I’m working on Writing an adventure where the characters get stuck in a town in a mountain pass when winter weather makes leaving the place seemingly impossible. The idea is for these low-level characters to be stuck until the spring thaw in 2-3 months, and meanwhile they investigate the strange occurrences there (AKA the adventure). It’s basically a way to keep them locked into one geographical area, and to utilize some wilderness hazards they must work to overcome. Not so different from a shipwreck adventure.
A clever player with spells might be able to figure out a way out of the pass. What are some things I should be on the lookout for?
I’m working on Writing an adventure where the characters get stuck in a town in a mountain pass when winter weather makes leaving the place seemingly impossible. The idea is for these low-level characters to be stuck until the spring thaw in 2-3 months, and meanwhile they investigate the strange occurrences there (AKA the adventure). It’s basically a way to keep them locked into one geographical area, and to utilize some wilderness hazards they must work to overcome. Not so different from a shipwreck adventure.
A clever player with spells might be able to figure out a way out of the pass. What are some things I should be on the lookout for?
If you need them to stay, have the winter weather that seems omnipresent also prevent teleportation and such. Perhaps there is an anti-magic zone that is part of the storm. Whatever could be causing that to happen? Is it a natural phenomenon or is its origins more deliberate than that. Could it be the divine will of the God of the party's Paladin or Cleric? Could it be the BBEG wintering in the area and not wanting to be disturbed? Tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel to find out. Or poke your noses into other people's business because you've got 2-3 months to figure it out.
It will be low level, so there won’t be any teleportation, or hopefully no flight until the end. And yes, its wintertime but there is indeed a supernatural cause. I don’t see Endure Elements on the Druid spell list, but I figured there might be something like it that I wasn’t aware of.
Druids with the ability to change into an "arctic" animal will be difficult to keep completely isolated.
However, I think this premiss is also something you could almost just tell your players. Do you want them to spend a lot of time trying to find a way out? If not, consider to just tell them that the player(s) who manages to find a way to leave, is out of the campaign until "spring". Work with them to find reasons they are not able to leave/chooses to stay.
It will be low level, so there won’t be any teleportation, or hopefully no flight until the end. And yes, its wintertime but there is indeed a supernatural cause. I don’t see Endure Elements on the Druid spell list, but I figured there might be something like it that I wasn’t aware of.
Goliaths have an ability Mountain Born. You’re acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet. You’re also naturally adapted to cold climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
That could be a problem, but you could say that even the Goliath is feeling that it's too cold. If you start early with a level of exhaustion for everyone with an ethereal voice that tells them to "Turn Back Now Or Perish", that could get them to go back. Have a local meet them on the way back telling them that they're sorry that no one warned them that to travel into the storm is death. Have an offer for lodging for the night with a promise to find some work for them to accomplish to earn their keep. Any background options are fair play as well as some rather basic adventuring quests, plus the occasional story related one that moves the narrative forward.
If I were the kind of player who liked making things tough for the DM and wanted to break out of the adventure campus, and I didn't have access to third-level spells yet, I would try things like Create Bonfire, Control Flames, and Shape Water. At-will spells that, over time, would probably be pretty good at clearing snow off of roads. If I were a DM who didn't just want to tell that kind of player that they should stay in town and do the adventure, I'd instead say that it would take one person, even with the equivalent of a magic flamethrower, so long to clear a mountain pass and avoid getting buried in an avalanche or falling into a crevasse, that they might as well wait for spring and just let the sun do it for them. As a player, I might also try things like Alter Self to give myself some kind of arctic adaptations (fur or maybe big snowshoe feet), or a Paladin might try to Find Steed themselves a reindeer or a big goat. But those are really one-person solutions, and like Pantagruel says, a player might not want to bail on the whole party.
The ones that might end up being a pain are the ones that keep the town physically isolated, but still in communication with the outside world. I'm thinking of things like sending familiars or Animal Messengers to the nearest city to get information from contacts or something like that.
Once they have access to Fly or Gaseous Form, all bets are off. You kind of have to hope by then that they're invested in the story. And ultimately, that's your best path anyway.
I have just read the 1st and 2nd books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon. An idea might be that the adventurers (and the entire population of the mountain pass) are prisoners of the Winterking/Ice Witch (these are the terms used in the Pellinor books, you may call him the Wintersmith (Discworld term), or create your own name for the personification/god/demon of winter). The Winterking refuses to let any human/humanoid enter or leave the mountain pass (he is not fooled by shapeshifting/illusions either), and any humanoid who attempts to leave will have to make a DC 20 Constitution save. On a failed save, they are teleported into the Winterking's prison, and, when released, are with the rest of the party. On a successful save, they take 2d4 cold damage, and gain 1 level of exhaustion. This damage ignores resistance or immunity to cold damage. Every 10 feet traveled away from the gate at the border of the mountain pass causes this save to be repeated. Until they are back inside the mountain pass, they can't heal or recover from exhaustion, or gain any benefits of a short or long rest.
Even a character who succeeds on this save each time will eventually give up, as they keep taking damage and gaining exhaustion, and they die if they don't return to the pass quickly. The Winterking should tell anyone who walks through the gate the effects of leaving the gate before they walk through.
It is not possible to go over, under or round the gate. The only way out of the pass is through the gate, which has the above mentioned effects.
Since the Winterking is a spirit of winter, then when spring comes, his power is weakened, and the gate and all of the magical bindings disappear.
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So far this session, I have killed three pets, four teammates, and only hit the enemy once, and my fire bolt didn't work against a creature immune to fire. Trust me, you NEVER want to borrow my character or my dice.
You could just have this storm that is preventing exit from the valley be so bad near the exits that it does continual cold damage to anyone passing through it. Inform your players that as they near a "Wall of wind and snow" that even for the party members with cold resistance the cold is becoming unbearable and if they try to push through they are begin to feel as if they are freezing on the spot. Hit them with a small bit of cold damage (1d4) and tell them that it looks like they will freeze before they reach the other side. Make a high dc strength check as they have to push through the freezing rings to make progress. If your players keep insisting on pushing through the storm then you may need to be upfront and tell them that they need to stop or they will freeze to death.
If you want the campaign to feel like it's survival y with the players needing to secure food and such then I have one warning for you. Beware the good-berry!!!
If a player can cast Good-berry then any hopes of having a scavenging or working for your food sort of game is out the window because they can create enough food for the party instantly (There are other spells that can do this but they require higher levels.) If you don't want to restrict spells that your players can cast I recommend that you add the homebrew rule that Good-berry consumes it's material component. Meaning that if a player wants to cast is they have to search for the sprig of holy to do so, and it only supplies about five berries (May be wrong) Which means 1 or 2 days of food for the party depending on the party size.
Also not sure if any low CR ones exist, but be careful of any creatures with a tunneling speed that the druid might try to wild shape into.
You could just have this storm that is preventing exit from the valley be so bad near the exits that it does continual cold damage to anyone passing through it. Inform your players that as they near a "Wall of wind and snow" that even for the party members with cold resistance the cold is becoming unbearable and if they try to push through they are begin to feel as if they are freezing on the spot. Hit them with a small bit of cold damage (1d4) and tell them that it looks like they will freeze before they reach the other side. Make a high dc strength check as they have to push through the freezing rings to make progress. If your players keep insisting on pushing through the storm then you may need to be upfront and tell them that they need to stop or they will freeze to death.
If you want the campaign to feel like it's survival y with the players needing to secure food and such then I have one warning for you. Beware the good-berry!!!
If a player can cast Good-berry then any hopes of having a scavenging or working for your food sort of game is out the window because they can create enough food for the party instantly (There are other spells that can do this but they require higher levels.) If you don't want to restrict spells that your players can cast I recommend that you add the homebrew rule that Good-berry consumes it's material component. Meaning that if a player wants to cast is they have to search for the sprig of holy to do so, and it only supplies about five berries (May be wrong) Which means 1 or 2 days of food for the party depending on the party size.
Also not sure if any low CR ones exist, but be careful of any creatures with a tunneling speed that the druid might try to wild shape into.
Just make sure you give the players enough stuff to do and make any goals interesting and worth their time. Sent them on some quest that leads them around the pass looking for something that the whole party might want. One example would be an airship. Lead them on to think that its in the pass somewhere. Give them all sorts of clues and whatnot. You could also have an NPC party also looking for the airship causing some issues for the players. In the end, being that they are low level, let then find it but its badly damaged and will need a significant amount of repairs that will cost far more money then the players have. Also keep in mind its location and how hard it may be to get to when dealing with workers to pick up the repair job. Or just let them find a map that gives its real location in the world. All of this will prevent them from actually being able to have access to it at a low level. Unless you want to give it to them. Other then that, if a player or the group has the means of getting out of there long before the season ends. Just roll with it.
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I’m working on Writing an adventure where the characters get stuck in a town in a mountain pass when winter weather makes leaving the place seemingly impossible. The idea is for these low-level characters to be stuck until the spring thaw in 2-3 months, and meanwhile they investigate the strange occurrences there (AKA the adventure). It’s basically a way to keep them locked into one geographical area, and to utilize some wilderness hazards they must work to overcome. Not so different from a shipwreck adventure.
A clever player with spells might be able to figure out a way out of the pass. What are some things I should be on the lookout for?
If you need them to stay, have the winter weather that seems omnipresent also prevent teleportation and such. Perhaps there is an anti-magic zone that is part of the storm. Whatever could be causing that to happen? Is it a natural phenomenon or is its origins more deliberate than that. Could it be the divine will of the God of the party's Paladin or Cleric? Could it be the BBEG wintering in the area and not wanting to be disturbed? Tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel to find out. Or poke your noses into other people's business because you've got 2-3 months to figure it out.
It will be low level, so there won’t be any teleportation, or hopefully no flight until the end. And yes, its wintertime but there is indeed a supernatural cause. I don’t see Endure Elements on the Druid spell list, but I figured there might be something like it that I wasn’t aware of.
That would depend A LOT on your PC's level.
Druids with the ability to change into an "arctic" animal will be difficult to keep completely isolated.
However, I think this premiss is also something you could almost just tell your players. Do you want them to spend a lot of time trying to find a way out? If not, consider to just tell them that the player(s) who manages to find a way to leave, is out of the campaign until "spring". Work with them to find reasons they are not able to leave/chooses to stay.
Ludo ergo sum!
Goliaths have an ability Mountain Born. You’re acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet. You’re also naturally adapted to cold climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
That could be a problem, but you could say that even the Goliath is feeling that it's too cold. If you start early with a level of exhaustion for everyone with an ethereal voice that tells them to "Turn Back Now Or Perish", that could get them to go back. Have a local meet them on the way back telling them that they're sorry that no one warned them that to travel into the storm is death. Have an offer for lodging for the night with a promise to find some work for them to accomplish to earn their keep. Any background options are fair play as well as some rather basic adventuring quests, plus the occasional story related one that moves the narrative forward.
Though the "abandoning the rest of the party" aspect might keep them in the area anyway.
Also, be aware of rangers with Natural Explorer.
If I were the kind of player who liked making things tough for the DM and wanted to break out of the adventure campus, and I didn't have access to third-level spells yet, I would try things like Create Bonfire, Control Flames, and Shape Water. At-will spells that, over time, would probably be pretty good at clearing snow off of roads. If I were a DM who didn't just want to tell that kind of player that they should stay in town and do the adventure, I'd instead say that it would take one person, even with the equivalent of a magic flamethrower, so long to clear a mountain pass and avoid getting buried in an avalanche or falling into a crevasse, that they might as well wait for spring and just let the sun do it for them. As a player, I might also try things like Alter Self to give myself some kind of arctic adaptations (fur or maybe big snowshoe feet), or a Paladin might try to Find Steed themselves a reindeer or a big goat. But those are really one-person solutions, and like Pantagruel says, a player might not want to bail on the whole party.
The ones that might end up being a pain are the ones that keep the town physically isolated, but still in communication with the outside world. I'm thinking of things like sending familiars or Animal Messengers to the nearest city to get information from contacts or something like that.
Once they have access to Fly or Gaseous Form, all bets are off. You kind of have to hope by then that they're invested in the story. And ultimately, that's your best path anyway.
Thanks!
What if the town is isolated physically, such as the bridges in and out have fallen and can't be repaired until the thaw?
Or, stack reasons on top of reasons. A perpetual blizzard, dire warnings, razor sharp snow, and so on, all courtesy from some unknown being.
I have just read the 1st and 2nd books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon. An idea might be that the adventurers (and the entire population of the mountain pass) are prisoners of the Winterking/Ice Witch (these are the terms used in the Pellinor books, you may call him the Wintersmith (Discworld term), or create your own name for the personification/god/demon of winter). The Winterking refuses to let any human/humanoid enter or leave the mountain pass (he is not fooled by shapeshifting/illusions either), and any humanoid who attempts to leave will have to make a DC 20 Constitution save. On a failed save, they are teleported into the Winterking's prison, and, when released, are with the rest of the party. On a successful save, they take 2d4 cold damage, and gain 1 level of exhaustion. This damage ignores resistance or immunity to cold damage. Every 10 feet traveled away from the gate at the border of the mountain pass causes this save to be repeated. Until they are back inside the mountain pass, they can't heal or recover from exhaustion, or gain any benefits of a short or long rest.
Even a character who succeeds on this save each time will eventually give up, as they keep taking damage and gaining exhaustion, and they die if they don't return to the pass quickly. The Winterking should tell anyone who walks through the gate the effects of leaving the gate before they walk through.
It is not possible to go over, under or round the gate. The only way out of the pass is through the gate, which has the above mentioned effects.
Since the Winterking is a spirit of winter, then when spring comes, his power is weakened, and the gate and all of the magical bindings disappear.
Set the expectations with the players that stuff in the mountains is what you are planning on running and that is something they want to play in.
Then they shouldn't go off the rails on you.
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If the players really go out of their way to escape your adventure, that's probably a sign they weren't very interested and you should maybe let them.
You could just have this storm that is preventing exit from the valley be so bad near the exits that it does continual cold damage to anyone passing through it. Inform your players that as they near a "Wall of wind and snow" that even for the party members with cold resistance the cold is becoming unbearable and if they try to push through they are begin to feel as if they are freezing on the spot. Hit them with a small bit of cold damage (1d4) and tell them that it looks like they will freeze before they reach the other side. Make a high dc strength check as they have to push through the freezing rings to make progress. If your players keep insisting on pushing through the storm then you may need to be upfront and tell them that they need to stop or they will freeze to death.
If you want the campaign to feel like it's survival y with the players needing to secure food and such then I have one warning for you. Beware the good-berry!!!
If a player can cast Good-berry then any hopes of having a scavenging or working for your food sort of game is out the window because they can create enough food for the party instantly (There are other spells that can do this but they require higher levels.) If you don't want to restrict spells that your players can cast I recommend that you add the homebrew rule that Good-berry consumes it's material component. Meaning that if a player wants to cast is they have to search for the sprig of holy to do so, and it only supplies about five berries (May be wrong) Which means 1 or 2 days of food for the party depending on the party size.
Also not sure if any low CR ones exist, but be careful of any creatures with a tunneling speed that the druid might try to wild shape into.
Giant badger.
Just make sure you give the players enough stuff to do and make any goals interesting and worth their time. Sent them on some quest that leads them around the pass looking for something that the whole party might want. One example would be an airship. Lead them on to think that its in the pass somewhere. Give them all sorts of clues and whatnot. You could also have an NPC party also looking for the airship causing some issues for the players. In the end, being that they are low level, let then find it but its badly damaged and will need a significant amount of repairs that will cost far more money then the players have. Also keep in mind its location and how hard it may be to get to when dealing with workers to pick up the repair job. Or just let them find a map that gives its real location in the world. All of this will prevent them from actually being able to have access to it at a low level. Unless you want to give it to them. Other then that, if a player or the group has the means of getting out of there long before the season ends. Just roll with it.