farming the Winterspawn?

[krupintupple]

while looking for baddies to populate the brutal north of my campaign, i noticed an interesting tidbit of information from the writeup of the Winterspawn (p. 162, Frostburn). basically, anyone who downs a Winterspawn comes into possession of it's former gear: a blade, a javelin and some scale mail, all made of magic ice. while not distressing, they use the following rule:

"...dissipate into vapour after 24 hours after the Winterspawn who created them is desrtoyed, unless they save a DC20 Fortitude save."

considering the Winterspawn's longsword is a +1 keen icy burst, that's equivalent to a +4 item (+1 magical, +1 keen, +2 icy burst), or a 32,000gp item - not bad for a CR9! that is, of course, assuming that it makes its save of DC20, but since it's minimum caster level is 12, that means it gets a +8 on this save = a fairly good chance you'll get a nifty item from an undead that, although he created the item out of magical ice, has no creation feats, only a single +11 bonus to crafting things out of ice. also, assuming that you don't somehow torch him into oblivion, he'll also drop his javelin (+2 returning icy burst) and his armour (+3).

as an aside, it's all made from magically treated ice, so you'll certainly be styling!

as i see it, you can easily rack up some fairly good items for a 9th level party from just farming these poor buggers. could someone please correct me, or am i reading this proper?

 

[Runestar]

Assuming you can indeed find some way of restraining the winterspawn, I suppose it is a quick and cheap way of efficiently outfitting yourself. But someone is probably going to come in and start citing DM fiat or something...

There was in fact an article somewhere about a demon lord who imprisoned a molydeus for his +1 dancing vorpal greataxe.

 

[Herzog]

I'd let them make a saving throw EVERY 24 hours to see whether the item is destroyed.

Possibly with penalties depending on temperature.

It is, after all, ice.

 

[Creeping Death]

Assuming you can indeed find some way of restraining the winterspawn, I suppose it is a quick and cheap way of efficiently outfitting yourself. But someone is probably going to come in and start citing DM fiat or something...

There was in fact an article somewhere about a demon lord who imprisoned a molydeus for his +1 dancing vorpal greataxe.

It is a balor. The molydeus accused the Balor of not participating in the blood war. This of course was wrong and to show everyone that it was so, he had the molydeus imprisoned and kept at very low HP. The Balor uses the great axe as his own weapon as a sign and warning to others to never doubt his commitment to the blood war. I just read this a short while ago in a planescape product I have.