Why would a frost giant have a frost weapon?

[reanjr]

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.

I am currently running a game of 4th level characters who have yet to see a magical item. And I also have changed the magic item creation rules. But I also do not have Frost Giants with cold weapons.

The discussion was about what _Wizards_ published. And in _Wizards_' worldview, there isn't any restriction on creating magic items and so those reasons are completely invalid when trying to explain why _Wizards_ would give Frost Giants cold weapons.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Really, if I'm this thing, my essential nature is this thing, everything around me is this thing, and I can make a weapon that embodies the properties of this thing, that will do great harm against the enemies of this thing... That sounds like the weapon I want! Doesn't matter if that thing is "good," "law," "frost," or what have you... It just makes sense.

This is the first answer I've seen to this thread that's come close to convincing me. That's a good point, GP.

However, your comment to the quote about realism in a fantasy world I disagree strongly with. Anyone's free to make their game worlds as they please, of course, but in MY world fire melts ice. If that makes me stupid, so be it!

 

[Jolly Giant]

I think that the "cold AoE spells won't hurt my allies" is very sound, mechanically..

Yes, that's a good argument too. But why does every spell have to be a cold spell? (I know, that's not quite true... What bothers me is how close to the truth it is!)

So is the "this will work best against the enemies which are most dangerous to me" suggestion..

Yes, I can see that point. But how many fire creatures can you name that lives in a cold environment, or vice versa?

 

[reanjr]

I really don't find that to be true: The most reasonable (rules-ready) arguement I've read here is that as COLD creatures, they (a) fear fire creatures, and would want to be well-protected against them (extra damage cold weapon v. fire creature) or (b) hate and war with fire creatures (extra damage cold weapon v. fire creature).

It may sound good at first. But when would they meet? They live in totally different climates. The Frost Giants are going to come up to a lot of resistance on their way to assault the ancient racial enemy, the Fire Giants. Like White Dragons.

 

[reanjr]

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!

Well, there is the alignment factor. If you associate with only good spellcasters, they can't make Unholy weapons.

But more importantly, you're missing the fact that Humans are generally assumed to have their Environment entry listed as "Any" while Frost Giants have theirs listed as "Cold Mountains"

Big difference there.

 

[reanjr]

[edit]: Removed since mods already spoke about it; maybe I should read the posts from last to first, but that would get confusing.]

 

[reanjr]

how much lightning and fire do frost giant item crafters see?

maybe they have cold weapons b/c that is what their magic is based on and what they know.

Best answer yet, IMO

 

[reanjr]

It wasn't intended to be rude (well, ok, the last paragraph was, a little - I apologize), it was intended to call attention to the ludicrous argument that PC's and NPC's play by the same rules. NPCs are the DM's tools and agents, and they are created out of whole cloth to support his goals. They no more follow the same rules as PCs as the facades used on movie sets follow good architectural practices.

Ample reasoning has been presented as to why things are the way they are, from a mechanics standpoint, from a game design standpoint, and from a flavor standpoint. I have seen no counter-arguments put forth that contradict this, other than it not being an optimal choice from a metagaming point of view.

As a DM I'd feel like I was cheating if the NPCs didn't play by the same rules as the PCs.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I just got to say this thread have taken me completely by surprise. When I first posted it I wondered if I was gonna get any replies at all; I even bookmarked it so I wouldn't have to search for it when I wanted to check if anyone had replied.

All I wanted with this thread was to point out a minor detail (edit: "Trend" is a better word here) that was bugging me and it ended up as this extremely heated debate about one specific monster. Go back and look at my original post and you'll see that I was only using frostgiants as an example. Looking back, it was obviously a mistake to use the word "frostgiant" in the title. I'll blame that on reading about them in Frostburn just before posting...

Seriously though; even after all this debate I still feel the whole "forst creatures use cold attacks, fire creatures use fire attacks" is not very creative and rather clichè. And (for the third time!) I'm not speaking about attack forms that the creatures are born with here! I'm talking about stuff that they learns, makes or aqquires!

As for all those of you who mention the "paladins should have weapons that hurt good-guys", you're missing the point entirely. My point is that a frostgiant (since we seem to be completely stuck on the original example here) wielding a frost weapon is like a paladin wielding a weapon that hurt good-guys! It's useless against the foes the wielder fights most often...

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

As for all those of you who mention the "paladins should have weapons that hurt good-guys", you're missing the point entirely. My point is that a frostgiant (since we seem to be completely stuck on the original example here) wielding a frost weapon is like a paladin wielding a weapon that hurt good-guys! It's useless against the foes the wielder fights most often...

But in all truthfulness, Frost Giants DON'T fight against Cold creatures the most. They fight the PCs. Really, you can rationalize a campaign world as much as you want, but when it comes down to it. The game is PCs vs. Monsters. You can have plot, lots of roleplaying, etc, but its still PCs. vs. Monsters in the end.

If the Paladin example doesn't work for you, then look at the Demon one. Why don't all Demons use Holy weapons? It's most effective against both OTHER Demons and their enemy the Devils.