Why would a frost giant have a frost weapon?

[reanjr]

A question that's bee nagging me for some time just got that much more pressing after I got Frostburn: Why does frostgiants and other cold-type creatures always favor weapons with the frost ability? Why do their spellcasters always use so many cold spells? Just about everyone and everything remotely treathening in their habitat is immune to cold, or at the very least resistent to cold! It would make so much more sense for them to use spells and weapons that dealt fire damage.

The same goes for creatures from the plane of fire; fire weapons and fire spells all around, and everyone's immune to fire... Sure, a fire elemental deals fire damage with their slams, I have no problem with that; how could it be any other way? What I don't get is why a genie sorceror's favorite spells always has to be scorching ray and fireball, and every decent azer fighter has a fire axe...

The only explanation I can see is that it's supposed to add "flavor"... But is it flavorful for every fighter to have the least useful magic enhancement imaginable on his weapon, and for every spellcaster to favor the spells most likely to have no effect what so ever? Or is it just stupid? I feel the answer is pretty obvious... :\

Because this is Role-Playing as a video game. It's supposed to be cliched so people understand. When the party goes up against frost giants, they can say to themselves "Selves, you will need cold protection for this one," and be correct. It's to put everything into little bite-sized cubes for player consumption. We don't expect our players to think much. It's hard and boring to do so. We don't expect thinking from our designers, either.

 

[reanjr]

Think of it this way....

The frost giant jarl's greatsword has been steeped in the blood of countless enemies of his clan, and now that bitter chill has become infused in the steel.

Wizards in search of rare arcane knowledge often bargain with spirits of ice and wind that howl across the tundra.

Spellcasters learn early on that interlopers to their lands are vulnerable to cold, allowing them to cast more freely without endangering their comrades.


Not everything has to be metagamed or min-maxed.

"Not everything has to be metagamed". True, but it would be nice if the rules even remotely supported any of the scenarios you present. You cannot make a weapon magical by killing foes. To make a magical weapon, all it takes is a feat and the cheap expenditure of some XP. You choose what it does. No spirits involved.

#3 makes sense, but would only hold true if the cold natives got alot of company or are expecting some soon.

 

[Stone Angel]

I have also wondered the same thing from time to time though I see how it makes sense and at the same time how it does not. Though I am obviously less preturbed by it than you.

This is the reason I always have my dragons and subtyped casters used other element infused spells. While my PC's are protected from the Red Dragons breath weapon they usually are not prepared for a acid substituted lightning bolt.

The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Westwind]

Sorry to hijack, but where are those enhancements (dread, spellcutter, forceful) found?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

"Not everything has to be metagamed". True, but it would be nice if the rules even remotely supported any of the scenarios you present. You cannot make a weapon magical by killing foes. To make a magical weapon, all it takes is a feat and the cheap expenditure of some XP. You choose what it does. No spirits involved.

#3 makes sense, but would only hold true if the cold natives got alot of company or are expecting some soon.

Maybe in your game. I don't play a game where you accumulate magic weapons by the cartload and get to make a magical weapon just because you spend the feat and some XP. You can bet your butt I'd make the player quench the blade in frost giant blood or something similar. Besides, who says that the wizard's way is the only way to make a magic item? I'm the DM -- I'm not bound by the players' rules. The DM's rules, on the other hand, completely support #1, #2, and anything else I can think of that's even remotely plausible.

Any DM that lets a player make anything but the most trivial of magic items just by taking the feat and subtracting the XP from his character sheet isn't running a game I'd want to play in. They'd probably let the players bring spreadsheets with power attack calculations on it, too.

 

[Ghostwind]

Sorry to hijack, but where are those enhancements (dread, spellcutter, forceful) found?

You will find them and many more in Arms & Armor v3.5 from Bastion Press.

 

[DMH]

Sorry to hijack, but where are those enhancements (dread, spellcutter, forceful) found?

In Arms and Armor 3.5. Dread is a twice as powerful form of bane (with a crit possibly causing death), spellcutter cuts through protective magic and forceful increases the damage of the weapon one step (eg d8 to d10). Every successful hit with a Cascading weapon adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls- cumulative (until a miss).

 

[Woas]

I'm thinking the frostgiants wield frost weapons and cast cold spells, cause their at war with the firegiants. Not themselves...

 

[Greatwyrm]

Well, maybe he just doesn't want someone else to take the club and use it on him. He doesn't take the cold damage, so it's fairly safe for him to take it into combat, even in the ulikely event you get the club away from him.

 

[Terwox]

eek, don't let the rules limit your backstories.
give the people cold incantations for making weapons if you truly want.
throwing out flavor because it doesn't mesh with the rules is a step far in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

that being said, those monsters have cold attacks because... that's what they do. storm giants wield lightning bolts as swords. If a sword giant started wielding a keen frosting burst greatsword because it did more killing for him... that's cool, if it fits with the story. But it usually just doesn't. Zeus throws thunderbolts. Should he start throwing fireballs, because it would be unexpected? I dunno.