A video guide for the quest "Lake Monster" in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. ------------ Follow Me On ------------ Twitch: / steelysam Twitter: / steelysam Discord: / discord
If a character would hook some trouts during the fishing and would be dragged from the boat into the water. As a DM, say: "all of the sudden, just for a brief moment while swim-kicking your legs..., you felt something touching your feet" ...
I ran this last week and what I found was that if your players engage in combat with the monster, at about half health let the monster beg for mercy in common. It freaked out my party and created an interesting social encounter as they were more hesitant to attack it.
What would you estimate the risk of the boat capsizing or sinking be? To me that seems to be the biggest threat to the party as the freezing water can easily kill them and you can’t dry off while stuck in the middle of the lake on a sunken boat.
@@noahholderman5725 The lake monster does 3d6 + 4 on a hit against the boat, if it destroys a boat (something like 3-5 rounds) a party member will probably die unless the DM gives them some way to get out of the freezing water like a block of ice or nearby shore
@@SteelySam Yeah, I’m hoping perhaps the characters split up into two boats or bring the other as a backup. Might have the NPC dwarf suggest not all cramming into one boat leaves more room for fish and fishing. That way they can hopefully swim over to the other boat and climb in, since I’m not really looking to kill the players, but I do feel like the lake monster is more inclined to attack the boat than the characters since that is its mission.
When I ran this, I used the fact that there is a lot of poverty to explain the low amount of GP for the reward. Also, it inspired the party to want to catch fish to make some kind of cash, although, after the struggles with the knucklehead trout, they stopped fishing :). I believe also that it does say that Talli says she can offer little more than her thanks, so in the introduction, I left it at that, so the 5GP was actually bonus. I did as you suggested and had an NPC challenge their bravery as a method to get them to take the quest. I love the suggestions of the role play opportunities for the lake monster! Thanks!
Love these videos, thank you for making them they're super helpful! One thing I wish this module had more of is horror elements. I feel like it was marketed as being this very horror themed story, when in actuality it seems to be much closer to a traditional DnD adventure. How its run makes a huge impact on the tone, and my players were really geared up to play a horror story. If you do quest guides in the future that have the opportunity to be run in a way that leans into that horror tone, I'd love to hear your advice for how to accomplish that!
I can't remember where I heard this idea, but allow Tali to go with the party instead of just asking the party to take notes for them. I might shift their stat block to one that can fill a role for the party for this one encounter. About to run this quest tomorrow, so I'm looking for any help on this campaign and your videos have been an incredible help!
perhaps run this as a moby dick senario. the NPC recruits the characters, maybe secretly, in order to catch the awakened creature, and the awakened creature tries to convince the players that the fisherman has been harassing him, and tries to recruit the players to his side.
my party succeeded in reasoning with "Nessy" and made a deal that 1 day a week it will eat and Bremen fishermen will not fish that day. other days the fishers can work without harassment.
Hey, I like your videos but would you not use art thats going to spoil the adventure please? I have a few players that try to avoid spoilers but look at character or lore on icewind dale. And they apologize to me for now knowing the lake monsters is Nessy lol.
A plesiosaurus is a marine reptile, not a dinosaur (yes, there is a difference!). In icy fresh water, it would freeze to death in minutes. I guess the game designers at Wizards never bothered to look that one up. This could easily be substituted with a monstrous talking fish, with the same stats.
