Alone Against the Frost missing ending / guide / walkthrough

 Alone Against the Frost missing ending / guide / walkthrough

(copy and paste of original reddit post for convenience to the reader)  I'm not sure how much a walkthrough/guide is needed for alone against the frost compared to say alone against the dark but.. wrote one anyways :) ... I will say that due to an apparent typo in the book it's possible to miss one of the possible  endings to the adventure so even if you don't read the blog post I linked below (guide/walkthrough was too long to post here on reddit ) take note of this if nothing else.

You may end up with the keyword "stockhouse" when playing this adventure.. when you get to entry 529 and you have stockhouse listed as a keyword, make a note of entry 374... you have the option of turning to entry 374 if you have the keyword stockhouse, something that was apparently left out of the text entry for entry 529.   As proof if you look at the number in parenthesis at the end of entry 374 it's basically telling you that you get to entry 374 from heading 529 .. but, again entry 529 doesn't make any mention of entry 374.

I also think there was an error as far as how to assign occupational skill points for Dr. Nadelmann but I could be wrong, my blog post below goes into more detail on this.   More experienced CoC folks by all means if I'm wrong please let me know!  I will admit I am a relative newcomer to CoC having only recently read the CoC Keeper's Handbook and Investigator's Book and I haven't been in any CoC games yet I've only played through some of the CoC solo adventure books (Alone Against the Flames/Tide/Dark/Frost).

Should also point out that "guide/walkthrough" is a bit of a lie, I feel like a blow by blow detailed account of everything in the adventure book would rob the book of a lot of the fun you'd have playing through it... I do give a few hints that qualify as spoilers past the "errata" part but of course I'd strongly recommend you play the book on your own first before reading that.. if you're throughly frustrated and ready to give up on the adventure book completed I do have a "mega spoilers" section which tells you the most likely route to get one of the "happy endings" (or as close to a happy ending as you're going to get in CoC anyways  :P  ).

A bit off topic but I will say Alone Against the Frost was a lot of fun to play through once I realized certain things were inevitable and were going to happen no longer what (and when I thought about it very much in the spirit of the CoC spirit .. you're never going to get that 100 percent happy ending you might think you can get it's CoC !  :P  ) ... personally I thought Alone Against the Dark for all it's typos and need for house ruling and record keeping (record keeping was a big turn off for a lot of people I know I've read posts from other folks on here saying such but to me it was absolutely worth it :)  )  was absolutely epic and "the" Alone Against to play out of the four I just mentioned but.. that's just my opinion :) 

You probably came to this blog post from this reddit post here

https://www.reddit.com/r/callofcthulhu/comments/1la0nov/alone_against_the_frost_missing_ending_guide/ 

but if you didn't go back and read that reddit post first there's some important info there about the stockhome keyword (basically when you get to entry 529 if you have the keyword stockhome bear in mind stockhome entitles you entry 374, something that was apparently left out of entry 529).   

This guide/walkthrough is broken up into three parts.. "errata" which  you can read spoiler, free.. "spoiler" which you should read only after you've played through Alone Against the Frost at least once (maybe twice) and are starting to get a bit frustrated... and the "mega spoiler" section if you're ready to give up on Alone Against the Frost completely because you're really frustrated - the mega spoiler section gives you the most likely route to one of the happy endings (or as close as you can get to a happy ending in CoC :)  ). 

ERRATA 

In addition to what I mentioned about stockhome above, I think there are some errors in the character customization for your character Dr. N on page 6... given your intelligence score of 90 and that the adventure states you get 360 skill points, 90 times four is 360 so it seems reasonable to assume that the career of "anthropologist" listed is similar to that of archaeologist (lovecraftian) on page 71 of the Coc Investigator's Guide albeit with different occupational skills as listed in Alone Against the Frost... however the adventure fails to mention that you need to assign skill points to your credit rating and your character sheet lists your credit rating as 64 ... I'd say you need to subtract 64 from the 360 points you start with and assign the remaining 296 points to the skills listed on page 6... also note that the character sheet lists own language English at a rating of 60 points so I would also argue that you need to subtract another 60 from the 296 to give 236 points total to assign to skills other than own language (English) and credit rating.  

SPOILERS

Again read this only if you're starting to get frustrated with CoC and want some hints that qualify as spoilers .. but in my opinion anyways not a bad enough spoiler to make Alone Against the Frost completely unplayable because you now know everything that's going to happen already.

It's not a matter if you lose Charlie from your expedition party it's when... given that you can substitute other party member's skill checks for your own if they have a higher skill rating as the adventure mentions if you're like me you'll gaze in longing at Charlie's high listen, tracking and pilot boat skills that will be lost to you ... but don't bother looking for ways to somehow keep Charlie in the party it's not going to happen.  

There's also a really, really good chance you're going to lose Norman too.. heck the adventure is so deadly it's entirely possible you'll lose all the expedition party members and you'll count yourself lucky to get back to civilization alive but if nothing else I'd argue this is in the spirit of CoC :) ... don't assume that you've failed if you don't come back with all four party members alive and still with the group, honestly I think the writers assume that at best you'll come back with two of the four party members alive (if you're really lucky Bernard survives too :)  ) ... keep going and see what kind of ending you get even if you're the only one left alive.. though I will say that if you're the only one left alive the chances of you surviving are admittedly slim.

Regardless of how many party members are still alive by the time you decide to head back to civilization, to get back home ... and this was something that slipped by me at first but would probably occur to anyone else with more common sense than me :) .. if you think back to the beginning of the adventure you'll remember some extremely dangerous rapids you needed to pilot your boat through in order to simply continue on the adventure without a possibility of everyone dying right there on the spot.. you'll have to face the same dangerous rapids to get back to civilization... 

....don't worry about losing your boat there will be an opportunity for another boat to get you back home at that point in the adventure... at this point you have to make a decision ... I spent all my remaining luck points on that boat (skill) check dice roll just to get back to civilization which (literally) gets you out of the woods and back home.. the problem is you more than likely will have to make at least one skill check, possibly more even after you've reached the safety of home just to get a good ending! (again I would argue very much in the spirit of CoC :) ) ... so you might want luck points for those rolls too ... it's worth noting that Norman, Sylvia and (if he survives) Bernard have the Pilot (Boat) skill as well but given the relatively low scores they have compared to say Charlie's pilot boat skill score (60 percent) for example whom as I mentioned will more than likely not be there with you by the time you're read to conclude the adventure (Charlie that is)... so if you don't assign pilot (boat) to yourself as a skill at I'd say bare minimum 50 percent you could never make it out of the wilderness alive, for one thing if you have pilot (boat) that way you can spend luck points on the skill check (the adventure doesn't state this but I assume you can only spend luck points on your own skill rolls not that of other party members)... and for another thing if one or more party members are dead there may be nobody left to make the pilot (boat) skill check other than yourself (although if memory serves me correctly I think the book gives an option for you to get out of the wilderness without even making a pilot (boat) check if you're the only one left alive).

On the other hand of the 180 personal interest skill points the book is correct in that navigate, firearms, pilot (boat) and survival (woodland) are the most useful skills but the listen skill comes in handy as well... of course the problem is that's only 180 points to spend on five, possibly six skills if you include navigate too, you could divide them evenly but that gives you a problematic 30 percent chance to succeed at all of them or to put it another way 70 percent of the time you fail (one thing I missed is that Sylvia has a respectable 50 percent Listen score and the adventure does mention you can substitute other party member's skills for your own so that's helpful but of course if Sylvia dies or is otherwise lost to you then you lose her Listen skill as well)  ... navigate is not only potentially useful at various points during the adventure, it comes into play to help you achieve at least one of the potential "happy endings"...  

Again bear in mind what I said above it's not "if" you lose Charlie it's "when" so when assigning skill points act as if Charlie's not going to be with you during the adventure... one of the better possible endings (some might argue the best one but that's up to your personal opinion) depends on you having a high enough rating in science (geology) if you get lucky and stumble across the right heading in the adventure ... but I would argue you run a serious risk of dying if you spend say 50 points on science (geology) because that's 50 less points to spend on other skills you'd need to survive the adventure.

Of the 360 occupational skill points you have to assign (different from and in addition to the 180 skill points mentioned above), the 75 percent the writers of Alone Against the Frost have you start out with at a minimum in anthropology should be fine (unless you get unlucky and roll higher than 75) throughout the game ... the most useful skills are Natural World (this is so useful I'd assign it 90 skill points), and Persuade (assign this 90 skill points too it's possible at one point in the adventure that it comes to a premature end if you don't have enough skill points in Persuade).

Bear in mind that there are multiple possible "happy endings" (or as close as you can get to one in CoC) for the adventure but all the endings are arguably "bittersweet" ...the ending you can get if you make that science-geology skill check roll and/or if you're lucky and come across a map to me personally appeared to be the "happiest" ending but even that ending had a "well something bad still happens anyways" aspect to it... this doesn't mean you somehow "failed" or missed something important, the writers are simply driving home the spirit of CoC - life isn't fair!  :)   ... at least in the world of CoC anyways.  I'd argue it's worth multiple playthroughs of Alone Against the Frost to see all the possible different endings you can get and all the different things that can happen.   I actually got one of the better possible endings on.. think it was my second playthrough.. but the ending was so bittersweet I was convinced there was a better ending that I somehow missed out on and I was making all the wrong choices.  

MEGA SPOILERS

Again, only read this section if you are so frustrated with Alone Against the Frost that you're ready to give up on the adventure completely.   

If you come across keyword tangent go for it far as the potential discoveries involved, it goes a long way towards showing you what's actually going on behind the scenes in the adventure... like everything else in CoC however it's dangerous and can result in an untimely death.   Tangent won't really help as far as getting as close as you can to a "happy ending" in the adventure but it's worth pursuing just for the reader/player's knowledge.   

 

mention this first in walkthrough in case other parts of walkthrough are ignored.. 

errata discovered... keyword stockhouse is not mentioned at entry 529 when you need to present evidence you've discovered .. so if you have stockhouse as a keyword and you're at entry 529, you have the option of going to heading 374 to present the evidence associated with the word stockhouse... to prove it (spoiler alert don't read entry 374 unless you already obtained the keyword stockhouse during the adventure) if you read entry 374 it mentions you can get there from entry 529 so obviously entry 529 was meant to include the stockhouse heading of 374...