Suggestions for encounters near the river.

[Buff Orpington]

Assuming that you want it to have some effect how would you do it? I've had a few ideas, mainly based on a flowing river.
I would have one safe crossing point (bridge or ford) for each foot of river to prevent it becoming too much of a barrier.

• The river would be cold, really cold, perhaps adventurers would need to pass a Will test before any attempt to wade through deeper sections.
  Depending on the strength of the current they may have to fight the current in hand to hand combat and any damage would be converted being washed that many inches downstream. Smaller models could be penalised and larger ones given a bonus for the combat. Movement would be as for difficult terrain.
  On ice the situation would be reversed, small figures get the bonus while large ones are at more risk of falling through the ice. Damage would be taken as normal.

Any other ideas?

[Digitarii]

I would be inclined to one safe crossing point to force some tactical play. The most I would consider would be one crossing point per 2 feet of river.

[tyrionhalfman]

Either have less safe crossing points as Digitarii suggests or make the rest of the river impassable. If you're going to make the river impassable then soldiers could take a wound when being pushed in the river from combat either next to the river of when contesting a crossing.
Sounds like an interesting addition to games, thanks for sharing

[julius1880]

I like the idea of falling through the ice. How about also sliding across the ice.

[frogimus]

Since Fristgrave is undergoing a massive thaw, I picture the rivers being flooded and rushing with melt runoff. So, in my mind the current and debris would be very dangerous.

Bridges are notorious killing fields. They could have plenty of cover to make for a safer crossing, or you could go the other extreme and make them a "troll bridge" with an opportunistic troll or 2 making use of them for an easy hunting snare.

[Eric the Shed]

alternatively have some ice flows in the river so the characters have to jump across like stepping stones...

[Digitarii]

alternatively have some ice flows in the river so the characters have to jump across like stepping stones...

I like this idea!

[Polkovnik]

You could have water creatures attacking anyone in or near the river.

[Cory]

Several times I have run games featuring a river that allowed models to move to the middle but required some sort of strength related skill check to get out or else be washed 2d6" downstream. Models on shore might be able to help. To keep models from simply washing away I usually placed the river along two or three sides, making the table the inside of a river bend.
 

[DeGray]

The board I have at home has a river built in, with two narrow sections merging into a wider one.
 I like the idea of some rule for ice but compared to playing on a normal board the river made things quite tactically different even though the narrow sections were fairly easy to jump across and I was just counting it as difficult terrain to wade and of it.
(board and most the terrain an early work in progress)