Adventure Thread The Summertide, 1489 Turn In

I'm going to talk through my reasoning here a little bit just so you can get some insight into how I look at rewards for stuff.

The Snow Wolf Swarm is pretty heavily gutted. If we look at another swarm in the 100xp region (say a swarm of beetles we're looking at fewer HP, same AC, 1 greater to-hit and the same average damage, but without the nasty con saves. I think the Snow Wolf Swarm is probably a little nastier than a CR 1 beastie but probably not quite as nasty as a CR2 one - I'm happy to grant 150 XP for that encounter.

The Winter Wolf definitely won that encounter. Technically speaking, there should be no XP reward because the monster was not 'defeated'. However, given the extremely strong RP and the repeated efforts made to take the encounter out of combat (though it was not successful because of the dice), I don't feel like it is fair to say it was a total failure. Halving the level of the breath weapon is a bit iffy because that should probably take it a little below the CR3 threshold, but at the same time it was encountered immediately after another encounter and CR gets a bit iffy overall when running for a party of 1. Overall, I'm happy to assign 1/2 xp for the encounter (adding an extra 350) just because this is a bit of a grey area in my thinking, and it doesn't seem right to let Orin get nothing for it.

The most difficult one is - unsurprisingly - the social encounter.

I agree that the RP here was extremely strong - the problem is... there were no dice! Without a mechanical element to the adjudication it is tough to assign a CR - and therefore an XP value - to the encounter. The levels of exhaustion do not really add a great deal of risk because the level which had the most bearing on combat (level 3) was immediately rendered irrelevant by the opportunity to rest (and in any case, again, this was not 'overcome').

Basically, in future, I'd recommend chucking in some persuasion or deception checks or similar; possibly with the opportunity to avoid longer-lasting consequences (such as the 3 levels of exhaustion) and possibly gain an advantage for earning the Lady's favour. DCs can be adjusted up and down based on the strength of the roleplay, or you can assign advantage / disadvantage for lines of reasoning which resonate particularly strongly or weakly - that sort of thing. I know it can seem a little intrusive, but that's part of crafting a social 'encounter' rather than a social scene.

Also, just as a suggestion, I'd be very tempted to throw in a magic item for this - mostly as recognition of the high quality of RP and the fact that Orin did manage to beat one encounter with the second perhaps being a little tough.

I'd humbly suggest that when Orin awakens after the encounter, she has something like:

Boots of the Winterlands
These furred boots are snug and feel quite warm. While you are attuned to them, you gain the following benefits:

You ignore difficult terrain created by ice or snow.
You can tolerate temperatures as low as −50 degrees Fahrenheit without any additional protection. If you wear heavy clothes, you can tolerate temperatures as low as −100 degrees Fahrenheit.

In addition, once per day you may click the heels of the boots together as a reaction. If you do this, you gain resistance to cold damage for 1 minute.

Let me know if you feel that my reasoning seems fair, and whether you'd like to give out the magic item (or something similar of your own design) Arikarka

You don't get 'encounter' rewards for GMing - just wordcount, but Citrine will earn 710 gold and xp and the GM coupon (just one more and you can double your rewards for a thread! ... that may be super crazy with some of the bigger social threads we've seen, but, eh.)

Orin does indeed get 1810 + 150 + 350 = 2310 and a magic item.

I'll apply all these rewards now; let me know when you've had a think about the magic item.

Boots of the Winterland it is then!