After close to five months, my group was finally able to get together again for a RoW game, and started to work through the final two encounters for the second part of Book 1 (reaching the Winter Portal).
First, I had a hard choice to make. After some thought, and knowing that I'm the only person in the group to own the Mythic Adventures rulebook, I pointed out a Mythic Spell that would basically destroy the impact of winter weather on the PCs (that being Mythic Endure Elements). In essence the spell negates the effects of snow on perception and movement, lowers wind effects, and adds a resistance of 5 to both heat and cold damage. While the group isn't Mythic yet (that happens upon meeting up with the Black Rider), I am fairly certain this spell will be taken (by the Ranger of all folks), especially as the two encounters (which we didn't even get all the way through!) made significant use of winter weather: the Campsite Ambush and the Winter Portal itself.
The Ambush was an interesting encounter (and nearly lethal to the NPC Paladin [Oath vs. Undead]) in that while the group had killed the winter mephit, they'd allowed the atomie with the elk get away, and never dealt with Thora. I did run into one small issue: just how big is the area of reduced vision from a Whirlwind Air Elemental once it impacts the ground? I ended up having the entire camp covered, but eventually it let up, especially as ranged combat was useless and I felt it was dragging the combat on for far too long. (I also didn't use the Concealment rules, but part of that was the group kept missing, and also the atomie had to enter into the same square as a foe, so technically that negates the concealment bonus.)
The Winter Portal is pure and unadulterated hell, however.
Did the game designers actually playtest this? Seriously, did they? First of all, you have descriptions of what the group can see - but the heavy snowfall rule pretty much has "you only see five feet in front of you." Second, there are footprints in the snow. Except there is constant snowfall, you can only see five feet in front of you, and during a blizzard I've seen blowing snow erase all shoveling work on a driveway in an hour. There should be no footprints, no paths, and those igloos should really be four snow-covered hills.
After three rounds of combat I had the winter-touched pixies enter the combat and things are finally starting to move along. And I've a decision to make: should I keep the winter weather going for two more rounds and force the Winter Oracle to fly to the troll and direct him to the PCs? Or end the snow and allow the PCs and Teb to see one another? (The former is realistic - Teb cannot see the way to the igloos, his path to the cave should pretty much be gone, and without Hommelstaub to direct him, he should pretty much just wander lost while trying to figure out where that "bang" came from. The latter though is nicely dramatic of the snow clearing and this huge moss troll emerging from the snowfall as a huge snow-encrusted menace.)
One reason to eliminate the heavy snow is because of Teb's combat. Here we have a moss troll with Reach and a two-handed weapon as his primary weapon. He cannot actually attack with the spear, however, because if he's ten feet away he cannot see the enemy (scent does not allow a foe to precisely determine where the enemy is in terms of knowing where to hit). So he's thus forced to fight without the spear and it becomes a pointless weapon.
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The end result will be the PCs prevailing. I'm not sure if the Paladin will live (he is a damage sponge after all and is a natural target for Teb) but in all likelihood most of the group will (even with Teb being given the Mythic Savage template to compensate with the group being higher level).
But I look at this and I see conflicting perspectives when it comes to designing and running this combat. Heavy snow sounds great and dramatic. But the depiction of the region ignores the constant and ongoing snowfall. The combat tactics for everyone outside of Hommelstaub ignores the fact that you have a huge game of blind man's bluff going on. And the 20% miss chance for concealment becomes just another thing to keep track of.
There's also the question as to how the creatures in Irrisen and which have emerged from the Winter Portal are even able to effectively fight. The snow depth is enough that everything suffers from difficult terrain. But creatures like Winter Wolves, Frost Giants, Winter Trolls, and the like do not have any advantages of traveling through snow. Yes, apparently when you're ten feet tall, a foot of snow is a problem that halves your movement.
How long do people even bother continuing to use these winter weather rules? At which point do GMs say "eff this!" and just stop? While it may seem dramatic to have the players having to fight through a never-ending snowstorm to reach the Winter Portal... when it drags the game down so that two encounters take over five hours to finish? You have to wonder if it's too much.
I admit, I didn't really use the concealment and visibility penalties from snow for the bulk of the way to the winter portal; it was just too much. Especially, like you say, if the snow was that heavy, it would wipe out any trail. I tried to keep the flavor there, that it was cold and snowing and windy, but just not blizzarding the whole time.
As an aside, almost all of the party ended up starting with some protection from the cold, so that wasn't too much of an issue. Two arctic elves, an ulfen with trait that gives him some cold endurance, a cleric with endure elements, and the players took my hints to get winter weather gear (clothes, furs, and snow shoes) really quickly. So it wasn't really much of an issue except for the gnome (who eventually got an endure elements) and the Ulfen barbarian (who had a high enough fortitude that with the winter weather gear he was OK).
When the party got to the winter portal, though, I did start using the visibility rules. But I took a recommendation from someone else on this forum, describing the snow and wind as gusting in "waves" so that visibility varied during the combat. I rolled a d4 at the beginning of each round to determine 5, 10, 15, or 20 feet of visibility, and within that range there was no concealment, but outside of that range, there was 50% concealment.
This seemed to work really well.
With 7 characters (6 players and a DMPC barbarian/bard) all at 3rd level, I had to jack up the difficulty. I made Teb a mythic troll (from Mythic Adventures). This is pretty extreme, but the party brought tons of fire with them and they beat him, just barely.
Hommelstaub didn't do much and the sprites did even less. I also added a drunk winter-touched leprechaun barbarian 2 that showed up right as the troll was going down; he was too drunk to realize what was going on and so responded to the combat slowly.
All in all, it ended up being a pretty epic battle. Hopefully I can match it with the events at the Pale Tower.
Heh, my party did the winter portal yesterday.
They'd actually dealt with a number of enemies beforehand. Since Izoze the mephit had watched them storm the Lodge, defeat Rhokar, and leave with the noblewoman, I had her still manning the bridge but gave her the small air elemental as back-up. The party managed to kill both.
Later, Hommelstaub and the two sprites from the camp ambushed the party after they had dealt with the weasel (a hilariously easy encounter - the inquisitor opened with an animal-bane arrow for 2/3rds of the weasel's HP, so it tried to flee and they hunted it down). Hommelstaub did some damage, but got put down and the party rested.
When they got to the winter portal's white-out area, the party all held a rope and went in a circuit around the outside of the camp, checking the igloos, finding Teb's cave (and loading his lockbox onto a mule), and completely looping around the cul-de-sac and the ice palisade, finding it only had one entrance. (Once they were in the semi-shelter of the trees, they had marginally better visibility).
For a time the party could hear a large creature taunting someone in giant (Teb Knotten taunting the Black Rider, who was stranded on the other side for as long as Teb lived), and which then started speaking in common once they approached the single gap in the palisade. The party taunted him back and decided to fight him in the white-out. And so he drank his potion and brought it on.
Now, a few things - Teb Knotten has 10 ft reach with his attacks, and the spear isn't a reach weapon (he'd have 20 ft reach if it was!), so he can attack adjacent foes with the spear just fine.
Since Teb is creepily flexible and has a 10 ft reach bite attack, I had him actually leaning over people to bite them, and he could basically see to the extent of his reach while attacking. In turn, the casters/ranged would ready to launch spells/attacks when was he leaning in.
So Teb would strike with his spear at the front rank, and lean over them to bite someone in the back rank, and people would launch spells or counter-attacks (such as the gun inquisitor shooting Teb in the face when Teb leaned in to bite him).
So some freaky visuals of the looming, bobbing, weaving menace snaking in and out of the white-out.
I'd given Teb max HP, the advanced template, and the invincible simple template (the now Int 13 Teb identified himself as a Knight of Queen Elvanna), but the fight only took two or three rounds - Teb flubbed most of his attack rolls (and flubbed all of his Sudden Block rolls), both of the party's heavy hitters scored nearly-max damage crits on him back-to-back, and the witch rolled a max damage burning hands blast.
I also completely forgot the 20% concealment for both sides, but I had Teb straight-up invading personal space as he fought, so whatever.
So yeah, I wound up ignoring or adjusting a lot of the rules for the fight.
And now my party has mythic power, and the oracle's player immediately took Mythic Endure Elements on his own initiative.
When the party passed through the portal, they then came upon a scene of staggering carnage, where a mixed force of humans, wolves, some trolls, and a frost giant had caught up to Dark Midnight - and had learned the hard way that the mortally wounded Black Rider was still more than they could handle.
Mythic endure elements then had a hilarious immediate application - when the forlarren bard came into their shared camp with Nadya, the chaotic neutral aasimar bard (who was buffed with Mythic Endure Elements) successfully bluffed her on the party's origins, and then managed to convince the winter-touched fey to got out and have a tumble with him in the blizzard. She agreed to the novel experience, and they went at it.
When they returned to camp, Meirul walked right into an ambush by Nadya* and the rest of the party and died without even getting to roll initiative. Nadya and the melee ranger both scored crits in the surprise round.
*Due to a surprisingly upfront approach by the party, Nadya promptly learned that the party had met the Black Rider and was targeting the Pale Tower. Nadya brought up her daughter being held captive at the tower, and gave a description. The party brought out the hair and dress recovered from the guardian doll and explained how they got it. Nadya is now out for blood.
When the party passed through the portal, they then came upon a scene of staggering carnage, where a mixed force of humans, wolves, some trolls, and a frost giant had caught up to Dark Midnight - and had learned the hard way that the mortally wounded Black Rider was still more than they could handle.
Crap, great idea. I wish I'd thought of that. The black rider's killer is obviously a huge loose end. Who put the ice spear through him? That person must be somewhere, and must be dead, otherwise if it was one of Elvanna's flunkies, why would Nazhena's people be out looking for him?
I'll be running the Witchwar Legacy at the end of the campaign, so maybe this will be a way to get Kostchtchie's plot involved in the campaign earlier.
For the Shackled Hut, I'm going to have some of Elvanna's Winter Guard be mythic, having killed the Red and White Riders and acquiring their mythic power. They'll be recurring villians hopefully.
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Crap, great idea. I wish I'd thought of that. The black rider's killer is obviously a huge loose end. Who put the ice spear through him? That person must be somewhere, and must be dead, otherwise if it was one of Elvanna's flunkies, why would Nazhena's people be out looking for him?
My behind-the-curtain logic was that the Black Rider had been fatally wounded in the attack that claimed the other two riders, possibly by one of Elvana's children. In fact, I put a lot more than just one ice spear through him.
However, he was the last and greatest of the Three Riders, and the raw power of the Mantle allowed him to evade capture and bought him time to find someone to pass his remaining power, and his burden, on to.
Believing the Rider ready to die at any moment, and confident that he'd be blocked from passing through any portal, Elvana's children delegated the pursuit to their own children and grandchildren - they had a war to begin waging.
However, the keyed guardian of the Heldren side of the portal, Mr. Teb Knotten, died at the hands of a ragtag band of heroes, and the Black Rider (who'd already killed the guardian on Waldsby's side) could suddenly get through.
The witch passed a heal check to realize that the Rider was technically already dead and a powerful magical effect was keeping him going. She healed him anyways, because it was her 1/day/person hex and maybe it'd make him hurt less.
When he dismissed his armor so that he could anoint the keys with his blood, the party saw that the Rider had holes bored all the way through him.
He then dissipated into black smoke, granting what was left of his essence to his successors. The party now has his helm, and intrinsically understand that if they can bring it to the Hut's cauldron, it'll have power to still bestow.
And so the helm will become the future mechanic for either bestowing mythic tiers on replacement PCs (unlikely with how our group does games, though), or granting the lesser Mantle (+2 to a stat and an arbitrary power) to worthy NPC companions. For example, Nadya would get some sort of Favored Enemy (Evil Spellcasters) that matches her highest favored enemy; Greta, if recruited, would get alternate form (because "thumbs are awesome"), etc.
Zhangar, that's all fantastic!