Authors: Chris Perkins, Stacey Allen, Bill Benham, H.H. Carlan, Celeste Conowitch, Dan Dillon, Will Doyle, Mikayla Ebel, Anne Gregersen, Chad Quant, Morrigan Robbins, and Ashley Warren
Artists: Hydro74, Mark Behm, Eric Belisle, Zoltan Boros, Christopher Burdett, Paul Scott Canavan, Sidharth Chaturvedi, Jedd Chevreir, David Rene Christensen, CoupleOfKooks, Nikki Dawes, Axel Defois, Olga Drebas, Jesper Ejsing, Jason A. Engle, Caroline Gariba, Lars Grant-West, Leesha Hannigan, Sam Keiser, Julian Kok, Olly Lawson, titus Lunter, Andrew Mar, Marcela Medeiros, Robson Michel, Scott Murphy, Irina Nordsol, Stephen Oakley, Robin Olausson, Claudio Pozas, Livia Prima, Aprile Prime, David Sladek, Craig J Speraing, Brian Valeza, Svetlin Velinov, Richard Whitters, Shawn Wood, and Zuzanna Wuzyk
Year: 2020
Pages: 320 pages
Genre: Adventure supplement for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
Price: $49.95 hardcover
I share my thoughts on and page through the newest adventure supplement, from Wizards of the Coast, for Dungeons & Dragons. Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden transports the characters to the Far North as they look to end the Frostmaiden’s magics which create an endless winter while also staving off a duergar invasion and searching for a hidden ancient city filled with powerful sorceries. Is this new entry a must have addition to your D&D adventure collection or can you easily give this the cold shoulder? You’ll find out! Plus, you can learn how to win my copy of the alternate art cover edition of the book.
4:11 Sharing thoughts about Rime of the Frost Maiden
34:26 Final summary and review score
TGG Review
7TGG SCORE
3.8VISITORS' SCORE(2 votes)
Summary
While I find the adventure's main concept solidly interesting, and the book contains loads of fun encounters and vignettes, there's also way too much which simply falls flat or is just rife with lackluster/uninspired design. In fact, the book feels pretty rushed. The actual weather, as presented for the adventure, makes little sense as far as real science and boils down to frigid cold and/or blizzard. Travel times make absolutely no sense as written and the concept of XP to gain levels seems to have been completely thrown out for this adventure. Too many encounters are simply combat, with no chance to parley, as in "door opens XYZ creature attacks" with the vast majority containing absolutely no info about monster tactics for the fight. The artwork throughout is well done and very consistent. Rime of the Frostmaiden isn't a complete disaster, as there are plenty of good aspects of the adventure, and I think an imaginative and dedicated DM can really make this sing. Personally, I think this is a decent/good adventure undermined by poor proofing overall and phoned in design in too many places.
Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...
