OSSR - Frost & Fur: The Explorer's Guide to the Frozen Lands

[deaddmwalking]

Ice Age Prestige Classes

There are no base classes and only three prestige classes: Arctic Nomad; Cryomancer, and Tunnel Runner

Arctic Nomad
You walk faster on ice, gain some bonuses to surviving in the cold, and receive a +1 bonus to Constutition four times over 10 levels.

Cryomancer
This is a divine spell-casting class intended for Adepts. Over 10 levels you get +6 levels of spellcasting (including two for the first two levels of the PrC), but you don’t get anything else until 3rd level, when you give up your first level of spellcasting for a +1 natural armor bonus to AC. At 5th level you can cast any spell as though it had the (cold) descriptor.

Tunnel Runner

This class doesn’t have anything to do with smuggling drugs

This class gives you perfect direction and the ability to walk faster in one type of underground terrain (caves and caverns are different from constructed tunnels). The save bonuses are wonky – they are +5/+6/+5 at 10th level (normally it would be +7 for good saves and +3 for bad saves). The Cryomancer is wonky too - +6/+4/+6 – I have no idea why that is the case.

That covers the best parts of the book – but I’ll do the rest anyway. The next section is equipment, followed by Skills and Feats, then Magic and Monsters and Magic Items would bring us up to the culture sections I’ve already done. There’s some stuff worth talking about in the latter sections, so expect more, just not real soon.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

I'm hoping the monster section at least has some interesting content.

[deaddmwalking]

Equipment

There’s a type of person that really enjoys the logistics challenges in D&D. When they pull out a portable ram and get their +2 bonus on opening a stuck door they get the same thrill that you probably get when the dragon fails a save-or-die on the first spell. There’s also a type of person that is basically playing Barbie Dress Up with their character. Having ‘an adventuring kit’ might be practical, but for some people having a seal-fur-lined parka versus a cold-weather outfit is meaningful – even if there isn’t a mechanical difference between them. So I heartily approve of having an equipment section. There’s a note that some of the items might represent things you build in the frozen wilderness, and that seems relevant. Let’s see how we did!

Your character would just look so darling with that pull-along carry-on of hefty capacity

We actually start out with Trade Commodities. The prices appear inflated to me. A pig (with piglets) is listed as 30 gp; in the SRD a pig is 3 gp. A guard dog in the SRD is 25 gp; a riding dog is 150 gp – in this book a regular dog is 25 gp and a sled dog is 150 gp. For the price of a cow or ox (30 gp) you could live in a ‘good inn’ for 2 weeks. This book lists a blanket as a trade good costing 1 gp but has another table where it costs 3 sp (and duplicates the entry for winter blanket from the SRD). Basically, the prices don’t make sense, but that’s 3.5 for you.

Is anyone willing to trade me 15 metric tons of gold for a Flaming Keen Scimitar of Speed +3

Items that are related to keeping warm have a listed temperature bonus (for example, +10 degrees for a normal blanket, and +20 degrees for a winter blanket. It doesn’t say what happens if you use two blankets. It bothers me that some items provide a bonus to Endurance checks to resist freezing to death (like a cold weather outfit) and some items effectively raise the ambient temperature. Tracking the exact temperature seems dumb, so items that interact with that seem also dumb.

Spoiler for size

It’s not sorcery. You can use two blankets even if you’re not actually wearing one

The Norse had a type of compass that could identify where the sun was, even on a cloudy day. This book refers to the item as a Solarsteinn and it gives you a +5 on Survival or Navigation checks. Not just Survival checks to figure out where you’re going – that’s a blanket +5 when you’re trying to find food in a desert, apparently.

There are a bunch of Shelters – a Farmhouse costs 1000 gp but raises the temperature by 50 degrees. There’s nothing about how difficult it is to build it but it can house 40 people. The descriptions of the types of dwellings that are appropriate to the various cultures get more word count so you can accurately describe an igloo. It’d be nice if we had maps of standard layouts for each type of building, but we don’t. But that’s probably just as well, because under D&D rules, you probably can’t fight in an igloo anyway. I mean, it does say it usually has a diameter of 12 feet, so you can almost get 4 full 5x5 squares…

I’m not the only one to notice that that’s a lot of space

There’s nothing about how long it takes to set up or construct a shelter – if you’re worried about that because you’re in danger of freezing to death, you will freeze to death. It didn’t include anything about burying yourself in a snowdrift to avoid freezing to death – again, a thing I know about but I don’t know enough about the frozen North or I wouldn’t have bought a book about it.

Spoiler for size

So I think having information on how long it takes to make something like this and how it benefits your chance for survival would be appropriate.

Following shelters it has transportation – mostly boats. The Longship is 10k gp in the SRD, but the Dreki (also known as a longship) is only 7,000 gp here. Even still, spending that kind of money on a boat isn’t something 3.x did well. It’s a pity. More important than the ships and sleds are probably skates and skis. Skates let you avoid a balance check every minute (presumably when traveling over ice, but it doesn’t say) and you can add any ranks you have in Survival to your balance checks. Skis let you move at normal speed over snow but take a -4 penalty to Climb/Tumble/and Swim checks.

Spoiler for size - potentially unsafe for work (bikini clad woman)

I shouldn’t criticize – a google image search seems to indicate that lots of skiers expect to go swimming…apparently in tropical waters

For weapons there is a table that takes a page and a half. Virtually every item has an exact equivalent in the SRD – or if it’s not exact the difference is probably just the price. There’s a dagger that’s just like a punching dagger (but it does slashing damage) and there is a type of 1-handed saber that deals 1d6+1 but has the same crit range as a scimitar, but because it’s not specifically listed as a finessable weapon in the Weapon Finesse description, no one will ever care. They have an axe that’s just like every other axe, but it costs 310 gp because it is jeweled. It might have been worth just talking about excessively decorated weapons outside of Masterwork weapons, but they didn’t.

Even harpoons are considered exotic weapons.

Even Inuit Fighters can’t have nice things. They need a feat for harpoons, they need skills for using their boats, and Survival isn’t even a skill

They have more armors listed than the SRD. For example, they have seven armors listed with a +1 armor bonus. The Dex bonus ranges from +5 to +8. Why would you choose Squirrel Hide Armor for a +1 AC, +8 Dex, 5% Arcane Spell Failure and a -0 Armor Check (exactly like the Padded Armor in the SRD), but pay 4x more for it?

If you guessed fetish, give yourself a prize

The only armor that is better than something you’d find in the SRD is a type of Slavic Chain (referred to as Baidana. It’s the same price, provides the same AC bonus, but has a +4 Maximum Dex (compared to +2 for regular chain) and a -2 Armor Check (compared to the -5 for regular chain). That would make it an attractive candidate for making a mithral version.

We didn’t get any kinds of explanations for what type of equipment is appropriate for climbing glaciers, or helping us survive in the snow. We didn’t even get anything about Eskimo sunglasses.

I know there’s someone out there that bought this book just so he could justify wearing something like that in character. Not me – I swear!

They do have a picture of one! It’s with sketches of all the armors. It even has a numerical entry (11) that refers to a sun-visor. But I can’t find anything else about it – it’s not in the Index and not listed on the way-too-expansive Table of Contents.

[deaddmwalking]

Skills & Feats
Since this is a 3.5 book, we always have a chapter of Feats. This one also has new skills, but you don’t care because you don’t get more skill points and you can’t afford to buy the skills in Core that you already wanted. It has a few suggestions for modifying existing skills. For those who want to know what’s been happening with the fiction the Eskimos were starving, their young men went to fight the not-Russians, they were all captured, and now the old people have to surrender their wives to the not-Russians so they can hold them prisoner and force the old men to hunt on their behalf.

Appraise now lets you determine how much meat is on a creature – and it’s value.

When you’re hungry enough, anything is food. When you’re hungry enough, no cost is too high

Craft (Alchemy) includes three new alchemical items; one provides a +4 bonus to resist cold, one lets you not die when you freeze to death (but someone has to revive you in a warm place and you might die anyway), and something that does +1 fire damage after it gets wet (including by cutting someone with blood). The costs of the items are too high for what they do. Five ranks in basketweaving now gives you a +2 to using ropes. Ice age people can use Disable Traps to set up a rockfall, but they can’t actually disable traps because fuck you for being primitive. Disguise let’s you hide your scent from people with the scent ability. The Heal skill lets you treat Hypothermia (DC 30) and if you fail, the beneficiary of your healing makes a DC 30 Fortitude save or dies.

Doctor: I don’t know about you, but I like my odds.

If you’re not wearing white, you take a -10 check to hide in snow. That seems a little unfair to me, what with snow blindness and such… What if you’re frosted with snow, but wearing a bright purple suit ensemble.

What’s the point of even being an adventurer if you don’t get to dress for attention

Knowledge (Riddle) is a skill now. It doesn’t say who gets it as a class skill. I looked at all the classes in the book and NONE of them get it. Maybe if you have ‘Knowledge (All)’ you can justify it, but good luck convincing the DM that you can just roll a check to open the gates of Moria. Listen has a big diatribe about sound traveling further, but then gives the same penalty for distance as normal. Inuit will have a dance-off instead of a drag-out fight if they have an audience and don’t want to risk death or maiming, and you can use the Perform skill to win.

Not dance dance! Fight dance!

Spotting takes a -5 penalty, so effectively you’re only at -5 wearing a Purple suit in a snowdrift. Eskimo only characters can screw up a Knowledge Religion role and then suffer a permanent penalty to Survival for not respecting nature enough. Moving on to Feats!

The first feat is a +1 Luck bonus to all saving throws – the equivalent of a 1,000 gp item (cloak of resistance +1), but it does stack with it. You can take a feat to behead people. Cold Resistance 1/- is a feat. There’s a feat that lets you remove 1 point of non-lethal damage per round by taking a full action to shiver vigorously. If you’re even considering this feat, you have made terrible life decisions and you should let yourself die. There’s a wrestling feat that makes your pins last 2 rounds – not sure if that means you can walk away and they’re still pinned for a round or what happens if they ‘break the pin’ on their turn, but grappling was a mess. There’s a feat to give you a bonus on not getting tired from swimming. There’s a feat that is at least interesting (overpriced, but interesting) that gives you a 0-level spell.

Evil Eye gives you a -1 CHA but doubles the variable numeric effects of Necromancy spells (ie, chill touch would do 2d6 points of damage, but still only 1 point of STR; undead might flee for 2d4 rounds).

You were going for this look, anyway

There’s a feat that lets you heal while traveling (light activity), one that makes you completely Fearless (I mentioned it before).

Up to this point there have been bad feats, but not RAGE INDUCING feats, but I just hit one.

Remember, if you’re a human and you’re 10th level, you have 4 feats total. Every single feat has to compete with every other feat to be worth taking. If a feat does nothing, or so little as to be, that’s a problem. And stupid feats like bonuses on swim checks to resist non-lethal damage are dumb and bad for the game, but there’s another type of feat that is even worse.

Ferocity
Benefit: You continue to function at negative hit points without going further into negatives, up ot one negative hit point/2 levels. Thus a 10th level character can continue to function at -5 hit points[/i]

Someone needs to help me understand what someone was thinking here. As a 1st level human, I can take this feat (even though it has fuckin’ TOUGHNESS as a prerequisite) and it does fuck-all. At 2nd level, if I miraculously find myself between 0 and -2, I can keep acting normally, but even at that level I’ll almost certainly risk taking 9+ points of damage from a single hit, meaning my reward is character death!!! And at 10th level, if I end up between 0 and -5 (again, no benefit if you’re at 1 hit point or -6 hit points) I’m even more likely to die.

I know we call it Dumpster Diving for a reason, but even when you’re wading through garbage you can curse the gods for adding literal shit that doesn’t belong there!

There’s a feat that lets you give up your entire turn to MAYBE make an enemy attack someone else on your team. Firearms Proficiency – but we knew that since those are exotic weapons… You’d think that they’re EASIER to use than bows and arrows and that’s why they caught on, but not in D&D world! Since you can get Cold Resistance 1, you can get Fire Resistance 1, too. You’re going to feel so smart when you only take 47 points of damage from a fireball instead of 48 (and the fact that you’re even being hit with a fireball is probably proof that the DM is going easy on you). There’s a feat that lets you snuff non-magical fires with a touch – that’s bizarre and weird and probably not worth a feat, but it is giving you a 3rd level spell (quench]) so that’s something. Too bad it requires a +7 BAB for some reason…

It’s still a pretty big investment so you don’t have to pour water (or snow!) over a fire, or put a shoveful of dirt on it

There’s a feat that lets you curse to give ONE of your opponents the Shaken condition. There’s another wrestling feat that keeps your opponent from drawing a weapon in a grapple. There’s a feat that lets you eat multiple meals – but it doesn’t appear that eating more provides any benefit. If you’re trying to eat more than a giant or win a Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest it might be helpful, but you’re probably playing D&D wrong. You take a feat like this and you’re TRYING to make everything into an eating contest.

There’s a feat that gives you another +1 for higher ground (+2 total). There’s a super-specific feat that works when wielding a longsword against an opponent who is lower-level, and no more than 1-size larger than you – if you meet the criteria you can get a +1 dodge bonus to AC with an opposed Dexterity check and if you hit on your next attack they’re shaken for 1 round. That’s a lot of figuring for a marginal benefit…

Is it just me, or are people who are pathologically opposed to fun drawn to being game designers?

There’s a feat that lets you deal grapple damage with a successful trip, the eponymous Hot Blooded feat. The sequel to the cursing feat lets you give everyone within 10’ the shaken condition. There’s a feat that lets you throw axes like they were made for being thrown – this is automatically worse than Throw Anything which appeared in both Sword and Fist (3.0) and Complete Warrior (3.5). There’s a feat that doesn’t require Hurl Axe as a prerequisite that makes your thrown weapons boomerang back to you. It’s specifically called out as a supernatural ability.

I’ve had a long time to accept an infinite supply of axes. I also gave up on saving the princess at some point and realized I was young and could find someone new.

I’ve mostly run out of rage, so I can’t get a rage-boner for Hypothermic Sleep – in fact, I’m starting to make excuses for it. So there’s a feat that gives you Cold Resistance 1 all the time and it’s dumb, and it requires Toughness as a pre-req. This feat gives you cold resistance 1 but only when you’re asleep which seems like it’s worse in every possible way, but it has cold-blooded as a pre-req and not Toughness. Since you might get cold-blooded for free, you’re aren’t setting two feats on fire, but I feel like the book should have known that this was totally not worth it – if they think Cold Resistance 1 is worth a feat, and this only works when you’re asleep you’d figure they’d at least consider it worth Cold Resistnace 3!

Ice Hearing is a supernatural feat that lets you hear people up to a mile away on the ice. There’s a +10 to balance checks on Ice. There’s a feat to reduce the armor penalty you take from armor, and while that’s pointless and dumb, at least you don’t have to take it for a specific TYPE of armor. You see, I’m making excuses for bad rules.

This seems relevant, but I don’t know how to stop it

There’s a feat that gives you a bonus equal to your ranks in Tumble to avoid being tripped. They also have a word-for-read reprint of Improved Disarm and a feat called Improved Draw which is really Quick Draw but it has a Dex requirement and not a BAB requirement. There’s a feat that lets you knock down opponents when you inflict non-lethal damage.

Possibly one of those things that should just be a thing, but since we have feats, we gotta use ‘em

There’s a feat to allow you to do double damage against a charge with weapons that don’t normally work that way. Here’s a good candidate for feat that is trying to be way too specific.

You move past an attacker, putting enough distance between you and your enemy that the attacker must begin his assault all over again. To rub it in, you turn and mock your opponent, proving you could have inflicted far worse armor

This is like the longsword feat, but you have to have a shortspear, the opponent must still be lower level than you and not more than one size larger, you get the +1 AC if you win the opposed Dexterity check and they’re frightened for 1 round if you make an Intimidate check equal to their AC. Nothing about action, or being able to use it again and again. There’s another one for an axe, and your opponent is stunned if you hit. There’s one where you can make your opponent kneel with a grapple check (give you a +2 to attack bonuses), There’s a feat that lets you panic your opponent if you hit with an unarmed strike.

The next feat gives a +1 bonus to your saves.

I thought the Matrix was resetting for a minute

This feat is ‘Lucky’, the first feat was ‘Arnagneq’ which is why it was listed first alphabetically. I think writing ‘Arnagneq’ on your character sheet is way dumber than writing ‘Lucky’, but that’s because I’ve only been working on 7 languages in Duolingo and Inuit isn’t one of them, so ‘Arnagneq’ gives me no clue to what it’s supposed to do. I don’t know if the author started out with Lucky, but then tried to make it more thematically named but forgot to get rid of the base feat – trying to figure it out will surely drive me mad. Fortunately, I’ve gotten really good at NOT trying to figure out why the world works the way it does.

The next feat is a +4 versus save. Now, this book has a feat that makes you IMMUNE to fear, so you might wonder what’s the point. Well, the one that makes you immune to fear normally requires a Wisdom 8 or lower and this one doesn’t, but if being fearless is worth a feat, I find a +4 bonus to be…disappointing.

Being an orphan (like every PC ever) is now a feat that gives you a +4 to a single skill; if you were thinking of taking Combat Casting, you should take this instead (unless that’s a pre-req for something else you need).

Pack Feats
These are general feats, but they have four feats in a row that are all Pack x and are basically teamwork feats. Three of the feats are hot garbage, but one of them allows you to ignore AoO when you have allies nearby. It doesn’t look like each of your comrades needs to have the feat – if you have it you get the benefit just by having party members around. In terms of design space, feats that provided a benefit to your team are a space that really could benefit from further exploration – or at least, they could if the edition were still alive. A feat that gives me an additional +2 to flanking attacks probably isn’t worth it, but a feat that lets all of my party get a benefit might be. In this book there are 77 feats – more feats than every player will get combined if you play the game all to level 20 (not that you’d want most of these) so feats that let you effectively GIVE FEATS to your companions would be really cool. So there’s a kernel of a good idea here that I wanted to explore.

Exploring packmates in an overtly sexual way is apparently a trilogy you can get from Amazon. I’d be willing to buy the Kindle Bundle if someone else reads and reviews THAT

The next feat is a metamagic feat that has some interesting implications. It requires a DC 30 survival check; if you succeed you get a bonus on all numerical effects equal to the amount you exceeded the DC. Ie, if you rolled a 36, all of your cure spells would do +6 extra healing; your fireball would do +6 extra damage. The high DC makes it difficult to use, but with an item in the last chapter giving you a +5 bonus on Survival checks completely unrelated to gathering herbs, this could potentially lead to shenanigans.

Confession time – I didn’t really mean to make an observation on every feat. It’s just every time I decide I’m going to skip things I see something so heinous that I can’t not talk about it. The next two are so, so, so bad. The first just gives you DR 1 versus poison – since most poison doesn’t even do HP damage, and that’s not enough to care about you would never take this feat – it’s probably worse than Cold Resistance 1 while sleeping. But the next feat is wrong and bad is every way that it is possible for a feat to be wrong and bad.

Redheaded (General)
You are a redhead. As a result, you are considered devious and sneaky.
Prerequisite Must be a redhead, cannot be good aligned
Benefit You receive a +1 competence bonus to Intelligence checks

The next feat lets you ignore part of the AC bonus your opponent gets from Cover. They offer a feat that allows you to provoke an AoO against you; you deal whatever damage the opponent does to you plus your weapon damage if you succeed on an attack roll. It’s not overtly supernatural, so I don’t know how your longsword dealing 1d8+5 damage does 42 damage if you take 6d6+24 from a giant. So even though it’s implemented poorly, it’s at least INTERESTING. The next one is also interesting – you can spend an action to force pull ammo back to your quiver, and it deals it’s weapon damage AGAIN when it pulls itself out of the opponent’s flesh. There’s a feat that (usually) lets you see invisible creatures. There’s a feat that gives you a watermark so copies of you (like a doppelganger) are never perfect, but it totally doesn’t make sense to me that pulling off your shirt to reveal a 3rd nipple proves you’re really YOU if someone didn’t already know that about you. There’s a feat that lets you cast augury 1/day. You could even get it at 1st level if you have two starting feats. There’s a feat that lets you take a single animal’s form – it requires a BAB of 5+ and is useable once per day. As far as feats go, I approve – it’s cool enough that writing that on your sheet is better than Weapon Focus.

And….

Whoa!

There’s ANOTHER feat that gives you a +1 luck bonus to all your saves, but this one requires that you have a WIS of 8 or lower. That’s three different feats that give you a +1 luck bonus to your saving throws.

You know how you can negate a hit against your mount with the ride skill? Well you can do the same thing to prevent an attack against you if you’re wearing skis – your balance check becomes your AC. If there’s some way to ski EVERYWHERE this has some potential.

I mentioned it before, but if you and three adjacent companions all have shields, people can’t use the overrun action to trip you. There’s never been a case where someone used the overrun action to trip someone who was adjacent to three companions with shields and if you tell me otherwise, I won’t believe you. There’s a ride by attack feat for skiers (slide-by-attack). There’s a feat that makes you better at fighting in snow (but not enough better to justify its existence). There’s a feat that lets you walk on the surface of snow without falling in (like an elf!). There’s a feat that if you have deflect arrows, you can use it to throw a spear back at an opponent. There’s rapid shot for spears. There’s a feat for swimming faster (but it doesn’t give you a swim speed). There’s a wresting feat that keeps you from provoking attacks of opportunity. There’s a Viking themed feat that lets you jump out of a boat, make an intimidate check, and possibly panic people for 1 round. Again, niche. When charging with two friends you can panic enemies. There’s a feat that lets you choose a totem animal. You won’t eat the animal, and you get a +1 ability score and a bonus to a skill. None of them provide a bonus to Intelligence or Charisma, but all the physical ability scores and Wisdom are available options. There’s a feat that lets you run on the bottom of a river (gain waterbreathing and freedom of movement. If you intend to use it in ways other than intended, it’s a really good feat.

I’d be alive today if I could’ve activated Freedom of Movement once per day

There’s a feat that gives you fog cloud once per day, one that lets you cast cure light wounds on yourself. There’s a wrestling feat that lets you use a grapple check to trip your opponent. There’s a feat that lets you turn your opponent’s natural 1 into an automatic disarm, but you have to have a shield and you have to drop it. There’s a metamagic feat that makes your spells able to go anywhere the wind does (so if a bird could potentially get there, so can your spell). At the cost of +2-levels you could send fireballs from your palace to rain down on the enemy kingdom.

And there’s ANOTHER feat that gives you a +1 luck bonus to all your saving throws. This one is the best because you just have to be the youngest child, not dumb or gullible or have bumped Charisma.

The last feat is like the Ugly-Necromancer one; you lose 1 point of Charisma and evil spells increase their numeric effects by +50%. I think +50% is harder to do with dice than double, but it applies to all numeric effects, not just VARIALE effects. So protection from good gives you a +3 bonus to AC and +3 resistance bonus on saves.

And that’s the feats section.

There’s a lot of crap, but there really are a few things that could become character defining abilities. The main issue is that getting the decent feats accepted in a game is a major uphill battle. Since the quality and power-level are inconsistent, few GMs will issue blanket permission for content from third party books into their game. Most of these feats are bad – even REALLY bad – but reading seventy + feats and then deciding which ones are good enough but not too good is a lot of work. If a player wants a -2 Charisma to make their Evil Necromancy spells more effective and to spend a spell-slot 2-levels higher to cast it with a range of unlimited, I’d have some concerns. I don’t have a specific concern – but I can see how combining those things starts building toward bad stuff. Pretending you don’t have an ultimate plan and then springing campaign destruction isn’t cool.

This is bad news

I’ll be in Vegas for a work training trip all next week – it’ll probably be next week before I look at the chapter on Magic spells.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

There’s a metamagic feat that makes your spells able to go anywhere the wind does (so if a bird could potentially get there, so can your spell). At the cost of +2-levels you could send fireballs from your palace to rain down on the enemy kingdom.

Wait, what?!

The last feat is like the Ugly-Necromancer one; you lose 1 point of Charisma and evil spells increase their numeric effects by +50%. I think +50% is harder to do with dice than double, but it applies to all numeric effects, not just VARIALE effects. So protection from good gives you a +3 bonus to AC and +3 resistance bonus on saves.

LOL wat?! Most of the feats you mentioned are trash, but these two are OP as balls.

BTW, I think your second spoiler tag swallowed some text by mistake.

[deaddmwalking]

There’s a metamagic feat that makes your spells able to go anywhere the wind does (so if a bird could potentially get there, so can your spell). At the cost of +2-levels you could send fireballs from your palace to rain down on the enemy kingdom.

Wait, what?!

The last feat is like the Ugly-Necromancer one; you lose 1 point of Charisma and evil spells increase their numeric effects by +50%. I think +50% is harder to do with dice than double, but it applies to all numeric effects, not just VARIALE effects. So protection from good gives you a +3 bonus to AC and +3 resistance bonus on saves.

LOL wat?! Most of the feats you mentioned are trash, but these two are OP as balls.

Yeah - the double the variable effects of the Necromancy spells costs nothing per spell - it's a one time only -1 Charisma Penalty. If you're planning on dumping Charisma you stack another -1 for the Evil Spells +50% on all numeric effects. I'd be curious to see people theory craft the worst possible combination. Without the Necromancy feat, you could scribe a symbol of pain that imposes -6 on attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks lasting for 1.5 hours after the creature leaves 90 feet from the center of casting (which can be anywhere in the world regardless of where the caster is. It absolutely is a power you could build your spell list around.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

There’s a metamagic feat that makes your spells able to go anywhere the wind does (so if a bird could potentially get there, so can your spell). At the cost of +2-levels you could send fireballs from your palace to rain down on the enemy kingdom.

Wait, what?!

The last feat is like the Ugly-Necromancer one; you lose 1 point of Charisma and evil spells increase their numeric effects by +50%. I think +50% is harder to do with dice than double, but it applies to all numeric effects, not just VARIALE effects. So protection from good gives you a +3 bonus to AC and +3 resistance bonus on saves.

LOL wat?! Most of the feats you mentioned are trash, but these two are OP as balls.

Yeah - the double the variable effects of the Necromancy spells costs nothing per spell - it's a one time only -1 Charisma Penalty. If you're planning on dumping Charisma you stack another -1 for the Evil Spells +50% on all numeric effects. I'd be curious to see people theory craft the worst possible combination. Without the Necromancy feat, you could scribe a symbol of pain that imposes -6 on attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks lasting for 1.5 hours after the creature leaves 90 feet from the center of casting (which can be anywhere in the world regardless of where the caster is. It absolutely is a power you could build your spell list around.

I might think about it a bit and see if I can come up with some insane exploit...

[Whatever]

Summoning and Calling spells get the [evil] tag when the creature summoned or called is [evil]. That would be a good place to start, especially if you get +50% to the HD limit on lesser planar binding.

[deaddmwalking]

Magic

It’s magic, baby, I don’t have to explain shit

The Table of contents indicates that at the end of the Feats chapter there is a section on ‘modified spells’. The ‘Magic Chapter’ based on headings happens AFTER. That’s not really correct – apparently the software they used to pull everything together missed that ‘Magic’ was centered so it looked like we had a whole section on special rules by spell school, but it’s only a page. Abjuration spells that prevent cold damage reduce exposure DCs. Tropical animals summoned to the frozen lands are ornery and take a morale penalty. Evocation [Fire] spells take a penalty per die of damage. Sonic spells deal +1 die per damage. Water spells make you wet, and you might freeze to death faster in the cold.

Before we hit the other spells, let’s talk about what the rules SAY and what that IMPLIES about the world. Because that Evocation bit is dumb if you think about it for more than a minute. If a 15d6 fireball is ‘really big fire’ and a 1d6 fire spell is ‘really small fire’, it might make sense that they’re both impacted the same way – reduce the damage by 1d6, say. That might mean your 15-die fireball is 14d6, and spells that deal 1d6 fire damage don’t work in the cold. Now that can suck, but at least it MAKES SENSE. If the temperature is ‘fucking cold’ it doesn’t make sense that it makes some spells do 1 point of damage less than normal and other spells do 15 points of damage less than normal. You could say that ‘cold’ provides Fire Resistance 10 and ‘Extreme Cold’ provides Fire Resistance 20, and that could make sense (or play with those numbers as you like). The description doesn’t make it clear how cold it has to be before you have an impact on fire magic effectiveness, but there’s just no way that a consistent physics paradigm gives us the result that they suggest.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Because cold air might make you see optical illusions in the real world, you take a -1 to saving throws against Phantasmal Killer (and all other illusions). For every 1d6 points of damage a Necromancy spell deals, you take a -1 penalty on exposure checks. What about Necromancy spells that don’t deal damage? Apparently they don’t leave you feeling cold. This doesn’t make sense for the same reasons that Evocation changes don’t make sense. Turning something into a liquid will make it turn into ice – the assumption apparently being that if it is cold enough to freeze water it should freeze any other liquid including Mercury (freezes at -36 degrees Fahrenheit) and Liquid Helium (does not freeze at absolute zero UNLESS under pressure). There’s some ‘new physics’ shenanigans you can explore with this.

There’s an Ice Domain in this book. All of the spells are from this book. I’ll compare/contrast it to the WotC Ice Domain at the end of this chapter review.

Following the modifications to spell schools, there are a page of spells that are called out as having other effects in the fuckin’ cold. The first is Chill Metal. Now, I want you to think about what the temperature is where you are right now. It’s winter in the Northern hemisphere, but you’re probably inside, so it’s probably ~70 degrees Fahrenheit. And that means that everything around you is also ~70 degrees. If you were wearing metal armor, it would be ~70 degrees. Now, if the temperature of your armor dropped 10 degrees, do you think it would feel especially cold? Painfully cold? Cold enough to freeze your tongue?

[spoiler]

No, it would not.

[/spoiler]

So when the spend a paragraph talking about what the temperature change of your armor is in absolute terms, it’s bullshit, stupid and pointless. But they do want you to make a check for hypothermia, so you should do that.

Perhaps the most frightening spell in a wizard’s repertoire, cone of cold temporarily reduces the local temperature by 10 degrees for every 1d6 points of damage inflicted. A 15th level character can reduce the local temperature by a whopping -150 degrees, requiring an immediate check for both hypothermia and frostbite.

Anything that creates water creates it as frozen water if the ambient temperature is below 32 degrees F; it doesn’t take time to freeze, it starts that way. Insects summoned in freezing temperatures die the round after they’re summoned. This chapter does explain that endure elements raises the effective temperature by 50 degrees. Protection from Energy raises the effective temperature by 100 degrees.

Before launching into new spells they make a point that when adding new spells for the normal classes (wizard, druid, etc) that spells on those lists would be appropriate for their casters. That’s good – if your GM were allowing material from this book, you could potentially get expanded options from other books.

[spoiler]

That’s the gift that keeps on giving

[/spoiler]

Following this we have new spells. There are more than 90 of them, and like any spell list, there are going to be things that casters find helpful. For example the first spell is almost exactly remove disease, but it is better. It’s a Level 3 spell, but Bards get it as do Clerics, Rangers and Angakoqs (Bards don’t normally get Remove Disease), it can be cast at range (Remove Disease it touch) and it can affect multiple targets (1 per 4 levels, instead of a single target). That might not be enough better to make asking for it worthwhile, but it’s not nothing.

I’ve been long-winded in my descriptions so far, so I’m skipping spells that are too similar to existing spells and only dealing with spells that are laughably dumb or awesome sauce. I’ll also cover spells that are weird enough that they deserve a mention.

I’m just mad I didn’t get to finish this on my plane ride and United didn’t include it as an in-flight option in February

The Good
Avgo Regeneration – it’s a 9th level spell but it lasts 1 day/level and regenerates you back to life – even if you’re eaten by a walrus. Having a way back is always good!
Detect Thief – if someone stole something in the last 24 hours, or stole from someone present EVER IN THEIR LIFE this spell lets you know. So much for people who steal from their party!?
Pass Unfettered – this is a 2nd level spell that lets you walk ethereally through a designated material (for example wood, metal or stone). It’s caster only, but it is crazy good.

The Bad
Bladder Dance – it sounds like what I do when I’m writing a review and I really need to pee, but I want to finish my thought. Instead it’s a ceremony that takes 2 days to cast, lasts for 2 hours/level and gives you a +10 competence bonus on some skills related to hunting and +1 attack/damage against aquatic creatures – as a 3rd level spell.
Catch Soul lets you break soul bind and trap the soul, but only if the target had mittens and you have them now.
Igloo is a 2nd level spell that gives you an Igloo. What you really want it for, though, is ‘create water’. You see, if you cast create water in -20 degree temperature, you get a block of ice and you might die of dehydration.
But if you create an igloo, then leave, it immediately melts into water. Life finds a way.

And how!

Iordanka – Did you need magic weapon for firearms only? No, you did not.
Maturity Rite – This is a 5th level spell, and if you’re from an Ice Age culture, you can’t advance a level unless someone casts it on you. How did anyone get 5th level spells to begin with? I don’t know.
Suck Poison (Greater) – it’s the same level as Neutralize Poison, but what cleric is going to want to suck the venom out of their friend?

I really wanted a picture of the Lone Ranger getting bitten in the penis by a rattlesnake, but maybe not everything you want is already online.

Swan Swarm – Swans are included in the monster chapter, and they’re Medium creatures. As such a swarm in a 5’ spread seems to indicate 1 creature. The people writing this didn’t know how swarms work and that makes this spell dumb.

The Ugly
Blunting Glance is a 4th level spell that gives you a gaze that makes weapons blunt. It does damage to weapons, so it could destroy them outright. If it doesn’t destroy it, it reduces the damage it can deal. I don’t know how a weapons SEES the caster, but I guess you’re allowed to stare at the weapon inappropriately, probably.

Like that!

Brain-Eating Ritual – this is a 2nd level spell that if you cast, lets you eat someone’s brain for a +1 Int/Wis/Caster Level; you can eat five of them for a +5 if you’re hungry enough (but I think you need to cast it five times). The duration is only 10 min/CL.
Gold to Corpse lets you turn a volume of gold into a non-descript corpse. It lists the volume, but not the minimum GP value. The maximum amount of gold is a rod 3’ in diameter and 10’ long. That’s the equivalent of 17,040,780 gold coins. My best guess is that you use this to carry out a dragon’s horde – you’ll have to answer questions about why you’re walking around with a corpse. I imagine this spell is derived from a legend that is way more interesting than anything else I’ve seen in this book.

Other Thoughts – a lot of spells are simple copy/paste with a word meaning ‘cold’ or ‘icy’ replacing the word in the SRD (like Flesh to Ice instead of Flesh to Stone, or Freezing Hands instead of burning hands. Most of them are exact copies, but sometimes they have a spell that’s functionally like an existing spell but it gives it to a class that doesn’t normally get it. For example, they have a spell that’s just like continual flame but it’s also a Ranger spell.

This chapter also ends with fiction – the hunter character that doesn’t have any casting ability successfully casts a 7th level spell and visits the spirit world to start getting help with rescuing his people.

The next chapter is monsters. I know there are a lot of animals like swans, seals and walruses, but monsters are also pretty easy and evocative. The first picture is some Umber-Hulk like monster with crazy claws so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

For fuck's sake, I can go through a ritual to eat a dude's brain and it only lasts for up to 3 hours? Why?

[deaddmwalking]

For fuck's sake, I can go through a ritual to eat a dude's brain and it only lasts for up to 3 hours? Why?

My best guess:

Read this BEFORE casting

[ColorBlindNinja61]

[quote="deaddmwalking"Tropical animals summoned to the frozen lands are ornery and take a morale penalty. Evocation [Fire] spells take a penalty per die of damage. Sonic spells deal +1 die per damage. Water spells make you wet, and you might freeze to death faster in the cold.

Before we hit the other spells, let’s talk about what the rules SAY and what that IMPLIES about the world. Because that Evocation bit is dumb if you think about it for more than a minute. If a 15d6 fireball is ‘really big fire’ and a 1d6 fire spell is ‘really small fire’, it might make sense that they’re both impacted the same way – reduce the damage by 1d6, say. That might mean your 15-die fireball is 14d6, and spells that deal 1d6 fire damage don’t work in the cold. Now that can suck, but at least it MAKES SENSE. If the temperature is ‘fucking cold’ it doesn’t make sense that it makes some spells do 1 point of damage less than normal and other spells do 15 points of damage less than normal. You could say that ‘cold’ provides Fire Resistance 10 and ‘Extreme Cold’ provides Fire Resistance 20, and that could make sense (or play with those numbers as you like). The description doesn’t make it clear how cold it has to be before you have an impact on fire magic effectiveness, but there’s just no way that a consistent physics paradigm gives us the result that they suggest.


Because cold air might make you see optical illusions in the real world, you take a -1 to saving throws against Phantasmal Killer (and all other illusions). For every 1d6 points of damage a Necromancy spell deals, you take a -1 penalty on exposure checks. What about Necromancy spells that don’t deal damage? Apparently they don’t leave you feeling cold. This doesn’t make sense for the same reasons that Evocation changes don’t make sense. Turning something into a liquid will make it turn into ice – the assumption apparently being that if it is cold enough to freeze water it should freeze any other liquid including Mercury (freezes at -36 degrees Fahrenheit) and Liquid Helium (does not freeze at absolute zero UNLESS under pressure). There’s some ‘new physics’ shenanigans you can explore with this.


Following the modifications to spell schools, there are a page of spells that are called out as having other effects in the fuckin’ cold. The first is Chill Metal. Now, I want you to think about what the temperature is where you are right now. It’s winter in the Northern hemisphere, but you’re probably inside, so it’s probably ~70 degrees Fahrenheit. And that means that everything around you is also ~70 degrees. If you were wearing metal armor, it would be ~70 degrees. Now, if the temperature of your armor dropped 10 degrees, do you think it would feel especially cold? Painfully cold? Cold enough to freeze your tongue?


So when the spend a paragraph talking about what the temperature change of your armor is in absolute terms, it’s bullshit, stupid and pointless. But they do want you to make a check for hypothermia, so you should do that.

Perhaps the most frightening spell in a wizard’s repertoire, cone of cold temporarily reduces the local temperature by 10 degrees for every 1d6 points of damage inflicted. A 15th level character can reduce the local temperature by a whopping -150 degrees, requiring an immediate check for both hypothermia and frostbite.

Anything that creates water creates it as frozen water if the ambient temperature is below 32 degrees F; it doesn’t take time to freeze, it starts that way. Insects summoned in freezing temperatures die the round after they’re summoned. This chapter does explain that endure elements raises the effective temperature by 50 degrees. Protection from Energy raises the effective temperature by 100 degrees. [/quote]

These rules are so bad, they hurt my brain.

[deaddmwalking]

Monsters
I’m of the opinion that a Monster Manual – especially one that’s terrain specific – is a good way to start thinking about how that world should look. Seeing relationships between the monsters and animals can do a lot to help the PCs see their place in the world. And with players having pored through the Monster Manual, it can be worthwhile to have some unusual monsters you can slot in and keep people on their toes. I think the art is pretty decent, too. Andy Braz looks to have done all the pieces in this book – they’re line art, but I think they’re good.

The fiction from the last chapter immediately continues – he and the monster he summoned cross the ice before he has to walk a tightrope.

From a formatting perspective, it looks like we’re going to have animals at the beginning, because we have a big subheading that says ‘Animals’. But the first creature looks more like an Umber Hulk crossed with Predator. My guess is that they divided the animals up alphabetically instead of having them in a big block because animals are boring. We’re going to touch on each of these in order.

The first monster says ‘A-mo’ when it attacks. I don’t know why it does that, but because it does, the name Amortorok actually makes sense. I’m super-annoyed when we find a creature that might kill people called a ‘Death Spider’ or a ‘Death Dealer’. People don’t usually name monsters in such a stupid way – especially if there are literally thousands of monsters that will kill you. This monster is a weak CR 7 with 4 claw attacks that deal a negative level with a hit.

Arulataq – It’s an ape like creature with a sleep gaze and fear effect. Probably about right as a CR 5.
Atshen (Wendigo) – It’s a 4HD giant and they borked the hit points (they didn’t apply the CON mod properly). With a CR 3, an LA +2, there’s NO WAY this is equivanlent to a 6th level character. The picture looks like a tall orc, and you’re be better off playing one if you’re going for the strong, scary type.
Brown Bear is a copy/pasta of the SRD, but we get a Wikipedia entry on their diet and life cycle.
Iron Bear – They think it is a CR 10, but it’s basically a Dire Bear with a breathweapon and DR/adamantine. It’s not like it can shoot spikes or anything, and if you’re fighting it outdoors you can just levitate out of reach.

This is what a CR 10 Iron Bear should look like

Polar Bear – This is a copy/paste from the SRD.
Chalicothere – This is an herbivore that looks like a gnoll with a cows head. It’s a CR 5 but it’s not described as ornery and might be better as a CR 2 or 3 – but I suppose it could make a decent mount. It’s animal type so druids are going to have no trouble with it.
Chudo-Yudo are evil octopuses. It’s a CR 8 but none of its spell like abilities are dangerous – if you can beat a +17 grapple you’re not scared at all.

I’ll admit it – I’m more scared of this guy with like 1 hit point than I am the Chudo-Yudo

The Corpse Shroud is an undead creature at CR 2. It looks sufficiently scary in the way that mummies, vampires, and ghouls do. The problem is, it deals 1d4 Strength, Dexterity and Constitution drain. The DC is 11, but that’s not something you can fix at level 2. They also don’t stay dead – you have to stake them like a vampire.

Caribou – it’s basically a horse, but if it charges it can do 3d6+6 damage, justifying an increase in CR from 1 to 2.
Moose – It’s a caribou with 2 more HD and an extra d6 on the charge; that does not justify a CR 4.

An Illness Imp is a tiny devil that has the ability to inflict diseases on people. It’s a bastard for a CR 2 but this is something you could really build an adventure around – something like the village all getting sick. This is the type of monster that you want in your manual – it leads you to start thinking about the world and how PCs can interact with it.
Misery Imp – You know in a horror movie when there is a frightening girl and you know something bad is going to happen? This is that creature. It’s a CR 9, it can hang around invisibly, likes to make you miserable and drains your Wisdom by being around you. This is the kind of encounter that makes people cranky – it’s not always clear that you have a way to interact with it. By 9th level it shouldn’t be a problem if the GM is being fair – lower levels it is a real kick in the pants.
Dying to a CR 5 Dire Armadillo would be embarrassing.
The Dire Deer has more hit points than a moose, but isn’t that scary – but it has the same CR – 4.
The Dire Rhinocerous is a CR 7, and I can basically see it. It can trample, has a horn with 4d6+19 damage. It’s still an animal with Int 1, so this isn’t a bad choice for a 14 HD mount.
The Dire Sloth has a speed of 10’, so there’s no way it justifies a CR 9.

Hunting Dogs and Sled Dogs are copy/pasta dogs and riding dogs.

Goryshche Dragons combine the difficult to read dragon entries (with multiple age categories) and the issues with hydras. As a multi-headed dragon, though, they’re cool.

That’s good stuff

The next entry in a Linnorm Dragon. It’s a giant worm with the dragon type that can constrict you with its coils. The constrict base damage is always 1d8 whether the Linnorm is Medium (Wyrmling) or Colossal (Great Wyrm) but it does get a Strength bonus applied. As far as sea-serpents go, it’s probably better than most.

The Dvorlem is a large 2-headed eagle with 8 HD that seems like it could be a decent choice for a flying mount.

Ice elementals are water elementals with lower defenses and virtually no special abilities. The medium and large have an easier CR than the water elementals, but they’re pretty weak.

The next entry is a Firebird, and it’s interesting. First off, I’ve been playing a game of guessing which SRD entry they copy/pasted and looking for what (if anything) is different. This is a Giant Eagle, right down the line. Except to give it sun-themed powers, it has sunbeam and sunburst as at will powers. This is a CR 5 creature that can launch laser grenades at long range (760’) dealing 6d6 points of damage in an 80’ radius. I want one.

Or the next best thing

The next animal is an Artic Fox, which are super-cute and exactly the kind of animal pet that some players want. The stats are copy/pasta from the dog, but instead of a CR 1/3, it’s CR 4. Literally the only difference in the stat blocks is that Alertness was replaced by Hot Blooded, impacting the Spot/Listen and the CR was changed. A Lion is CR 3.

The Ice Giant isn’t as cool as a Frost Giant – it’s a vaguely humanoid shaped piece of ice that is sometimes mistaken for an elemental.

Giant Falcons are 3HD medium flying creatures. What’s weird about them (and really, there is something weird about every creature) is that they advance to Huge at 4 HD. They skip right from Medium to Huge with no stop at Large. If you’re looking for a flying mount for a large creature, that’s a loophole.

Next up we have a Gargantuan Giant that’s CR 10 with a slam attack dealing 1d8+13 damage. Giving him a greatsword ups that damage to a much more respectable 6d6+13. You might think that sounds weak, and it is. The Monster Manual (but not the SRD as far as I’m aware) has suggestions for appropriate ability scores based on size. This is weak for a gargantuan creature. In any case, they’re not evil, so you probably don’t have to fight them. They have a Syvatogor Giant as a playable character without a Level Adjustment – too bad you’re a 19th level character with no abilities and horrid saves.

They have a construct called a Golden Duck. It lays gold and silver eggs – potentially forever – but with a cost of 1000 GP to build it it’ll take you 3 months to get your money back. You can also break it and it grants a wish – but since it takes wish to create, and wish costs the caster 5,000 XP, well, no one will ever make one.

A Copper Peasant Golem is a small construct with 14HD that casts spells as a 14th level Sorcerer. Since this book keeps making really stupid mistakes, the Charisma of the creature is 10, meaning it can cast 0th level spells only. But with a proper stat array you could probably make this a playable character even with the +4 level adjustment. I think you’d probably be better off playing a Warforged, but as an 18th level character you’re way better off with this than a Syvatogor Giant.

A Snowman Golem is Frosty the Snowman (carrot nose and all). It better be a joke because it’s a CR 7 with 9 HD that doesn’t hit as hard as an Orc. It’s immune to most spells, but if you destroy the hat that animates it, that’s the end. The cost to build one is 60,000 GP (30,000 for the hat, 1,500 for the body, and I don’t know where the rest goes). Apparently building a snowman is a DC 15 craft check (sculpting or masonry). The kids on my street (including my own) would scoff at that.

A Terenshchka Golem is an animated wooden child (like Pinocchio). They’re cheap – 100 GP + 25 XP so it wouldn’t be game-breaking to have a LOT of them. But for the money, you might as well make a Guardian Doll. It’s a tiny construct that costs 120 Gp and 25 XP, but it can cast protection from evil, bless, and legend lore.

The Haugbi is a ghoul that casts spells as a 4th level sorcerer.

The Ice Drake is a dragon that only comes in Medium size – even if you advance HD. It’s pretty tough for a CR 3 like all dragons, but I don’t really see the point. Maybe if you want to put down a Medium dragon miniature and you can’t wait for a CR 4 white dragon?

The Kainkutho is another bear (God Bear) with 10 HD and a CR 7. It’s close enough to a Dire Bear with the difference that it can move fast (60’).

There sure are a lot of bears outside of Bearworld

The Kam is the Slavic Orc, but it has 2 HD and a DC 11 petrifying gaze. With a +2 Level adjustment, you could probably play this as a 4th level character, bumping Charisma to raise the DC. They don’t take damage from weapons – instead they split like oozes. When the split versions have 1 hit point, they can be killed. So yeah, with a decent CON (say +4) and a better Charisma (say +5) you’d start with 20 hit points and a TN 16 petrifying gaze; even though your hit points are low you’ll have 2 characters with 10 hit points after 1 hit; then 4 characters with 5 hit points, then 10 characters with 2 hit points, then 20 characters with 1 hit point. I don’t know how you get back to normal, but I’m not sure you even want to. This could use a whole lot more expansion because it is very strange…

The Ketta looks like the bear-dog-cougar things from Ghostbusters. They also turn you into Haugbui if they kill you, or turn corpses into Haugbui if they bite them. This is the kind of monster that you can set a whole adventure around – a little mystery (someone digging up corpses), a little horror (loved ones coming back as angry undead), a little combat… This is a pretty decent monster and could be a threat for a 5th level Party with smart play (it is CR 5).

Monsters that can tear you up in combat and command legions of humanoid undead definitely have potential

A Kosmatushka is a really big horse (huge) with 6 HD. They’re able to carry very heavy riders and they have a suite of spell like abilities to make their rider tougher but they can also cast earthquake at will which can cause a DC 20 save or die versus Reflex so they’re amazing.

We’re through K – we’ll hit M through Yet next time.

[Schleiermacher]

The Haugbi is a ghoul that casts spells as a 4th level sorcerer.

A ghoul with sorcerer casting seems reasonable for the stats, but this is some sloppy editing on their part, because that's definitely supposed to be a Haugbui - "mound-dweller", an undead creature from Norse sagas.

[deaddmwalking]

The Haugbi is a ghoul that casts spells as a 4th level sorcerer.

A ghoul with sorcerer casting seems reasonable for the stats, but this is some sloppy editing on their part, because that's definitely supposed to be a Haugbui - "mound-dweller", an undead creature from Norse sagas.

That's on me. They did spell it as Haugbui. It is a mound-dweller and is identified as a creature that can be created by the Ketta - if it lairs on a burial mound it will awaken the dead within. Likewise, corpses it bites (or those it kill) come back as a Haugbui.

[deaddmwalking]

Monsters (continued)

Next up is a Medium Incorporeal Outsider that spreads disease called a Mamaqa. I checked to see if that was a valid word in the Scrabble Dictionary, and it’s not, which might have been the most useful way to use this creature. It spreads disease and in cases where a whole village dies of a disease seems like as good an explanation as any. I don’t think it has to manifest to cause disease – if the party has a way to deal with incorporeal creatures the 27 hit points it has shouldn’t be difficult to get past – CR 5.

Mishtapeu are the outsiders that angakoq speak with (and summon). They’re supposed to be incorporeal giants living the Inuit version of the Feywild. For such an important part of the setting, they feel pretty bland.

Morozko is a ghostly snowman elemental. With at will invisibility, a breath weapon on a 1d4 round recharge, and a 100’ perfect fly speed, this is a CR 3 that can absolutely wreck a 3rd level party.

Still only the second more horrifying Snow Man in my book

The art for the Aleutian Mummy is sufficiently evocative – it looks like a very old, very naked Mick Jagger (though he’s standing behind a statuette that covers the Rolling Stones) and for an undead creature, that works. It’s closest to a bugbear zombie from the SRD (a 6 HD zombie with 42 hit points) but it use a slam and has the cold subtype. It gets universal DR 5 instead of DR 5/slashing.

[spoiler]

This isn’t the exact same artwork, but this should give you an idea

[/spoiler]

The next creature is the muskox. It’s stronger and faster than a mule, and it does good damage on a charge. This would probably be a good pack animal if you can keep it from stampeding.

The Nykur is a large fey creature with the cold, aquatic and shapechanger subtypes. This is basically Elsa’s mount in Frozen 2 – it likes to appear as a horse and dive underwater so the rider drowns. It can be turned as if it were undead. It’s limited to existing within 300’ of a particular body of water so it’s use as a mount is limited. It’s another low CR creature (4) with at will high level spells earthquake (but only on icy surfaces).

A Freezescum Ooze is size small, but described as ‘large forms’ in the description. It has one of the dumbest abilities in this book and I’d be willing to wager ever. It’s normal AC is 7. It can get a +5 AC at the cost of not being able to take ANY ACTIONS for 1d4 rounds (when the bonus ends). It doesn’t get DR or any resistance to taking damage. If it keeps its sucky AC, it can hit for 1d4 Dexterity damage per round.

A penguin is described as a tiny animal. I’m disappointed that they don’t have any larger penguins or dire penguins. I don’t think you’d want to take a bird companion that can swim instead of fly.

If I can’t find it in this book, I know I can find someone that made some scary penguins online

The next three entries are all pinnipeds – seal, sealion, and walrus. They come as CR 1, 2, and 4 so I think they’re worth comparing to normal sharks. The Walrus is only large (while a CR 4 shark is huge) but otherwise they’re actually pretty close in most respects. The issue is, if you run into a shark, you’re virtually required to be ‘in the water’. For most PCs, that’s not their natural environment, so the shark has a pretty big advantage. The pinnipeds all have a land speed of 10’ so they’re even less intimidating than their CR might suggest. I mean, maybe you want to have them in your game so PCs can hunt them?

Next up is a Rusalka – an undead version of a dryad that’s tied to a body of water instead of a tree. The artwork is probably closest we’ve gotten to fan service (which is not very close). But instead of men in fur coats, there is a near-nude woman obscured by a linen cloth.

A Ruskaly is an undead fire creature. They’re incorporeal and can turn invisible, but they’re really weak on attack. In some ways they’re supposed to be a meaner Will-O’-Wisp, but if anything they’re way less scary.

A Shatter Kraken is a weaker kraken with a CR 9. There’s a role for a monster like that and having a lower CR version is totally appropriate.

A Shmat Razum is an air genie that grants wishes. You might wonder why they aren’t just genies or the book said ‘genies are called Shmat Razum’ but instead we have a stat block that is NOT copy/paste, but they’re very similar nonetheless; so similar that it doesn’t make sense to have two versions so you can say ‘genies who live in the cold air are different than genies that live in the hot air’.

The Gingerbread man gets an entry as ‘Singing Bun’. They’re listed as having .5d10 HD which I think is unusual. It’s a bit on the silly side, but there are stories in folklore so I’m giving it a pass.

Shakushka’s are described as ‘more than just larger versions of frogs. They have magical abilities, are capable of speech, and can leap incredible distances.’ They’re still just CR 1. For reasons I don’t understand, with a Strength of 10 they have a light load of 300 pounds. That’s 70 more than a mule (with a Strength 16).

I warned ya, but did you listen?!

A Snow Angel is another incorporeal undead creature that flies, but this one is good aligned. They can attack people, but there’s no reason given that they would.

An Ice Sprite is a small fey with the cold subtype. It’s a copy/pasta of the Nixie with some cold abilities in place of charm person.

A Strukis is a human-sized fish. It’s listed as an animal, but a Google Search doesn’t show any animals, so I’m guessing it is how they decided to transliterate sturgeon. 1% of them grant 3 wishes. I know I’ve seen some folk stories like that.

I already mentioned swans before in the spell section. Nothing to see here.

A Tapagoz is a multi-headed CR 9 giant. Each head has one eye. They gain heads as they gain HD, but the extra heads only provide bonuses to perception checks. They forgot to update the base weapon damage for size, so even though they’re supposed to be tougher than Ettins, I’m not sure that they re.

An Ice Treant is weird. It has more HD than a Treant, but much worse ability scores. It has 3 attacks (instead of 2) and ends up being one CR lower (7 instead of 8). The idea is that it’s a treant covered in ice and somehow that makes it Chaotic Neutral instead of Neutral Good.

I’m going to need Grek to explain to me why because it’s dry and crunchy – does it count as water when it’s ice?

A Trow is another take on Trolls. Since trolls were lifted directly from a specific novel for D&D, the ugly creature that burrows through rock like a fish swims through water. The description says they have magical talents, but the one here does not. They are powerless in daylight, ubut since the only power they have is to dig through rock I don’t even know what it means.

Tupilak is another tiny construct but this one has 9 HD and is listed as CR 6. It can’t hurt anybody with physical attacks but it can cast charm person, nightmare and bestow curse. For the 12k gold cost and 1k XP, you’re probably better off making a Flesh Golem.

A Tupiliq is a tiny evil outsider CR ½. Otherwise, they’re basically stirges.

A Vodyanoi is an Aquatic Shapechanger that turns murdered women into Rusalka. It seems strange to me that its spawn are undead, but it is not.

Voron are giant ravens with 3 HD. If it hits you, it can take an eye, no save. Presumably, that means if it hits you twice, you’re blind.

An Arctic Whale is a copy/pasta of a Baleen Whale, but with an expanded description. A Killer Whale (Orca) is a copy/pasta of the Orca from the SRD as well. An Artic Wolf is a copy/pasta of the bog-standard wolf from the SRD. The Wolverine is, too (but they forgot to apply the 3 hit points for Toughness and they wanted to give it HotBlooded).

A wooly rhino is a CR 4 with 10 HD. It’s basically a normal rhinocerous with +2 HD and +1 to attack. I happen to like Ice Age Mega Fauna, and the palette swap/standard advancement certainly makes sense.

A Wooly Mammoth similarly appears similar to a standard Elephant advanced +1 HD and +6 STR and given combat feats (like Power Attack). I don’t think it justifies a +3 CR – bands of early hunters in real life fought and defeated Wooly Mammoths.

The last monster before the ‘Template’ section is a Yek – a Medium Undead that changes into an otter and wants to drown you. It’s a CR 4 with earthquake, slay living, and control weather.

Next time Templates, concluding fiction. After that, we do Magic Items.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

The monsters so far sound like a mixed bag. Some of them sound cool, but others...

A Freezescum Ooze is size small, but described as ‘large forms’ in the description. It has one of the dumbest abilities in this book and I’d be willing to wager ever. It’s normal AC is 7. It can get a +5 AC at the cost of not being able to take ANY ACTIONS for 1d4 rounds (when the bonus ends). It doesn’t get DR or any resistance to taking damage. If it keeps its sucky AC, it can hit for 1d4 Dexterity damage per round.

Why?

It's a shame, I love monsters and I'm always interested in new ones to put in my own campaigns.

[deaddmwalking]

Monsters: The Final Bit

Following all of the previous monsters, we have template monsters. In general, I think templates are one of the things that 3.x did right – instead of having 400+ versions of ‘like this monster, but icy’, it often makes sense to just make an ‘icy template’ and apply it to those 400 creatures as needed. Actually creating the templates and applying them is hit or miss, and there are lots of cases where a template would have been more appropriate, but we didn’t get it (I’m looking at Icy Treant right now. Basically, my take is that templates are a good idea, they’re not used all the times they should be used, but the actual templates we get are hit or miss.

The first section is for lycanthropes. The SRD provides several examples of lycanthropes and all the details for how to make your own. Unfortunately, those rules are really pretty unsatisfying. If you want to be a person who turns into a bear, as a curse, you will be a 9th level character with 1st level character abilities. Having 6 extra HD makes you tougher, but at the end of the day, you’re a CR 5 bruiser. What people want is the ability to turn into basically a normal bear at around 3rd or 4th level and fight like a bear. A druid can do it around 8th level, but they have a whole host of other abilities they can use instead. A 7th level Druid can also just have a bear friend. Clearly losing a member of the party and replacing him or her with a bear for a few rounds should be something you can do before 7th level since the 7th level ability is better. This book doesn’t fix any of the inherent problems with lycanthropes picked up from 3.x, but it does add more creatures – specifically a dove, eagle, falcon, fron, lion, raven, and swan.

Ultimately, these give you some options for getting lycanthropy earlier, but not early enough. They also slavishly follow the rules as presented in the SRD, so you don’t even get the ability to use a tongue attack as a werefrog in any form.

Behold a character archetype too powerful to be permitted in any version of D&D

There are a host of problems you can solve with the ability to turn small or tiny and potentially the ability to fly, but there are a whole host of other problems you can’t solve by having only 2 HD, even with the DR. The book has stats for normal/hybrid/animal form for all the creatures as applied to a 1 HD human.

The next template is the Cold Stranger, which is a cold-themed Vampire. There are no example stat blocks provided. The level adjustment is lower than a standard Vampire (+6 instead of +8) and it gets fewer abilities, fewer attribute increases, but the Constitution drain works in more situations (physical contact, such as grappling drains 1d4 Constitution – you don’t have to pin your opponent and drain their blood).

Wastlings is the next template, and the idea is that it is supposed to be a ‘I’m from a cold land’ template and it sucks. It has a +4 Level Adjustment, and for what? First, you roll 1d3 and you get either 1, 2, or 3 abilities from a list of 4 abilities. Those abilities are Ice Meld (you can hide in a block of ice), Snow Shoes (you can walk on ice), Ice Hearing (you can hear through ice without distance penalties), or a Breath Weapon that does 1d6 damage. You get a +1 bonus to Natural AC and cold type (immunity to cold, vulnerability to fire) – there’s no way that’s +2 CR and absolutely no way that’s worth 4 levels in an actual class.

In the SRD, a wight is a creature, not a template. But this book gives us a Glacier Wight template. Interestingly, it does not have a Level Adjustment. If you find one, you might force it to turn your companions into spawn, then kill it (so they’re free) but I’m still not sure it’s worth it. You get Energy Drain (nice), Create Spawn (nice), Ice Meld (meh), you become undead and gain a +1 Str, Dex, +2 Wis, -4 Cha. There are no examples of the template applied to a base creature.

The last template creature is a Wishbeast (again with no example stat block). You add it to an animal, then it can talk and grant five wishes. It won’t tell you how many you get, and if you make 6, all are undone. It doesn’t say how that works, but hey, folklore.

The chapter concludes with a piece of fiction – the Inuit protagonist shows up at the fort for justice. All the not-Russians die.

At first he thought it was a whale that had smashed through the permafrost, but it has the facial features of a seal. Its lower torso ended in a mop of squid-like tentacles and its head was covered with a multitude of eyes in a spider-like formation

I don’t think that monster was in this book… Technically, it is listed as a deity for the Eskimo pantheon, but no stats are provided.

[deaddmwalking]

Magic Items
This is nine pages of items with approximately 8 per page, broken down by Nordic (1 page), Eskimo (2 pages), Slavic (6 pages).

The Nordic items include a helm that grants sanctuary, a Vorpal property that requires you know the true name (equivalent to a +4 weapon property instead of the normal +5), a necklace of DR 5/magic, hide armor that costs 16,000 gp and doesn’t say how it differs from armor that costs 100gp, but assuming it doesn’t include armor check or spell failure is still only the equivalent of mage armor. There is a ring that provides a +10 bonus on Navigation checks, and a 32,000 GP silk shirt that gives you resist energy cold/fire, exhaustion and hunger. There’s a shirt that provides cold resistance 10 each round (ie, applies against the first attack) and another one for fire resistance. There’s a shirt that provides half the benefit of a ring of sustenance (reduced sleep, but you still need to eat) but it costs 1000 GP more. Confusingly, there is ANOTHER SHIRT that does exactly what a ring of sustenance does, and it costs the same amount.

It doesn’t even come with rhinestones

All of the Eskimo items are named in Eskimo words, so remembering what thing you were looking for will be a challenge. They have an apron of +10 to heal checks (2,000 gp), a drum that provides a +10 to perform checks, a blanket that is intelligent and casts Legend Lore for 49k, a shirt that does the same thing for the same price. The next one is a stick that gives ‘patients’ a -5 will save – it’s intended to help with interrogations, but it appears that it would be used as a combat implement. It doesn’t look like opponents get a save against the item, so if you have your ally wave the stick around your opponent’s head, I guess they’re in trouble. Next up is a doll you carry around that gives you protection from evil 1/day. There’s a stick that costs 150k that lets you kill people in 2 rounds (Reflex DC 25 negates) and it can be used to heal people, too. There are a couple of other skill bonus items and a new Weapon ability: Scrimshaw. It basically lets you make a weapon ‘bane’, but it counts as a +3 bonus instead of a +1 bonus, so it is bad. There’s also a ‘story’ magic weapon property – it helps when telling a story, but for some reason it counts as a weapon bonus instead of an unrelated ability (+1). There’s a headdress that gives a -5 to Will saves – seems like waving the stick around your opponent is easier and the cost is the same. Next up is an intelligent item that can cast status – unless you really need a friend, you’re not spending 66k gold on this. Lastly we have a totem pole – they come in 3 flavors; speak with dead, commune, and legend lore. With the expensive model costing 23k, I don’t know why the not-Russians were harvesting seal pelts instead of stealing these.

The Slavic items seem to feature a number of items that also would have been appropriate in the Nordic campaign. For example, the first four items are apples – one that gives you a +2 Charisma (permanently), one that makes you grow a horn (-1 CHA) and it doesn’t even give you a gore attack, one that smakes people sleep for 3 days, and one that makes old people young.

Next up is an Axe, Golden.

Oh yeah!

Turns out it’s one of those stupid cursed items that you can’t ever put down. It’s still a +2 weapon, but eventually you will touch a plant with it and then you can’t move at all. Most cursed items are a fuck you to players, and this one is, too.

An Axe of Shipmaking lets you summon 100 boats, crewed by 15 summoned people and 1 cannon. You can use this to get your fleet on. There’s a ball you can roll on the ground to lead you to some place (or out of a maze), and a barrel that floats in the ocean to where eer you want it to go. Looking for the award for creepy magical items is Bogatyr Ashes. If you’re a woman and you eat these ashes, you become pregnant and give birth to a Bogatyr in a few hours.

Personally, I’m tired of the ‘now you’re a mother’ trope

The next item is described as being loved by vampires. It’s a bowl that is attuned to a person, and as they take damage, the bowl fills with blood. It doesn’t look like there are distance limitations, so absolutely attuning it to an adventurer is likely to keep a vampire fed for the rest of the (potentially unwitting) adventurer’s natural life.

Okay, side rant. One of the things that 3.x did worst was how they handled magical items, and a lot of that is due to the wealth by level guidelines. It’s not just that many items were priced too high and accounted for too high a percentage of total wealth individually, there are also issues with what is priced. Some of this is marginal utility – if you have a +1 sword you might enjoy having a +1 axe and a +1 hammer, but you don’t NEED either of those. That they count against wealth by level even though you could plausibly never use one is a travesty. But because the focus is on getting items that allow you to do the things you want to do, any item that doesn’t DO anything except be cool is wasted. That’s the next item – it’s 100k GP and it turns into a garden. Now being able to invite an NPC to take a walk in a garden that you summon out of nowhere (especially in the desert or the frozen tundra) is cool from an RP point of view – but knowing that this is the only item you have at 13th level is decidedly uncool. I’ll talk more about how you ought to think about magical items another time, but this was a particular glaring example of ‘high level spell effects’ having virtually zero impact on character abilities.

Following the box garden we have a kerchief that creates a bridge up to 20 feet long (160k gp), and a broom that hides your footprints (magically of course). The next item is another one that is crazy weird – it is a pile of twigs that turns into a forest ‘so large that a man cannot ride around it in 3 years’. That’s a forever effect so that’s basically an Elven Genisys Device weapon. There’s a cabbage that you can double in size every day until it becomes a singularity and destroys the world. This is followed by a hat of invisibility, a carpet costing 240k that turns you into a bird, a carriage that is actually a Star Trek teleportation device, and chest that turns into a castle (3 versions, two of which are better than the standard instant fortress. There is a cauldron that gives you a permanent +5 Charisma (25,000 GP), a chisel that points to people, claws that you can use for climbing (magically) and as bad weapons.

Ain’t Nothin’ like the real thing

A club of beating sounds funny to me. It comes in 3 versions, but each of them are only good for 1d4 hits (after which point it shatters) delivering a suggestion to the person whom you were beating on (or off, I’m not judging). The +3 version of 20k, but at least once it breaks it no longer counts against WbL.
The next item is 750 gp and creates 100 bison – that actually seems like something fun and at the same cost as a potion of cure serious wounds something that players might be willing to find ways to use. To go with the sticks that make a forest is a comb that makes a mountain. There’s a 6k GP knife that will tell you when someone dies. That seems like it’s too late to do anything about it. But that’s nothing to the ring that does the same thing but costs 125k. There’s also a spoon. There’s a 90k tooth of slay living and a doll that can cast stone tell.

The next item has to be pulled from folklore. It’s a goose that you can roast and bring back to life if you save the bones (like Thor’s goats). But if you tell a lie, you get stuck to it, and anyone who touches you is likewise stuck until you all confess your lies. This totally sounds like something you’d see in a Rom-Com w/ magic, but hard to make it work at the table. I’ve heard too many arguments about ‘but if my character believes it is the truth’…

There’s a feather of shadow conjuration, a staff that summons 12 djinni, a feather that glows as a continual flame (but costs 30k), and cursed +2 hide armor that gives you -10 charisma. For 600 gp you can get a sleep spell that affects 2d4+8 HD of creatures. There’s an artifact horn that summons a Napoleonic army so you can get your 1812 Overture on. Thre’s a horn that enthralls people and one that summons animal friends. There’s a very specific potion – it makes individual heads of a hydra fall asleep but it doesn’t include any information on how you make one drink it. For 11k gold you can get a cauldron that boils without a fire.

That’s only to the M section, but after that it’s more of the same type of stuff. Their potion of Strength is stackable (unlimited). Some items don’t really say whether they can be used again or are single use, and if they can be used multiple times with what frequency. There’s a towel that creates an ocean (to go with the forest and the mountain)

There are three Ice Age items – one is a weapon ability that lets you convert Psionic Power Points into electricity damage at very short range (you have to spend 5 points to reach a target 5 feet away). A vril ship is a flying machine. Armor made of Orichalcum reduces Armor Check Penalites by 20%.

And that’s the book.

I share some final thoughts in a day or two.

[Thaluikhain]

An Axe of Shipmaking lets you summon 100 boats, crewed by 15 summoned people and 1 cannon.

Huh, that's sorta cool.

Looking for the award for creepy magical items is Bogatyr Ashes. If you’re a woman and you eat these ashes, you become pregnant and give birth to a Bogatyr in a few hours.

Just a normal baby Bogatyr? Does that come from eating any normal Bogatyr ashes? Wind changes at a funeral pyre, people get ash in their mouths and suddenly lots of babies?

[deaddmwalking]

Looking for the award for creepy magical items is Bogatyr Ashes. If you’re a woman and you eat these ashes, you become pregnant and give birth to a Bogatyr in a few hours.

Just a normal baby Bogatyr? Does that come from eating any normal Bogatyr ashes? Wind changes at a funeral pyre, people get ash in their mouths and suddenly lots of babies?

I wish I knew.

Bogatyr Ashes
Consuming these ashes causes a female to become pregnant and give birth in a few hours. The child is automatically a bogatyr.
Caster Level 7th; Prerequisites: Brew Potion, reincarnate, requires ashes of a deceased bogatyr; Market Price: 1,400 gp.

Final Thoughts
In a very real way, supplements for 3.x are all going to have a bunch of things in common; new feats, new classes, new spells, and new magic items. Following that format, it's easy to fill a book as an 'alternate player's handbook'. In part because of how (relatively) easy that is, a book like this needs something to set it apart.

The book is supposed to be a setting book, but it doesn't deliver a coherent setting. It tries to offer multiple settings - Eskimo, Nordic, Slavic, Ice Age, and Atlantean. I think during development that they realized that Atlantean wasn't really a good fit and they pulled most of that content, but there's still some.

To make a book like this really work they needed to provide some reasons you would want to travel to the lands of the frozen North - the fact that it is difficult and the temperature is trying to kill you is NOT itself a reason. Creating a land that features Eskimo/Nordic cultures (potentially based on Greenland) and combining those with mythic legends of the frost giants might make for a compelling setting. Given a setting that has resonance, the book further needs to help us understand how we adventure. If we're trekking across a glacier, what does that look like? How do we decide (as the GM) whether we have an encounter with a crevasse?

Back in 2004, people were eager for content, but there was a real feeling that content needed to be curated. In a book like this that is more than 200 pages long, it's entirely possible for something to be 'hidden' that a GM might not be comfortable with. It's easier to default to 'nothing is allowed' until I review and approve it'. Concepts of what is appropriate and what is not have evolved over time.

If someone were proposing a book like this now, I'd really emphasize having some examples of encounters. I think it's also important to consider how you can bring small doses of 'winter' into a campaign that otherwise doesn't feature it. My four year old and I were just watching Marvel Super Hero Adventure: Frost Fight and a Frost Giant shows up on a tropical island with an artifact that brings winter - something like that would be entirely appropriate for a terrain book. Since we would expect that most campaigns will spend a little time in frozen places, but very few campaigns will spend ALL their time in frozen places, giving you tools that you can apply in different types of campaigns makes sense.

In the event that this book wanted to present a single campaign location for an entire campaign, I think it failed pretty miserably.

From a design point of view, I think the author could use an editor. I think we got the first draft of a lot of things, and the mechanics we get are far too complicated to use as written.

In a lot of ways, this a prototypical 3.x book - it's not that there isn't ANYTHING of value, it's just that it fails to deliver on its promise; it falls back to providing a quantity of EASY content instead of a real focus on what the cover promised. I don't feel like I have a good idea of how to run an adventure in a Frozen land because I read this book. The ideas that I do have are pretty much all of the 'well, this was the beginning of an idea, what if I took that and DID THIS'. Those hooks were more accidents, but we've talked about that with bestiaries - sometimes the descriptive elements end up supporting a whole lot of imagination.

[OgreBattle]

Does a baby bogatyr's ashes have the same effect.

What if the female eats ashes while already an hour into her bogatyr incubation

Will a female dog get pregnant, a female bird?

[deaddmwalking]

I’m going to take an aside and confront the use of the term Eskimo. Here’s an article from 2016 – it was then that Obama signed into law legislation that replaced the word Eskimo with Alaska Native. Not all Alaska Natives are Inuit; the Yup’ik are another indigenous group that was included in the term Eskimo but should not be included with the Inuit. In this case, I’m going to continue to use the term Eskimo because the book uses the term – not because I necessarily agree or endorse the usage in this context.

Or this one, but I definitely won’t ask for an InuitPie – sometimes substitution is just as insensitive!

Related. 'Inappropriate' Eskimo Pie Name Will Be Retired, Company Says'