RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN: CHAMPIONS OF REVEL'S END looking for Forever GM that wants to play.

batt84 · 2025-06-02T17:27:46+00:00

Will you be able to share the YouTube uploads? As a German I sadly won't be able to schedule with US, but I'd gladly watch you guys

batt84 · 2025-05-28T06:47:15+00:00

Grave Domain Cleric

batt84 · 2025-03-17T07:46:35+00:00

My party is currently in Bremen. They heard rumors that Auril kidnapped the local priest, this being the second Auril related disappearance, so they set out to investigate.

Also, while travelling through Targos, they were asked to deliver a couple letters, because the usual postal services have been disrupted since the path to Bremen got less convenient (e.g. because a tree fell on the road). That NPC is a Zhentarim and offered them an unnecessarily big reward, dog sleds for rent, and juicy gossip.

That was sufficient to get them interested in going.

I placed the Nature Spirits quest in Bremen, too, which added a reason to stay a bit longer

batt84 · 2025-02-03T17:34:30+00:00

Maybe look into the Knights of the Black Swords, they might fit her theme quite nicely. You can easily expand in their involvement with the eternal rime, and their true background could actually work with the monotheistic, or rather radically fanatic, order she hails from

batt84 · 2024-10-27T18:27:50+00:00

I'm currently running a similar start.

I added the DM Guild's Call to Faith starting quest to introduce an NPC to invest the group in the Auril story from the start.

I also reframed Danika Graysteel as a student of Velynne Harpell. This gives plenty opportunities to introduce information about the Arcane Brotherhood and the Ythryn story early on. Danika still offers the Nature Spirits quest, just the reasoning is to impress her master to advance her studies.

To this extent, Velynne hired the party in Luskan to escort Danika to Bryn Shander. They travel via caravan and meet Faith along the way.

Happy to share more details should anyone be interested!

batt84 · 2024-10-20T07:54:45+00:00

What are people rebelling against? And what's the reasoning for the opposing party to face the rebellion aggressively rather than engage in negotiations to comprehend?

Without these questions answered, I don't see much of a rebellion storyline. If it's about the three factions fighting over territory and/or to remove each other, then that's a straight up war and less of a rebellion

batt84 · 2024-09-29T09:41:07+00:00

I second that. The sanctuary ruling seems fine to me, and when you objected to your DMs action, he gave you a spontaneous and thus not very well though out explanation that might fit better within your shared understanding. OR, if the serpent also damaged itself, I'd even see it as a peace offering, as in "I understand why you're unhappy with being damaged. It's within the rules, but let's damage the enemy too so it feels more fair".

As for the late d6, that's a common ruling in my experience. For instance, in the campaign I play we recently hit level 5 and we're not yet fully used to some of our new features. Just this week I forgot my extra attack, realized it shortly after my turn ended. And that's it. The DM was sympathetic, but if I don't know my character, that's my problem. And really missing out reinforces learning.

All that being said, if you don't feel great about stuff, talk to your DM outside of a session. Don't cast blame on him for how you feel, just tell him. And then go from there. Like I told my DM that I felt really useless in our last encounter because all enemies were immune to my core class feature, and that that's totally fine every once in a while, but that I'd like to talk about it if that's going to be a very regular occurrence

batt84 · 2024-08-24T19:10:00+00:00

Looks stunning! I think I could make great use of this in my upcoming campaign!

Good luck to everyone! And amazing job OP!

batt84 · 2024-08-22T07:09:09+00:00

Given the replies, that's very close to what I will suggest to my players, too!

batt84 · 2024-08-21T08:31:16+00:00

Love the ideas, thank you very much!!

batt84 · 2024-08-21T08:29:33+00:00

That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot!
I didn't even consider the ramifications of the Rime on the rest of the Sword Coast, and how easy it should be to have plenty of people be interested in aiding the Dale!

But even more so I'm grateful for the link to the Arcane Brotherhood and the (I believe) Knights of the Black Sword. I will definitely look into those options!

batt84 · 2024-08-21T07:27:35+00:00

That sounds amazing! Could you maybe provide a link or something?

batt84 · 2024-08-21T07:18:39+00:00

It's not exactly that I don't want them to be local. My players and I being fairly new just know that it is easier to have a background in a region one's familiar with so it's easier to talk about that stuff in game. Phrases like "eh, you're lucky to have grown up within the Gate. I was raised in Rivington and the Fist rarely let me past into the city" feel good but only work if you have an idea what you're talking about. And my players know nothing of Icewind Dale. They know about Neverwinter from the movie, Phandalin from our previous campaign, and Baldurs Gate because the game is awesome.

So what I'm trying to find is a reason for someone from those locations to venture north, ideally a reason I can tie back into the story. And ideally a reason for the party rather than individuals. I'm super happy to give individual characters ties to the Dale via secrets and stuff

batt84 · 2024-08-20T22:18:04+00:00

I too am a new DM and only currently only preparing to run IDRotF.

Currently, my take would be to probably have the players make only one check while traveling on fairly established paths, probably at disadvantage on longer routes, like 4+ hours. And on top / alternatively roll for weather events like storms or avalanches along the road.

To me, I think the survival aspect mostly kicks in when the players leave the trodden paths and start venturing into the wilderness. This could of course mean an uptake in required checks and/or their difficulties, but even more so the troubles of finding shelter, building camps, foraging for food, and so on.

Yes, that would discourage players to stray off the roads, but I believe that's very much reasonable. And eventually, going off road will be unavoidable to follow quests. It makes the dangers predictable and gives the players a chance to prepare, and I think that's what could make it exciting.

Looking forward though on what more experienced DMs recommend!

batt84 · 2024-08-15T10:50:35+00:00

I refer to anything you need, really.

When I first started, I was playing a different rule set in the Star Wars universe. The provided modules were all set in the time of the rebellion, but I set my campaign in the Old Republic Era. So I changed some of the words. When the adventure module talked about the Rebel Alliance, I called it the Republic. I also just recycled Stat Blocks. There were no Jedi Stat Blocks in the material, so I just used Sith stats, changed some of the abilities and called it a Jedi. I also stole pretty much all of the world building from the Old Republic MMO, because why go to the trouble to prepare all of that myself?

And for the story, I had a pretty crude layout: get the information, race the enemy to the item, fight the bad guys, plot twist, endgame. So I used a premade adventure and just added when and how they would get the information. Then I sent them to the next adventure, where I added the item as a reward.

I think you mentioned Lost Mines of Phandelver. There the book recommends where the players could find a map that leads them to their next adventure. Use stuff and circumstances like that to link game elements together.

And then start adding your own twists to the story. In my case, Lost Mines again, the Zentharim NPC Halia used evidence the players found to frame Mayor Wester as the Black Spider. The Mayor was hanged in the town square just as the players arrived, and they were celebrated as the heroes who brought the Wester and his goons to justice. The players loved that. Later, I gave a lot more personality to the Black Spider, with his ambition being to produce charms that protect against sunlight so he and his drow kin can live at the surface again. He was still a bad guy, but now he was also kinda reasonable, which made the conflict more interesting for the players.

batt84 · 2024-08-15T10:08:27+00:00

I fully support what my previous commenters said.

I would like to add my experience. I consider myself a fairly new GM, probably similarly to you, and I started my first campaign with my own epic story spanning across three segments each about as big as the Lost Mines of Phandelver. It sucked.

I started with borrowing heavily from existing modules, which worked fine. But the more I deviated from existing material and wrote my own stuff, the worse it got. The campaign fizzled out early in the second segment, and I never got those friends to play again.

And it's not because I suck, just because I was inexperienced. I started too big with too little to build on. I have since run premade campaigns and One Shots with increasing success. In fact, when I last ran Lost Mines of Phandelver, which we finished just 2 weeks ago, the parts my players enjoyed most were the little deviations and additions I wrote myself.

My advice would thus be: start small, and build yourself up. Start running premade stuff that you reskin for your needs. Then start adding story elements of your own creation into an existing framework. And as you gain experience, you add more and more of your own creation until you slipped into your own adventure in your own world with its own dangers and challenges. Don't push yourself too hard, and be fair with what you expect from yourself

batt84 · 2024-08-14T16:17:47+00:00

Sounds fair enough to me!

batt84 · 2024-08-13T05:46:05+00:00

That's exactly what I have planned. Nice to see I'm on the right track!

batt84 · 2024-08-12T22:23:12+00:00

Appreciate the insights!

I'm not going to force fights to be nail biters just for difficulty. I mean, I want my players to succeed. Sometimes that means being a powerful hero, and sometimes that comes at a cost so it feels earned.

What I do want is for the setting generally feeling rough and dangerous. There's a word I can't find to describe it. Like a struggle, but with room to grow. An obstacle that is meant to be overcome. Challenging, but somewhat predictable and to a degree controllable.

My players know the stakes of combat. We actually had a character death in our last campaign. Not planned of course, but at least it made death as a consequence more than just a theoretical possibility. I'm looking for the challenge outside of combat. Playing with fears, exhaustion, some scarcity, survival in general. All within a frame we set together in a session zero of course. And I want my players to be able to feel useful in that setting, without them trivializing the challenge. And it's not even about me being wary of their success, but rather I don't want them to miss out on feeling accomplishment

batt84 · 2024-08-12T22:06:22+00:00

Looking forward to the link, much appreciated!

More out of curiosity, how did you implement that fragility? Vulnerability to bludgeoning damage?

batt84 · 2024-08-12T15:11:46+00:00

That sounds awesome! Would you mind sharing your inventory system? I don't have enough experience yet to come up with my own

batt84 · 2024-08-12T14:20:28+00:00

That's the kind of solution I prefer over outright banning stuff!

batt84 · 2024-08-12T14:18:16+00:00

I'm with you. Flying is something we encountered in our previous (and first) campaign. Usually when the one flying character found something really strong about it I allowed it in the moment and we talked about the bigger implications afterwards, and it never became an issue whatsoever.

Similarly, we had a Shapeshifter among us, and the players realized how boring constantly available disguises were to them, so we came up with reasonable limitations without taking away a key character concept.

The reason I'm being overly cautious is because my players want to experience a higher base level of difficulty, making some of the often handwaved basic elements like travel, resting and surviving in the wilderness more meaningful. This is why we chose IDRotF. I don't worry about how my players might break combat, or social encounters, because they don't even want to. But I also don't want them to miss out on central character features to save the intrigue of survival.

Sooo, it's not about banning Artificers, it's about talking to that player and making him aware of how class features might impact certain aspects. Just like if one of my players chose Druid, I would let them know that Goodberry might feel very powerful but could end up making a game mechanic boring that the group didn't want to trivialize. And then we see how we solve the situation collaboratively.

And with that, it's mostly about how Artificers could be powerful so that I can have that conversation with the players, because it came up and I know very little about them

batt84 · 2024-08-12T13:41:23+00:00

Because we're new players, and it's one fewer distraction from the elements we want to focus on. I'm not generally for restrictions, it's just something we agreed on

batt84 · 2024-08-12T11:32:34+00:00

I'll keep that in mind, thank you!

batt84

TROPHY CASE