8 months since my last update, figured I’d squeeze one in before 2012 and the world ends.
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So while getting ready for my semi-annual Christmas D&D (well, Pathfinder now) game, I decided to implement Paizo’s Chase Rules. The idea is that while the party is scouring the Yule Wood for the tallest tree for a ceremony, the mountain range to the west has an avalanche. Avalanches are treated as colossal creatues, so I gave it a speed and the party had to escape it. Seeing as they weren’t at the peak of the mountain but the foot, I gave them a four round head start.
Now the chase cards are a cool idea, but the cards say which ability to use, so a player just picks the higher stat. I liked the idea of having them make a quick decision, because taking time to think means an wave of snow and ice inevitably burying you. So I wrote the stats one one side of the card, then the players made their choice based on descriptions on the back. The first few rounds were “Open Snow”. They had to run towards the forest. But several of the cards were actually snowed over frozen ponds or geyers of ice water.
As with traps players made a perception check. If they failed, they triggered the event. Some events barred the player from moving, decreasing the distance between them and the avalanche. Some events just did damage to them, but they were able to continue moving. It was a fun variation, and the very last round saw the party having to make a high DC to cross a rickety bridge. If any of them failed, the avalanche would catch them. Sure enough, everybody made their checks. No fudging on the DMs part. It worked well, and I’d like to implement some variations on the rules. It’s not something you’d want to use a lot but it’d be fun to do occasionally.
The heroes run for the forest across open snow. However the path is riddled with buried dangers.
Players who chose the left path encountered a snowed over frozen pond. Essentially a trap, they had to make checks to avoid falling through the thin spots and taking cold damage.
Here the players had to choose how to overcome a fallen tree. Once they decided, the cards were flipped. Over it was a DC25 climb check, under it was a DC15 acrobatics check.