Cracks in the Ice
A Chase Encounter for DnD 5e
Allow me to break the ice
This encounter is a chase designed for four level 5 characters. The party, laden with precious cargo, is trying to outrun a pack of orc worg riders across a river covered in ice. The party shall succeed if they can make it across the ice river. The riders succeed if they can get the valuable cargo the party is hauling.
For this encounter to work, the cargo the party is hauling needs to be precious to the party, so that they don’t just dump it at the first sign of trouble. For example, the party can be riding a wagon full of vital weapons and supplies bound for a northern kingdom. If the cargo was lost, people would starve, and plans for war would need to be put on hold.
How the enemy spots and starts the chase is up to you. For example, the party wanted to take a mountain pass to get to the northern kingdom to deliver the wagon, but due to winter coming early, the mountain pass was untraversable. The party had to divert to another, older trail. One that crosses directly into orc territory, known for its raiders and mercenaries. The type of raiders that just spotted the party from afar and their wagon laden with goods ripe for the picking. So begins the chase.
Cool party
Chase Mechanics: This chase can be used with the rules from the DMG on page 252, but is designed for use with my own chase rules.
Quarry: The quarry is the party and their wagon of precious cargo.
Pursuers: 10-15 orcs (MM 246) riding worgs (MM 341). Two of the orcs are orogs (MM247) and one is an orc war chief (MM 246).
This should feel like an overwhelming number of enemies for the party to fight all at once. This is basically an entire adventuring days’ worth of enemies barreling down at the player characters at once. You may need to lower the number of orcs for a low-level party or beef up the orcs and switch to dire wolves for a high level party. Also feel free to replace orcs and worgs with whatever mounted warriors you have in your campaign setting that fit the environment and seem cool.
Location: A river covered in ice, but the ice is thin enough to break with a large amount of force or damage.
Quarry Safe Haven: If the party makes it to the far side of the ice river, they can enter a narrow mountain pass that the orcs will not follow them through.
Starting Distance: The two groups should start the chase roughly 300 feet away from each other. That way everyone starts at the edge of spell and arrow range, giving your party time to assess the situation. Or fire at the enemy with longbows taken from the wagon. That would be outside the longbows effective range, so those shots would be at disadvantage, but hey some might hit.
Movement: The worgs should be far outpacing whatever is pulling the cargo, for example a team of draft horses (MM 321). The cargo is heavy and the wagon skitters across the ice, while the worgs, with their furry feet and sharp claws, are gripping the ice well and maintaining speed. Thus, the ice should be difficult terrain for the animals pulling the wagon and not for the worgs.
Draft horses have a normal speed of 40 ft., so they have a speed of 20 ft. in difficult terrain. Worgs have a speed of 50 feet. If the two groups start 300 feet away from each other, it would take 10 rounds for the worgs to completely catch up with the wagon with no complications and no dashing. That is a long time, but the worg riders can dash to reduce the distance quickly, they don’t need to get all the way to the wagon to start making accurate shots with longbows and other projectiles, and complications might slow the wagon down.
The ice man cometh
Without intervention, the worgs will catch up. If the players don’t pick up on this from the context clues, it is recommended you tell them outright, so they know.
It is now up to the party to solve the problem. How do they outrun something faster than them? They might have a bunch of answers, but an obvious answer is under their feet!
Let's kick some ice
The ice river they are crossing during this encounter is not ice all the way down. In fact, cracks appear wherever the horse hooves slam into the ice. That thin ice can be exploited. Whether by spell, powerful weapon blow, or ingenious planning.
Each 10 foot square of ice has an AC of 1, automatically fails saving throws, and has 10 HP. If the ice is reduced to 0 HP, that 10 foot by 10 foot patch of ice shatters, exposing the bone chilling water below. Then you roll a d4 and see how many of the adjacent 10 foot square sections of ice break as well! The party has a means to cut off their pursuers advance, even before the enemy gets within weapon range, if they recognize how thin the ice is!
Dashing
Since this chase is between mounted combatants, the dashing rules are for the animals everyone is riding, not the people themselves. The draft horses and worgs can both dash 4 times before needing to start rolling constitution saves. That means during the chase, the barbarian without a ranged weapon may be able to urge the horses to dash, as the wizard fires spells out the back. Find ways to get everyone involved!
Tonight's forecast... freeze is coming!
While this is a little interesting as is, let’s spice it up with some complications! The random complications table below focuses on the wagon, since that is where the player characters are. Only one should happen each round, mostly on the wagon driver’s turn. That way there isn’t a bunch of stuff happening to the wagon all at once.
Complications
| d20 | Complication |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wagon skids across the ice! The speed of the horses pulling the wagon is reduced to 20 ft. for this round (this becomes 10 ft. due to the ice difficult terrain). |
| 2 | The wagon horses jerk wildly in fear! The wagon drive must succeed a DC 12 Animal Handling check or the wagon will flip over, dealing 2d4 bludgeoning damage to everyone in it and causing the horses' speed to be reduced to 0. A successful DC 20 Strength check to flip it back over, reduced to 12 if two people are flipping it at once. Once flipped back over, the horses' speed is return to normal. |
| 3 | A sword rattles out of its sheath in the back of the wagon! One creature in the back of the wagon must succeed a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 slashing damage as the sword tumbles out of the back of the wagon. The creatures behind the wagon now have a small obstacle in their way! |
| 4 | The wagon jolts over a break in the ice! Creatures in the wagon must succeed on DC 12 Dexterity saving throw, or fall out of the wagon! |
| 5 | The horses are running as fast as they can! Roll a DC 12 Constitution saving throw for the horses. If they succeed, they immediately take the Dash action, without reducing how many dashes they can make this chase. If they fail, they number of dashes they can take before tiring is reduced by one. |
| 6 | The ice is cracking under the wagon's weight! Every 10 foot square of ice the wagon leaves this turn shatters after the wagon leaves the square. |
| 7 | Wide cracks in the ice can be seen ahead! The wagon must be turned another direction to avoid falling into the frigid water below. |
| 8 | The wheels have iced over and the wagon has become a sled! The wagon driver must make a DC 15 Land Vehicles check. If they succeed, the ice does not count as difficult terrain for the horses pulling the wagon until the end of their next turn. |
| 9 | Cracks in the ice are growing! Until initiative count 20 of the next round any ice reduced to 0 HP breaks a 20 foot square of ice instead of a 10 foot square. |
| 10 | An ice mephit has appeared 30 feet ahead of the wagon! It looks angry! |
| 11-20 | No complication |
Title Quotes from Mr. Freeze; Batman & Robin 1997
You're not sending ME to the COOLER!
Eventually this wild toboggan ride of an encounter has to end up somewhere.
Party Success: You can choose a number of rounds the quarry needs to survive, or a distance they need to cover, before they reach the Safe Haven on the other side of the ice river. 5 rounds or 200 feet of forward progress is a good place to start. It seems short, but a lot could happen in that time. So check in with your players after you pass one of those milestones to see if the encounter is going too long.
If the encounter is dragging, with the party obviously going to escape, feel free to just narrate how they get across the river successfully. Another path to success is if the war chief is taken out. Whether that means the chief falls into the icy water or is killed by the party, either way the rest of the raiders will break off their pursuit and try to rescue their leader.
Party Failure: If a few raiders catch up, they may simply take some of the valuables in the back and stop chasing, happy with their spoils. A more ruthless band may target the horses once they get within 150 feet of them, firing longbows from worg back. If that’s the case, the party will have to decide then and there whether the valuables in the back are worth their lives.
If aggressive raiders do catch up and the party does not drop the cargo, then they might be in store for another encounter all together once the horses pulling the wagon abruptly stop pulling the wagon due to arrow fire. Again, the raiders should be here for the wagon’s valuables, not the player characters, but if the party puts up a fight, the orcs will first fight to subdue, then fight to kill if things keep escalating.
Hopefully if your party gets to the point where their wagon is horse less and they are fighting to defend it, the raiders are strung out after several of the raiders had to avoid gaps in the ice or took a plunge into the water. So the party should not be fighting the full orc force all at once. Instead the enemy should come in waves, that are still difficult to deal with, but not overwhelming. And the party can blast away the ice around them to make their own little island.
Stay cool, birdboy
As you may be able to tell, wizards and other long ranged combatants excel in this encounter. Especially if they have large area of effect spells that can break up big portions of ice, limiting the advance of their enemies. It’s always fun to see what players come up with in these strange encounters, so try to go along with whatever ice breaking scheme they come up with!
With that you have an encounter for the characters to get through that isn’t just an outright battle and has a bit of terrain they get to work with and work around.
Enjoy!
From the Green DM
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