Frigid

By: Ethan Paulgaard

Ethan Paulgaard

In a white abyss the players find themselves split up, they call out to each other but
the thundering wind drowns them out there cries. Some may seek shelter, Others
might become lost forever, and maybe they stumble into the den of a monster.

In Frigid anything is possible, with new rules and guidelines that stem from D&d
5e’s core rules players and Gm’s can explore frozen wastelands and embark on
freezing cold journey’s.

In Frigid, characters travel to Frozen planes, islands or continents while having to

deal with three main factors.

1. Cold
2. Hunger
3. thirst

Cold is the most dangerous aspect of this expansion because it is used like a stat,
each player at the beginning of the game or session in which the Frigid rules are
being used. Will take their Con score and multiply it by their level.The player's
score is permanent and can not be changed unless a magic item negates cold
damage. For every action a PC takes while they are not in shelter or around a heat
source they must roll a Con save with a Dc, this DC is selected by the dm based on
the weather conditions dm’s should based their decision on the below chart.

Weather Dc

0 0

-5 1

-10 5

-15 8

-20 10

-25 13

-30 15

-35 18

-40 20

-45 23

-50 25
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-55 28

On a successful save nothing happens but if a player fails they must roll a D4. The
player must then
subtract that number from their COLD score. A player's COLD score resets to the
original score after the player spends 15 bonus or normal actions around a heat
source. Once a players COLD score equals zero or less than zero the Gm will Roll
1 d4 per player level of cold damage, (under the frigid rules set PCs can not obtain
immunity or resistance to cold damage unless a spell or magic item with a rarity of
“rare” say’s so.)

Hunger is another very important rule as it can also alter a players well being.
Hunger in normal d&d isn’t talked about very much but in this rule set food is very
important. Player’s can eat almost anything non-toxic but it is at the Gm’s
discretion at the level of normality certain items of food can obtain a player.( Ex.
Eating a blueberry wouldn’t sustain a half-orc)
Players at the beginning of the game will combine their strength and dex scores
that represent how long a character can go without food, the number being equal to
hours of time.
Now a Gm can also change this score as it would not make sense for a halfling to be
able to go days without a morsel of food. But That being said, races that don't need
as much food intake could use their strength score twice. If the player's hours run
out they will gain 1 exhaustion level and if one more day after this passes they will
gain the third level of exhaustion and this continues until death if a player can not
or does not eat.

Thirst is the third and final extra rule. This rule is used almost exactly like the
hunger rule but with one adjustment.
Contamination
This rule promotes the idea that some water is safe to drink while other sources are
not, quite simply players must drink water, however some sources of water are not
potable. For Example: fresh glacier water a player creates from grinding snow into
their flask and heating it is safe to drink. But if players find an encampment in a
snow clearing with a small stable drinking from a horse trough would have
contaminated water. But this effect would present itself over time so the DM may
choose to spread the effects of the poison condition over a certain amount of time.

Additional rules sourced from the web, credit to bobbness on reddit

Ethan Paulgaard

Avalanches

Back to avalanches! 300’ wide, 150’ long, 30’ tall, and fast! Start with initiative, and
have the avalanche move 300’ on counts 10 and 0. Creatures in the way are also
moved 300’, they fall prone, make a DC 15 strength save or take 1d10 bludgeoning
damage, which really isn’t so bad, and remember mountain travel says that
avalanches start 2d6*100’ away from the party. When it stops, creatures inside are
blinded, restrained, and gain 1 level of exhaustion for every 5 minutes inside (30
minutes and they die). They can make up to three DC 15 athletics checks to free
themselves, but remember the first level of exhaustion gives them disadvantage on
these checks. Another creature can spend 1 minute to free them, but how the heck
are they able to find their friend who’s buried in the snow potentially several
hundred feet down a mountain? There’s no guidance for this, so I would say make a
DC 15 perception check to locate them, or DC 10 if the buried creature is calling for
help, though I kinda feel like that buried creature would also be suffocating, but
let’s not make this any more difficult.

Blizzards

Now the awesome table of wilderness encounters in chapter 2 of the Frostmaiden

book will have its own guide later in the series, and it has some variant outcomes
based on blizzards! Very simply, blizzards last 2d4 hours, they limit hearing to 100
feet, vision to 30 feet, they extinguish flames and take down any creatures flying
via non magical means, they trigger spell concentration checks every single round,
and they impose disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks, and perception checks
for hearing and sight without eye protection. The other danger is veering off course
and becoming separated in the storm, but this issue is solved with some DC 15
survival checks (which should be pretty familiar by now), and it can easily be
avoided by staying put and waiting out the storm-- hopefully without being buried
in the process!

Rangers & Travel

The ranger’s natural explorer feature has a ton of benefits like getting twice as
much food when foraging, and difficult terrain not slowing their party’s travel.
Which will save a ton of time, reduce the number of encounters they’ll face, and
honestly just get to bypass a lot of these complicated rules! Overland travel is 1 mile
per hour on a dog sled, ½ on foot with snowshoes, and ¼ mile without snowshoes.
But that arctic ranger in your party can double these travel times, and remember
that this is for the wilderness only-- the roads of Icewind Dale apparently allow
you to move at a normal travel pace of about 3 miles per hour.
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Now, dog sleds seem like a cool idea but you’ll need at least two dogs to pull a sled
with one normal sized character, which will cost 120 gp, AND you’ll have to rest 1
hour for each hour you travel! So they’re kind of more trouble than they’re worth,
considering the alternative, axe beaks, cost as much as one dog, and can carry 420
lbs opposed to the dog’s 360. These large birds will need 4 times more food than a
sled dog, but I still think they’re a more simple, and honestly just a way cooler
option for overland travel!

Ice & Frigid Water

Not all ice has to be slippery, but slippery ice is difficult terrain (so it costs twice as
much movement speed to cross), and characters without crampons must make a
DC 10 acrobatics check every turn or fall prone-- but let’s think about this for a
second: normal D&D movement speed is 30 feet in six seconds. That’s 5 fps or
about 3.4 mph: a quick walking pace, and ice isn’t that difficult to walk on! So I
think slippery ice should be treated as normal terrain, and if a creature chooses to
move at half their speed, then they don’t have to make the Dex check to stay on
their feet!
Thin ice is a different matter: you roll 3d10*10 to determine the ice’s weight
tolerance for a 10 foot square, and if the weight is exceeded, it breaks, and any
creatures in that area fall through into frigid water, where a creature can be
immersed in this ice water for a number of minutes equal to their con score before
suffering any ill effects-- but idk about this either! That means an average person
with a con score of 10 can be in frigid water for 10 minutes no problem? No way, I
swear I almost got hypothermia once when I had to swim around a chilly lake for
five minutes for a boy scout badge. So for a little more realism, I would go with a
number of minutes equal to their constitution modifier, or to really simplify
things, just go with the second half of this rule: each minute in frigid water
requires a DC 10 con save or results in one level of exhaustion. That’s easier to
remember because it’s almost exactly like the extreme cold rules, except your cold
weather clothing definitely does not help! But snowshoes could help because they
distribute your weight, mainly to keep you from getting stuck in deep snow, but we
can expand on this one. I would say for the purposes of thin ice which goes by
weight, not pressure, snowshoes can effectively cut your weight in half. Which will
definitely help your party’s ice fishing endeavors in Icewind Dale!

Fishing & Foraging

For this, characters need a fishing tackle and boat or saw to cut the ice. Every hour,
characters make a DC 15 survival check to hook a fish. For normal fishing, I say end
it right here, but when fishing for knucklehead trout, they have to make a strength
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check contested by the fish! Knucklehead trout have +2 to strength AND they get
advantage on this roll-- that’s basically +7 for the fish! And if the character fails by
5 or more, they must succeed a DC 10 Dex save or be pulled into the frigid water.
What I like here is that characters in wet clothes are noted to suffer the effects of
frigid water until the clothes are taken off and replaced with dry ones! This makes
knucklehead trout fishing incredibly dangerous! And this is ridiculous! No one who
knows how strong these fish are would try to hook a knucklehead trout alone, so
maybe let your characters learn the hard way, then encourage them to work
together when fishing, or keep their holes in the ice kinda small.
But fishing isn’t the only way to get food! You can use the foraging rules from the
DMG for hunting as well: so with limited game available, and very few if any plants,
I would go with a DC 15 survival check for characters with appropriate weapons.
You may want to go higher, but the DC for tracking creatures in snow is only 10, so
it kind of balances out. Then characters who succeed roll 1d6 plus their wisdom
modifier for pounds of food recovered, and assuming your characters are all
medium or small, they only need 1 pound of food per day to survive.
As written in the Player’s Handbook (by now you can really see how spread out all
of these rules are!) a character can go without food for a number of days equal to 3+
their constitution modifier before taking a level of exhaustion, but when you’re
body is working so hard to keep warm, I would just use a number of days equal to
their con modifier before that first level of exhaustion. And water on the other
hand, is literally available everywhere as long as you can melt it. Now, you can
maybe get around these food rules if you have a character in your party with the
outlander background-- we’ll talk about that more in the character creation
episode next week, but it is the ranger class that truly shines here in the arctic!

Spells sourced from homebrew web

COLD SNAP
3rd-level evocation (Druid Sorcerer, Wizard)
Casting Time: I action
Range: 60 feet
Components: S
Duration: 1 round or 10 minutes
With a snap of your fingers you banish heat from a target.
There are two possible uses for the spell, targeting either one
creature that you can see within range or an targeting an area
of liquid — such as water, acid, mud snow, quicksand or lava.
If you target a creature, it must make a Constitution saving
throw. On a failure, the target takes 5d10 cold damage and is
restrained until the end of your next turn. In addition, it gains
one level of exhaustion unless it has resistance or immunity
to the spell's damage. On a success, it only takes half damage
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and it doesn't suffer any other effects from the spell

If you target an area, your magic affects a portion of liquid
that you can see within range and fits into a 30 foot cube. The
affected liquid is frozen solid for 10 minutes, provided that
There are no creatures in the area. Not all liquids lose their
properties when frozen. For example, frozen lava may still be
extremely hot to the touch, and frozen acid may still sting or
even cause damage in extreme concentrations.
Exhaustion caused by this spell is removed from a creature
when it finishes a short or long rest in a warm environment.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell
slot of 4th level or higher, the damage dealt increases by I d I O
and the size of the cube increases by 10 feet for each slot
level above 3rd

FROST ARMOR
4th-level evocation (Wizard only)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M (a small crystal and a metal armlet)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
You point at one creature that you can see within range
that is wearing armor. The target's armor becomes frosted
and icy until the spell ends, protecting the target and granting
it the following benefits while worn:
The target has resistance to cold damage.
• The target has a +2 bonus to AC.
When the target is hit with a melee attack by an attacker
within 5 feet of it, if the attacker doesn't have resistance or
immunity to cold damage, its speed is reduced by 15 feet
and it has disadvantage on weapon attack rolls until the
end of its next turn.

ENCASING ICE
8th-level conjuration (Druid Sorcerer,
Warlock, Wizard)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 150 feet
Components: V, S, M (a bit of water)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You conjure a block of ice at a location within range. The
ice consists of up to three 15-foot-cubes, which you can
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arrange as you wish. Each cube must have at least one

face adjacent to the face of another cube. The ice is a
magical object with 2006 + 100 hit points and 16 AC. It
grants cover and occupies space. It has immunity to cold
damage, vulnerability to bludgeoning, fire, and thunder
damage, and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and
slashing damage dealt by non magical weapons. The ice
lasts until it reaches 0 hit points or the spell ends.
Each creature in the ice when it appears can make a
Dexterity saving throw. On a success, it uses its reaction
to move up to half its speed so that it is no longer within
the block of ice. Otherwise, it is trapped in the ice.
The ice is translucent, so things can be seen through
it, and the inside is lightly obscured. When you cast the
Spell you choose whether the ice is hollow or not.
Hollow. Each creature trapped in the ice block is
pushed entirely inside the ice if it wasn't already. The
inside is cool and lightly obscured by mist, and the walls
The ice is 1 foot thick.
Not Hollow. Each creature trapped in the ice block is
restrained until the spell ends or it escapes. A trapped
creature must make a Constitution saving throw at the
start of each of its turns, taking 6d10 cold damage on a
failed save, or half as much damage on a success. Any
creature whose space is entirely within the ice is also
paralyzed and can't breathe while restrained by it.
A creature restrained by the ice can use its action to
attempt to escape by breaking free of the ice, even if it is
paralyzed by the ice. It makes a Strength check against
your spell save DC, with disadvantage if it's paralyzed by
the ice. On a success, it frees itself and breaks the ice in
its space. When the ice surrounding a creature is broken
In this way, it is freed even if it doesn't attempt to escape.
Every 5-foot cube portion of ice that is broken reduces
the block's hit points by 15.

ICE SCULPTURE
2nd-level conjuration (Artificer, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: 10 minutes
You conjure a magical chunk of ice into an unoccupied
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Space that you can see within range. The ice created
must be no larger than a 10-foot cube, and the ice must
be of a form that you have seen before, though the form
need not have been made of ice when you saw it. This
spell cannot create complicated machinery with moving
parts, such as a clock or firearm. When you cast the spell,
you also choose whether the ice is clear and transparent
or cloudy and heavily obscured.
The ice has hit points equal to 5d8 + twice your spell-
casting modifier (minimum 5 hit points), and its AC is
equal to 10+ your spellcasting modifier. It has immunity
to cold damage, but it has vulnerability to bludgeoning,
fire, and thunder damage. The ice object is destroyed
when it reaches 0 hit points or the spell ends.
The ice melts after 2d4 minutes in a hot environment,
and only 1 minute in an extremely hot environment.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a
spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the hit points of the ice
increase by 2d8 for each slot level above 2nd, and the
maximum size of the object increases by 5 feet for every
3 slot levels above 2nd.

BLIZZARD
4th evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 20 foot sphere
ComponentsV. S. M (a handful of snow or ice cubes)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You summon a fierce snowstorm to hamper your
opponents. Everyone in a 20 foot radius sphere, centered
on a point of your choosing has disadvantage on stack
rolls and sight-based ability checks for up to one minute

HAIL
6th-evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 foot sphere
Components V, S, M (one piece of ice and onc diamond
worth 25)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You cause a hailstorm to rain down from above. Everyone
in a 30 foot radius sphere must make a Dexterity saving
throw On a failed save the target takes 406 bludgeoning
damage or half as much on a successful one. Additionally
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if the target has a turn before the spell is over, they must
make another Dexterity saving throw

FREEZING TOUCH
evocation cantrip
Casting Times 1 action
Range: Touch
Components V, S
Duration Instant 1 hour
You touch a creature within range and attempt to freeze
them. The target must make a Constitution saving throw
or be frozen. On a failed save they take 1d6 cold damage.
Additionally, if you touch an object with this spell, it
freezes it for one hour
At Higher levels. When casted at int level or higher
the target takes an extra d6 cold damage per level. When
casted on an object, it adds a number of hours equal to
the spells level

FREEZE WATER
transmutation cantip
Casting Times 1 action
ange: Touch
Components V, S
Duration Instant
You touch up to a gallon of water and it instantly becomes
ice. If you touch a body of water greater than a gallon, you
can only freeze a portion of it.

GLACIAL PACE
2nd level evocation
Casting Time 1 action
Range 120 feet
Components VS
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You attempt to hinder your opponents with the aid of ice.
Choose up to three targets that you can see within range
to fall prey to the cold. Each target gets disadvantage on
Dexterity checks and their speed is halved for up to one
minute
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ICE SPIKE
3rd-level evocation
Casting Times 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components:V, S, M (an circle or a small aquamarine)
Duration: Instant
You summon three large ice spikes out from the ground to
attack up to three targets
that you can see within range.
The targets must succeed on a Dexterity sang throw
or take 1d10 piercing damage.

FIELD OF FROST
3rd level evocation
Casting Time 1 action
Range: Sell (30 foot cone)
Components:V, S, M (one small crystal worth lep)
Duration: 1 minute
You cause the ground beneath your opponents' feet to
become icy. Everyone in a 30 foot come must make a
Dexterity saving throw or have their feet rooted to the
ground. On a failed save the target becomes restrained
for the duration and must make a strength saving throw
on their turn to break free

These are the current extra rules in Frigid the winter themed d&d 5e expansion
Happy play testing.