Tips for Frozen Wind with existing PCs

[Berti Blackfoot]

I'm going to run Frozen Wind at my next session for Halloween, my PCs are 5th level so it is a perfect fit. From the internet it seems this is a popular module that is well loved so I am excited.

For people who have run it, do you have any tips, especially when using PCs instead of the pregens?

1. One cleric and one warpriest, so the "limit healing" is sadly not going to happen.

2. 6 players plus 2 animal companions, and 4 of the PCs have darkvision. One animal companion is a Large ape and another PC has a polearm, and two are mostly bow users, so for typical wilderness encounters I can't get anything near them that doesn't use stealth (and cover its scent)

Spoiler:

I think one way around this is to make the storm really awful and physically limit vision much like Fog Cloud. Then at least the zombies could get close. I may have to make them fast zombies to so they can get some hits in.

3. any tips for beefing up the encounters?

Spoiler:

One suggestion was to add regeneration to the zombies, making fire necessary to destroy them. Except one guy does have a bandoleer of alchemists fire, so it won't be hard to get around that, at least it will make him use it, maybe if I also add a lot more zombies.

4. We are in Ustalav, and I was thinking of changing it to a more western theme (with Pharasmin monks), it is well written and would hate to mess it up with too many changes, so how to explain

Spoiler:

Given this is in Rule of Fear "[Some] swear whole towns sometimes go missing in the mists, losing their connection to the world and vanishing forever in the haze" I think when the players are adventuring (it is winter too in our campaign so that's a plus) they will get hit by a storm that limits vision, and they'll realize they need to seek cover, then they will barely see a light up ahead, and it will turn out to be the monastery. (At most maybe I'll make it dedicated to Irori to put them at ease in the beginning thinking they are safe). That should explain the Asian flavor. When they leave I'll just have to have the mists appear again to "teleport" them back to Ustalav. (Haha! They will be expecting Ravenloft )

5. anything else? We play on Roll20, so I can easily play music and pop up pictures of what they see. But I can't control lighting or kids screaming. :)

[Endzeitgeist]

Terrain:
Limit vision. Mercilessly track exposure-damage. The abbey is cramped - make them work for holing up.

If you're just as nasty a GM as I am...give the opposition hyper-regeneration tied to the primary antagonist.
It's a quality I use in my horror-games in my main-campaign:

Hyper-regeneration:

Upon reducing a creature with hyper-regeneration to 0 HP or less, it crumples to the ground. Roll 1dX (x depending on your sadism-level, though I recommend escalating the die from 1d20 to 1d4 throughout the course of the module.) -the result equals the number of rounds the creature remains "dead" - as soon as the time elapses, the creature regenerates to full health. Whether due to wounds actually healing, a curse or black magics re-animating the creature, creatures with hyper-regeneration cannot be truly slain unless certain conditions are met, which vary from creature to creature. (Allow PCs thinking about this Knowledge-checks to determine that some things cannot be slain...unless...)

[Wicht]

I'm thrilled to hear that not only are you planning on running this, but that it has a "well loved" reputation. :)

I would suggest a few things...

• Remember that the module is meant to be survival horror. If the PCs have healing magic, feel free to increase the number of zombies in order to make the PCs burn through their resources faster.

• Add the cold aura to absolutely everything and be merciless about applying it. Make the PCs scared to remain in constant melee with the zombies.

• Ditto to what End said about exposure damage. Make the PCs aware that they are on a timer, regardless of how well they fight, and that not dealing with the cold is going to kill them as surely as anything else. This will keep them moving and exploring and thus advancing the story-line.

• I wrote it as a one-shot so as not to be afraid to kill characters. True to the survival horror style, whenever I run this in Cons, its pretty typical to have only one or two PCs surviving at the end. I don't know if you want to be that bloodthirsty with long-term PCs, but...

• Have fun. I would love to hear how it goes.

[Berti Blackfoot]

Thanks for the advice. I also added 1d6 damage to anyone who attacks with a natural weapon, in addition to the auras. So far everyone has made their fort saves against slams or other attacks for the dex damage.

Tonight we just finished the first session. After 3 hours we are in the middle of stage 2, with the frost zombies coming after them. They are making sure to burn everything to stop regeneration. I hinted at them that it is winter and they should prepare so they did. (the reason I did was in the past one DM decided to use weather out of the blue, after never using it for years, so they were unprepared and irate, I did not want a repeat of that and just said winter is coming in the campaign (it's end of november in our campaign) and linked to the weather rules).

But the highlights were from Roll20, (we are spread around the country). With Roll20 I could play spooky music and sound effects, and the screams of the dying monks. Plus screams from the Oni outside that they did not yet know about. Also, I set up some macros so once they walked outside I could limit their vision to 10 feet , with the second 5 feet pretty dim. It really helps set the mood and when one player is in a different room they can't even see what the other players see.

Another highlight was a crit with the naganita doing 53 hp of damage to one guy. Which woke them up. :) That was a scary moment. The damage they put out is pretty good, especially when a PC blunders around in the snow with a massive 44 stealth, only to be cut in the face by another naganita from an Oni just out of his vision that can see through snow. That was as much scouting out doors they have done, so they don't even know the other side of the valley has more rooms carved out yet.

(though another humorous event was when one PC sent his summoned monster out the door, an Oni out there saw it and threw used his spell-like ability to throw the .. snowball -like effect, which critted and destroyed the summoned monster. so I just told the PC "yeah he died the second he stepped out") So they are definitely afraid to go back outside.

Being neutral rather than good, they just shrugged at all the dead monks, and started a fire in the kitchen, and decided to camp out there after killing 2 Oni (one that was in the kitchen, and one that the scout brought back with him). This is the same group that, when I ran them through Feast of Ravenmoore, they decided not to wait to find out what evil is lurking and stabbed the mayor during the festival in front of the whole town :) So while they appreciated the spooky atmosphere their problem-solving is more just kill everything in sight.

So since they were sitting there I started stage 2. About 40 zombies are coming down the halls from the bunks. This is where the rules of Pathfinder really get in the way, because they can't really stack up and overwhelm players like they do in movies, the zombies are one per 5' square. So the PCs have a good choke point in the 5' hallway from the sleeping area, even though I have tried using bull rush to push players back and get more zombies through, still they are just sitting there in a line for fireballs and such. And when they kill a zombie without fire they are dragging the bodies back to the fires in the kitchen, so they are not coming back to life. so it's sort of a grind right now and really slow.

What happens next will be up to them, it is about 20 degrees right now, they've spent 20 minutes there, and I'm still lowering it 1 degree per minute. If they stay in the kitchen I'll start stage 3 and give Rimiko 10 minutes to summon the huge ice elemental and then come after them, at which point they might all die if they have to fight that, the Yukionna, Ito the wight, and 2 Oni and 1 advanced Oni still left, all at once. (though again, hiding in the kitchen/mess hall, they have a good point to funnel their attackers through). So to motivate them to get out, I may have to keep dropping the temp.

[Thanael]

Zombie Horde.

Or use the 3.5 mob template on zombies