am a new DM playing with friends. I have a question: how do you remember all of this when playing/ how do you make these rules easy to access when required. Your visa are great thanks!

Bob, your math is a bit off. If there's a 25% chance of avalanche each hour, then traveling four hours doesn't guarantee an avalanche. The chance of at least one avalanche in four hours is ~70%. Still quite high, but not guaranteed. Loved the vid - new sub!

For the avalanche stuff, even 5% seems too high given how deadly an avalanche is. Idk about dnd, but irl you can't usually outrun an avalanche. You basically have to get above it or out of the way. I'd say a nat 1 produces a "very bad effect" on a table with six options. Roll 1d6 and if you get a 1, avalanche. 1/120 seems far more reasonable to me. Failure by 5 or more that isn't a nat 1 gets a slightly less awful table etc etc. I like tables, can't you tell?

Just started running this campaign, session 0 in 2 weeks, so excited. Is this safe to show PCs? any spoilers?

👍

Hi Bob, don’t you think the purpose of COLD weather falls utterly short with the clothing the party get? I didn’t see any purpose of survival in this campaign if they never going to fear the cold or at least ridiculously rarely. Thx for your opinion upfront

Early squad, who here?🙏🏻🙏🏻

This is one of the times I feel like wotc, when putting something in the game like avalanches, should have done research into how people would have likely handled it, how difficult it would be, given us that information in the book they are making and adjust the likelihood of it happening so it wouldn't regularly create a total party kill. I can understand how traveling around in the wilderness on snowy hills could regularly cause avalanches but people do know what to look for so I'm sure people in medieval times would have figured some of this out. Nah, we're given some pitifully basic rule that doesn't seem balanced at all and make the game master figure it out.

Geezer here. Ok, so first. I know it is a game and so we toss realism to the 4 winds for heroic saga. That said the view on artic explorations from someone that lived on the tundra for a year can be found on WorldAnvil.com. The world is EhvarWyn and from the home page the article is under "some considerations of world and play"... I titled it.... Adventuring in the Arctic.... Um Antarctic... (My setting is southern hemisphere.) As for your vid, great job. As for the rules... Temp is about right That saving throw stuff is nonsense. Sorry unprotected you dead. I would go a save every 10 minutes, DC 15 and allow a con modifier. Lets be gracious, its a game. My home brew has 10 levels of exhaustion by the way. Magic Aside, no recovery until your in shelter maybe 1 level recovered per day. As for cold weather gear... yep ya need it. Should allow a auto success. If worn with armor.. Remember the movie, You will not be able to put your arms up. But give it a good AC value of chain mail. Crampons are cool, had an experience putting down a feral dog with boot gripers. Thin Ice???? Um, yeah if you can find it. Basically where I was at we got little bits of ice in the ocean. A month later they took a dc10 (bulldozer) out and carved a road across the bay. Frigid Water, you dead. Giving characters their con score in ROUNDS would be gracious. Raise that DC to 15. As you mention later. This effect continues with wet clothes. So they would need to be rushed to shelter and striped down and warmed up. Snow Shoes, really those are for mountains and southerners. They distribute weight, and in mountains or across deep snow are truly a must have. In the artic those cold weather boots (my old air force issue "bunny boots" were good to 40 bellow (if you kept your toes moving!) and with Sears (it used to be a retail chain kids) battery powered socks I walked a few miles at 50 some bellow with 70 mph gusts. If in deep snow or say trotting over treacherous ice.. allow a bonus to saves against falling in or being pinned. Ice Fishing.... OHHHHHHtay. Ice will be 6-12 feet thick. Foraging Fact. Native people hunted when they could, fished and so on. But once the ice comes, ice fishing is the only option beyond luck. If your talking artic. Anything that leaves tracks is a VBBBigBad. Tracking is out. They hunting parties know the migration and shelter spots. Nothing man sized or smaller will leave tracks that last. If we want to be gracious, call it some minus to tracking. Gone by morning is a good rule of thumb. That food weight I will not argue or agree with. Must point out eating snow/ice will not replace drinking water, it will make you dead. Hypothermia from the inside out. Going without food. NO WAY. Burning calories is what keeps you alive. Characters should have a level of exhaustion per day without it. No con mods or otherwise and recovery to be gracious. One day with food, resting would recover 1 level. Not a 5e player so I would let the rules run on travel times. Avalances.... OHHHHH My..... Arctic or not. They kill you dead. Remember what causes them, GRAVITY. Snow and ice build up, reach the tipping point. It all comes roaring down. If the party is actually in a traveled area, like someone uses the road. Chance would only be after a good build up, say once a month in that valley/area. But chances are good that someone will put the question to rest. Real world approach. Trigger the thing before it kills people. Now for actual wilderness. OUCH. Sssssusss. Even a loud noise can make it happen. Seriously firing a crossbow bolt or whipping a sling stone at some spots could trigger one. Years back I got a table to take it seriously when they used a lightning bolt to end a combat quick. The result was an avalanche. I would say check only once per day. Daylight. Those stats are not for full artic, let them slide. Yea, find the guy covered over in an avalanche. Yeah, magic. Blizzards.... Hearing limited to 10 feet. Visibility as well and those are gracious. A storm of note, like 3 to 6 times a year. means both reduced to 0. If you must go outside, hope the chain isn't broke and you do not loose hold of it. Ranged attacks are out. Fire blind is the best they can hope for. Anything not a firearm is a waste of time. Maybe a ballista, with dumb blind luck. Wandering out in the storm, is wandering out in a random direction to DIE. No wiz mod.. I know its only a game. Don't get me wrong, it is a challenging setting at the least. Natives are not all high level types by far. They do however work together. They are among the most hard working and loyal friends anyone could hope to have. A bit of final advice. Do NOT murder hobo, or in anyway else offend. A threat to the Tribe is one that MUST and WILL DIE.

Math correction: Advantage is +3.325, not +5.

Pretty good series, but I liked this one because of the "Is this guy from California?" extreme weather house rules. As you can tell from the comments section, folks from Canada and the American Midwest eat that stuff up. But like, this is a game, not a real life simulator, so your rules are fine .

I'd like to run this module but all these wilderness rules seem very annoying to my friends and we want to simplify things much much more and basically skim over the adventuring / wilderness stuff - how can we do that, BUT still have the environment play some role / disadvantage to the party?

Have to disagree about ice not being difficult terrain. I know first hand that it indeed slows one down tremendously.

Geezer here... Ok so in my opinion, artic is high level with magic only. Not saying all the natives are super powered. But, if you aren't from these parts you are asking to die. For game mechanics... Travel on foot gives you 1 level of exhaustion per 4 hour period in my homebrew. I use 10 levels of exhaustion so maybe 1 level per day. No food, that will be 1 level of exhaustion per day going with out food. Water... sure it is almost everywhere... but must be thawed. Artic or not, eat ice and your core temp drops... then you die. Hunting happens during a season, often less than 2 weeks. That is for land based critters. Remember cold will kill ya. Check out a piece for general thoughts... www.worldanvil.com/w/ehvarwyn-geezer/a/adventuring-in-the-arctic-um-antarctic-article

"ice isn't THAT difficult to walk on." As someone who comes from a frozen-shithole, I disagree, especially if it's bumpy/wavy(not having a flat surface means nothing to grip onto) or on a slope. Maybe add different levels of slippery ice where you have to reduce your speed more to not fall prone and even some where crampons only give advantage on the check instead. Trust me, wearing spikes doesn't save you from falling on your face every time, I know from experience.

"Ice isnt hard to walk on" are you high or never seen snow and ice?? Its slippery as hell, thin or thick ice its impossible to walk on normally.

Cold Weather Clothing is another great example of just how lazy the writing is for this adventure. No penalty for being worn with armour? And yet Padded Armour gives you Disadvantage on Stealth checks.

You are ignoring the possibility that you have Con score of 5

A dog sled weights 300 lbs? really? I don't think so or you're going to need a whole lot of dogs...

The con vs frigid temps thing is total BS. An ice bath for 30 seconds is MISERABLE. There's NO WAY a person could make it that long, up to 18 minutes.