Ice Archon

[HeinorNY]

In your example, it's not the cold that kills the archon, but the physical force of the ice forming in the wound and tearing the creature apart, like water in a crack expanding when frozen to split the rock. Wouldn't that be a physical attack, though, and not an energy one?

In your (well written and imaginative) example, the ice archon proves vulnerable not to cold, but to being torn apart by massive physical trauma.

So how does coldness hurt?

 

[Wolfspider]

So how does coldness hurt?

Hmm. I always thought that cold damages by freezing the water in living cells, causing them to rupture. Of course, I'm neither a scientist nor a physician (which is unfortunate, since then I'd be able to purchase more gaming books).

 

[HeinorNY]

Hmm. I always thought that cold damages cells by freezing the water in living cells, causing them to rupture. Of course, I'm neither a scientist nor a physician.

I'm not a scientist too, just a lousy lawyer.

But continuing:
So, how does coldness hurt an adamantium golem?
How does coldness hurt a skeleton?
How does coldness hurt a shadow?
How does coldness hurt an earth elemental?

If you have enough knowledge or enough imagination to come up with a fantastic explanation for all that, or just accept those as possible and believable, it shouldn't be so hard to accept that "a creature made of cold energy can be hurt by a magical attack that inflicts an even more harmful cold energy, or just more cold energy that the cold creature could resist", or any other exaplanation one can make up.

 

[The_Fan]

That is pretty much how it kills. My example was like that, just on a grander scale, causing the creature itself to rupture instead of just the cells.

Under the old system, there would be no way for my situation to ever occur because the polar ray, in game terms, does only cold damage. No matter how cold, no matter how you placed your attack, no matter if it was soaked in water first, the ray would just bounce off the archon's chest while the archon laughed.

Under the new system, it allows for that rare chance when you might be able to turn a creature's element against it. In game terms, the polar ray still just does cold damage. The frost mage attacked a creature that is highly resistant to cold but previously weakened by other attacks using cold. The cold managed to overcome its resistance just enough to kill it. The situation I described was merely an IC justification for the game system outcome.

 

[Wolfspider]

I'm not a scientist too, just a lousy lawyer.

But continuing:
So, how does coldness hurt an adamantium golem?
How does coldness hurt a skeleton?
How does coldness hurt a shadow?
How does coldness hurt an earth elemental?

If you have enough knowledge or enough imagination to come up with a fantastic explanation for all that, or just accept those as possible and believable, it shouldn't be so hard to accept that "a creature made of cold energy can be hurt by a magical attack that inflicts an even more harmful cold energy, or just more cold energy that the cold creature could resist", or any other exaplanation one can make up.

I can imagine cold causing something made of metal to warp. That happens in the real world often enough.

I can imagine intense cold causing a bone to split and shatter.

I can't imagine coldness hurting something incorporeal like a shadow. Such creatures have quite a few immunities in D&D3.5, and I imagine if I ever used a creature like this I would houserule an immunity to cold as well.

I can image something made from earth being hurt by intense cold, perhaps cracking and splitting into pieces.

I can't imagine a creature composed of pure coldness being hurt by cold.

 

[Wolfspider]

Under the old system, there would be no way for my situation to ever occur because the polar ray, in game terms, does only cold damage. No matter how cold, no matter how you placed your attack, no matter if it was soaked in water first, the ray would just bounce off the archon's chest while the archon laughed.

Of course. You don't use cold against a creature composed of cold and expect a lot of success.

Well, I guess you do if you're playing 4e....

Next time I'm attacked by the Abominable Snowman, I'll lock him in my walk-in freezer and get back to you on how successful this tactic is.

 

[Burr]

Something I just noticed about all three monsters -- Ice Archon, Spined Devil, and Pit Fiend.

AC = Reflex + 1/2 Weapon Die Size.

Now, that may seem purely coincidental. But consider this: AC and Weapon Die Size both correlate strongly with Strength. One possibility might be that designers are looking to Strength as a strong guide as to what weapon a monster gets, which in turn determines what armor the monster gets, which in turn determines the monster's AC after adding in Reflex.

Spined Devil: +4 Str -> d4 Weapon -> +2 Armor -> AC = 18 + 2 = 20
Ice Archon: +9 Str -> d10 Weapon -> +5 Armor -> AC = 31 + 5 = 36
Pit Fiend: +11 Str -> d12 Weapon -> +6 Armor -> AC = 38 + 6 = 44

 

[The_Fan]

Thing is, there's not much success. It's still a poor tactic, it's just a one in a million shot that under just the right circumstances, may actually work. I would argue that it's more dramatic and requires more imagination to make such situations rare but possible than it does to just say "Nope, doesn't work. Don't even try."

And how can you say you can't even imagine it? I just gave you a good example that you yourself admitted was imaginative and well written. If you can't imagine it, then I say that is a failure of *your* imagination.

 

[HeinorNY]

I can't imagine a creature composed of pure coldness being hurt by cold.

But they are not "pure coldness" in the sense of a swirling and incorporeal cold energy moving around. They are solid creatures that generate intense cold.

Make a paralel with the Fire Archon: "Although made of transparent and flickering flames, and apparently empty of organs, a fire archon has a solid form. Those brave enough to have touched a fire archon's body describe it as being like holding a boiling bag of writhing snakes. A fire archon held in this way is certainly very hot, but it does not truly burn. The archon can set things ablaze with its body, but this seems to require some concentration "

We can inferre that an Ice Archon also has a solid body that, whatever it is made of, when touched is "certainly very cold" but not cold enough to hurt the toucher. The archon needs to concentrate to generate the freezing cold. So whatever his body is made of, it's not made of "pure coldness" and is certainly not even near 0ºK, probably 0ºC.

So the Ice Archon is like a walking freezer. You can't hurt the coldness it generates but you can hurt the solid part in it that generates the cold.

 

[AZRogue]

The Resistance these creatures are getting is significant. Not having a blanket "on-off" switch--immunity--means, though, that a very, very powerful attack can still effect the creature in some way. It's obviously not going to be smart to attack the Ice Archon with Cold attacks, but if he is somehow exposed to a very powerful Cold attack, it will affect him a little. That just strikes me as effective game design.

Here's a (weak-but quick) analogy: In traditional fantasy--and I'm talking, for instance, Tolkein-Type Fantasy, Fire could effect things and magical fire could effect more things, but one of the great Rings had to be destroyed by either Dragonfire or in the fire where it was forged. So there IS a precedent for scaling levels of energy damage. The Resistance we're seeing is a type of scale, IMO. I like that better than an "either-or" approach.