👇 This DM Guide moved from Patreon to DMs Guild! ✨ Complete DM Guide PDF: www.dmsguild.com/product/421704?affiliate_id=1987166 ▶️ Icewind Dale DM Guide Videos: th-cam.com/play/PL1lMCvJ_l52Wg1IRW__ES0osVXGHv3AgM.html 📜 Icewind Dale Player Primer: www.dmsguild.com/product/318990/Player-Primer-Icewind-Dale?affiliate_id=1987166 📜 Player Primer Adventure: www.dmsguild.com/product/326767/Song-of-the-Mountain-A-Player-Primer-Adventure?affiliate_id=1987166
Out of the Abyss and Tomb of Anihilation were good for rangers too, especially with a DM who plays with the rules of overland travel as written. We're actually seeing the more recent modules do a good job of providing balanced content outside of major dungeons.
@@joeld2925 In Rime of the Frostmaiden, they actually gave the DM the number of hours it would take to travel between towns. For beginner DMs or DMs that hate doing the math themselves, this really helps cut down on the stress.
@@RyuSpike it does provide road travel times. Overland (off-road) travel time is slower, it follows the speed of the chosen method of travel. Unfortunately there are errors in those inter-town travel time tables, I noticed.
@@joeld2925 I will have to check that out myself. A possible in-universe explanation would be changes in elevation. Takes longer to go up an inclines than it is to go down. At least, that would be the reason I would give myself when I feel too lazy to find out the true distance and time.
One benefit of the Escaped Prisoner secret is that it allows players to play races normally not found in the Forgotten Realms, so Eberron characters for example are now up for grabs. Also, it could be an interesting hook for the party if they were all prisoners aboard the ship and that is how they got to Icewind Dale. With their motivation to help deal with Auril due to the fact that the psi crystal needed to power the downed ship is in fact located deep within her lair, so if the characters ever want a chance to get back home they must first save Ten-Towns!
Alternatively, just play as a wizard character with Find Familiar and choose the owl familiar, which has +3 and advantage on perception and dark vision out to 120 feet.
Thank you so much for releasing these, I'm in the middle of Ghosts of Saltmarsh and after that I'm running RotF, this is going to be such a great help!
Your my favorite dnd TH-cam channel and your Icewind Dale videos are making me excited for my current campaign to end so I can run Rime of the Frostmaiden
This channel has grown so much sense the last time I saw you, and the content has just gotten better! You had just about 5k subs, and now you have over 8k! You've really built this channel, and it will only continue to grow! Happy building!
Great stuff! I am nearing closer to Session 0 and this is quite helpful. I like the fact that you used secrets to work alongside their backstories instead of just dishing them out.
We have just started this campaign, it snowed the night we started. I am playing a shifter (polar bear) ranger with the Owlbear whisper secret. I am using the new beast companion version in Tasha's so I will have a polar bear companion. My character inspiration is Macready from The Thing and he is the party guide and part of his backstory is searching for the monster that killed his father. We have been having a lot of fun so far even though one of our wizards died and had to be brought back by a local cleric that we now owe money to...we had a very kind DM!
We just kicked this off! Me as a DM and my 2 players, both Duergar barbarians, survivors from their clan, eradicated by the Sunblights for possible stash of chardalyn in their hold. So far they love it.
I've seen an "ultimate rpg backstory journal" thing at barnes and noble which has a hundred or so prompts one could use for their own or their players characters, things to ask/flesh out and an area to write them in....
Nice video guys, I'm starting Frostmaiden on Saturday and really looking forward to it. These videos are helping quite a lot. One minor quibble though: the book includes the pronunciation guide of different names, so the pronunciation of Auril in this video was making me cringe a little. :)
For a homebrewed character secret i'd reccomend someone play as a vampire spawn. It so far has made for some very interesting combat and role playing scenarios!
Bob World Builder Fur would be better considered as “cold weather clothing” such that if you get wet, you could get hypothermia unless someone has the Prestidigitation cantrip.
Hey I’m loving the guides! I’m just wondering what you would do to give the characters motivation to help ten towns and how you would tie it to the second part
The player primer has better hooks for that, but a simple one is having them be from Ten Towns! And the second part of the adventure is how they actually end the rime and save Icewind Dale, so they should be motivated to do that if they’re motivated to save the towns 👍🏻
Hey Bob, can you group the ten towns either by geography or by difficulty of the quests that are there? I want to know what quests are best for complete newbies to level up earlier.
To get my characters into the game I had them set in a trade caravan as hiered help but later find the path home has been frozen over and blocked by avalanches. They are stuck in icewind dale till they can find a home.
Great stuff! I recently started reading the Drizzt novels after finding out there were so many books set in the forgotten realms, so i might drop him somewhere even if none of my PCs have any idea who he is. X)
I am planning on using Drizzt like a Gandalf type character in my Icewind Dale game. He shows up to get the PC's out of hell or steer them back on track if they get lost in the open world sandbox which is the start
I plan on drawing secrets first. I’m playing with a whole table of new players and we will be going through every character creation step together. I’m worried that if I wait to do secrets, they’ll have to make changes that give away what their secret entails. If we draw them first, they can always change it out later if it doesn’t fit what they want to do in the end.
hi bob thanks for all these fantastic videos, is the player primer intended to give to players? or as a dm tool to help players create characters for this environment? :)
@@BobWorldBuilder it was a random encounter I will remaking the sheet to level up with them. But ya roll for it got 3 yetis vs lv1 one party(4members) so I ex-machinaed some of the goliaths clan to help.
Yeah, that was an oversight on my part! My groups cover the basics before starting a published adventure to help with character creation, and I forget that it’s not very common to do so
@@BobWorldBuilder I tend to overshare more than undershare too, but I wouldn't want to rob them of the surprise by showing them the cool moment like the Chardlyn Dragon attack!
As long as you can trust your players to skip the secrets part, the flowchart mentioned above is the only spoiler I can think of 😅 And my guides are usually a mix of thematic elements and mechanics because overlooking things like cold resistance and dark vision (in this case) could lead your group to having a bad time. Hope this makes sense and you stick around for the upcoming quest breakdowns!
In your opinion, would it be unwise to have an Auril worshipper in the party? I’ve been working with a player to create their character and we both think it would be interesting to bring in the piety mechanic, but is it too much for him to be pious to Auril? Should we play him off as kind of a crazed old man lunatic?
I think it would be a great idea as long as the player is okay with their character eventually turning away from Auril or the party. I haven't used the piety mechanic, but that could help them balance who's side they're really on!
I would definitely not show this to my players. It’s full of spoilers, based on how I want to run it at least. Many of my players will be outsiders to Icewind Dale and so won’t know a lot of this at the start. I want them to discover this harsh environment first hand.
Anyone else feel that some races and cold weather clothing totally nerfs this adventure? A major aspect of it is overcoming the cold, and 10 gold on some clothes completely defeats it. Any advice to make icewind dale weather dangerous again?
👇 This DM Guide moved from Patreon to DMs Guild!
✨ Complete DM Guide PDF: www.dmsguild.com/product/421704?affiliate_id=1987166
▶️ Icewind Dale DM Guide Videos: th-cam.com/play/PL1lMCvJ_l52Wg1IRW__ES0osVXGHv3AgM.html
📜 Icewind Dale Player Primer: www.dmsguild.com/product/318990/Player-Primer-Icewind-Dale?affiliate_id=1987166
📜 Player Primer Adventure: www.dmsguild.com/product/326767/Song-of-the-Mountain-A-Player-Primer-Adventure?affiliate_id=1987166
The standard ranger class is weeping with joy as they finally have a campaign were they can be useful.
My fiance is playing a ranger in this campaign and loving it!
Out of the Abyss and Tomb of Anihilation were good for rangers too, especially with a DM who plays with the rules of overland travel as written. We're actually seeing the more recent modules do a good job of providing balanced content outside of major dungeons.
@@joeld2925 In Rime of the Frostmaiden, they actually gave the DM the number of hours it would take to travel between towns. For beginner DMs or DMs that hate doing the math themselves, this really helps cut down on the stress.
@@RyuSpike it does provide road travel times. Overland (off-road) travel time is slower, it follows the speed of the chosen method of travel. Unfortunately there are errors in those inter-town travel time tables, I noticed.
@@joeld2925 I will have to check that out myself. A possible in-universe explanation would be changes in elevation. Takes longer to go up an inclines than it is to go down. At least, that would be the reason I would give myself when I feel too lazy to find out the true distance and time.
One benefit of the Escaped Prisoner secret is that it allows players to play races normally not found in the Forgotten Realms, so Eberron characters for example are now up for grabs. Also, it could be an interesting hook for the party if they were all prisoners aboard the ship and that is how they got to Icewind Dale. With their motivation to help deal with Auril due to the fact that the psi crystal needed to power the downed ship is in fact located deep within her lair, so if the characters ever want a chance to get back home they must first save Ten-Towns!
I agree! It’s definitely one of the more interesting hooks and it has a lot of potential for more connections within the party and to the story 👍🏻
This was a fun listen... and another confirmation as to why I always, always, always make sure my character has darkvision. Well done Bob!
Haha, yeah darkvision seems pretty crucial for Icewind Dale! Thanks Wally :)
Everyone has darkvision in 5e though pretty much lol
Alternatively, just play as a wizard character with Find Familiar and choose the owl familiar, which has +3 and advantage on perception and dark vision out to 120 feet.
Thank you so much for releasing these, I'm in the middle of Ghosts of Saltmarsh and after that I'm running RotF, this is going to be such a great help!
Ayyy I'm playing in GoS right now! Lots of fun. Glad you're enjoying this series :)
Very timely! My group is creating characters today.
Awesome! My group has their plans together but we'll be having our session 0 tomorrow! Thanks for joining the YT memberships :D
Your my favorite dnd TH-cam channel and your Icewind Dale videos are making me excited for my current campaign to end so I can run Rime of the Frostmaiden
Hahah, surprise TPK!! Just kidding 😂
Definitely agree that the primer is great content, I had bought it and shared it with my players to use in session zero which had this week.
Good to have a testimonial! Lol thank you :)
Where has this channel been all my life? You earned a new sub, dude
Haha, well it’s only been around for the last ~1.5 years of your life, but I’m glad we’ve found each other at last 👍🏻
This channel has grown so much sense the last time I saw you, and the content has just gotten better! You had just about 5k subs, and now you have over 8k! You've really built this channel, and it will only continue to grow! Happy building!
Yep! It’s been a fruitful summer 😊 Thanks, Jacob!
Dang. Wish I had known about the player primer last month. That's what I get for saving your videos for later!
It's never too late!! :)
Man I love your hair! Also one of the small channels I will recommend when someone asks for new cool content creators
Thank you! I really appreciate you supporting the channel and my hair! lol
As always great video!!
Glad you liked it! :)
Great content as always, keep ‘em coming!
Thanks! There's plenty more to explore in this book :)
Great stuff! I am nearing closer to Session 0 and this is quite helpful. I like the fact that you used secrets to work alongside their backstories instead of just dishing them out.
Thanks Ruben! Excited to hear what you come up with to tie your characters to the towns/story :)
Great to hear someone championing the Triton!!
Woo! Idk why they’re not more popular
@@BobWorldBuilder Me either!
I desperately want the "Owlbear Whisperer" secret! I'm going to name him Snowball! :D
Adorable! And deadly if it were to roll down at your enemies :)
@@BobWorldBuilder Exactly! >:D Get 'em, Snowball!
We have just started this campaign, it snowed the night we started. I am playing a shifter (polar bear) ranger with the Owlbear whisper secret. I am using the new beast companion version in Tasha's so I will have a polar bear companion. My character inspiration is Macready from The Thing and he is the party guide and part of his backstory is searching for the monster that killed his father. We have been having a lot of fun so far even though one of our wizards died and had to be brought back by a local cleric that we now owe money to...we had a very kind DM!
Very interesting character, and very kind DM indeed!
We just kicked this off! Me as a DM and my 2 players, both Duergar barbarians, survivors from their clan, eradicated by the Sunblights for possible stash of chardalyn in their hold.
So far they love it.
I've seen an "ultimate rpg backstory journal" thing at barnes and noble which has a hundred or so prompts one could use for their own or their players characters, things to ask/flesh out and an area to write them in....
Sounds great for creating unique NPCs too!
thank you
Nice video guys, I'm starting Frostmaiden on Saturday and really looking forward to it. These videos are helping quite a lot. One minor quibble though: the book includes the pronunciation guide of different names, so the pronunciation of Auril in this video was making me cringe a little. :)
Hahah, I just can’t bring myself to say “O-reel” or whatever it is :P
For a homebrewed character secret i'd reccomend someone play as a vampire spawn. It so far has made for some very interesting combat and role playing scenarios!
Wow! I love that idea! Great for the dark environment :D
Probably use Smokey(Bugbear barb) or Dimitri (Dragonborn bard)
Haha, Smokey sounds fun. And I would probably rule that the fur helps with cold resistance
Bob World Builder Fur would be better considered as “cold weather clothing” such that if you get wet, you could get hypothermia unless someone has the Prestidigitation cantrip.
Hey I’m loving the guides! I’m just wondering what you would do to give the characters motivation to help ten towns and how you would tie it to the second part
The player primer has better hooks for that, but a simple one is having them be from Ten Towns! And the second part of the adventure is how they actually end the rime and save Icewind Dale, so they should be motivated to do that if they’re motivated to save the towns 👍🏻
Make video about mad mage
Oh my god this is so wholesome and I’m on bored with this channel. Subbed
Thanks for your support! :)
Hey Bob, can you group the ten towns either by geography or by difficulty of the quests that are there? I want to know what quests are best for complete newbies to level up earlier.
Yeah! I plan on doing a bit of both. Like going in a recommended order based on their difficulty and geography
I would recommend getting a higher resolution "red strip" to put your name into. Right now it looks incredibly pixelated. Other than that, good video!
Haha, yeah I cobbled that together myself a while ago. I appreciate your eye for detail!
To get my characters into the game I had them set in a trade caravan as hiered help but later find the path home has been frozen over and blocked by avalanches. They are stuck in icewind dale till they can find a home.
Love that! “Being stuck” is an important element to begin a horror scenario!
Great stuff! I recently started reading the Drizzt novels after finding out there were so many books set in the forgotten realms, so i might drop him somewhere even if none of my PCs have any idea who he is. X)
Thanks! I think it's worth adding Drizzt to bring in some of the lore :)
I am planning on using Drizzt like a Gandalf type character in my Icewind Dale game. He shows up to get the PC's out of hell or steer them back on track if they get lost in the open world sandbox which is the start
I plan on drawing secrets first. I’m playing with a whole table of new players and we will be going through every character creation step together. I’m worried that if I wait to do secrets, they’ll have to make changes that give away what their secret entails. If we draw them first, they can always change it out later if it doesn’t fit what they want to do in the end.
Yeah, never be afraid of making adjustments later on 👍🏻
hi bob thanks for all these fantastic videos, is the player primer intended to give to players? or as a dm tool to help players create characters for this environment? :)
A bit of both, but I'm pretty sure there are no spoilers in it
Yep almost offed 2 players today just looking for chawingas
Whoa! Details please! I’ll be digging into those quests this weekend as I prep my session 1!
@@BobWorldBuilder it was a random encounter I will remaking the sheet to level up with them. But ya roll for it got 3 yetis vs lv1 one party(4members) so I ex-machinaed some of the goliaths clan to help.
Yikes, nice save!
If this is intended to be player facing, maybe don't include the Adventure Flowchart that spoils everything for them in the graphics!
Yeah, that was an oversight on my part! My groups cover the basics before starting a published adventure to help with character creation, and I forget that it’s not very common to do so
@@BobWorldBuilder I tend to overshare more than undershare too, but I wouldn't want to rob them of the surprise by showing them the cool moment like the Chardlyn Dragon attack!
As long as you can trust your players to skip the secrets part, the flowchart mentioned above is the only spoiler I can think of 😅 And my guides are usually a mix of thematic elements and mechanics because overlooking things like cold resistance and dark vision (in this case) could lead your group to having a bad time. Hope this makes sense and you stick around for the upcoming quest breakdowns!
In your opinion, would it be unwise to have an Auril worshipper in the party? I’ve been working with a player to create their character and we both think it would be interesting to bring in the piety mechanic, but is it too much for him to be pious to Auril? Should we play him off as kind of a crazed old man lunatic?
I think it would be a great idea as long as the player is okay with their character eventually turning away from Auril or the party. I haven't used the piety mechanic, but that could help them balance who's side they're really on!
I would definitely not show this to my players. It’s full of spoilers, based on how I want to run it at least. Many of my players will be outsiders to Icewind Dale and so won’t know a lot of this at the start. I want them to discover this harsh environment first hand.
Yeah, I definitely ended up sharing a bit more info than I had initially intended. Hopefully still useful for you as the DM :)
Anyone else feel that some races and cold weather clothing totally nerfs this adventure? A major aspect of it is overcoming the cold, and 10 gold on some clothes completely defeats it. Any advice to make icewind dale weather dangerous again?
Friend of the channel, Dungeon Coach, has a video on this coming soon that I will be sure to share on my community tab!
Well…. I made a bad choice for choosing a monk….. sh.t 😂😢
Deep gnome because no one needs to try to say snvrfbln.
bless you