Why would a frost giant have a frost weapon?

[DMH]

Frost Giants are.... Large.

So much for dickens, eh?

I don't use giants often and a brainfart told me they are Huge (I thought only stone and hill giants are Large.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is that they're meant as opponents for characters, not each other.

Even when fighting each other, they're still on equal terms though since they both have the same defense and offensive abilities.

Many animals and beasts don't have magical immunity, and many humans and humanoids don't either. Tribe of orcs in the far north? Cone of Cold! Human barbarians on the ramapage? Currail them with a wall of ice.

 

[Berandor]

What I want to know is, what's with good characters and the like always carrying around these Holy weapons? Seriously, if you spend the majority of your free time hanging around at the temple of Pelor, it follows that the majority of creatures you encounter will be good-aligned... A lot of good that Holy-ness is going to do against them! I really wonder what the designers were thinking when they wrote up, say, the Paladin -- giving him all these abilities that are almost never going to offer useful protection in his native church habitat!

Wow. This is like, the worst analogy of the thread.

Frost Giants, by virtue of their inhabitat, would surely fight often against creatures comfortable with cold. They might fight frost worms, white dragons, ice elementals, exiled gelugons, or ice mephits.
Whereas paladins don't often go head to head with other paladins, but with evil creatures. So, in fact, you corroborate the issue by saying frost giants should use weapons that can be used effectively against their most common opponents - with "frost" being the one ingredient that doesn't work at all in that case.

 

[Gez]

Wow. This is like, the worst analogy of the thread.

To the contrary, it's a very good one.

Frost Giants, by virtue of their inhabitat, would surely fight often against creatures comfortable with cold. They might fight frost worms, white dragons, ice elementals, exiled gelugons, or ice mephits.

They may also encounter remorhazes, or polar bears, neither of which are immune to cold. Honestly, if the ecology is not completely wacked up, they'll meet bears more often than frost worms.

Whereas paladins don't often go head to head with other paladins, but with evil creatures.

Read The Heretic of Wyre again, thanks.

So, in fact, you corroborate the issue by saying frost giants should use weapons that can be used effectively against their most common opponents - with "frost" being the one ingredient that doesn't work at all in that case.

Classically, the most common opponent of frost giants are fire giants. Frost giants living on the icy surface, fire giants in the volcanic caves below. So they should use weapons that can be used effectively against fire giants. They do!

Ecologically, their most common encounters will be with natural fauna -- bears, walruses, etc. Surprise, frost weapons are efficient against those!

Finally, the most frightening (to them) monster they can meet is the remorhaz, with its intense heat. I'm sure the remorhaz is the bugaboo of little Frost Giant children. Guess what -- they are vulnerable to frost damage!

Furthermore, I'll repeat myself:
Honestly why would a frost giant use a frost weapon? Because they are FROST giant and thus when they make magic weapons, the weapons are infused with their frostiness.

Why would a dwarf use a dwarven waraxe and wear dwarven plate? Because he's a DWARF!

Frankly, complaining about a frost giant's frost weapon is like complaining about a fire elemental's burn attack. What good is it to burn stuff when you live in the plane of fire?

And what good is it for the White Dragon to breathe cold? They should breathe fire instead!

 

[green slime]

Sure, if you have an X/day or permanent wondrous item, you're set. If not, well, you'll just have to whine for scrolls from the wizard.

Oh, crock! Why whine? You are the one whining here. Seriously. DMH posted a blanket statement claiming characters couldn't possibly wield the giants' weapons. I showed, with extremely little effort, a single first level spell that allows a character to do just that. One spell of many. That spell also happens to belong to the Strength Domain, and therefore may be available to party clerics. Mayhap, in the game you play, characters don't use enlarge, polymorph, righteous might, wild shape, or allow monstrous races as PCs. Whatever.

When the party is of sufficient level to be knocking on the home doors of Frost Giants (standard CR9...) and is seriously considering pilfering their "stuff" from their soon-to-be-dead bodies, it isn't exactly going to be breaking a wizards heart to memorize an enlarge now then, is it? Or, horror of horrors, actually have a wand of enlarge at hand. A whooping great 750 gp investment. [sarcasm]I don't think those 9th level PCs can afford it.[/sarcasm]

As to the question at hand, it is precisely because of flavour.

How memorable is a long trek through Frost giant territory is if they differ nada from their Fire giant brethren living in the volcano next door? Both communities wander around using thundering weapons, because they are the most effective against all-comers. And they all use Acid-substituted fireballs. Sounds like great fun. (oops forgot the sarcasm tag... shoot me!)

Why would giants combat their allies in the cold environment? They combine forces with the White Dragons, tame Frost Worms, harness ice elementals, summon Gelugons and raid the warmer climes under the spell of mighty Blizzard!

IOW: because it's cool! I'm with Gez!

 

[diaglo]

i gotta agree with Gez.

Gez, tu a raison.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Furthermore, I'll repeat myself:
Honestly why would a frost giant use a frost weapon? Because they are FROST giant and thus when they make magic weapons, the weapons are infused with their frostiness.

Why would a dwarf use a dwarven waraxe and wear dwarven plate? Because he's a DWARF!

Gez, this seems to be a bit of a false comparison - the dwarven stuff is mundane, not magical. The frost weapons are magical enhancements to an item.

A true comparison on one axis would be "why would a frost giant use giantish armour and giantish weapons? Because he's a GIANT!"

Incidentally, Eberron has a rather neat system for binding elementals into objects or weapons in order to give them particular properties. This kind of mechanism could work very well for enabling a wide range of "frost" weapons in a frosty area.

Cheers

 

[Philip]

Thyrgrimm the Frost Giant shaman watched the Frozen Anvil, carved of the clearest solid ice, used for generations by his clan. It was set at the edge of a twisting crevasse, where the chilling north wind often blew in terrible freezing gales. White flames lingered in the Icy Forge just beyond, recently lit by Thyrgrimm's magic. The clan treasured these ancenstral items, because weapons forged here were stronger and sharped than others of their kind.

Then his chief, a fierce giant going by the name of Jolly approached:

"Say, Thyrgrimm, a question has been nagging me for some time. Why do you always create weapons with the frost ability? Just about everyone and everything remotely treathening is immune to cold, or at the very least resistant! It would make so much more sense for you to create weapons with the flaming ability, or at least keen or some other ability."

Thygrimm:

 

[smetzger]

I agree with green slime.

Additionally, frrom a more rules perspective... Although special materials for magic item creation is an optional rule, we all know that actual gold is not used in magic item creation. The gold is used to purchase unspecified materials for creating magic-items. Although in general the economics of D&D is out of whack, applying just a tad bit of common sense would dictate that Frost Giants have an easier time(read cheaper) getting the raw materials for creating frost weapons as opposed to other energy weapons. Therefore the majority of energy weapons found in a Frost Giants hands are frost weapons.

 

[Gez]

Gez, this seems to be a bit of a false comparison - the dwarven stuff is mundane, not magical. The frost weapons are magical enhancements to an item.

Dwarves are mundane, too.

Whereas frost giants are infused with raw elemental cold. THEY HAVE THE COLD SUBTYPE, for screaming out loud.

Mundane dwarves make mundane dwarven craftwork.
Frost giants make frost giantish craftwork.

I'm sure the warhammer and waraxes that Azers craft are flaming.