• Registered: 2011-02-25
  • Posts: 10

Topic: My Death Frost Doom Experience [Spoilers]

My group has had a Pathfinder campaign going since October of last year, but about a month back, I decided to drop in a hook that led to Death Frost Doom. I didn't force it upon them, but their greed and/or desire for revenge sent them there. The group was level 4 and had the following characters:

Senator - Half-Ogre Barbarian (my 30-something brother-in-law, played since AD&D era)
Master Choli - Half-Elf Cleric (my 14-yr-old cousin, started playing with us last year)
Barbara - Goblin Bard (my 27-yr-old sister, started playing with us last year)
Loti - Gnome Sorcerer (my wife, just plays to hang out with everyone, still doesn't know what an ability score modifier is)
Bakna - Hobbit Thief (my 10-yr-old cousin, uses a microlite20 character and sits in with us on occasion. he only played in the second session)

The adventure was completed in two sessions totaling about 14 hours of play. The party left the cabin/shrine 3 times to rest if I recall correctly.

The synopsis of events is here:
http://peoplethemwithmonsters.blogspot. … paign.html

It's basically just a bulleted list of how they interacted with the adventure's main components. I tried to avoid a turn-by-turn report, as I find those excruciatingly boring to read. As a result, some things may be glossed over. If there are any questions about specific things, I'd be happy to answer them in this post.

I found the adventure worked fine with the Pathfinder system, with no up-front work necessary other than reading the adventure beforehand. Any monsters encountered were standard undead that were listed in the Bestiary. I did rework the standard Vampire in the Bestiary to have 2 additional levels of sorcerer, as I wanted to make 100% certain he was unkillable. However, I forgot the stat block at home, so I ended up just using the standard vampire in play, but giving him access to Baleful Polymorph (which he used 3 times to put pressure on the party to make a decision) and a Wish scroll, which I decided he had on the fly, in order to deal with the situation when two players were compelled to jump down the bottomless pit.

The only other thing that I wasn't sure about were the save or die poisons. I figured I'd just make it up on the fly. It never came up. Even though 2 save or die poison situations were encountered, both saves were made.

It was a bit tough for me psychologically to carry through with the deadliness of the adventure, since I inserted it into a campaign that has been going for 8 months, and the tone was markedly different than the previous stuff we had done. However, I am glad that I did it and the group now knows that the kid gloves are off and they shouldn't expect to be spoon-fed level-appropriate encounters and easy decisions.

I highly recommend the play experience this adventure offers. Don't rule it out just because you are not playing an old-school rules system. You will learn a lot about your group and your players and yourself as a GM.

people them with monsters
  • Registered: 2011-06-04
  • Posts: 44

Re: My Death Frost Doom Experience [Spoilers]

It is a great post, highly recommended for those of you who are interested.

  • From: Cambridge, MA
  • Registered: 2011-03-04
  • Posts: 13

Re: My Death Frost Doom Experience [Spoilers]

I very much enjoyed the play report. And I was glad to see your remorse about being so brutal, and even your fiats reversing some things. I started our campaign with a vision of near-mercilessness in mind, but found that my players - almost all of whom are completely new to non-computer RPGs, were not so excited. So even in playing through Stargazer I found myself adjusting some stuff to make it less necessarily lethal. They still got creeped the fuck out and there was one death (via the telescope, so it was at least cool), but overall we were much happier.

My sense is that as the players progress, things (meaning me) will get tougher, as they get more used to the whole endeavor.

But I digress; it was a great post! Thanks for sharing it.

Campaign blog: http://deadlake.wordpress.com
Other, rarely updated blog: http://tigerchamber.wordpress.com

Errant Tiger's Website

  • Registered: 2011-04-13
  • Posts: 36

Re: My Death Frost Doom Experience [Spoilers]

Excellent AP. I ran DFD twice and it was awesome (and different) each time. This is my go-to module when I want to introduce people to LotFP. It's like the whole Referee's guide was compressed in this "little" scenario.

Les Livres de l'Ours, my rpg blog
  • Registered: 2011-02-25
  • Posts: 10

Re: My Death Frost Doom Experience [Spoilers]

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. The module was the ultimate "put your players in a messed-up situation and see how they deal with it."

The players are now going about figuring out what factions they can rally to their cause, and it sounds like they are looking for a climactic "battle of five armies" sort of thing to take care of this undead problem. It's funny, because I've tried to run epic heroic-style games before, and had a great deal of trouble getting the players to buy into it.

Now that I've opened this game up to wide-open player choice, with no personal investment in what they decide to do, that is the direction they have gone. Go figure.

The possibilities this module has opened up in our game are enough to keep us busy for years.

people them with monsters