Ice Archon

[JasonZZ]

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.

But an ice archon is made of ice, not cold. And ice contracts when cooled further...uneven contraction causes cracking. A creature that's always that cold must have some tolerance, but even that will have a limit. Once that limit is reached...your ice archon will calve off some ice cubes .

 

[Thundershield]

I'd explain it with the good ol' "fightin' fire with fire" ideology.

You can snuff out a bonfire by dropping a stick of dynamite on it. Granted, it might be the concussive force that does the snuffing, but we recognize an explosion by the fire, so ideologically it's fire.

As for cold, imagine the Ice Archon suddenly getting exposed to some powerful Cone of Cold-like effect, the sub-arctic winds tearing at its form as the cold in the Cone grip at the cold energy the creature is composed of, trying to pull the cold in it out and along with the cold inherent in the spell itself, much like a wave of chaos energy in Limbo (now the Elemental Chaos) might absorb and disperse a Slaad unfortunate enough to stand in its way.

Yes, I know cold and chaos isn't entirely the same. The last part was mostly an analogy for your mind's eye.

 

[Fifth Element]

But an ice archon is made of ice, not cold. And ice contracts when cooled further...uneven contraction causes cracking. A creature that's always that cold must have some tolerance, but even that will have a limit. Once that limit is reached...your ice archon will calve off some ice cubes .

Yes. We need to stop referring to the ice archon as a "creature of cold". It's a creature of ice, which means there's water (or some other substance) and cold, at least.

 

[HeinorNY]

Yes. We need to stop referring to the ice archon as a "creature of cold". It's a creature of ice, which means there's water (or some other substance) and cold, at least.

What happens when we throw liquid nitrogen on ice?

 

[AZRogue]

The idea of the Ice Archon being made up of more than just "cold" is a good one. Still, isn't it simpler to just use the classic "there are levels of energy" explanation? Once magic is added to the mix, you have to stop seeing fire as just fire. There's a potency issue that magic adds to the mix that I've always used. Cold weather is different than minor magical cold, and major magical cold, and elemental cold, and primal cold, etc. I don't know, just how I have explained it in the past and I've never had a player bat an eyelash at me, just nod and move on.

 

[IceFractal]

Cold always involves the loss of energy. An Ice Archon may not need much energy, but it does need some. Take away every last bit and it will freeze in place - maybe still structurally intact, but with no ability to move or sustain even its elemental quasi-life.

Likewise with a Fire Archon. It may not consider fire as painful, and to a certain extent fire sustains it, feeding in more energy. But too much energy in one burst, and portions of it fuse to plasma, bursting free of its body. While it's explosion when killed by fire could be seen as more of an ascention to pure fire than a death, it's still gone permanently, and that's close enough to dead for most people's purposes.

I think there should be immunities for some types of creatures. Undead should still be immune to negative energy, unless living creatures start taking damage from positive energy, for instance. But the Archons (which are not even pure elementals, for that matter), aren't in that category.

 

[Imban]

Undead should still be immune to negative energy, unless living creatures start taking damage from positive energy, for instance.

Radiant damage hurts everything in 4e. Some things are just more vulnerable.

I do think that, at the very least, immunities (or high enough resistances that nearly nothing can damage them) are appropriate for some epic encounters. Kossuth and Chan and Imix and (insert equivalent here) should all be able to eat lava for breakfast, consider the fires of Hell harmless, et cetera, because they are gods or godlike beings with dominion over that damage type.

 

[tomtill]

It amazes me that this thread is still alive.

I thought someone was just looking for a plausible explanation of how a creature based on an ice elemental could not be immune to cold damage.

As has been said many times, if you are looking for an explanation based on magic—well magic has its own rules. If they are consistently applied, that should be enough.

If you are looking for an explanation based on physics, you don't have to look far.

It is a fact that any form of life requires movement, at the molecular level if nothing else.

It is a fact that at absolute zero, 0 degrees Kelvin, there is no movement.

It is a fact that what we refer to as temperature, or hot or cold, simply refers to the kinetic energy state of the item in question. In other words, movement at the molecular level.

A creature at 0 degrees Kelvin would be completely immobile and uninteresting, other than sucking the heat out of its surroundings. Thus any cold based elemental that moves could be made colder.

Life as we know it can only function within a limited range of temperature and other environmental conditions. This range can vary depending on the species. The most logical extension of our real world knowledge into the realm of fantasy would dictate that indeed, even elemental based creatures would operate within a range of acceptable conditions. Outside that range it would be damaged, just like any other creature.

So, perhaps you liked the flavor of the immunities. That's fine. That's an opinion. You are entitled to it. You could argue that the range of acceptable conditions for your particular elemental based creatures are broad enough that the amount of damage encountered would never be enough to push it outside that range. You could argue that it's magic, and the elemental can absorb the energy like others absorb nutrients. You could argue any number of things that support your desire to have elemental based creatures immune. That's ok.

But, there is no point arguing that elemental resistances are somehow less defensible than elemental immunities.

 

[Derren]

Is it even possible that matter has a temperature of 0K or is that just a theoretical temperature which can only be reached when there is no matter present?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Is it even possible that matter has a temperature of 0K or is that just a theoretical temperature which can only be reached when there is no matter present?

A good question. For temperature _something_ has to be there. It doesn't have to be matter as in atoms or quarks - other "things" (photons, Gluons or whatelse exists) can count too.

Due to the Uncertainity principle, it is impossible to actually reach 0K - anything for which you can measure the temperature will have a remaining minimum energy (zero-point) energy - and anything you do to actually observe it will invariably change the energy and thus the temperature again.